We had a visitor in class today, Dr. Contag from the Spanish department. It was great to have an observer in class, sharing her thoughts on various topics and questions that came up.
We spent some of class focused on the differences between men and women and language use, based upon our viewing of the assigned video. I wonder how discussing this online affected the discussion. Would it have been different had we been face to face? Gender related issues can often get heated during discussion. So much communication happens through facial expression, body language and tone of voice. For the most part, we can't rely on those during our online discussions.
The class went through some of the answers to our latest quiz. I found it very interesting that some people could visualize the tree diagrams that were being described orally, while others had major difficulties. I think it was a great demonstration of the difference between visual and aural learners.
The remainder of class dealt with the final project. Some of us got special wiki tutoring. It was helpful. It was pretty amazing that we could see what Dr. Smidt was doing on her computer screen. The power of technology.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Finegan 10 & 11 Read & Retell
I found chapters 10 and 11 of Finegan quite interesting. They both dealt with various aspects of language variation due to context, whether that be the setting or the people involved in using the language.
Chapter 10 focused on register or style of language, which varies depending on the speech situation (setting, purpose and participants). Depending on the speech situation, a person uses different registers or styles of speech, which can be characterized by various linguistic features such as lexical, phonological, grammatical and semantic. In a monolingual community like I have experienced most of my life, I can apply this to how I might speak to friends versus meeting an academic advisor at a university for the first time. My speech with friends will be much less formal than my speech with the advisor. In a multilingual situation, other kinds of situations arise. For example, I lived in Marburg (Germany) for a year. My adult friends could speak high German (a standard form or school form of German) or Hessisch, a local dialect from Hessen, which was like a different language that I could not understand. When we were in a group, they needed to speak high German so I could understand, but it was very difficult for them to speak high German with native speakers in the same group. They were almost compelled to speak Hessisch. I was reminded of this by the discussion on the top of page 318 in regards to difficulty communicating in one language versus another depending on the setting.
Slang is another aspect of register. As a teacher I'm always trying to learn the newest adolescent slang. I want to know what "kids" are saying, but I'm not a big fan of older adults using what is considered an adolescent type slang.
Jargon is another style of language that each of us in the professional world comes to know. In education, one of the most frequently used words that signals working in the field is the word "piece." At conferences it almost becomes ludicrous as to how many times one may hear it used.
Chapter 11 of Finegan dealt with dialects. A dialect is a variety of language based upon a particular region or social group. As mentioned above, Germany has many dialects...Bavarian, Hessisch, Platt, and so forth. A person from Bavaria has a difficult time understanding a person from Hannover if they are speaking in their particular dialects. I'm glad the chapter pointed out the difference between dialect and accent; I sometimes confused those terms. It was interesting reading about British versus American forms of English as well as the African American English or Black vernacular. I am definitely guilty of sometimes judging people on the usage of language that is different from my Upper Midwestern dialect, which closely resembles the standard English we hear on television and radio. One major fact I have learned in this class is that languages of various kinds are legitimate and complex in composition.
Chapter 10 focused on register or style of language, which varies depending on the speech situation (setting, purpose and participants). Depending on the speech situation, a person uses different registers or styles of speech, which can be characterized by various linguistic features such as lexical, phonological, grammatical and semantic. In a monolingual community like I have experienced most of my life, I can apply this to how I might speak to friends versus meeting an academic advisor at a university for the first time. My speech with friends will be much less formal than my speech with the advisor. In a multilingual situation, other kinds of situations arise. For example, I lived in Marburg (Germany) for a year. My adult friends could speak high German (a standard form or school form of German) or Hessisch, a local dialect from Hessen, which was like a different language that I could not understand. When we were in a group, they needed to speak high German so I could understand, but it was very difficult for them to speak high German with native speakers in the same group. They were almost compelled to speak Hessisch. I was reminded of this by the discussion on the top of page 318 in regards to difficulty communicating in one language versus another depending on the setting.
Slang is another aspect of register. As a teacher I'm always trying to learn the newest adolescent slang. I want to know what "kids" are saying, but I'm not a big fan of older adults using what is considered an adolescent type slang.
Jargon is another style of language that each of us in the professional world comes to know. In education, one of the most frequently used words that signals working in the field is the word "piece." At conferences it almost becomes ludicrous as to how many times one may hear it used.
Chapter 11 of Finegan dealt with dialects. A dialect is a variety of language based upon a particular region or social group. As mentioned above, Germany has many dialects...Bavarian, Hessisch, Platt, and so forth. A person from Bavaria has a difficult time understanding a person from Hannover if they are speaking in their particular dialects. I'm glad the chapter pointed out the difference between dialect and accent; I sometimes confused those terms. It was interesting reading about British versus American forms of English as well as the African American English or Black vernacular. I am definitely guilty of sometimes judging people on the usage of language that is different from my Upper Midwestern dialect, which closely resembles the standard English we hear on television and radio. One major fact I have learned in this class is that languages of various kinds are legitimate and complex in composition.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Class on 19 March 09
Class was pretty typical today. We had a little bit of a small group glitch but it worked itself out quickly enough. Good thing Dr. Schmidt is so adept at using the software; she was able to create small break out groups pretty quickly. It's still amazing to me how many people do not want to speak with their microphones. In face to face situations, I can somewhat understand a reticent person; online reticence still catches me off guard.
I'm a little worried about the quiz we had this past weekend. Some of the concepts I felt I had in hand, but then little pieces of the quiz caused doubt. For example, the small differentiation of labels on the quiz's tree diagrams made me a little uneasy. Also, matching the tree diagrams to the sentences seemed easy enough until I saw the pattern (or at least what I thought was a pattern) in the answers. I hate when there isn't a random pattern of answers on a quiz or test. I think this was the case with the quiz. The Fijian work also made me a little uneasy. Some of this linguistics information is difficult enough to understand when dealing with English. When it has to be applied to another language, it can be that much more of a challenge. I get why we're doing it, but it does create a sense of doubt in my mind.
I'm a little worried about the quiz we had this past weekend. Some of the concepts I felt I had in hand, but then little pieces of the quiz caused doubt. For example, the small differentiation of labels on the quiz's tree diagrams made me a little uneasy. Also, matching the tree diagrams to the sentences seemed easy enough until I saw the pattern (or at least what I thought was a pattern) in the answers. I hate when there isn't a random pattern of answers on a quiz or test. I think this was the case with the quiz. The Fijian work also made me a little uneasy. Some of this linguistics information is difficult enough to understand when dealing with English. When it has to be applied to another language, it can be that much more of a challenge. I get why we're doing it, but it does create a sense of doubt in my mind.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
05 March class
I wasn't able to attend our online session on 05 March. I had a work committment. Today as I write this, it seems like forever since being together...having missed a week followed by a week of spring break. I'm looking forward to this afternoon.
Finegan 6 Read & Retell
Finegan 6 dealt with semantics. I like to use the phrase "It's all semantics" sometimes when having a disagreement about an issue with a friend or colleague. After reading the chapter, I have a much better understanding about what semantics really is.
I liked the explanation that linguistic meaning is often refered to as denotation while connotation usually includes both social and affective meaning. It's helpful connecting known terms like denotation and connotation to more technical, linguistic terms.
I enjoyed the sections on hyponymy and part/whole relationships. It amazed me how technical various aspects of semantics can get. For example, I knew about antonymy, but never heard of gradable and nongradable aspects of it. The discussion about determining homonymy and polysemy never occurred to me as far as how dictionaries decide on how to include words in the entries of their book. Very interesting.
The way culture affects semantics struck me at several points in the reading. I just took my first semester of Spanish last fall. Reading about deixis made me think of having learned about the spatial deixis for "near the speaker," "a little distant from the speaker," and "far from the speaker." The other example of culture affecting semantics that was fun to read about was the seat of emotions metaphor...for us we think "heart" while others think "stomach." I totally get the stomach metaphor...butterflies in the stomach, stomach ache when facing something difficult to do, getting an upset stomach because of a situation rather than an illness.
The many terms in the chapter were a bit overwhelming, but they did make sense to me. I suppose you have to have a language to talk about these aspects of language.
I liked the explanation that linguistic meaning is often refered to as denotation while connotation usually includes both social and affective meaning. It's helpful connecting known terms like denotation and connotation to more technical, linguistic terms.
I enjoyed the sections on hyponymy and part/whole relationships. It amazed me how technical various aspects of semantics can get. For example, I knew about antonymy, but never heard of gradable and nongradable aspects of it. The discussion about determining homonymy and polysemy never occurred to me as far as how dictionaries decide on how to include words in the entries of their book. Very interesting.
The way culture affects semantics struck me at several points in the reading. I just took my first semester of Spanish last fall. Reading about deixis made me think of having learned about the spatial deixis for "near the speaker," "a little distant from the speaker," and "far from the speaker." The other example of culture affecting semantics that was fun to read about was the seat of emotions metaphor...for us we think "heart" while others think "stomach." I totally get the stomach metaphor...butterflies in the stomach, stomach ache when facing something difficult to do, getting an upset stomach because of a situation rather than an illness.
The many terms in the chapter were a bit overwhelming, but they did make sense to me. I suppose you have to have a language to talk about these aspects of language.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Freeman 9/Finegan 5 Read & Retell
Both chapters basically dealt with English syntax, the rules governing the formation of sentences in a language. It's a complex topic, and both chapters reinforced the idea that this was simply an introduction. Linguists try to describe syntax by formulating rules, the goal being to formulate the fewest amount of rules to generate an infinite number of sentences in a language.
Native speakers acquire a language's syntax. They know the rules subconsciously and use them correctly for their setting/demographic. The information in these chapters explained how linguists study what is natural to a native speaker and posit theories as to how the language functions when spoken and written in sentences. Linguists use the term grammar, which can have several meanings (the internal rules of native speakers, the descriptions of syntactic structure and most commonly the traditional rules most people are taught).
The rules of syntax have to deal with both the deep structure and the surface structure of a sentence. Both chapters used tree diagraming as a graphic organizer to show this structure and grammar. I have never done this type of diagraming but look forward to practicing it.
As usual, Finegan proved a more technical read with many terms. Freeman focused on highlights and provided information on using syntax in teaching reading and second language instruction. Syntax tends to be of little use to the word recognition camp because of the focus on individual words. The sociopsychololingistic view finds syntax useful, one of three cueing systems. Cloze activities are a good example of this application. Having learned and taught much traditional grammar, it's hard to read that traditional grammar instruction leads to little learning in regards to reading and writing. I'm glad the texts did mention mini-lessons in a writing workshop setting; these mini-lessons can focus on certain syntactical aspects that can improve writing. It makes sense to do this in context rather than in drill and practice format.
Native speakers acquire a language's syntax. They know the rules subconsciously and use them correctly for their setting/demographic. The information in these chapters explained how linguists study what is natural to a native speaker and posit theories as to how the language functions when spoken and written in sentences. Linguists use the term grammar, which can have several meanings (the internal rules of native speakers, the descriptions of syntactic structure and most commonly the traditional rules most people are taught).
The rules of syntax have to deal with both the deep structure and the surface structure of a sentence. Both chapters used tree diagraming as a graphic organizer to show this structure and grammar. I have never done this type of diagraming but look forward to practicing it.
As usual, Finegan proved a more technical read with many terms. Freeman focused on highlights and provided information on using syntax in teaching reading and second language instruction. Syntax tends to be of little use to the word recognition camp because of the focus on individual words. The sociopsychololingistic view finds syntax useful, one of three cueing systems. Cloze activities are a good example of this application. Having learned and taught much traditional grammar, it's hard to read that traditional grammar instruction leads to little learning in regards to reading and writing. I'm glad the texts did mention mini-lessons in a writing workshop setting; these mini-lessons can focus on certain syntactical aspects that can improve writing. It makes sense to do this in context rather than in drill and practice format.
26 February class
Class this week was enjoyable as usual. I really liked how most of the small group talked via their headsets. It was great to hear everyone and not just chat via typing on the computer. Going through the exercises as a small group is always very helpful and reassuring. I felt very comfortable with this week's exercises and was able to help some others better understand some of the lexical categories.
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