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Assignments week 1

What is language?

“Swearing was invented as a compromise between running away and fighting.” ~Peter Finley Dunne, Mr. Dooley's Opinions, 1900

I chose this quote not only because I think there is some truth behind this, I also chose this because it shows how people make up new words or start using existing words in a different way when they feel the need for a new word. I think it’s funny to think of how, in maybe a few years, there will be a lot of words that don’t exist know, simply because we felt we needed another word to describe things.

“Words signify man's refusal to accept the world as it is.” ~Walter Kaufmann

This quote appealed to me because I think there is a lot of truth behind this one. When people have a conversation with each other it is often a discussion, talking about opinions on topics. It doesn’t necessarily have to be about world topics, but it could also be about very personal of local things. The thing is if we all agreed with each other there would be no need to talk about these kind of things, thus we wouldn’t speak that much.

“If you can speak three languages you're trilingual. If you can speak two languages you're bilingual. If you can speak only one language you're an American.” ~Author Unknown

I chose this quote because I thought it was funny and even though it is not true for all Americans, it is true for a lot of them (and other native English speakers). Which is somewhat logical as English is the lingua franca. Millions of people around the world speak English as a second language, so there isn’t much of a need for native English speaker to learn another language. Things like this become very clear when people go on a holiday.

If I would go on a holiday to New Zealand, people would expect that I speak English, because that’s the main language. However, if an American would go on a holiday to the Netherlands, he would not try to speak Dutch, because he doesn’t know the language. What he does know is that Dutch people speak English quite well, so he’ll just use English.

“Language is what smart people use to defend their statements and what dumb people use to attack others.” ~ Anne van Laar, 2016.

This is my own quote. Since there are often discussions about multiple topics you can see this happening quite a lot. For example in the comments of Facebook posts. There will always be at least one person that posts an opinion. As people get offended easily there will always be multiple people to react to this opinion. What happens next is that one of these two sides starts elaborating on their opinion in a normal manner and then the other side, who don’t know how to defend their own statement, starts swearing at people. That’s the reason behind this quote.

Learning a language

I think that people can actually ‘learn’ a language, because there are cognitive networks that you use when learning a language. For example, you link words from the second language to words in your native language. Also, you need cognitive structures to remember patterns in a language, to remember vocabulary etc. But if you would compare learning an acquiring a language I would say people, for the most part, acquire a language rather than ‘learn’ it.

By only learning a language you can’t necessarily use it in conversations, to do so you need to acquire this language. When you acquire a language you do a lot more than just learn it. For example you use the new words you just learned in communication, you can distinguish between different social contexts and know how to appropriately use the language in those contexts.

But to fully understand a language you can’t just acquire it either. I think you need both ‘learning’ and acquiring to fully grasp a language. After all if you wouldn’t use the cognitive structures to remember what you acquired, you wouldn’t remember anything of it.

Creativity

A lot of people are creative when it comes to using a language, but can everyone learn to be creative when using a language? In my opinion people can’t learn how to be creative with a language, it’s just like creativity in general, you either are creative or you aren’t.

What I am trying to say with this is not that people that are not creative won’t ever have a creative moment. It is just that non-creative people have to work and think very hard to come up with something creative and I don’t think they will be able to learn how to be more creative.

Let’s take me during my last culture class as an example. I’m not a creative person, especially not with language. During culture I had to write a poem of about 5 sentences, even though I have analysed poems and even written poems before, I couldn’t come up with anything. I stared at my paper trying to think of something, but it didn’t work and I don’t think it ever will. Even after years of practise in middle school I couldn’t come up with a short poem.

I personally haven’t experienced learning how to be creative and that’s why I don’t believe that someone can learn how to be creative with language.

#assignments week 1 #what is language?#learning a language #creativity

Assignments week 2

Origin of language

In the assignment it stated: “Developmentally, dialogue comes before monologue.”

I think that one of the reasons that dialogue comes before a monologue is because the dialogue is actually the origin of language.

I think dialogue is the origin of a language, because you need to communicate with others to create a language. Of course you could talk to yourself, but then you would create a language that only you would speak. To create a language that multiple people speak, you need to communicate and decide on the meaning of the words.

Even now, when children are learning a language, they learn by communicating with their parents, other family members and for example teachers. These people help the children talking to them(input) and by correcting their mistakes.

So, naturally, in a class where you teach second language you should start with dialogues. You could ask the students simple questions that they can answer, you could talk to the student in simple English and check for understanding. What you should not do in the beginning is monologues, because the students might not have sufficient knowledge of the language yet and making them do a monologue might scare them so much that they will start to dislike the language.

Thought language

In my opinion people do think in language, or at least that is how your thoughts are translated. It is difficult to explain, but when you think, you think in words even though you don’t even say them. Of course sometimes you can also think in images rather than words.

The language people think in differs per person of course, but in my case I think in two languages; Dutch and English. It really depends on the situation I’m in. For example when I’m at home or with my friends I think in Dutch because my family and friends are Dutch. Right now, while writing this text I am thinking in English, because I have to write this in English. I think that if I would learn to speak another language and I’m in a situation where I have to use that language I also start thinking it.

People always say “You should think before you speak” which would imply that speaking goes faster than thinking, but I think this is not the case. It’s not that you didn’t think about what you were going to say, you said it without thinking it through, which is different. I think that everything you say has crossed your mind and thoughts before actually saying it, but because it is such a normal thing to do, it happens unconsciously. Your brain takes care of so much on a daily basis, but you don’t consciously register everything. So even though it sometimes might seem that speaking goes faster than thinking, I think it is actually the other way around.

Dreams

It is commonly known that your dreams are actually thoughts of your subconsciousness. But what language do you dream them in?

I think this depends per person, it would seem most logical to dream in your native language, but this isn’t true. Instead, you actually dream in the language you use the most in daily life, if you happen to have two dominant languages you could even dream in both of those languages.

This is also the case for blind and even deaf people. Blind people, of course, don’t have any trouble with their hearing, so they can hear the languages fine. So when blind people dream, they dream in their most dominant language.

Then there are deaf people and you might think: “How can they dream in their most dominant language, when they can’t hear and don’t speak a language?”. Well, they might not be able to speak a language, but they definitely know a language: sign language. Because they only use sign language they think and dream using sign language.

Besides dreaming in language people also see images when they dream. People that were born blind, of course, can’t do this because they have never seen anything. Instead of images or sight, they use other senses such as touch and smell. The longer people have lived with sight, the more they can see in their dreams.

Resources

Grosjean, F. (16-03-2011). Thinking and dreaming in two (or more) languages. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/life-bilingual/201103/thinking-and-dreaming-in-two-or-more-languages

Hiskey, D. (20-07-2010). How deaf people think. Retrieved from: http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/07/how-deaf-people-think/

#assignments week 2 #origin of language #thought language #dreams

Assignments week 3

Dream language

In my answer to the ‘Dreams’ assignment I concluded that people use language and images in their dreams. What language they use depends on which language is their most dominant one at that time.

The abstract of Blechner’s ‘The dream frontier’ gives a totally different view on what language people use during their dreams. Blechner says that dreaming allows thinking that extends beyond the bounds of language, meaning that they are extralinguistic. This is because the language in dreams doesn’t focus on communicating.

I find it difficult to compare both of these views, because they don’t really discuss the same thing. This is because Blechner doesn’t actually say what language people dream in, but that it is a language system that is bigger than what we learn in school.

So we both answered the question in a different way, but I think there is something to say for both of the answer. I do believe people dream in the language that is their dominant one, but I understand why people think it is a bigger language system than what we normally use. Dreams have unlimited possibilities, so why wouldn’t the language in dreams also be unlimited?

What is language awareness?

You can be aware of language in multiple ways. Some of these ways are the subsidiary sense and de focal sense. The subsidiary sense means that you don’t consciously pay attention to it, you do everything automatically. When you start to pay attention to language, for example a mistake that you made, you use the focal sense.

As a language teacher it is important that I use my focal sense when teaching the language, so I will be able to recognise mistakes students make, explain to them why it is incorrect and so I will be able to teach them new things, such as some grammar rules. Besides this it is also important to consciously be aware of language to make your students aware of it as well.

They might not realise it, but language awareness becomes more and more important as the world becomes more globalised. They will get in touch with a lot of people from different social contexts, and it is important that they realise that language use changes when the context changes as well.

As a teacher your role isn’t only to teach them your subject, it is also important that you teach them about life and the things they might come across, and how to handle or behave in certain situations and what language they have to use.

#assignments week 3 #dream language #what is language awareness?

Assignments week 4

Language in theory

The classical method or grammatical translation method

This method was used in the 17th, 18th and 19th century as way of language teaching. This method focused on learning the grammar rules and memorising vocabulary and the translation of texts. This method did not teach the students how to speak the language. Nowadays this method is still used, but only for some parts of learning foreign languages, for example learning nouns or adjectives.

The direct method

The view of the direct method was that a second language should be learned in the same way as the first language, meaning a lot of speaking. The lessons were instructed in the target language and most vocabulary was taught through objects or ideas. As for grammar, that was only taught if it was absolutely necessary.

Audiolingual method

Unlike the classical method, this method focuses on speaking the language(speaking is not the same as communication!). Hardly any grammar rules were taught, the student had to memorise set phrases and vocabulary in context.

This method was strongly influenced by behaviourism: students get a reward every time they did something right.

Communicative language teaching method

This method focuses on teaching the students how to communicate with the target language. Instead of memorising sentences, the students have to use the language in unrehearsed situations. Making yourself understandable is seen as more important in this method than the correctness of grammar of pronunciation.

Immersion method

Immersion means that the student is surrounded by the language they try to learn. This method uses a lot of input in the beginning, meaning that the students start with a lot of reading and listening activities. Later on, they students start with creating output, meaning speaking and writing. The idea behind this is that you need to be familiar with a lot of the language, before you can use it. This is also how we learn our first language as a baby.

Resources

Mora, J.K. (2014). Second and foreign language teaching methods. Retrieved from: http://moramodules.com/ALMMethods.htm#The%20Direct%20Approach

Thanasoulas, D. (2002). History of English language teaching. Retrieved from: https://www.englishclub.com/tefl-articles/history-english-language-teaching.htm

Quirke, P. (n.d.). A short history of EFL. Retrieved from: http://www.philseflsupport.com/efl_history.htm

Personal experience

I’ve been learning English as a second language since the last year of primary school, but while I can’t really remember what method we used then, I do remember what method we used in the first three years of middle school.

We used the book called ‘Stepping Stones’. This book contained small texts that we had to read and after that we had to make some assignments that had to do with the text. Every now and then there was a listening assignment we had to do, but for most of the tests we got we had to learn the vocabulary and some set phrases. The set phrases were always in the middle of the chapter, whereas the vocabulary was at the back of the chapter in context sentences. This wasn’t only the case for English, but also for French and German.

I would say that the books for these three languages used the Audiolingual method, there just wasn’t any positive reinforcement every time we did something right. There was little grammar in these books and most of the grammar we had to learn separately from the book.

After the third year in middle school the method of learning English changed. We didn’t use any books anymore, instead we read a lot of texts, watched movies and did listening exercises. The near the end of the year we had to do presentations about a set topic to show our speaking skills and we had listening, reading and writing tests throughout the year.

Looking back at the amount of input we had, I would say we used either the direct method or immersion, I find these two methods quite alike. Again we didn’t really focus on grammar, I think it was expected to come naturally after the amount of input we got.

I didn’t continue French after the third year, but I did still have German. The method of learning German completely changed. There was still a bit of listening and reading, but we spent most of our time working in our workbook. Our workbook was consisted of huge lists of vocabulary without context, grammar rules and exercises to use the new vocabulary and grammar rules. For every test we got on in, we had to learn about 300 words plus set phrases plus the grammar rules. This method comes incredibly close to the grammatical translation method and I remember that I did not like this way of learning.

#assignments week 4 #language in theory #personal experience

Assignment week 5

Teaching language

After exploring a few language-learning theories there are a few that I would like to use when teaching my own lessons. The ones that I would like to use are the immersion method, the communicative method and the direct method. Those three method each cover something which I think is important when learning a foreign language.

In my classes I would start using the immersion method, meaning that I would give the students a lot of input (reading and listening). I would do this so the students can get comfortable with the language before using it themselves. Also by giving the students a lot of input they will start to notice grammar patterns and collocations. People always say you learn a language quicker when they live in the country that uses that language, that is because they are immersed by the language. This is something that this method tries to recreate.

When the students have become comfortable with the language I would try to teach using a combination of the direct method and the communicative method. Both of these methods focus on speaking and communication, rather than grammar rules. Most of the vocabulary will be taught through speaking and objects or ideas, I will try to do this, because I believe that by using this method the vocabulary will be remembered more easily. Also instead of memorising set phrases they will learn to speak in unrehearsed situations, so the students can actually communicate using the foreign language outside of school as well. Grammar will be taught, but only when necessary, because I believe that making yourself understandable is more important than the correctness of the grammar structures.

I know that I probably won’t get to try using these teaching methods, because most methods used at schools contain a lot of grammar and set phrases, but if I ever get the chance I would definitely like to try it.

#assignment week 5 #teaching language

Assignment week 6 and 7

Research

Introduction

Each day we spend a big part of our time reading, listening and speaking, we do this at school, at word, at home and even in the supermarket. What we don’t realise is that while we are doing this we actually using multiple languages. Most of the words that we borrowed from other languages will not even be recognised as non-native anymore. For example, over eighty percent of the English language was borrowed or derived from Latin. In this research I will focus on the phenomenon of borrowing words, also known as loanwords, between the Dutch and English language. What are the reasons that those languages borrowed words from each other?

General reasons for word borrowing

One of the general reasons for the English language borrowing Dutch words is that the Dutch language was easily converted into English etymological correspondents. Which means that the sounds of the vowel and consonant of English and Dutch are alike, so they were easy to adapt.

There are several languages that are supposedly easier for native English speakers to learn because of their similarities, the closest language to English is Frisian. That could be a reason as to why the English speakers borrowed a lot of Dutch words.

Another reason why people borrow words from other languages is because they speak, or at least have enough knowledge of a second language. Those people might up in certain situations in which they decide to use a word from the second language to express themselves properly. If this happens conventionalization can occur.

Conventionalization is a gradual process in which a word is used by a progressively growing part of the speech community. As it is becoming familiar to more and more people, they no longer recognise it as a loanword and start applying their own linguistic systems to it. That’s why after a while it starts resembling a native word and it is not recognisable as a loanword anymore.

Also words are mostly borrowed from a language that is looked up to. This was the case for Dutch around in the 17th century. The Netherlands became very important due to the trade, during this period a lot of sailing terms and terms for food and clothing were taking from Dutch.

Words are also borrowed from another language when new concepts are introduced to the world, together with the concepts, people also borrow the words that are used for those concepts. For example, the words computer, email and internet.

Besides this words are also taken from other languages so distinctions can be made that previously couldn’t be made. For example, in the Netherland we used to talk about a house, but we didn’t have any words to distinct between the different types of houses. That’s why we started borrowing words like apartment and flat.

And one of the most logical reasons as to why languages borrow words is because it is a logical consequence of language contact.

Dutch in Britain

There are a few different reasons as to how Dutch ended up in Britain, one of the reasons dates all the way back to 1066. In that year the French king and his army invaded England, one-third of that army was Flemish. After the Conquest the Flemish decided to stay in England.

Later on in the 12th century more Flemings travelled to England. Flanders, the region they lived in, had been devastated by floods and having no other place to go they went to England. At first they were welcomed by their hosts, but it didn’t last long until the Flemish began to irritate them. King Henry the first found a solution by moving them all to a settlement called Pembrokeshire, it was here that the Flemish created their own variety of the English language, called Flemish-English. There were so many Flemings living in that small region that the Welsh language disappeared. Eventually the Flemish also started to speak English, but with its’ own dialect and accent.

In the 15th century another large group of Flemish people took refuge in the UK, this time to Scotland. They were called Brabanters and it was said that they fled to Scotland to avoid the religious struggles that would start in the 16th century.

Besides the Dutch fleeing to the UK, the British also fled to the Netherlands. During the period of heavy religious policies and the Civil War in the UK a lot of British people fled to the Netherlands. Then later on, when they went back they took Dutch words with them.

There were also other people besides the Dutch and the British who took Dutch words with them. There were also the gypsies. There were gypsies that travelled from east to west, first coming through the Netherlands and then moving on to the UK. During their stay in the Netherlands they picked up some words and used them in the UK later on.

Besides all these reasons, there is of course the most obvious one; the Golden age in the 17th century. Back then the Netherlands was one of the most important countries when it came to trade. During this period a lot of Dutch sailing terms and terms for food and clothing were borrowed by the British, such as keelhauling and farewell.

Dutch in the USA

As opposed to how many reasons there are why Dutch words arrived in Britain there aren’t that many reasons why they also appeared in the USA. Actually there is only one reason.

Back in 1609 the first Dutch, Frisian and Flemish colonists arrived in the USA. On the east coast they created a colony called Nieuw Nederland, literally translated to the New Netherlands. In 1664, not even sixty years later, the colony was taken over by the British, despite this the Dutch language lasted for a very long time, namely until the beginning of the 20th century.

Most of the words that were borrowed from the Dutch language were connected to the everyday-life. For example, words like: coleslaw, rucksack and dollar.

Besides these words there were also a lot of names for streets and islands taken from Dutch, especially in New York. Examples of this are Broadway from Brede Weg, Harlem from Haarlem, Wall Street from Waalstraat and Rhode Island from Roodeiland

Dutch in Oceania

In the 17th century Abel Tasman travelled to Oceania, the trips he made were organised by Antoine van Diemen. There are also some traces of the Dutch left there. For example, Tasmania. Tasmania is an Island close to Austrlia named after Abel Tasman. Before the island was called Tasmania it was called Van Diemen’s land.

And of course New Zealand. Abel Tasman first named it Staten Landt, but in 1648 Dutch cartographers renamed it New Zealand after the province of Zeeland.

English in the Netherlands

Besides Dutch words in the English language, the Dutch also borrowed a lot of words from English. For example, after the second World War Dutch borrowed a huge amount of words from the English language. After the second world war a lot of products and customs arrived from America and England, mainly because they helped to rebuild the Netherlands. Instead of creating their own words to describe everything they stuck to the English terms.

Nicoline van de Sijs, who is an etymologist, wrote a loanword dictionary and said the following thing about this time period: "After World War II, the American way of life with its music, film, literature became an example to the rest of the world. English became the official language of many international organizations and of the scientific and industrial world, English is a compulsory school subject, and English is used in new technologies such as computer technology in many countries. in short, English is a world language with high status.’’

Nowadays the influence of English is the strongest when it comes to terms of technology and the fashion industry, such as e-mail, internet, spam and little black dress.

Besides being used for new concepts, it seems that people also started using the language because it is seen as a cool language with a high status, especially the younger people do this. This is also because they come across a lot of English terms on social media. But besides social media, Dutch media also plays a role in this. For example, a lot of TV shows nowadays use English names such as The Voice of Holland and So You Think You Can Dance.

And of course there is a big influence from the music and movie industry as well. Most popular songs in the Netherlands are sung in English and most of the movies on TV and in the cinema are movies in English and rather than doing a voice-over the Dutch use subtitles.

English has also had a lot of influence on education in the Netherlands. A lot of courses of the higher education in the Netherlands is taught in English, especially the Master degrees and English is also taught on primary and secondary school.

There are also some people who are not very happy with all this influence that English has though, some people are afraid that because of it the Dutch language will disappear.

Resources

Anglo-Saxons (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxons

Carpenter, H. (07-1908). Dutch contributions to the vocabulary of English in America: Dutch remainders in New York State (vol. 6). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Retrieved from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/432522?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

De invloed van het Engels (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://onzetaal.nl/dossiers/dossiers/de-invloed-van-het-engels/

De Vries, T. (1916). Holland’s influence on English language and literature. Retrieved from: http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/vrie035holl01_01/vrie035holl01_01_0013.php

Going Dutch: English words of Dutch origin (02-10-2013). Retrieved from: http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/10/going-dutch/

Jansen, T. (17-05-2013). 14 words you probably didn’t know have Dutch origins. Retrieved from: http://blogs.transparent.com/dutch/english-words-with-dutch-origins/

Jersey Dutch (n.d.). Retrieved from: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jersey_Dutch

Kemmer, S. (2003). Major periods of borrowing. Retrieved from: http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words04/structure/borrowed.html

Llewellyn, E.C. (1836). The influence of low Dutch on the English vocabulary. London: Oxford University Press. Retrieved from: http://dbnl.nl/tekst/llew001infl01_01/llew001infl01_01.pdf

Lundberg, T. (17-01-2016). Dutch words in the English language you’d never expect. Retrieved from: http://www.iamexpat.nl/read-and-discuss/expat-page/articles/dutch-words-english-language-you-would-never-expect

Nortier, J. (2011). Loanwords and borrowing: A kind of code-switching? Retrieved from: http://www.multilingualliving.com/2011/06/23/loan-words-and-borrowing-a-kind-of-code-switching/

Ten Dutch words that made it into English (2013). Retrieved from: http://netherlandsbynumbers.com/2013/04/03/ten-dutch-words-that-made-it-into-english/

The Flemish people in Scotland: A family and local history project (n.d.). Retrieved from: http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/Content/Help/index.aspx?r=546&2175

Wormgoor, S. (06-10-2015). De invloed van het Engels op ons Nederlands. Retrieved from: http://www.taaltutor.nl/nederlands/de-invloed-van-het-engels-op-ons-nederlands/

#assignment week 6 #assignment week 7 #research

Language Myths

Chapter 1 The meanings of words should not be allowed to vary of change

Some people have the opinion that the meaning of words in a language shouldn’t change and should stick to their original meaning. For example, nice used to mean foolish or shy, but gradually it has changed to the meaning pleasant. Those people want to turn that back, so every word has its original meaning again.

But changing the meaning of a word can’t be decided by individuals, if a meaning of a word has changed it is because everyone started using the word in the ‘wrong’ way. For example, the word uninterested and disinterested. Disinterested means neutral whereas uninterested means feeling no curiosity. Even though these meanings differ, the word disinterested is often being used in the same way as uninterested.

I believe that changes like these in language cannot be stopped, because words mean what the speaker of the language in general want them to mean.

Chapter 2 Some languages are just not good enough

Minority languages such as Maori and Romansch are often seen as not good enough to become an official language of a country or the lingua franca. Reasons that are often used to say why a language isn’t good enough are because the language is ugly, there is no grammar, it isn’t logical or it doesn’t have the words to discuss certain topics.

Especially the last one is often used, why speak a language that needs to borrow words from another language to be able to communicate? The thing is most minority languages have not had the opportunity or time to develop or come up with such words, because it wasn’t spoken a lot. As time passes these languages will create their own words and will no longer have to borrow words. According to my research even English, which is now the lingua franca, used to borrow and still borrows words from other languages. There is no such thing as a language that isn’t good enough.

Chapter 3 The media are ruining English

In every period of the past there have been people who proclaimed that English was approaching its collapse and in every period there have been people who said or wrote things that are grammatically incorrect, all people do this, yet the media is blamed for it. There are two misunderstandings about media writing: the dirty fingernails fallacy, meaning journalists are sloppy language users, and the garbage heap fallacy, a belief that journalism is junk writing. These are untrue, journalists use words that are frequently used in other places.

Language changes and there are a few different views as to how it happens:

1. Like a budding and blooming of flowers process, something that is hard to see no matter how long you stare.

2. Tadpole-to-frog, a words meaning was assumed to turn into another over time.

3. Young cuckoo, a new word appears in a community and competes with the existing one.

I believe that language change is a natural thing and that people can’t do anything against, they should just let things go.

Chapter 5 English spelling is kattastroffik

Knowing how to pronounce a word doesn’t guarantee that you can also spell the word correctly, because the spelling of a word can be different from the way it is pronounced.

English knows five consonants <a, i, o, u, e>, those are the letters in the alphabet, however English knows twenty-three vowels sounds. For example, in the words ‘fall’ and ‘fake’, both are spelled with and <a> but they don’t sound the same. Besides the vowels the consonants can also sound different, for example to two <g>’s in the word garage. To make the spelling of English even more difficult there are also silent letters, for example the <b> in debt and the <k> in know, this is because the words were taken from Latin or other languages.

Besides this there are a lot of different English accents around the world and depending on which accent you have you pronounce words differently. Therefore, knowing the spelling doesn’t guarantee that you know how to spell a word.

Words that are spelled in the same way but are pronounced differently are called homographs.

Words that are spelled differently but pronounced the same way are homophones.

Words that are spelled the same and pronounced the same way, but have a different meaning are called homonyms.

In my opinion the English spelling isn’t too difficult, because there are some patterns that you can follow and at one point you don’t even have to think about the spelling of certain words anymore.

Chapter 8 Children can’t speak or write properly anymore

For ages there are people that say that the English language is declining and they believe that one of the factors causing this are the young people or children. They believe that children don’t know how to speak and write properly. But this is a false statement. Youngsters are just as good at speaking as previous generations and might even be better at writing. It is not the writing and speaking that has become worse, instead the standards have become higher.

Also nowadays it is not about how well a child speaks English, it is about how well the child speaks ‘standard’ English, a variety of the language which is seen as the correct form. However, it is not well defined as a speaking variety, as it is mostly used for writing. Because of this people apply those writing rules to speech, but the rules of speech and writing are very different.

I think people should stop comparing different dialects to each other, as there is no such thing as only one correct form of a language. Language is about making yourself understandable, not about the correctness.

Chapter 10 Some languages have no grammar

To linguists the grammar of a language consists of the rules which the speakers follow when they speak, for example possible verbs or words or how to make plurals. Every known human language distinguishes between at least nouns and verbs, that’s a rule and therefore every language has grammar.

I also think every language has grammar, it’s just that one language has more rules than another one.

Chapter 11 Italian is beautiful, German is ugly

Everyone has an opinion on languages, for example that French is beautiful and that German is ugly. People do not only think like this about languages but also about certain dialects within a language. One of the reasons people have these views is called ‘inherent value hypothesis’, which means that we find languages that have more prestige more beautiful than languages that don’t. Another reason for judging languages is because of its historical background, for example German is associated with Hitler and that’s why it is viewed as harsh and ugly. Associating languages with people or situations is called ‘social connotations hypothesis’.

I understand why the backgrounds of language influence the views people have of that language, but they should try to look beyond that. Because every language has something that makes it beautiful.

Chapter 13 Black children are verbally deprived

Some people think that black children are verbally deprived when it comes to speaking English, one of the reasons that is often mentioned is that it’s in their genetics, because their lips are too big. This is, of course, nonsense, because there are white people with big lips and black people with small lips and their lips don’t affect their way of speaking. Another reason was that the caretakers of the black children did not interact with them enough so the children couldn’t acquire the language properly, but this is also untrue.

This myth is also supported by some other myths, one of them is called the grammaticality myth, meaning which means that every structure that is not the same as the standard English structure is seen as wrong. Another myth that supports this is the logicality myth, meaning that the sentences they create would contain flawed logic when compared to standard English, for example the use of double negatives. However, not everything that isn’t standard English is wrong.

I personally don’t think the children are verbally deprived, what I do think is that they copy the language they hear around them, because that is how you learn a language. Since most black people live in an area where non-standard English is being spoken, the children will start to speak this as well.

Chapter 14 Double negatives are illogical

Double negatives are not as illogical as most people think they are. People always look at double negatives and say that it’s wrong, because they are applying the rules of mathematics, but mathematics and language are two completely different things and therefore you can’t apply their rules on each other.

Besides everyone uses double negatives sometimes, for example when you say someone is not unfriendly. You don’t think that person is nice but you want to be negative either, so you find something in between to be polite. Most people don’t even realize they are using double negatives and because of that most people use double negatives. So double negatives actually aren’t illogical at all, in fact come people even find the, charming.

Personally I don’t mind double negatives at all, even if people see it as incorrect. I’m sure most people make grammatical mistakes while speaking, probably even daily, but because no one notices we don’t label it as incorrect.

Chapter 15 TV makes people sound the same

A lot of people nowadays say that language changes because what people see and hear on television, but this is not true. For a change in language actual people need to be communicating with each other. Only then will the new language make such an impression that it will stick around in the language people use. For example, there was this boy called Vincent, both of his parents were deaf and didn’t speak. They encouraged him to watch TV to learn the language, but Vincent didn’t start speaking. Once he came in touch with other people that spoke to him, he started speaking.

I’m not quite sure I agree on this one, because to be honest I learned most of the English I use and know because I used to watch tons of English TV shows with subtitles when I was young. So maybe learning through TV doesn’t work for everyone, but I’m sure that for some people it does.

Chapter 18 Some languages are spoken more quickly than others

Some languages seem to spoken faster than other, to test if this is really the case people were timed while speaking their languages. Terms used during such an experiment are speaking rate an articulation rate.

After a lot of measuring and trying different ways of measuring they found that the difference in speed that a language is talked in is so small that you can’t really call it a speed difference.

Why a language might seem to be spoken fast or slow also depends on whether it is a syllable-timed or stress-timed language. In syllable-timed languages an equal amount of time is given to all syllables, making it seem slow. Whereas in stress-timed languages the stressed syllable is given more time and the other syllables are given less time, making it seem fast.

Also people with a different style of speech can make a language seem as fast or slow.

Besides this I personally think there is another reason why a language might seem fast. To me, for example, Dutch doesn’t seem that fast because I can fully understand it, but to someone who is learning the language it might be difficult to follow. So I think that the speed that a language has according to you as a person also depends on your understanding of the language.

#language myths

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