- [Announcer] Funding for The Secret Life Of Scientists is provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
(theme music) - When should I be begin?
- [Interviewer] Here's the timer.
- And what's gonna happen, are you gonna start it?
- [Interviewer] I'm gonna start it, are you ready?
- Okay, but I haven't thought about this.
- [Interviewer] Go.
- I study Psycholinguistics, that means I study the way that people acquire language, the way they produce it, the way they retrieve it, and I also study the way they lose language.
For instance, what happens when someone has brain damage and that affects the language centers in their brain.
I look the way young children acquire language in a systematic way.
For instance how they make plurals of words they've never heard before.
I'm also interested in things like, gender differences in language, how parents talk to boys and girls.
- [Interviewer] How do you feel?
You did it in 28 seconds.
- I don't know what I said, I wasn't listening - [Interviewer] It sounded great.
- Was it in English?
- [Interviewer] Yes.
(people laughing in the background) (theme music) - When I was a little girl, I was always fascinated by language.
So, I tended to drive my family crazy by going up to them and saying things like, " (talks gibberish) what does that mean?"
They would say, "It doesn't mean anything."
And I would become very angry and say, "Well, it must mean something in some language."
But when I got to college that's when I really got into language.
I went and took Arabic, Latin, German, French, Sanskrit, Norwegian.
While I was taking all those languages, I took a course on the Psychology of Language and that's Psycholinguistics, and I realized that that was really what I wanted to know.
How did you get the language that's out there into your head?
I've also been interested in what you might call Routinized Language.
The important routines that are social interaction of routines.
In our society, we teach children to say hi, thanks and goodbye, and in fact, we've written some papers called "Hi, Thanks and Goodbye."
And it's really important.
One example of how important it is, is something that happened to of me when my own children were small.
I had to drive the carpool and there was one boy, this kid got out of the car and he shut the door, and he never said thank you, and he never said goodbye.
He just got out and shut the door and walked away.
And I still hate him.
I said, "What a rotten kid."
Did that boy feel thankfulness in his heart?
I don't care.
I wanted him to say thanks, just to acknowledge the fact that I've slept him all the way home.
So, I tell anybody if you teach your children, anything teach him to say hi, thanks and goodbye appropriately.
Next people like your children.
And if they don't do it, people will hate your children.
It's really important to study Psycholinguistics for a number of reasons.
We're talking about pure science, that's as important as outer space or the deep sea.
We are learning how human beings think.
So, that's what's been driving me for the past, don't ask, 50 or 60 years.
(theme music) I've always enjoyed driving fast, (guitar strum sound effect) I will admit, but I wouldn't wanna characterize myself as a fast driver.
I'm an efficient driver.
And sometimes it means going fast, of course, but never too fast.
So, I think of myself as...
Okay, I like to go fast.
It's just great to get on the road and to shut the gears and go.
If you do it in automatic, it's kind of like, you might as well go to sleep when you're driving.
If you're going to do something, you might as well have fun doing it.
And if you're gonna have to drive, you might as well drive in a way that's fun.
And it's fun to shift the car.
I had good boyfriends who taught me how to drive.
And I guess they taught me how to drive the way they drove.
(upbeat music) I bought my first all-wheel drive turbo car, which was a Celica Turbo All-Trac in 1988.
Then I got a little Subaru, a little RS, and it had a big wing in the back.
And I did have the funny experience of driving this car up to lights and suddenly hearing (mimics a car engine) next to me and then turning over and seeing, like, three teenage boys looking into the car, hoping that they would have some sort of contest until they discovered it was a little old lady.
So, I'd always wave at them, you know, "Hello boys."
(laughs) Made them feel funny.
And I have friends who have sons who drive the same car I do.
And who take the same pleasure in driving it, which is that you go.
(diminishing music) (theme music) Many.
You know who I wish.
She's a tall, gorgeous blonde, Catherine Deneuve.
But she wouldn't play me in the movies, unless they cut her legs off.
Oh wugs.
Wugs all the way.
Sanskrit.
It has nine cases and it has singular dual and plural.
Isn't that exciting?
A Hudson.
Which actually caught on fire, but that's another story.
Stick shift, control, fun.
We share many interests.
We like technology, we like our tiny computers, we like our fast cars.
Black.
Henry Ford said, "I don't care what color car a is, as long as it's black."
I can talk like a munchkin.
It's not at all difficult.
If you want me to talk like an old lady, I can do that too.
Just what do you want me to say?
(all laughing) Pass.