If we look at historical development of English then we found vast differences in the structure of language between old English to modern English. Actually it is not easily possible to read the text of the old English by us that means in the modern English the form and structure is dramatically different than it was in the old English. Actually even the Shakespearean English which is just the English before four century is even great different than the English which we used today. Some of the words used by Shakespeare are quite peculiar for the modern readers; however some of them are familiar too. If we look at Middle English then we could see even the spelling and sometimes the meaning of the word itself is different too.
Anyway we could figure out that the use of language is vastly different regarding the time. Language is keeps on changing from year to year generation to generation and of course from period to period. If we take it positively then we could say that language is being easier and advance than before. Changes occur there in the language as the part of development.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Week 15!
Today we spent mostly our time by talking about our final project and poster presentation. we did some exercise from Finegan in group which interesting because at first we were having confusion due to not being familiar with the language but as usual due to talent group mates we figure out the answer of the exercise well.
week 14
As usual we were having wonderful class. In this class we were mostly talking about the final project. Our professor asked us to make sure by next week to have the both writing and spoken sample. Then she also asks us to be in group to have help as peers for our final project.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Speech Act and Conversation!
Language in use is really interesting matter. Language is no doubt an effective tool to do things, but most of the time, it is ambiguous that means only language cannot do anything unless and until you don't know the context. To get the semantics of language you must know the context.Because same pragmatics of the linguistic structure could give various semantics. For example a sentence, "I have to tie shoe" could have different meaning, such as if a friend asks with his friend about to go to movie and the friend who is working in the shoe factory might say this sentence to deny the offer of watching movie as he has a business to tie shoe in his factory. Same sentence can be the acceptance to the situation, such as give me a minute I would be ready in a minute after tying my shoes. So the same linguistic structure give different meaning as per the use in the different context.
week 13!
I found this week is as interesting as other week's class. It is a bit different as we get chance to discuss in small group as we usually get an opportunity to discuss in big group first. This week has new feature of playing game which stimulate people to give the answer of the question as the part of game. I found the game part which is the new for the class is really enthusiastic.
Pragmatics!
I found the word order really interesting in this chapter.As book says many languages use the sequential order of noun phrases to mark differences in information structure.In English once the structure of the word order has changed the semantics of the sentence has also changed and it is even exactly the same way with my language too. It is really amazing that in Russian however we scramble the word order still the semantics remains the same.
I wonder if these things is possible even in order language too or just it is possible in Russian!
I wonder if these things is possible even in order language too or just it is possible in Russian!
Week 12!
We are discussing about the pragmatics.Though i have knowledge about the pragmatics, before but after reading the chapter and attend this online class I found some thing new and interesting about the pragmatics. I found the information structure about intonation, Morphology and syntax are really important. When we discuss about the concept of pragmatics I found the ideas more clear.
Registers, Styles, and Dialects!
As book says multilingual countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, and India, different languages are spoken by different group of people. Similarly My country Nepal also has hundred of different tribal languages allocated to specific social situation. But still language choice is not arbitrary thus people speak the language according to the importance of different context. Though different tribe have different languages, still they are compel to use Nepali as their national language and English as the most essential foreign language.People can't survive in academic context of Nepal till they can't speak these two Nepali and English language though they have their own tribal language.Thus they should choose these languages consciously or unconsciously to survive in the academic context.
Week 11!
As usual I found the class very interesting and important. Mostly I like the part when students give their insight about the topic. I think this part help students to understand the chapter better. I really appreciate some of the friends who really made good point. Some time these point help better than the book.
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Sematics:
The purpose of reading semantics is to understand the meaning of different sentences such as contradictory, anomalous, ambiguous, or vague. Actually the meaning of the words in the sentences have multifaceted notion thus most of the time it is really difficult to have semantics features from just the word or sentence. Exact meaning is only possible along with the proper context otherwise even the meaningful sentence can’t give proper meaning.
I remember when I was studying linguistic, suddenly my teacher gave us a sentence and asked us the meaning of the sentence, and different students came up with different meanings. For example, the teacher asked the meaning of the sentence, “Fish is ready to eat”.
Then all of us were asked to interpret the meaning. Some of us said it means, there is a fish, who is ready to eat its food but other said might be in the kitchen mother cooks the fish and she said her children that now the dish of fish is ready to eat.
Thus, unless we do not know the exact context, whether the sentence is said in the kitchen by a mom or a boy who is looking at the fish in the pond narrate the sentence, we cannot say the exact meaning of the sentence.
Except that also there are varieties of other factors which differ the characteristic of the semantics feature, such as anomalous sentence in which the sentence structure is made in such a way which does not give any sense for example “my table is dead”.
I remember when I was studying linguistic, suddenly my teacher gave us a sentence and asked us the meaning of the sentence, and different students came up with different meanings. For example, the teacher asked the meaning of the sentence, “Fish is ready to eat”.
Then all of us were asked to interpret the meaning. Some of us said it means, there is a fish, who is ready to eat its food but other said might be in the kitchen mother cooks the fish and she said her children that now the dish of fish is ready to eat.
Thus, unless we do not know the exact context, whether the sentence is said in the kitchen by a mom or a boy who is looking at the fish in the pond narrate the sentence, we cannot say the exact meaning of the sentence.
Except that also there are varieties of other factors which differ the characteristic of the semantics feature, such as anomalous sentence in which the sentence structure is made in such a way which does not give any sense for example “my table is dead”.
week Nine!
As usual the class was interesting and useful. I found the chapters were really easy in this week because I have already read all the topics back home.Actually the class is very joyous because everybody participate in the group discussion and try to make everything clear about the topics. I find tree diagram is bit boring because all the time we are practicing about noun phrase and verb phrase but still our professor tries her best to make it more interesting. Overall the class is good.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
week seven!
Week seven!
In this week we began to talk in small groups. We discuss about activities 2-12 and 2-14 from Finegan. I am glad that I got a chance to ask questions and answer in the small groups. Then we got back into our large group and discussed what the other groups had questions on the activities. Our professor talked about the quiz and gave some helpful hints for the quiz.
As usual the class was interesting and helpful.
In this week we began to talk in small groups. We discuss about activities 2-12 and 2-14 from Finegan. I am glad that I got a chance to ask questions and answer in the small groups. Then we got back into our large group and discussed what the other groups had questions on the activities. Our professor talked about the quiz and gave some helpful hints for the quiz.
As usual the class was interesting and helpful.
English Syntax
English Syntax
In most of the school grammar is taught as a set of rules. Teachers are in belief that if students learn the set rules of grammar, they could apply the knowledge of grammar in their writing and spoken English. However as mentioned in the research proved that it is not true. Many students, who know the rule well, could not perform well in writing and speaking language.
The first thing is students find it difficult to learn and retain concepts from traditional grammar. They know the rule but very hard to apply the rule in the context of reading and writing. As per the review, upon the research by Krashen also proved that there is no relationship between grammar study and writing.
Despite the research consensus, teachers still continue to teach traditional prescriptive method of grammar. Teachers either think although grammar may not help the average student, it still may help some students, or they are ignorant about the research.
I remember, back home almost all the teachers in every school use the prescriptive method of teaching grammar. Thus almost students know the rule of English grammar but fail to use them in the context of writing and spoken grammar it is all because of the teaching method of grammar.
I had a teacher of Nepali language who brought 95% in English grammar but just 40% percent in English composition class. He was one of the brilliant students of the school, but he is not good in English composition. At first when I listen his story, I was wondering that why he did not score in English composition class. Now I have realized that it might be the cause of learning English grammar with the prescriptive method.
I think all teachers should have awareness of teaching grammar so that students could get ore benefits by learning the grammar.
In most of the school grammar is taught as a set of rules. Teachers are in belief that if students learn the set rules of grammar, they could apply the knowledge of grammar in their writing and spoken English. However as mentioned in the research proved that it is not true. Many students, who know the rule well, could not perform well in writing and speaking language.
The first thing is students find it difficult to learn and retain concepts from traditional grammar. They know the rule but very hard to apply the rule in the context of reading and writing. As per the review, upon the research by Krashen also proved that there is no relationship between grammar study and writing.
Despite the research consensus, teachers still continue to teach traditional prescriptive method of grammar. Teachers either think although grammar may not help the average student, it still may help some students, or they are ignorant about the research.
I remember, back home almost all the teachers in every school use the prescriptive method of teaching grammar. Thus almost students know the rule of English grammar but fail to use them in the context of writing and spoken grammar it is all because of the teaching method of grammar.
I had a teacher of Nepali language who brought 95% in English grammar but just 40% percent in English composition class. He was one of the brilliant students of the school, but he is not good in English composition. At first when I listen his story, I was wondering that why he did not score in English composition class. Now I have realized that it might be the cause of learning English grammar with the prescriptive method.
I think all teachers should have awareness of teaching grammar so that students could get ore benefits by learning the grammar.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Implication from phonology for teaching reading and teaching a second language!
It is difficult in most of the time to apply the structural analysis during reading. It is true that the knowledge of the meaning of roots, suffixes and prefixes help to understand or at least to assume the meaning of the new word. But it is not always appropriate to assume the meaning of the word by dividing a word into the parts of the different morphemes as it is difficult to define suffix. As text says it is helpful during vocabulary test to pick the right synonym out of a list of four answers. I remembered while giving GRE, one of the most valuable tactics was to assume the meaning of the word by parting it into different morphemes and try to correlate the meaning of the words according to the text but as per my personal experience I even did not find it very worthy as the list have similar meaning and it is really hard to find out the exact meaning of the word. It is not possible to apply during the reading of connected text. Thus in my view, it is not very worthy to understand or know the meaning of the word through dividing the words into the parts.
English Morphology!
English Morphology!
I think it is usual that the linguist find it difficult to define the term ‘word’ to all the morphemes. It is easier to define the free morpheme as a word but not very justifiable to say the word for the bound morpheme. For an instance a single letter ‘s’ is a morpheme, as bound morpheme but it is not usual to say the bound morpheme ‘s’ as word. It is because a word has its own definition as a word is the combination of one or more than one letter which gives meaning but bound morpheme ‘s’ cannot give any meaning until it is joined with other words. Thus it will be easier and authentic to teach non native speaker by naming it as the bound morpheme rather than naming it as a word.
Words are formed by various ways such as, adding free morphemes and bound morphemes on the root words. Similarly there are different types of languages: analytic and synthetic. After reading about the classification of the types of languages I realized that my language is in the classification of Agglutinative Language because in my language there add many morphemes into the words.
While talking about function words, determiners are something which might create confusion for non native speaker from my country because we do not use determiner in every context like native English speaker. For example it is weird or sound incorrect if one says, He bought book, instead one should say as, “he bought a book’ or “he bought two books”. There should be a determiner before the object, but in Nepali language, we say it as “he bought book”. Unless one does not ask, that how many books did he buy? Thus it is not usual to say, he bought one book or two books. We don’t need determiner to narrate the sentence. Thus while teaching English Language, back home it creates some time confusion in using a determiner.
I think it is usual that the linguist find it difficult to define the term ‘word’ to all the morphemes. It is easier to define the free morpheme as a word but not very justifiable to say the word for the bound morpheme. For an instance a single letter ‘s’ is a morpheme, as bound morpheme but it is not usual to say the bound morpheme ‘s’ as word. It is because a word has its own definition as a word is the combination of one or more than one letter which gives meaning but bound morpheme ‘s’ cannot give any meaning until it is joined with other words. Thus it will be easier and authentic to teach non native speaker by naming it as the bound morpheme rather than naming it as a word.
Words are formed by various ways such as, adding free morphemes and bound morphemes on the root words. Similarly there are different types of languages: analytic and synthetic. After reading about the classification of the types of languages I realized that my language is in the classification of Agglutinative Language because in my language there add many morphemes into the words.
While talking about function words, determiners are something which might create confusion for non native speaker from my country because we do not use determiner in every context like native English speaker. For example it is weird or sound incorrect if one says, He bought book, instead one should say as, “he bought a book’ or “he bought two books”. There should be a determiner before the object, but in Nepali language, we say it as “he bought book”. Unless one does not ask, that how many books did he buy? Thus it is not usual to say, he bought one book or two books. We don’t need determiner to narrate the sentence. Thus while teaching English Language, back home it creates some time confusion in using a determiner.
Monday, February 23, 2009
6th class
6th class
I was bit sad about this class. Due to bad health I stayed at home to take my online class. Later I found, my headphone did not work properly. Sometime it became so louder and sometime so softer in sound. Thus I was badly distracted in the whole session. I was so upset about the class but later when I listened the recording, I got most of the thing happening on that class. I am thankful to the professor for providing the recording of the class. It was amazing the way Lilian, our class mate present the Chinese writing pattern.
I was bit sad about this class. Due to bad health I stayed at home to take my online class. Later I found, my headphone did not work properly. Sometime it became so louder and sometime so softer in sound. Thus I was badly distracted in the whole session. I was so upset about the class but later when I listened the recording, I got most of the thing happening on that class. I am thankful to the professor for providing the recording of the class. It was amazing the way Lilian, our class mate present the Chinese writing pattern.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Lexicon and Morphology:
Lexicon and Morphology:
I found the topic really interesting and for the first time easy to understand Finegan.
To know a word for child or adult they should have four different kinds of information such as Phonological, semantic, syntactic and morphological in any languages. There are different types of lexical categories. For the native speaker of any language even the child could understand the different categories of words such as noun, verb, or adjectives, it is like an unconscious knowledge. But it is not the same case with the child of the second language. For an instance if I need to teach English in y country then learning about the different categories of word is not implicit knowledge or they cannot acquire it but they have to learn it explicitly, because it is not something which is implied. Thus it is essential to let them know the ways to identify the lexical category of a word.
Again English speaking child knows that verbs have a set of related forms and it is implicit knowledge for the but the child who has English as a second language must learn it again explicitly. I remember, Back home it was hard time for me to teach about the irregular form of verb. Such As some verb has the form such as, walk-walked-walked, both past and past participle have the same form but in other word, come-came-come, here the present and past participle have the same form. So in this way these irregular forms create difficulty in teaching at second language classroom.
Another toughest part to teach is preposition in my country. The first thing we have very prepositions in my language other thing is we have also the postposition in Nepali language. So it is very hard to give the concept of preposition to the student of my country.
For example: A cat sat on the mat.
In Nepali we say, A cat the mat on sat.
So preposition comes as postposition. Thus students make many mistakes regarding the preposition.
I found the topic really interesting and for the first time easy to understand Finegan.
To know a word for child or adult they should have four different kinds of information such as Phonological, semantic, syntactic and morphological in any languages. There are different types of lexical categories. For the native speaker of any language even the child could understand the different categories of words such as noun, verb, or adjectives, it is like an unconscious knowledge. But it is not the same case with the child of the second language. For an instance if I need to teach English in y country then learning about the different categories of word is not implicit knowledge or they cannot acquire it but they have to learn it explicitly, because it is not something which is implied. Thus it is essential to let them know the ways to identify the lexical category of a word.
Again English speaking child knows that verbs have a set of related forms and it is implicit knowledge for the but the child who has English as a second language must learn it again explicitly. I remember, Back home it was hard time for me to teach about the irregular form of verb. Such As some verb has the form such as, walk-walked-walked, both past and past participle have the same form but in other word, come-came-come, here the present and past participle have the same form. So in this way these irregular forms create difficulty in teaching at second language classroom.
Another toughest part to teach is preposition in my country. The first thing we have very prepositions in my language other thing is we have also the postposition in Nepali language. So it is very hard to give the concept of preposition to the student of my country.
For example: A cat sat on the mat.
In Nepali we say, A cat the mat on sat.
So preposition comes as postposition. Thus students make many mistakes regarding the preposition.
5th online class!
It was wonderful to see most of the online class mates are sitting together to take online class. I was feeling as if we were taking face to face class.We all were talking and sharing the feelings about the text.We did our first quiz before this class so I was excited to know about the quiz score.It was hard time during the quiz and also not very sure about those transcription exercises.Anyway when our professor said we all were doing good, I was relax.As usual class was interesting.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
A Linguistic Perspective on phonics:
Different people take different view about the phonics but still they have strong feelings about it.According to the word recognition view, readers must know the word then they should correlate the meaning of the word together to get the contextual meaning of the text.
As per the sociopsycholinguistic view the reader gets the meaning of the word in the context on the basis of their background knowledge.
Proponents of phonics says that the phonics should teach systematically to make successful.
Though the words phonics and graphophonics creates dilemma. Actually phonics is conscious knowledge which you learn but graphophonics is subconscious which you obtain during the time of the study other.
In my view meaning is possible only in the context.Single word without context can give meaning but not the clear one.Most of the time meaning is also depended upon the background knowledge of the reader. I think both views are important to obtain the meaning of the words.
As per the sociopsycholinguistic view the reader gets the meaning of the word in the context on the basis of their background knowledge.
Proponents of phonics says that the phonics should teach systematically to make successful.
Though the words phonics and graphophonics creates dilemma. Actually phonics is conscious knowledge which you learn but graphophonics is subconscious which you obtain during the time of the study other.
In my view meaning is possible only in the context.Single word without context can give meaning but not the clear one.Most of the time meaning is also depended upon the background knowledge of the reader. I think both views are important to obtain the meaning of the words.
English Orthography!
It is very interesting to study about the history of writing. People are using language from centuries but there are vast difference between the people writing today and people write centuries ago. According to the time the writing pattern or system has taken different changes.Earlier the writing was pictographic or ideographic but later it is used marks to represent the sounds of words in oral language.The changes occur due to the difficulties faced by the writer during the process of their writing.As an instance, earlier writing had to follow the pictographic system which makes writer to remember many different symbols.Thus the system takes change.
Again there arise a problem of the spelling of the word as it sound different. It is because in most of the words the pronunciation of the word and it's spelling is very different.When they try to make every word to be spelled the way it sounds again there comes the problem with the reading. Thus there comes the introduction of current system as the good compromise.
I remember in my mother tongue there are 11 different types of writing systems which comes one after another.But every system is still there. They do not replace the style but there comes as a new style.The recent style of writing is far developed than the earlier one, but still the writing experts want to make all those pattern alive thus they are using them.It is not allow to the writer to mix up two patterns in search of finding easy style.I mean if you want to use the recent style of writing, you can use but if you try to mix them then it will not be considered as an academic writing.It is true that very less people are there who use the oldest style but anyway all the styles are existed and non of them are replaced by other.
Again there arise a problem of the spelling of the word as it sound different. It is because in most of the words the pronunciation of the word and it's spelling is very different.When they try to make every word to be spelled the way it sounds again there comes the problem with the reading. Thus there comes the introduction of current system as the good compromise.
I remember in my mother tongue there are 11 different types of writing systems which comes one after another.But every system is still there. They do not replace the style but there comes as a new style.The recent style of writing is far developed than the earlier one, but still the writing experts want to make all those pattern alive thus they are using them.It is not allow to the writer to mix up two patterns in search of finding easy style.I mean if you want to use the recent style of writing, you can use but if you try to mix them then it will not be considered as an academic writing.It is true that very less people are there who use the oldest style but anyway all the styles are existed and non of them are replaced by other.
Thursday, February 5, 2009
4th online class!
As usual it is very interesting class.I was very upset and confused about the exercises but our professor did great effort to make us understand the exercise.Still I have some confusion,I will be sure once I get feed back on my exercise.I a so excited to complete my quiz and see the score because it is somehow related with the exercise.I just wanna know whether I understood or not.Anyway the class was very enthusiastic and we did very good practice of transcription.
Implication from phonology for teaching reading and teaching a second language!
There is debate between the concept that whether oral language is innate or whether humans have a special cognitive capacity for language. Sound plays a central role in the word recognition view because identifying words involve recoding written marks into the sounds of oral language.Students should develop phonemic awareness and use it as a base for learning phonics rule.this knowledge allows people to distinguish between words.Graphophonic combines their subconscious knowledge of sounds with knowledge of letters and knowledge of the correspondence between sound and letters.
Three linguistic factors: allophones,dialect differences, and language differences should be considered by the educators to evaluate the claims of those who take different views of reading second language.
Three linguistic factors: allophones,dialect differences, and language differences should be considered by the educators to evaluate the claims of those who take different views of reading second language.
English Phonology!
English Phonology!
Communication is very essential part of human life.They want to communicate through different medias, among the they love to talk most either face to face or telephone conversation and many more.People take it easily but human communication is not that easy the way people think it because sending and receiving message does not just include encoding and decoding system. Most of the time listener predict what they have heard and gives the answer on the basis of the prediction.Similarly social context also determines the meaning of the conversation.Most of the time word carries the non literal meaning than the literal one which gives very vast different meanings of the words.Using sound in communication has many more advantages.It helps other organs to do different works for example people can do work along with talking.
During normal communication a person can produce an average of eight phonemes. In phoneme production, the brain sends signal to the lungs, vocal cords, tongue and lips to contract or relax the muscles.Human have ability to use language to comprehend and produce meaning.
Linguistic is the scientific study of language and different linguists study different aspects of language.Here we are studying about how people learn the second language.The areas of linguistic such as phonology, morphology and syntax will help to evaluate the method of teaching second language.
Phonology is the study of the sounds used by the speakers of the particular language, and a phoneme is a sound that makes a difference in meaning in a language.different languages have different sets of phonemes.Physiology of speech describes about the place and manner of articulation.
There are three different types of vowels,such as short long and reduced.
consonants phonemes are produced by restricting or stopping the flow of air as it passes through the vocal tract.All the words of every language are the combination of vowel and consonant phoneme.Insight from linguistics in the area of phonology can be helpful for educators evaluating methods of teaching a second language.
Communication is very essential part of human life.They want to communicate through different medias, among the they love to talk most either face to face or telephone conversation and many more.People take it easily but human communication is not that easy the way people think it because sending and receiving message does not just include encoding and decoding system. Most of the time listener predict what they have heard and gives the answer on the basis of the prediction.Similarly social context also determines the meaning of the conversation.Most of the time word carries the non literal meaning than the literal one which gives very vast different meanings of the words.Using sound in communication has many more advantages.It helps other organs to do different works for example people can do work along with talking.
During normal communication a person can produce an average of eight phonemes. In phoneme production, the brain sends signal to the lungs, vocal cords, tongue and lips to contract or relax the muscles.Human have ability to use language to comprehend and produce meaning.
Linguistic is the scientific study of language and different linguists study different aspects of language.Here we are studying about how people learn the second language.The areas of linguistic such as phonology, morphology and syntax will help to evaluate the method of teaching second language.
Phonology is the study of the sounds used by the speakers of the particular language, and a phoneme is a sound that makes a difference in meaning in a language.different languages have different sets of phonemes.Physiology of speech describes about the place and manner of articulation.
There are three different types of vowels,such as short long and reduced.
consonants phonemes are produced by restricting or stopping the flow of air as it passes through the vocal tract.All the words of every language are the combination of vowel and consonant phoneme.Insight from linguistics in the area of phonology can be helpful for educators evaluating methods of teaching a second language.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
3rd online class
As usual It was interesting and amazing.The class becomes more interesting when there were different concepts on the same teaching topics, because different concepts make always things better understand because both person tried to explain and prove their own concept.
I found my friends are very smart experienced and well read, it made me more energetic to read a lot so that I can run with them.
I appreciate the way professor let us to make points and later she published it for all.It is really very helpful to understand the topic from different prospect.
I found my friends are very smart experienced and well read, it made me more energetic to read a lot so that I can run with them.
I appreciate the way professor let us to make points and later she published it for all.It is really very helpful to understand the topic from different prospect.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
second online class
I am very happy to take this online class because now I am so confident and my all confusions were solved.This class is very interesting because all friends are very good and knowledgeable.I am very clear in each of points of the text.The texts are also well written with simple and clear English.even if there is any problems those are clear in group discussion with the help of cooperative professor.Thus my experience of this second class is brilliant.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Sound system of language: Phonology
Sound system of language: Phonology
Phonology is the systematic structure of sound systems. This is a study of the relationship between how sounds are pronounced and how they are stored in the mind. It shows how the sounds are organized within the words. In phonology a phoneme, means structural elements and allophones are realizations of single structural elements in the system of language. In phonology there is a study of minimal pairs which means two words that differ by only a single sound and distinction depends on sounds not in spellings.
Natural classes of sounds contain all the sounds that share a particular set of features. This chapter also talks about the syllables and its structure. Syllable is a phonological unit consisting of one or more sounds.
This study gives me a kind of base for learning language. Back home, In Nepal though I study English for many years but I never took any linguistic classes which makes me able to understand English from the surface level. I am using all four skills of English but without knowing its structure. Now When I am reading the text of linguistic and grammar I am feeling as if I am being able to make sense what is the structure behind the language and I think this is very important to teach English everywhere.
Phonology is the systematic structure of sound systems. This is a study of the relationship between how sounds are pronounced and how they are stored in the mind. It shows how the sounds are organized within the words. In phonology a phoneme, means structural elements and allophones are realizations of single structural elements in the system of language. In phonology there is a study of minimal pairs which means two words that differ by only a single sound and distinction depends on sounds not in spellings.
Natural classes of sounds contain all the sounds that share a particular set of features. This chapter also talks about the syllables and its structure. Syllable is a phonological unit consisting of one or more sounds.
This study gives me a kind of base for learning language. Back home, In Nepal though I study English for many years but I never took any linguistic classes which makes me able to understand English from the surface level. I am using all four skills of English but without knowing its structure. Now When I am reading the text of linguistic and grammar I am feeling as if I am being able to make sense what is the structure behind the language and I think this is very important to teach English everywhere.
The sounds of language: Phonetics
Chapter 3
The sounds of language: Phonetics
The written English has many origins with different spelling conventions. Due to the different conception there are varieties of pronunciation with the same spelling structure. This chapter talks about the study of sound as phonetics. This study is very new for me and my country, so it is really enthusiastic for me to take it back home to teach the phonetics. It is so exciting to know and study about human vocal apparatus. It is bit confusing as a non native speaker to know and feel the sound producing from different places of mouth but very curious to study about. I think Acoustic phonetics gives more sense to understand. We study British English thus there some differences with IPA.
There is not a big deal to find out the voice and voiceless sounds as it is related with the vocal cords and vibration. If the sound is vibrating then it is voiced and if not then voiceless. I think to find place and manner of articulation is bit difficult and takes more practice. It will help more if we make it flash cards and practice it. Consonants sound produced by partially or completely blocking air in its passage from the lungs through the vocal tract, on the other hand vowel sounds are produced by passing air through different shapes of the mouth with different positions of the tongue and of the lips. There different featured of vowel sound such as tenseness, rounding, length, nasalization, tone.
As a teacher learner, though phonetics is a dry subject and it is not a fun to read but I think it should teach as an essential part of language learning. I think reading phonetics give base to student to produce correct sound.
The sounds of language: Phonetics
The written English has many origins with different spelling conventions. Due to the different conception there are varieties of pronunciation with the same spelling structure. This chapter talks about the study of sound as phonetics. This study is very new for me and my country, so it is really enthusiastic for me to take it back home to teach the phonetics. It is so exciting to know and study about human vocal apparatus. It is bit confusing as a non native speaker to know and feel the sound producing from different places of mouth but very curious to study about. I think Acoustic phonetics gives more sense to understand. We study British English thus there some differences with IPA.
There is not a big deal to find out the voice and voiceless sounds as it is related with the vocal cords and vibration. If the sound is vibrating then it is voiced and if not then voiceless. I think to find place and manner of articulation is bit difficult and takes more practice. It will help more if we make it flash cards and practice it. Consonants sound produced by partially or completely blocking air in its passage from the lungs through the vocal tract, on the other hand vowel sounds are produced by passing air through different shapes of the mouth with different positions of the tongue and of the lips. There different featured of vowel sound such as tenseness, rounding, length, nasalization, tone.
As a teacher learner, though phonetics is a dry subject and it is not a fun to read but I think it should teach as an essential part of language learning. I think reading phonetics give base to student to produce correct sound.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Experience with online learning
Hi,
I was so excited and nervous about online class. But I love to take risk.In fact I always dare to do that. So I did that.All my nervousness turns to the confidence because of my instructor. Whenever I get confused i sent her email and she solved all my dilemma so quickly.It makes me very confident that I could definitely do well in this online class. In short my experience is really good. Bit difficulty is there because i am not used to with all these online learning courses but by the grace of god and supports of my professor and classmate, I think I will certainly rock!
Binki
I was so excited and nervous about online class. But I love to take risk.In fact I always dare to do that. So I did that.All my nervousness turns to the confidence because of my instructor. Whenever I get confused i sent her email and she solved all my dilemma so quickly.It makes me very confident that I could definitely do well in this online class. In short my experience is really good. Bit difficulty is there because i am not used to with all these online learning courses but by the grace of god and supports of my professor and classmate, I think I will certainly rock!
Binki
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Written and Second Language Acquisition
Though there are some debates, most researchers agree that children acquire their first language, without formal instruction but it is different with the written language. Written language has different vocabulary and different grammatical structures that the oral language. There is different view about the written language. Some think it is not natural language, but a secondary representation of language that the brain is not prepared to acquire but others it could acquired as oral language.
Regarding reading there are two views, word recognition, and sociopsycholinguistic, of reading correspond to the distinction between learning and acquisition. As per word recognition view, the main task during reading is to identify words and their goal is to help students learn to identify words. There are some methods like learning phonics rules to achieve the goal. They belief reading leads them to instructional practices. On the other hand, sociopsycholinguistic view emphasizes that reading is a process of constructing meaning and their goal is to construct the meaning of the words. The method of this should be to use all available information, including background knowledge. According to Krashen, people acquire the ability to read and write in the same way they acquire a first or second language by receiving message they understand.
As similar to reading there are two views for writing too. From an acquisition perspective writing is a form of output that reflects the language competence an individual has acquired. On the other hand, from learning point of view, writing must be taught.
Similarly there are two views of second or foreign language development. The first is second language is learned which is followed by traditional method. Their goal is to produce students who speak and understand the language. Second view is acquired and it is related with the current methods. Their goal is to enable students to use language for a variety of purposes.
As per the Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition, there are five interrelated hypothesis which were used by many ESL/EFL teachers as they form the basis for much of the teaching methodology. Regarding Schumann’s theory of second language acquisition there are several factors in learning languages. I think both learning and acquisition takes places in learning languages, however current research supports the view of acquisition than learning
Regarding reading there are two views, word recognition, and sociopsycholinguistic, of reading correspond to the distinction between learning and acquisition. As per word recognition view, the main task during reading is to identify words and their goal is to help students learn to identify words. There are some methods like learning phonics rules to achieve the goal. They belief reading leads them to instructional practices. On the other hand, sociopsycholinguistic view emphasizes that reading is a process of constructing meaning and their goal is to construct the meaning of the words. The method of this should be to use all available information, including background knowledge. According to Krashen, people acquire the ability to read and write in the same way they acquire a first or second language by receiving message they understand.
As similar to reading there are two views for writing too. From an acquisition perspective writing is a form of output that reflects the language competence an individual has acquired. On the other hand, from learning point of view, writing must be taught.
Similarly there are two views of second or foreign language development. The first is second language is learned which is followed by traditional method. Their goal is to produce students who speak and understand the language. Second view is acquired and it is related with the current methods. Their goal is to enable students to use language for a variety of purposes.
As per the Krashen’s theory of second language acquisition, there are five interrelated hypothesis which were used by many ESL/EFL teachers as they form the basis for much of the teaching methodology. Regarding Schumann’s theory of second language acquisition there are several factors in learning languages. I think both learning and acquisition takes places in learning languages, however current research supports the view of acquisition than learning
First language acquisition
Teachers are always teaching languages to their students in almost all the grades based upon the requirement of their standards. This chapter presents the research on language acquisition that comes from different fields of study. There are different theories upon the first language acquisition of a child. The early views of first language acquisition are behaviorism. According to the behaviorists, language learning happened as a process of stimulus and response, thus positive reinforcements makes to full adult language proficiency. They believed that language can be learned like anything else and they also believed language can be learned through the imitation. Later on, Chomsky did review on Skinner’s verbal behavior theory which signaled the replacement of cognitive theory on behavioral theory. Regarding cognitive theory humans are born with the cognitive abilities, thus learning language is the result of the child acting on the environment much like a scientist making and testing hypotheses. This theory comes up with arising many problems and its explanation on behaviorist theory. Later on, there comes many other theories to justify language acquisition such as developmental psychology, sociology, anthropology, education and linguistic.
As per the view of developmental psychology language development is related with the way children learn, their ability to perceive, conceptualize, store and access information and their motivation. Their research is based on the early language that produces by the child since the researcher could not ask with the one or two years baby about how they produce the sound. Thus their research is based upon the children’s linguistic output. However they have come up with an ideas that cognition and language develop are related but independent with each other.
Regarding to sociology, anthropology, and education, children could produce language because language is essential for social interaction. Thus, social setting helps them to learn the grammar and vocabulary. They also develop communicative competence. The meaning of the utterances is depends upon the context. Children invented different words in different context; they modify their invention in light of the responses they receive from the community.
As per the linguistic view, they have focused upon the nature of language, on what it is that children acquire. Linguist Noam Chomsky developed a theory referred to as Generative Grammar, and he defines language in terms of a set of rules that could be applied to generate all the sentences of a particular language. He says children acquire this knowledge of language on relatively slight exposure and without specific training. According to Chomsky, humans are born with the basic structures of all human languages already presents in the brain and he named this innate knowledge of language Universal Grammar, thus children learn the language that surround them and Chomsky calls it as parameter setting.
The studies of child language show that develop the rules of language quickly without much correction on it. Chomsky’s claim of universal grammar can be proved with the fact that children never make certain kinds of mistakes. The children have implicit knowledge which allows them to understand and produce sentences, but doesn’t allow them to explain how they do it. Children quickly acquire linguistic knowledge but for metalinguistic knowledge, they should study it.
All these studies have been contributed to the new understanding of the process of first language acquisition. Study supports that children must have some built in linguistic knowledge. Thus, children come to the school with some linguistic knowledge but they need to develop proficiency in the academic language of school and the conventions of the standard written language.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
