Sunday, July 31, 2011

Language Comparison Presentation

http://www.slideshare.net/dball550/language-comparison-powerpoint-8739605

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Unit 10 Organizer O'Grady's Language in Social Contexts

1.) Language Variation and Social Distinctions
        - Variables in pronunciation of certain letters
        - Social factors of variance in clude age, sex, and/or education
        - Intraspeaker and Intersoeaker variations

2.) Place
        - Dialectology is "The study of regional differeces in language" (p.489)
        - Variation in Lexical Items or different words for the same object. For example " grinder, hero, submarine, hoagie, or a poorboy" (p.492) to identify a particular sandwich.
        - Variation in Phonology are the differences in pronunciation of vowels or the omission of consonants.
        - Variation in Morphology and Syntax are few in number such as y'all for you-all or youse p.494

3.) Time
        - Effects language from generation to gereration as time passes the language evolves as do the dialects.


4.) Isolation
        - Physical Isolation effects a dialect due to lack if interaction to other speakers of the language due to geographical isolation and lack of transportation. (p. 497)
        - Linguistic Isolation results in a lack of immigration of a particular language causing the isolation rather than a geographical isolation.
        -"Social Isolation refers to a situation in which a smaller community is in some way restricted in social interaction with the larger surrounding speech community that shares the same language." (p.499)

5.) Contact
        - Code- switching and borrowing  refers to people who share multiple languages use both languages at the same time in the same sentence.
        - Contact Languages are sort of like hybrid languages that develop over time usually in places where international trade occurs often.

6.) Distinction in Community
        - Class or socioeconomic status influences language variance. Upper classes tend to use more prestige variants than that of lower classes.
        - Ethnicity such as the English used in African American English
        -Gender or gender roles between men and women produce language variance.

7.) Social Interaction and Language
        - "Ethnography of Communication is a way to analyze discourse by using the same sort of methods that anthropologists mught use to study other aspects of a culture, such as religious practices." (p.514)
        - Solidarity and Power variants depend on whether individuals are smeaking to someone of the same status or speaking to someone of a higher or lower status.

8.) How society deals with Language
        - Choosing a "standard" or "correct" language form
        - Describe non-standard language as "lazy, illogical, or sloppy" (p. 519)
        - Governments make declarations of the country's official language(s).

Unit 10 topic activities

Topic 1-Activity 1

Looking at the different dialects across American alone, I am amazed at the amount of dialects there are. America is a HUGE land mass so I can understand why there are somany different dialects. I listened to a bunch of them. I feel some are quite similar in sound. I couldn't really hear the difference between some of them. I notice most of the dialects differ in vowel pronunciation. Another difference is the speed of each dialect. Some speak faster than others. The biggest difference in dialects were the Mexican dialects. There is nosuprise as to why since Englesh isn't L1 to them. The only way I could see the IPA capturing these accents and dialects is simply using the current symbols they have now. I'm certain there is a symbol for every sound each person made in those examples.

Topic 2-Activity 2 Do You Speak American?

These web site go right along with the readings of the unit. Showing differences in dialect based on region, gender, age, education, and even race. It is interesting to see how language fluctuates from area to area. It is also interesting to see one dialect influencing another, possible creating another hybrid of two dialects.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Monday, July 18, 2011

Unit 9 Topic Assignments

1.) His brother bought land last winter, but sold it to the neighbor when the economy went bad. John likes fishing, but wants to be mone successful. When he felt sad, he painted his boat, "Troubled Waters," blue and made it clean. John asked his brother if he liked the way the boat looked, but his brother laughed and said, "You're always looking for compliments."

John wanted to argue with his brother, but didn't have the energy. Instead, he began to make more nets, with hopes to increase the amount of fish he will catch the next day.

2.)The parts of the story that would give an ELL the most trouble would be the idiomatic expressions such as "John loves fishing, but longs to be more successful" and "Feeling down","shined it up"' "fishing for compliments" these would need to be broken down and explained exactly what is meant by these phrases.

3.)past                                         present                                        present progressive(immediate future)
     x-------------------------------------x-------------------------------------------------x
     |                                                   |                                                             |
  His brother bought land         John loves fishing              He is hoping to catch more fish

4.)Based on my research in my data anaylisis journal I feel that grammar is necessary in teaching language. Only so much can be acquired through immersion. Listening to my Vietnamese friend speak, and the decade plus she has lived in the U.S.and spoken English she still makes noticeable errors in her speaking. In her writing, errors are even more evident. She is easy to understand and speaks very well, but I feel a little more grammar instruction in critical times when learning English would have eliminated some of her speaking and writing errors.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Grice's Conversational Maxims Assignment Unit 8

Consider Grice’s Conversational Maxims. Think of an example of when you or someone you have observed has violated each of the maxims and why. Was one maxim violated in order to follow another? For the sake of humor? Out of politeness? For each, discuss how you signaled this (tone of voice, body language, linguistic signal) and if you didn’t signal tell why. Post your examples for each on the blog.

Maxim of Relevance:
One time, my brother got a really bad hair cut. I had a friend of mine, who was unaware of the bad hair cut, to ask my brother how he likes his new hair cut. "Hey, I heard you got a new hair cut." my friend says. My brother replys, "Oh, how about them Eagles? They're playing well this year." This violates the maxim because my brother wants to change the subject instead of receiving ridicule for his aweful hair cut. He changes his tone to signal that he doesn't want to talk about it.

Maxim of Quality:
A while back, a friend of mine and I were walking towards a lake carrying fishing poles, tackle boxes, and a bucket of live bait. A man walks by us and asks `You fellas going fishing?" I respond, "No, we are going bear hunting. I hope to get a 500 pounder." I violated this maxim for the sake of humor. It was obvious by my tone of voice and body language I wasn't serious. The man laughed when I said that and responded, "I knew it was a stupid question as soon as I said it, I walked right into that one."

Maxim of Quantity:
When I was in college, I had a roommate who was on the phone next to me talking with a co-worker. The co-worked asked him if he received the tickets to see "Smarty Jones" (A race horse) at the Preakness  in New York telling my roommate that he left a message with me about picking up the tickets. I left my roommate a written message about this and left it on his desk..obviously he never got it. Knowing that I was hearing this conversation since he had it on speaker phone, my roommate asks, "Did anyone call for me in the last two weeks?" (referring to the message he never got, but never saying it) I decided to be a wise guy and said with a sarcastic tone and  "Duh" facial expression "Of Course! It's been two weeks!" I violated this maxim for the sake of humor. I purposely didn't provide the information he required to fully answer the question, causing my roomate to roll his eyes and call me "Wise Ass!"

Maxim of Manner:
I was hanging out with a friend of mine, who happens to be a woman. She intruduced me to one of her friends saying "This is my guy, Damian." The person I was introduced to, based on her introduction assumed that I was her "boyfriend" not just a friend. This was a violation of the manner maxim. Of course this caused a bit of confusion, due to my friend's poor choice of words, the new group of people who arrived thought we were a couple. When we realized the mistake of communication we made it clear that we were NOT a couple.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Application Question Unit 8

#1 A good school? (Mrs. Thomas and Mrs. Rashid are both parents of students in the district where Mrs. Thomas also teaches.)
Mrs. Thomas: Johnny has Mr. Smith as a teacher next year. I hear he is an excellent teacher.
Mrs. Rashid: He’s very nice.
Mrs. T: Are you happy with the school district?
Mrs. Rashid: There are many lovely people in the neighborhood.

The main miscommunication issue I notice is when Mrs. Rashid responds " There are many lovely people in the neighborhood." To an American person, this shows that the person wants to change the subject of the conversation without sharing an opinion about what is asked. In this case the school district. It's almost like someone bringing up an event that is embarassing to someone in the room and before the conversation goes any further, that person may say "How about this weather we're having? Beautiful." To sarcastically change the subject. The response made by Mrs. Rashid may give Mrs. Thomas the feeling that Mrs. Rashid dislikes the neighborhood and doesn't want to continue further talk about it. Mrs. Rashid, on the other hand, may have misunderstood Mrs. Thomas when she said "District". Mrs. Rashid may have thought "district" as in the place or community, "neighborhood" where they live, not the school.
Another possiblity is that in Mrs. Rashid's native contry, it may be considered extremely rude or perhaps against the law to say anything negative about any government institution or place of education.  In this case, Mrs. Rashid felt it necessary to only say nice things about where she lives and the people who live there to avoid any negative attention from others.