Reflection of class

We opened the class with a discussion about the "He Said, She Said" video. It seems everyone had a lot to say about what they saw in the video and it seems that it was very informative for everyone.

Next, we broke up into groups and went over the quiz. My group went over the tree diagram of "Helen likes a good cigar". We then went over the matching portion of the quiz. I thought it was funny how my whole group had all the same answers on that part. We all thought the matching was too easy, in that, all the answers were right next to each other.

I am now surprised to find that I had all the same answers as my classmates but I still did not get full credit for most of the diagrams I constructed. What I think happened was I put some of the prepositional phrases too high up in the sentence. I had not realized that it matter that much as to where to connect each portion of the sentence. I also had not realized where to connect them and how to find that information out until Esther explained it in class.

To conclude, I am very happy that quiz is over with and I am now trying to concentrate on obtaining my written and spoken sample for my analysis.

Readings in Chapters 10 & 11 in Finegan

This week's readings were interesting and some of the information was implicit knowledge that I already had. I was glad the book presented such material in a way that was easy to analyze and further solidify the information in my head.

Chapter 10 talked about different registers and styles in both the spoken and written word community. This short chapter gave examples of how a languages register is dependent on a speech situation. One portion of the chapter compared the amount of times the 'ing' was used in comparison with the pronunciation of just the 'in' as in "talking" or "walking". It seems that the data concluded that when formal speech is in use the full pronunciation is used but in more informal situations just the 'in' pronunciation was used. The study also examined the differences between men and women in the same situations.

Chapter 10 also reviewed slang and jargon and ways in which is it is used. The difference between the two is that slang is used in very informal situations while jargon is used in a particular group of people such as police officers or lawyers.

Finally, chapter 10 analyzed the difference between spoken and written registers. Obviously, written registers allow for more thought and therefore, can be much more formal, depending on the situation of course. For example, while writing a quick note to my boyfriend to pick up milk is quite informal but when writing a paper for class it can be extremely formal or socially distant.

Chapter 11 covered a little more with respect to language variations in social groups. To reexamine terms used in the book here are some quick definitions:

dialect- language variety which is characteristic to a particular social group or region and only refers to the speakers of the variation

registers- is dependent on the situation in which the language variety is used.

accent- refers to the pronunciation of the language.

The book analyzed how languages merge together to become quite similar. It seems, especially when referring to the language merger in Kupwar this can be a good occurrence.

There were many maps provided showing the different dialects throughout the United States.

With all of this information in mind, one can only think of the implications for teaching. I think an E.S.L. teacher must recognize that along with teaching the fundamentals of the English language she must also make her students aware of the registers, dialects, and accents. To teach which register of speaking in a certain situation can seem to be very difficult but once the students are made more aware, they will only reap the benefits in their future language endeavors.

Reflection of Class

Class this week went by pretty quickly. We got into groups and discussed the different semantic fields-

• hyponymy
• part/whole relationships
• synonymy
• antonymy
• polysemy and homonymy

I had a pretty good grasp on the main ideas listed above but it was nice to review the main points of each.

Esther then explained the quiz that we would be taking. So can I just say that I simply dislike tree diagrams! I understand their use and I can see how they may help illustrate how certain sentences are broken down. I appreciate that but it seems that much of a tree diagram can be open interpretation. I just don't understand what exactly constitutes a Noun Phrase. I understand of course that it needs to have a noun but what if there was a phrase such as:

slimy four-horned snail. Now, one would think that this is an Adjective Phrase but a person who may know more about snails would beg to differ. The four-horned snail is a species and therefore that person could say it is a Noun Phrase.

I hope I have explained the ambiguity that I have seen in tree diagrams. Overall, this class is the hardest for me which means I want to do well in it. I only see the benefits it can bring to my teaching career. I think I have just met my mid-semester frustration with not grasping the material as quickly as I usually do.

Readings for Week 10 "My toothbrush is pregnant"

The Chapter in Finegan covered Semantics and the study of meaning. The chapter began with multiple definitions of the word 'meaning'. Meaning can be broken down into 3 basic areas-

• Linguistic
• Social
• Affective

Each of these mentioned above pertain to the meaning of language in various ways. Linguistic meaning is the actual meaning of the individual words. There is a problem with simply taking the meaning of the parts of the sentences to assume the whole meaning of that unit. Two other aspects need to be taken into consideration and that is where social and affective meaning come into play. Social meaning can convey the status or situation of the speaker. Affective meaning can convey the impression or stance that speaker has.

I enjoyed reading about Polysemy and Homonymy and how they can affect meaning. Words like "wind" (the wind is blowing perfectly so we can fly a kite) and "wind" (that wind up toy is broken) can be somewhat tricky for second language learners. These examples bring me to my next point and that there were so many implications for teachers with this chapter!

For example, English has homonyms such as girl and boy with references to the superordinate term "child". Spanish has 'tios' for 'tias' and 'tios' (ignore the lack of accents on the 'i').

Another example is in English has to do with metaphors and the fact that "the heart is where emotions are experienced" such as "I have my heart set on that car" . In many languages this sentence would not make much sense. (This brings about one question for me, What is the difference between metaphors and idioms?) In other languages the stomach is the root of feelings such as the Polynesian language.

The third person pronoun is different in other languages when compared to English. Some languages do not have a 3rd person pronoun at all. Finally, there are 2 demonstratives in the English language and some languages such as Eskimo have 30!

Class time reflection

Today's class was interesting to say the least. I think it was a prime example as to when technology works it is awesome but when it does not work it is at best frustrating. We broke into groups and tried to use the tree diagram to break down a sentence, however; my group and I spent the entire time figuring out the white board. I think it was a nice idea though. My group wanted to break down the sentence "We can hear Charlie" basically because for some reason we could all hear him in our headsets. Anyway, I re-created the tree diagram and posted it on my wiki. I was not able to copy and paste the image to my blog so here is the link if anyone is interested to see it:

http://steviemike.pbwiki.com/browse/#view=ViewAllFiles&param=All%2520Files

Reflection of readings for week 8

First of all, I would like to begin my reflection with a question. Is Mr. Edward Finegan serious when he is talking about a MATRIX CLAUSE!!! What is that!? If I am being completely honest with myself I was lost from page 152 when he started talking about Grammatical Relations. In particular I need clarification on

• auxiliary verbs
• COMP nodes
• subordinators and subordinate clauses
• matrix clauses

In other words I am going to be bugging Esther at her office again. I really appreciated the readings in Freeman & Freeman and the beginning part of Finegan. I did not realize how much clarification I needed when thinking about the syntax of English or any language. I think tree diagrams are a good thing and they helped me when I was thinking of the syntax of a more complicated sentence.

I finally found out exactly what a NOUN and VERB PHRASE IS!!! I had always wanted to know but no one could ever really define it for me.

Something that I found quite interesting and rather shocking was in the Freeman & Freeman there is an excerpt from two authors that did a study on the explicit teaching of grammar. The shocking part was that the quote overtly advocated that teaching grammar can be somewhat harmful to the education of students. I agree with that statement it was amazing that the book cited a quote with that strong viewpoint. I can see how grammar can be damaging to students motivation to want to learn about the English language. In fact I remember learning grammar and it was horrible! My teacher would have us take out our "I, Me, Mine" books and go through different grammar points. I can still see that book to this day. It was black and had a person fishing on the front of it. Anyway, that was the worst part of the day because the material my teacher was teaching was so dry for lack of a better word.