#s1089404

[ling3-s1089404]

Language myths

The meanings of words should not be allowed to change.

People have the opinion that the meaning of words should never change and that words should always stick to the original meaning. Words such as cool, nice or foolish started out as other words but have changed their meanings to more positive influenced meanings. These people want the words to change back to their original meaning. However, the change of a word meaning can’t be decided by an individual, because when the word has changed it has been most likely been picked up by a group of people who use it for the new meaning. The meanings may differ but the word can still be used in the same context.

My opinion on this is that the change in language can not be stopped and should not be stopped because that would ultimately stop the language from evolving.

Some words are just not good enough

Some language who are in minority such as Romansch or Maori, are sometimes seen as not official or good enough to be accepted as an official and real language. The reasons that are often stated for this is that a language is considered ugly, has no grammar, has no logic or doesn’t have specific words for a specific situation. The last statement is one of the most used in this linguistic struggle, since it says that it doesn’t need to be an official language if it has to borrow words from others languages. But don’t we all use words from eachother? These languages didn’t get the chance to adapt to certain new happenings in the world where other languages did get the chance to evolve.

According to my own language even English and Dutch borrow words and have evolved from these words, so why wouldn’t a minority language get the same chance?

The media are ruining English

Ever since the beginning of the langauge people have complained that the language English was collapsing, and even when these people used incorrect speech or gramaar, the media was still blamed for “ruining” the English language. The two main misunderstood reasons of media writing are: that journalists are very messy language users, and the fact that some people don’t believe that journalism is qualified writing. Which is based on non-facts since journalists frequently use words that are being used in other contexts.

There are different views on how the languages are changing:

When it’s hard to see and it doesn’t matter how long you try to see it.

Word meanings changed into other meaning over a period of time.

There’s suddenly a new word and it tries to recplace the older word for the meaning.

Language change and evolving is natural and healthy, people shouldn’t even try to stop it because it would kill the language instead.

English spelling is kattastroffik

Just because you know how to say a word doesn’t give you the ability to spell the word right too. Spelling of a word can often be different that the sound of a word.

English has five consonants <a, e, i, o, u> but has way more vowel sounds.  For example: "Frog" and "phone". Both use an "o" but are pronounced differently. There are also words that have silent letter such as the "g" in "align" and "k" in "knee. On top of this there are also words with double letters, which both sound different such as garage.

The accents that can be found in the English langage make this even harder, because there are so many to be found all over the world. This causes the problem that you might know how to say something but have no clue how to write it because you may have picked it up from a dialect or accent.

Homographs are words that are pronounced different but written in the same way.

Homophones are words that are pronounced the same but written differently.

Homonyms are written and pronounced the same but mean something completely different.

English spelling isn’t extremely difficult because there are certain rules that you can follow and that helps you to learn new words.

Children can’t speak or write properly anymore.

“Many young people of the newer generations have become so used to abbreviating and using slang on social media, they are not taught how to speak and write properly. Many children lack an extended vocabulary. But this is also due to that times change and with that, so does the way people construct sentences” As stated by my friend Brianna Winters

It’s no longer about how well someone knows the English language, it’s about how well someone knows the pre-set part of the language. Children who know different words will get lesser points on tests because they used candy instead of sweets. This caused a huge demotivation under the youth and caused them to fall back to slang. This happened so much over the decades that slang turned into standard English which made this “made up” language good enough to teach children.

I feel like people need to stop comparing the language to how it’s being used by people. Some people have different learning strategies but understand the language just as good as someone else. Language should be about being able to understand eachother instead of being right.

Some languages have no grammar

To experts the language grammar has consisted of rules which the people who are speaking should always follow. Every language known to mankind has differences between verbs and nouns, that’s a set rule and that gives every language a grammatical rule.

I believe that every language has grammar, but some may have a lot more grammatical rules.

Italian is beautiful, German is ugly.

Everyone states different opinions on what they define as beauty regarding languages, some say that Italian is beautiful, other find French gorgeous to listen to. This is usually not based on the language as a whole but the stereotype that connects the language to an image, or a dialect that the person stating the opinion may have picked up somewhere.

One of the biggest reasons is that people judge languages on their background, historically speaking. Some people may still link German to Hitler, and say that it is ugly and mean because they view Nazi’s when they think about Germans.

I do understand that the historical history of a language influences the view of the language as its being seen by people, I however do not agree that they should leave it at that because every language has something that is pretty sounding or beautiful.

Black children are verbally deprived

Somehow people have got the idea that black children are suddenly verbally deprived compared to white children. One of the biggest reasons, which is complete and utter nonsense, is that their lips are too big and that their genetics are holding them back to fully use the language. This is not true, since we also have white people or latino people who have big lips and those people aren’t seen as verbally deprived. Genetics and big lips do not hold you back in your language usage. Another reason, that also wasn’t legit, is that the caregivers of black children don’t interact with the children enough which caused the problem that the children didn’t learn to fully understand the language.

This myth had support from other myths such as the grammatical muth and the logicality myth. However, not everything that does not qualify as normal English is immediately wrong.

I believe that black children are not deprived in the verbal manner. People copy the language that they are being used to, and what they hear around them. This may cause the fact that black people use other slang and words but that doesn’t make them verbally deprived, I mean everyone picked up specific expressions from their friends and family and we don’t see them as verbally deprived either.

Double negatives are illogical

These may not be as illogical as people believe that they are. When people see these double negatives they are quick to say that it isn’t right,  because they are linking it to math rules in which a double negative can’t be something that is being used. However math is something completely different compared to the English language.

Every person has used double negatives and will use double negatives. It’s usually used when they want to be polite about something like, she is not unfriendly, This states that you may not like the person but you don’t feel the need to be impolite or negative either. As you can see, these double negatives aren’t even that illogical as everyone uses the.

I don’t mind the double negatives, even if some people may believe that they are wrong, and should not be used in the English language.

TV makes people sound the same.

A lot of people pick up accents from tv shows, I started my American accent from the tv show Castle because I thought that the female lead in the show sounded just amazing, because these tv shows or tv movies leave impressions on people. I don’t believe that people stick with those accents, from personal experience I can say that I didn’t,  people change their accent because languages evolve and so do accents. You find the accent that is the best for you personally and fits your voice and language usage the best.

I partly agree with this myth because I have experienced what impact tv shows can leave on your accent, but people don’t sound the same. First of all, because there are thousands of shows out there which all use different accents, and secondly because people find the accent that they feel most comfortable with and evolve that in their own way.

Some languages are spoken more quickly than others

To be honest, I think the whole "some languages are spoke faster than others" is not true other than a few minor seconds but if you're not familiar with a certain language, people who speak the language natively, may sound like they're speaking fast. But in reality, the foreign ear is not used to hearing the language so it just sounds fast For instance, how I learned French but when I speak it, I have to speak relatively slowly. When I hear native French people speak, in order for me to understand them, I ask them to slow down. Only then when they speak at an abnormal rate (to themselves) is when I can understand them.

However, I’ve been speaking English for a really long time and with the help of media, tv shows and movies, talking to American friends, gradually I learned to speak English at a normal read and I can understand English speakers when they speak at a rate because my hearing has been accustomed to it.

I can fully understand that language may seem quick or fast at times because you are not accustomed to it. Language that you have heared before and have been in touch with, are easier to pick up because you can link this knowledge with situations that you already know.

[ling3-s1089404]

Assignments week 6 and 7

Research

Introduction

We use so much shortened or slightly altered words known as “Slang” but we never stand still with how slang originated and how it’s affecting us as students. How did slang start and which words did we borrow from other languages? What is the reason that some words become slang and others “die” as words?

What is slang?

“Slang consists of a lexicon of non-standard words and phrases in a given language. Use of these words and phrases is typically associated with the subversion of a standard variety, and is likely to be interpreted by listeners as implying particular attitudes on the part of the speaker”.

Slang is known to fit into these categories:

1. It lowers the dignity of formal or serious speech or writing.

2. It use implies that the user is familiar with what is referred to.

3. The term is taboo in ordinary discourse. 4. It replaces a well-known synonym

Many forms of language are considered in the substandards but slang is distinct from jargon and colloquial, because slang consists of specific social context. This causes it to be considered inapproprate for formal writing. However, colloguial terms are acceptable in speech in most contexts. Jargon refers to language that is being used to a certain group of people in a certain situation or specific work field. It is used to represent specific terms connected to that situation. So even when these two, jargon and colloquial, seem like slang they do not fit the exact definition.

It’s not easy to find the slang between jargon and colloquials, because slang has been more accepted over time. Some slang words have even made it into high register words, such as “strenuous” and “spurious”.

According to literature slang discusses the mainstream idea of slang terms and its changing status. Since it has been accepted by the media it is no longer seen as a special insider speech of a certain group. However, this still doesn’t make slang acceptable in formal writing.

How does slang become part of our languages?

Slang is one of the most difficult things to grasp as an English learner, because every language has slang but not all can be translated and some even have no origin. Slang expressions are often created the same way as the standard words. But to survive a word or expression needs to be adopted and used by a group who then spreads it towards others. Slang is a form of change and renewal in languages, an example for this is that the slang used by the youth today, is completely something else compared to the slang that was used by the grandparents of said youth.

But exactly how is slang being created?

The simplest way of the creation of slang would be using the combination of compounding, prefixing and suffixing.

Compounds consist of morphemes that are free, these morphemes are small yet meaningful units of the English language. There are two kinds of compounds in the English literature: endocentric and exocentric. Endocentric have headers, which is the part of the word which stresses. Exocentric doesn’t contain a header and have no stressed words.

Prefixing is attaching the head of a word to a bound morpheme. The prefix serves as the grammatical signnal for tenses, negations, persons, numbers and aspects. An examle of a prefixed slang word is monobrow, which bounds the morpheme mono to the bound morpheme brow.

Suffixing is attaching the bound morpheme to the end of an already existing word. The suffix in a word is very benificial to be determined in find the speech part for the word. An example for slang created by suffixing is the word duddette.

Shortening can also help creating new slang words. Short forms of specific words can be useful in some writing, as in newspapers and headlines. If these words are understood and accepted than they can even be accepted into the official language.

What words did the English language borrow and created into their own words?

These words that are borrowed are also named as Loanwords. Over 80% of the words in English language are being borrowed from the Latin language. These Latin words were originally borrowed from Greek. I think that this is a beautiful concept that languages help each other evolve and find ways to communicate through certain words.

Some examples of words borrowed and changed from Latin:

ancor    'anchor'

butere  'butter' (L < Gr. butyros)

cealc      'chalk'

ceas       'cheese' (caseum)

cetel      'kettle'

cycene  'kitchen'

cirice      'church' (ecclesia < Gr. ecclesia)

disc        'dish' (discus)

mil          'mile' (milia [passuum] 'a thousand paces')

piper     'pepper'

pund     'pound' (pondo 'a weight')

sacc       'sack' (saccus)

sicol       'sickle'

straet    'street' ([via] strata 'straight way' or stone-paved road)

weall     'wall' (vallum)

win        'wine' (vinum < Gr. oinos)

The conquerers of English speaking countries also left their marks in the language. In the English language there can be words found that are Dutch, French or Spanish based. Some examples are the following:

Shipping, naval terms—avast, boom, bow, bowsprit, buoy, commodore, cruise, dock, freight, keel, keelhaul, leak, pump, reef, scoop, scour, skipper, sloop, smuggle, splice, tackle, yawl, yacht

Cloth industry—bale, cambric, duck (fabric), fuller's earth, mart, nap (of cloth), selvage, spool, stripe

War—beleaguer, holster, freebooter, furlough, onslaught

Food and drink—booze, brandy(wine), coleslaw, cookie, cranberry, crullers, gin, hops, stockfish, waffle

High culture—ballet, bouillabaise, cabernet, cachet, chaise longue, champagne, chic, cognac, corsage, faux pas, nom de plume, quiche, rouge, roulet, sachet, salon, saloon, sang froid, savoir faire

War and Military—bastion, brigade, battalion, cavalry, grenade, infantry, pallisade, rebuff, bayonet

Other—bigot, chassis, clique, denim, garage, grotesque, jean(s), niche, shock

French Canadian—chowder

Louisiana French (Cajun)—jambalaya

How do words die?

The experts go as far to blame Social Media for the dying of words. Social Media users have to shorten their words to fit in the 140 character frame, and as stated in the previous paragraphs, shortening leads to creating slang. This also causes to the orignal longer words to die. These words are become less and less used and suddenly only the shortened version of the word is left.

“Researchers found that one in 15 of the people questioned had never used the word drat and half didn’t know what a cad was. Despite this 83 per cent thought they had a good vocabulary.

One quarter now used “text speak”, such as “lol” and “soz” in verbal conversation as well as in written communication on mobile phones, emails and social media sites.

Most admitted they often came across words they did not know, with teenagers and those in their twenties finding this happening more frequently than any other age group.

Seven out of ten said they used different words now from 10 years ago, and they embraced slang and regularly used it. Most said they enjoyed learning new words and liked the idea of the language changing.

But despite this more than a quarter of parents said they were often baffled by the language and slang their children used while a similar amount admitted being equally confused by words that their elderly parents used.” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/8850281/Drat-Spiffing-old-words-dying-out-soz.html

Resources:

http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~kemmer/Words04/structure/borrowed.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturenews/8850281/Drat-Spiffing-old-words-dying-out-soz.html

http://www.businessinsider.com/a-guide-to-twitter-slang-lingo-abbreviations-and-acronyms-2013-9?IR=T

http://www.english-slang.com/eng/american

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/07/friend-as-a-verb-is-800-years-old/278109/

[ling3-s1089404]

Assignments week 5

Teaching Language

The two methods that I would really want to use during mu own classes would be the immersion method and the communicative method. I feel like that these methods bring something important to learning a new language, in this case English. The immersion method could bring the full immersion, and so the deeper understanding, of a language to the students. While giving the students a lot of input, the students start getting comfortable with the language. This leads to moving on to the input given by the students, and to students noticing the patterns in texts and grammar. 

I would then move on to the communicative method, because I feel like communication is more important than the grammar. Speaking assignments will be given through speaking and connections with objects or situations. This will teach the students to learn and use the language instead of just rephrasing words that they have to learn and memorize. This also teaches the students to learn to react to a situation instead of know how to do a certain grammar rule, but have no clue how to ask for directions in English as an example. 

It’s too bad that I probably won’t get the chance to execute this idea, because a lot of school work with books and rules that consist of a lot of grammar.

[ling3-s1089404]

Assignments week 4

Language in Theory

Communicative language teaching 

The focus of the method is on the communication between the language and the students. The students use the language in unspecific situations instead pre-learned sentences. 

The grammatical translation method.

The focus of this method is on the grammar rules and how the vocabulary should be practiced and memorized. There is no focus at all on how the students should speak the language, and while this this method is still being used, there’s now much more focus on teaching the students how they have to speak and use the language. 

Audio lingual method 

This method focuses on how students use the language in a speaking, not communication, manner. Instead of the classical method in which grammar rules were the main focus, in this method there was hardly any grammar rules taught to the student. The biggest influence for this method is behaviorism, which gives students rewards for well executed work. 

The direct method

The direct method states that the second language has the same learning approach as to the native language. Grammar didn’t get as much focus, which lessons in the target language did get. Vocabulary was taught by giving students ideas and objects to connect the words too.

Immersion method

The immersion method is defined by the huge focus on how the student is surrounded by the language that they are trying to learn. The method starts of with lots of input such as reading and listening assignments. After that students will start writing and speaking. You need to know the language before you can use it. This is similar to how we learn our first native language.   

Personal Experience

I started learning my second language when I was 7 years old. My first introduction with the English language is actually a funny story. I love Disney movies, have loved them since I was little, but when I was young I only knew how to press play and pause on the video player. Which caused me to just press play a couple of times until the movie played. I watched nearly every Disney movie in English and picked up my first experience in English this way.

At my secondary school we didn’t use a lot of books, we just used them for the first two years, and I would say that the audio lingual method seems to present itself in how we were taught. We didn’t have a lot of grammar but a lot of texts instead. We spent a lot of time in class writing, reading and speaking. 

I also took French and German and kept those until I graduated but those had a really different approach than English. In French and German the focus was so much on grammar and vocabulary and rarely on speaking, which caused me to fail my oral exams. In the last year of high school we spent a lot of time reading texts for all three languages, since the final exam was a reading text.

One thing we all had to do in French, German and English is the listening and watching test. These were one of my stronger points because I work really well with this method. Where I failed my oral exams for German and French, I passed all the listening and watching tests. 

Resources:

http://www.philseflsupport.com/efl_history.htm 

http://moramodules.com/ALMMethods.htm#TheDirectApproach 

https://www.englishclub.com/tefl-articles/history-english-language-teaching.htm

[ling3-s1089404]

Assignments week 3

Dream language

As I stated in the “Dreams” assignment, I believe that people dream in a certain language or picture. The language that they dream in differs from person to person, and what their native language is. 

However,  “Abstract Psychology at the Edge? Exploring Mark Blechner’s The Dream Frontier”  provides a whole different view on the languages that people dream in. Blechner states that the language barriers are being broken during the dreams, meaning that people find a whole new language during this thinking. The biggest focus on this is that dreams don’t focus on communication between people.

I have trouble comparing these two views to another because they don’t really mention the same aspect. Blechner doesn’t talk about the language that people dream in, but about the language system itself instead. This caused us to both answer the question in a different manner, but there’s something to mention for both of the answers. I still believe that people dream in their native language or the language that they feel the strongest in. However, i do understand the point that Blechner makes, that there’s a language system that is bigger than the language that we normally use. 

Dreams make the impossible happen, so why wouldn’t it break the language barriers too? 

What is Language Awareness?

Awareness of languages can be seen in different ways, some in the way that is subconsciously instead of in the conscious part of the brain. This would mean that some things happen on the “Automatic Pilot”. When you are aware in a conscious manner, you start to pay attention to a language and focus on mistakes that could have been made in something. 

This is called the focal sense and as a language teacher it will be extremely important that i use this sense a lot. I will be able to recognize any mistakes that my students can make while learning this language, and correct them to teach them more about this language. This way I can make my students more aware about the assignments and language itself.

People are not realizing it but language awareness is getting way more important to today’s society than we know. This is making the world more globalized compared to when we are not paying any awareness to a language. Social and contact context make it’s easier to come in contact with new people and to learn about different people.

The role of a teacher is not only to just teach someone grammar or vocabulary, but also to teach your students about life and different cultures, that they may not know. This makes them more of a world citizen. 

Resources

Language awareness: What, when, and why?  http://elo.windesheim.nl/CMS/BE/VO/Engels/LING%20modules/LING3/what_is_language_awareness.pdf?tssp_sco=1 

Abstract Psychology at the Edge? Exploring Mark Blechner’s The Dream Frontier. http://elo.windesheim.nl/CMS/BE/VO/Engels/LING%20modules/LING3/Abstract%20the%20dream%20fontier.pdf?tssp_sco=1