Cyber Heroes

After getting the paper, Lao Liu took Xiangshan around the half-finished office area, constantly greeting some scholars he had known in the past and exchanging new contact information. Xiangshan was forced to hold something weighing several kilograms with his arms and communicate with colleagues from all over the world while he was on the verge of suffering from heatstroke.

Thanks to this, Xiangshan was able to obtain the contact information of twenty or thirty famous scholars as well as outstanding young scholars.

Lao Liu happily said that these are all connections for the future.

Xiang Shan complained quite a bit about this. Nowadays, bathing is done in collective bathhouses, and you have to wait in line for a long time. I was sweating all over there because I didn't have much help. Moreover, the scholars here may never meet again after completing this project.

But Lao Liu taught Xiang Shan that this is what the so-called "relationship" is. Whenever he needs to start a cooperative project, he will realize the convenience of this "connection".

When leaving Xiangshan, David Klein shouted behind him, asking him to continue coming in the afternoon, because the engineering research department hopes to build a shelf in the next few days - it is best to divide it into several Groups and stuff. In addition, that afternoon is also the deadline for accepting applications for experimental equipment. If you have any special requirements for the laboratory environment, it is best to submit them now.

Xiangshan didn't think much of it. Now no one knows what they want to study, and they can't start any projects or topics. This division of groups may not make sense. As for laboratory equipment, Lao Liu will naturally provide it. Old Liu basically understands the fields he is involved in, and Old Liu will definitely need the equipment he needs.

Xiangshan spent the entire noon in the cafeteria. After he came to the cafeteria, the first thing he did was to get a disposable cup, shovel half a cup of ice cubes for himself, then fill up a cup of soda, drink it all in one gulp, and bring another cup to his seat.

Before having lunch, Xiangshan planned to look through those papers. He took the papers out of the paper bag. David gave him dozens of papers, and of course he didn't have time to read them one by one. Each paper is like a novel, and it is very brain-burning.

Xiangshan took out a paper, looked at the abstract at the beginning, then the conclusion at the end, and then put it aside. In addition, reviews summarizing other papers are also listed separately and put together. Occasionally when you encounter a direction that may interest you, just fold the corner of the cover to remind yourself to take a look when you have time.

There were several people in the cafeteria doing similar things.

"Hey, are you reading the paper too?" Jing Hongtu held the dinner plate and sat across from Xiang Shan: "Isn't Professor Liu with you?"

"He should still be at the research center - what a coincidence, Professor Jing." Xiang Shan said hello, still staring at a paper: "Wait a moment, I will finish scanning this - ah!"

Xiang Shan reached for his soda just now, but his arm accidentally touched another person. There was actually a person sitting next to me silently just now!

A woman blinked and said to Xiang Shan innocently, "Hi~!"

This woman is about the same age as Xiang Shan, and is also twenty-three or four years old. She is just like the "European" in the stereotype of East Asians, with blond hair, blue eyes, and fair skin - here is a special mention, her skin is whiter than the average European, and with her long pale golden hair, she is quite a bit... Divide "immortality".

The woman was quite innocent: "I came here with Professor Jing. I didn't expect to scare you. I'm sorry."

"No, I'm too focused...wait a minute..." Xiangshan looked at the woman in front of him in confusion.

Xiangshan's English ability is within the normal level of academic circles, and he has no problem understanding English. But what this woman just said seemed to be... very standard, without an accent...

"Are you more accustomed to speaking Cantonese? Do you live in a Cantonese-speaking area?" The woman changed her dialect naturally.

This time Xiangshan was completely confused: "No, I can't understand it... Madam, you speak Chinese really well."

The woman rolled the spaghetti on the plate with her fork: "Thank you."

"This is Miss Ingrid Granat. Miss Granat and I had a good chat, so we stopped by to have lunch together. Then I saw you from a distance and wanted to say hello. Jing Hongtu said: "Miss Granat is an associate researcher at the University of Oslo in Norway. She is a very powerful person. She has an innate understanding of language and has learned many languages ​​​​very early. Now she is working on second language acquisition. Research."

"Second language acquisition", the abbreviation of "second language acquisition", is a research direction in linguistics. Its research directions include: how learners build a new language and system after limited exposure to a second language; why most second language learners do not have the same knowledge as native speakers; why most second language learners The language learning level cannot reach the level of the native language, etc. This is a complex and three-dimensional field.

"To be precise, I know more than one language in each traditional language family - plus Japanese that cannot be classified." Ingrid smiled, quite pleased with herself.

Xiangshan thought for a while before he understood what this meant, and he was immediately in awe.

Language families and language families are concepts in historical comparative linguistics. It is like species taxonomy, classifying every language in the world according to the distance of their kinship. For example, "Chinese" belongs to "Sino-Tibetan language family - Chinese language family - Chinese branch - Chinese". Some Europeans know four or five languages, but in fact they can all be included in "Indo-European language family - Germanic language family - Western branch" and In "Indo-European Languages-Romance Languages-Italian-Western Romance Languages", the difficulty is not at the same level as "several languages ​​in each language family".

"Well, I want to ask...how long does it take for you to learn a language?" Xiang Shan thought for a moment and asked the question he was most concerned about.

"Well...it's actually hard to say. It still takes a certain amount of time to improve vocabulary and other things...I am only at the level of a primary school student in several languages. I basically have no dyslexia, but occasionally I need to consult a dictionary." Inge Lid thought for a while and said, "But if you only need to 'learn', it's not particularly difficult. A few months is enough."

Xiang Shan was a little confused: "Madam, I would like to ask, are you sure you know the meaning of the Chinese slang term 'a month'?"

"A few, a few, one or two." Ingrid nodded: "I still know this."

Jing Hongtu smiled. The most indispensable thing in academia is “young geniuses”. You got a teaching position in your twenties, and I graduated as a teenager. There are quite a few who stand out and become famous in the academic world during their undergraduate years.

In contrast, "late bloomer" researchers are even rarer - but there are still some examples.

"Learning a language is actually not as difficult as imagined - well, in a sense I may be special? But it is not impossible to copy." Ingrid took a sip of pasta, then pointed at Xiang Shan with her fork: "Xiang Shan , do you believe in 'Universal Grammar'?"

"What?"

"A term in the language theory of the United States linguist Chomsky. Mr. Chomsky believes that language is created and grammar is generated. Children are born with a universal grammar. Universal grammar is essentially a The brain has a specific state related to language knowledge, a physical mechanism and corresponding psychological mechanism that enable human individuals to learn any kind of human language." Ingrid said: "Perhaps there is something in the baby's brain. Physical structure. As the baby's brain grows, this physical structure will be affected by the external cultural environment and develop into 'language function' - and the 'characteristics' displayed by that original structure may be 'universal' grammar'."

Xiang Shan scratched his head: "It's like saying that my newborn nephew has all human languages ​​in his head - I think this is more of a myth than science."

"Know the male, guard the female, and become the stream of the world. Be the stream of the world, never leave the virtue, and return to the baby." Ingrid said seriously: "Similar discussions do exist in your ancient philosophy. But this does not necessarily have to be the case. It comes down to 'myth'. All I can say is... I personally feel that a universal grammar that transcends 'language' should exist. I hope to dig it out of my mind through my research."

Xiang Shan nodded: "Well, it sounds like an amazing research..."

"Miss Granat has a very extensive reading volume and a unique understanding of anthropology." Jing Hongtu said with a smile.

"Maybe they asked me to come because they thought I had hope of learning the alien language." Ingrid was helpless: "But dead language and living language are completely different concepts. And from a biological point of view Say, the 'universal grammar' of aliens may be completely different from that of Earthlings."

After chatting for a few words, Xiangshan basically went through the paper. He put the paper back into the paper bag and went to get his meal. When he returned, several fire trucks drove past the window.

Xiang Shan took a spoonful of mashed potatoes and put it in his mouth: "What are you doing? There's no fire here, right?"

"This should be the fire truck mobilized locally." Jing Hongtu said: "I heard that the 'tent' side is thinking of ways to change the preservation environment of 'Ogun'... They do not plan to divide 'Ogun', and it is very difficult. It was difficult to move such a huge metal object entirely, so they had to drain the surrounding seawater. Because they were worried that oxygen would destroy the contents of 'Ogun', they also planned to fill the 'tent' with a more stable gas. Those fire trucks should be transporting seawater away, right?”

Xiang Shan was very surprised: "Is it okay if the sea water is discharged directly into the sea?"

"Perhaps we are worried about biological pollution. We cannot discharge it randomly."

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