探花直播 of Cambridge - language

AI-deas: Using AI to tackle society's biggest challenges

lw355 — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Aspirations for the ability of AI to transform society couldn鈥檛 be higher. Realising this potential will require bridging the gap between AI development and public value. Cambridge's AI-deas initiative aims to do just that.

鈥楳anifest鈥� is Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 09:03:53 +0000

鈥�Manifest鈥� was looked up almost 130,000 times on the Cambridge Dictionary website, making it one of the most-viewed words of 2024.聽聽

探花直播word jumped from use in the self-help community and on social media to being widely used across mainstream media and beyond, as celebrities such as singer Dua鈥疞ipa,鈥疧lympic sprinter Gabby Thomas and England striker Ollie Watkins spoke of manifesting their success in 2024.聽

Mentions of it gained traction during the pandemic and have grown in the years since, especially on TikTok and other social media, where millions of posts and videos used the hashtag #manifest.

They use 鈥榯o manifest鈥� in the sense of: 鈥榯o imagine achieving something you want, in the belief that doing so will make it more likely to happen鈥�. Yet, manifesting is an unproven idea that grew out of a 100-year-old spiritual philosophy movement.

Wendalyn Nichols, Publishing Manager of the Cambridge Dictionary, said: 鈥淲hen we choose a Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year, we have three considerations: What word was looked up the most, or spiked? Which one really captures what was happening in that year? And what is interesting about this word from a language point of view?

鈥溾€楳anifest鈥� won this year because it increased notably in lookups, its use widened greatly across all types of media due to events in 2024, and it shows how the meanings of a word can change over time.鈥�

However experts warn that 鈥榤anifesting鈥� has no scientific validity, despite its popularity. It can lead to risky behaviour or the promotion of false and dangerous beliefs, such as that diseases can be simply wished away.

鈥淢anifesting is what psychologists call 鈥榤agical thinking鈥� or the general illusion that specific mental rituals can change the world around us," said Cambridge 探花直播 social psychologist Professor Sander van der Linden, author of 探花直播Psychology of Misinformation.

鈥淢anifesting gained tremendous popularity during the pandemic on TikTok with billions of views, including the popular 3-6-9 method which calls for writing down your wishes three times in the morning, six times in the afternoon and nine times before bed. This procedure promotes obsessive and compulsive behaviour with no discernible benefits. But can we really blame people for trying it, when prominent celebrities have been openly 鈥榤anifesting鈥� their success?

鈥楳anifesting鈥� wealth, love, and power can lead to unrealistic expectations and disappointment. Think of the dangerous idea that you can cure serious diseases simply by wishing them away," said Van der Linden.

鈥淭here is good research on the value of positive thinking, self-affirmation, and goal-setting. Believing in yourself, bringing a positive attitude, setting realistic goals, and putting in the effort pays off because people are enacting change in the real world. However, it is crucial to understand the difference between the power of positive thinking and moving reality with your mind 鈥� the former is healthy, whereas the latter is pseudoscience.鈥澛�

鈥楳anyfest鈥�, manifest destiny, and manifestos

探花直播600-year history of the word 鈥榤anifest鈥� shows how the meanings of a word can evolve.

探花直播oldest sense 鈥� which Geoffrey Chaucer spelled as 鈥榤anyfest鈥� in the 14th century 鈥� is the adjective meaning 鈥榚asily noticed or obvious鈥�.

In the mid-1800s, this adjective sense was used in American politics in the context of 鈥渕anifest destiny鈥�, the belief that American settlers were clearly destined to expand across North America.

Chaucer also used the oldest sense of the verb 鈥榤anifest鈥�, 鈥榯o show something clearly, through signs or actions鈥�. Shakespeare used manifest as an adjective in 探花直播Merchant of Venice: 鈥楩or it appears, by manifest proceeding, that...thou hast contrived against the very life of the defendant鈥�.

探花直播verb is still used frequently in this way: for example, people can manifest their dissatisfaction, or symptoms of an illness can manifest themselves. Lack of confidence in a company can manifest itself through a fall in share price.

探花直播meaning of making something clear is reflected in the related noun 'manifesto': a 鈥榳ritten statement of the beliefs, aims, and policies of an organisation, especially a political party鈥� 鈥� a word that also resonated in 2024 as scores of nations, including the United Kingdom and India, held elections where parties shared manifestos.

Other words of 2024

探花直播Cambridge Dictionary is the world鈥檚 most popular dictionary for learners of the English language. Increases and spikes in lookups reflect global events and trends.聽Beyond 鈥渕anifest鈥�, other popular terms in 2024 included:聽

brat:聽a child, especially one who behaves badly

鈥淏rat鈥� went viral in the summer of 2024 thanks to pop artist Charli XCX鈥檚 album of the same name about nonconformist women who reject a narrow and highly groomed female identity as portrayed on social media. (We weren鈥檛 the only dictionary publisher to notice this.)聽

demure: quiet and well behaved鈥�

Influencer Jools Lebron鈥檚 satirical use of 鈥渄emure鈥� in a TikTok post mocking stereotypical femininity drove lookups in the Cambridge Dictionary.鈥� After brat summer, we had a demure fall.聽

Goldilocks: used to describe a situation in which something is or has to be exactly right鈥�

Financial reporters characterized India鈥檚 strong growth and moderate inflation as a Goldilocks economy in early 2024.聽聽

ecotarian: a person who only eats food produced or prepared in a way that does not harm the environment鈥�

This term rose in overall lookups in 2024, reflecting growing interest in environmentally conscious living.鈥�

New words, future entries?聽聽聽

All year round, Cambridge Dictionary editors track the English language as it changes. Newly emerging words that are being considered for entry are shared every Monday on the Cambridge Dictionary blog, About Words.聽

Words Cambridge began tracking in 2024 include:聽

quishing: the scam of phishing via QR code.聽

resenteeism: to continue doing your job but resent it. This blend of 鈥渞esent鈥� and 鈥渁bsenteeism鈥� is appearing in business journalism.聽聽

gymfluencer: a social media influencer whose content is focused on fitness or bodybuilding.聽

cocktail party problem (also cocktail party effect): the difficulty of focusing on one voice when there are multiple speakers in the room. This term from audiology is now being used with reference to AI.聽

vampire: a vampire device or vampire appliance is one which uses energy even when not in use. This is a new, adjective sense of an existing word.聽聽

Adapted from the聽Cambridge 探花直播 Press & Assessment website.聽

探花直播controversial global trend of manifesting has driven Cambridge Dictionary鈥檚 Word of the Year for 2024.

Why psychologists warn against manifesting - Cambridge Dictionary Word of the Year

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Cancer isn鈥檛 fair 鈥� but care should be

lw355 — Sun, 04 Feb 2024 07:50:57 +0000

Listening to people's lived experiences is helping to improve the awareness and uptake of cancer care. On World Cancer Day, we take a look at some of the ways researchers are working with communities to 鈥榗lose the cancer care gap鈥�.

Students who self-identify as multilingual perform better at GCSE

tdk25 — Thu, 11 Nov 2021 00:26:41 +0000

探花直播study, of just over 800 pupils in England, found a positive relationship between GCSE scores and 鈥榤ultilingual identity鈥�: a reference to whether pupils felt a personal connection with other languages through knowledge and use. Those who self-identified as multilingual typically outperformed their peers not just in subjects such as French and Spanish, but in non-language subjects including maths, geography and science. This applied whether or not they actually spoke a second language fluently.

Perhaps surprisingly, however, not all pupils who were officially described by their schools as having 鈥楨nglish as a Second Language鈥� (EAL) thought of themselves as multilingual, even though the term is used by schools and Government as a proxy for multilingualism. Correspondingly, these pupils did not necessarily perform better (or worse) as a group at GCSE than their non-EAL peers.

探花直播results indicate that encouraging pupils to identify with languages and to value different styles of communication could help them to develop a mindset that supports academic progress overall.

Other recent research has argued for broadening the scope of language lessons so that, as well as studying vocabulary and grammar, pupils explore the importance of languages and their significance for their own lives. This new study was the first, however, to examine the relationship between multilingual identity and attainment. It was led by academics at the 探花直播 of Cambridge and the findings are published in the Journal of Language, Identity and Education.

Dr Dee Rutgers, a Research Associate at the Faculty of Education, 探花直播 of Cambridge, said: 鈥� 探花直播evidence suggests that the more multilingual you consider yourself to be, the higher your GCSE scores. While we need to understand more about why that relationship exists, it may be that children who see themselves as multilingual have a sort of 鈥榞rowth mindset鈥� which impacts on wider attainment.鈥�

Dr Linda Fisher, Reader in Languages Education at the 探花直播 of Cambridge, said: 鈥淭here could be a strong case for helping children who think that they can鈥檛鈥榙o鈥� languages to recognise that we all use a range of communication tools, and that learning a language is simply adding to that range. This may influence attitude and self-belief, which is directly relevant to learning at school. In other words, what you think you are may be more important than what others say you are.鈥�

探花直播study鈥檚 authors argue that being multilingual means far more than the official EAL definition of being 鈥榚xposed to a language at home that is known or believed to be other than English鈥�. They suggest that even young people who see themselves as monolingual possess a 鈥榬epertoire鈥� of communication. For example, they may use different dialects, pick up words and phrases on holiday, know sign language, or understand other types of 鈥榣anguage鈥� such as computer code.

探花直播study involved 818 Year-11 pupils at five secondary schools in South East England. As well as establishing whether pupils were officially registered as EAL or non-EAL, the researchers asked each pupil if they personally identified as such. Separately, each pupil was asked to plot where they saw themselves on a 0-100 scale, where 0 represented 鈥榤onolingual鈥� and 100 鈥榤ultilingual鈥�. This data was compared with their GCSE results in nine subjects.

Students who spoke a second language at home did not always personally identify either as EAL or multilingual. Conversely, pupils who saw themselves as multilingual were not always those earmarked by the school as having English as an additional language.

鈥� 探花直播fact that these terms didn鈥檛 correlate more closely is surprising considering that they are all supposedly measuring the same thing,鈥� Rutgers said. 鈥淛ust having experience of other languages clearly doesn鈥檛 necessarily translate into a multilingual identity because the experience may not be valued by the student.鈥�

School-reported EAL status had no impact on GCSE results, although pupils who self-identified as EAL generally did better than their peers in modern languages. Those who considered themselves 鈥榤ultilingual鈥� on the 0-100 scale, however, performed better academically across the board.

探花直播strength of this relationship varied between subjects and was, again, particularly pronounced in modern languages. In all nine GCSE subjects assessed, however, each point increase on the monolingual-to-multilingual scale was associated with a fractional rise in pupils鈥� exam scores.

For example: a one-point increase was found to correspond to 0.012 of a grade in Science, and 0.011 of a grade in Geography. Students who consider themselves very multilingual would, by this measure, typically score a full grade higher than those who consider themselves monolingual. Positively identifying as multilingual could often therefore be enough to push students who would otherwise fall slightly short of a certain grade up to the next level.

探花直播findings appear to indicate that the positive mentality and self-belief which typically develops among pupils with a multilingual identity has spill-over benefits for their wider education. 探花直播authors add that this could be cultivated in languages classrooms: for example, by exposing young people to learning programmes that explore different types of language and dialect, or encouraging them to think about how languages shape their lives both inside and outside school.

鈥淭oo often we think about other languages as something that we don鈥檛 need to know, or as difficult to learn,鈥� Fisher said. 鈥淭hese findings suggest that if pupils were encouraged to see themselves as active and capable language learners, it could have a really positive impact on their wider progress at school.鈥�

Young people who consider themselves 鈥榤ultilingual鈥� tend to perform better across a wide range of subjects at school, regardless of whether they are actually fluent in another language, new research shows.

If pupils were encouraged to see themselves as active and capable language learners, it could have a really positive impact on their wider progress at school.

Linda Fisher

Jacqueline Brandwyn via Unsplash

Saying goodbye

探花直播text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright 漏探花直播 of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified.聽 All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways 鈥� as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Mind Over Chatter: What is the future?

ns480 — Thu, 27 May 2021 13:22:48 +0000

Season 2, episode 1

This second series of Mind Over Chatter is all about the future - and in this first episode we鈥檙e going to be considering what the future even is鈥� Have you ever wondered how time works? It turns out, the answer is a lot more complicated than we thought.

Join our wondering and wonderful conversation with philosopher of science Dr Matt Farr, whose work focuses particularly on what it means for time to have a direction, professor of psychology Nicky Clayton, who looks at the evolution and development of intelligence in non-verbal animals and pre-verbal children, and professor of linguistics and philosophy, Kasia Jaszczolt whose research interests combine semantics, pragmatics, and the metaphysics of time聽

We鈥檒l be talking about everything from physics to linguistics鈥� and from broken eggs to Einstein鈥檚 theory of relativity.聽

Subscribe to Mind Over Chatter

Key points

[04:28] - Does time actually go from past to present to future? And does time really 鈥榝low鈥�?

[09:53] - How do B-theorists deal with entropy? Can you un-break an egg?

[14:12] - Recap of the first portion of the episode, reviewing A-theory, B-theory and C-theory of time

[18:58] - How the mind understands the subjective concept of time

[27:11] - 探花直播Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis and how the way you talk about language affects the way you perceive and think about things

[30:21] - Recap of the second portion of the episode聽

[34:02] - How do the mental and linguistic concepts around time fit with philosophical聽concepts and physics of time?

[45:46] - Is there a conflict between the psychological and linguistic models of time and the way physics handles time?

[48:20] - Recap of the last portion of the episode

Mind Over Chatter: 探花直播Cambridge 探花直播 Podcast

Found in translation

lw355 — Wed, 03 Jun 2020 10:32:52 +0000

How Cambridge researcher Dr Ebele Mogo聽helped tackle a聽coronavirus public health language gap across Africa in聽four weeks and 18 languages with 30 crowdsourced volunteers.

Discovering a world of languages

cjb250 — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 08:23:48 +0000

A Cambridge-led team seeks to revitalise languages in the UK with a series of interactive pop-up exhibitions and an online game designed to set tongues wagging.

Research at the chalk face: connecting academia and schools

lw528 — Mon, 25 Mar 2019 10:00:50 +0000

Twenty years ago, two head teachers walked into the 探花直播鈥檚 Department of Education with a proposal. We want to work with you, they told academics, but don鈥檛 just come and 鈥渄o research on us鈥�. We want to work in partnership.

探花直播approach might have met short shrift in more traditional institutions, but the outward-looking Education Department, now the Faculty of Education, was different. Already working closely with over 30 schools on a school-based teacher education programme, and welcoming many teachers onto its Master始s and PhD programmes, it saw the chance to forge new bonds.

Two decades on, School鈥� 探花直播 Partnership for Educational Research (SUPER) continues to flourish, bringing together academics and teachers from 12 schools around the eastern region. 探花直播partners devise and run collective research projects 鈥� on topics from pupil engagement to teacher learning 鈥� and share findings within and beyond the group.

探花直播latest project has focused on the increasingly critical area of pupil resilience, as Dr Ros McLellan, coordinator of the SUPER network, explains: 鈥淎cross the UK, mental health issues in children are increasing while wellbeing is deteriorating. Evidence shows that wellbeing programmes in schools can lead to significant improvements in children鈥檚 mental health, and social and emotional skills. But we know that funding constraints and lack of prominence given to wellbeing in the inspection framework create real challenges for schools. Our research is asking how resilience and wellbeing can be promoted in a results-driven educational climate.鈥�

探花直播group devised a wellbeing survey that was conducted across the partner schools, backed up by detailed pupil interviews. 探花直播findings showed that girls and Year 10 students are more vulnerable at secondary school 鈥� and that students from low-income backgrounds are vulnerable at all ages.

鈥� 探花直播individual schools are now introducing their own wellbeing interventions tailored to the needs revealed by the study, and we鈥檒l be working with them as they assess and share the impact of the interventions,鈥� says McLellan.

A 鈥榯oolkit鈥櫬爐o help schools聽

SUPER is one of a range of projects forging direct connections between the Faculty 鈥� part of a world-leading university that is often viewed primarily in an international context 鈥� and the living, breathing community of pupils, parents and teachers on its doorstep.

Dr Riikka Hofmann, for instance, has been working with local schools on understanding how best to improve students鈥� learning 鈥� finding that approaches that draw on interaction and students鈥� ideas can achieve better outcomes. But she has also found that it鈥檚 not always easy for schools 鈥� especially those in deprived areas that are tackling a wide range of pupil needs 鈥� to translate research findings into teaching practice.

鈥淲e know that teachers find it difficult to take up new forms of learning, no matter how effective research shows them to be,鈥� she explains. 鈥淪chools may be concerned about the short-term risks for performance outcomes and inspections involved in trialling new practices. Also, teachers in schools serving disadvantaged populations can hold limiting views of their students鈥� capabilities and be less likely to introduce change.鈥�

Hofmann鈥檚 latest project, backed by an Economic and Social Research Council-funded Impact Acceleration grant, is creating a 鈥榯oolkit鈥� to help schools introduce and evaluate effective educational techniques to boost teaching and learning. Her team is working with four eastern region partnership schools in which a high proportion of students face multiple disadvantages, such as financial or language difficulties.

She aims to make the toolkit available to all schools, nationally and ultimately globally. Tried and tested Faculty research, she argues, should benefit all schools, not only those with fewer challenges to divert them, and ensuring this happens is as much part of Cambridge 探花直播鈥檚 widening participation agenda as diversifying admissions. 鈥淚t is well known that some of the core barriers to raising aspirations among disadvantaged children happen not only at widening participation in terms of university admissions, but also much earlier, in learning opportunities that disadvantaged children have in school.

鈥淲e are a university with a global mission and that includes focusing on disadvantaged communities everywhere, including those near us. 探花直播East of England has some of the most deprived areas in the whole country. Our work aims to have a positive impact on the people in those communities, and also helps us to understand the ways change can happen in disadvantaged settings.鈥�

Language learning

探花直播busy two-way pipeline linking the Faculty of Education and schools in the region also lies at the heart of a partnership that focuses on exploring the influence of multilingual identity on foreign language learning among teenagers and its relationship with attainment. 探花直播education strand of the project, led by Dr Linda Fisher, is part of a large-scale and far-reaching language sciences research programme, Multilingualism: Empowering Individuals, Transforming Societies (MEITS) funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Working with six secondary schools in the eastern region and another in London, Fisher鈥檚 team is tracking the academic performance of 2,000 pupils over two years, including monolingual learners studying a second language and multilingual learners adding a further language in the classroom.

Together with teachers, Fisher and colleagues have devised and trialled a package of teaching materials, which begin by encouraging students to recognise that their understanding of dialects, slang, emojis and even the most basic foreign language ability all represent a form of multilingualism.

鈥� 探花直播main idea is to see whether we can we offer young people the agency to develop a multilingual identity if they so wish and to see what the impacts of that are,鈥� Fisher says. 探花直播results have been positive. 鈥淩eflecting on language learning was not only enjoyable for students but also made them more open minded, more aware of the place of language in the world and more inclined to be engaged with language learning in the classroom.鈥�

Many students involved in the project reported a change in attitude, seeing languages more as a vital life skill than just another subject to struggle with at school. 鈥淚 used to think languages only help on holiday,鈥� said one. 鈥淣ow I think languages adapt your brain and help you understand different cultures.鈥�

鈥淧ractical, and real, and of use to schools鈥�

For the academics, meanwhile, all of these projects are creating a model for boosting the chances of research findings making the journey from concept to coalface and having a real impact on school practice.

This level of collaboration between academics and schools is fundamental to the success of the projects, and yet is surprisingly unusual and should not be taken for granted says McLellan: 鈥淲henever I talk about SUPER in other contexts, people are always interested in how we manage to do it because schools and universities often have different agendas, timescales and ideas over what constitutes research.

鈥� 探花直播projects work because schools in our region, which is very diverse, want to work with us. This is not just pie in the sky, ivory tower stuff: it is practical, and real, and of use to schools. We鈥檝e broken down the artificial walls: we鈥檙e out there.鈥�

Researchers in Cambridge鈥檚 Faculty of Education are working with teachers to improve the experience of learning in the East of England 鈥� and boost pupils鈥� life chances.

探花直播projects work because schools in our region, which is very diverse, want to work with us. This is not just pie in the sky, ivory tower stuff: it is practical, and real, and of use to schools. We鈥檝e broken down the artificial walls: we鈥檙e out there

Ros McLellan

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