Class time reflection from April 2nd

As you can tell this blog is posted a little later than usual. It is that time again, the end of semester crunch time! I can definitely feel the pressures from school which is contending with work. I am not complaining, I am simply explaining the time delay, because after all, I would not give up school for the world and I am very blessed to have a job in this economy.

On with the show....

Last week we talked about pragmatics. I think it is such an interesting topic that could be discussed on and on. I was so happy that we broke into groups to do the exercises in Finegan. I appreciate doing the exercises so much and it was PROFOUNDLY HELPFUL to do so with my very intelligent classmates. So many of us looked at the same text in so many different ways.

It is nice to read about a concept and then put it into practice and we did just that with our exercises on pragmatics.

We then discussed what each group came up with and other topics within pragmatics. It was interesting to hear some of the non-native students talk about their native languages and the different ways in which pragmatics are utilized in their culture.

I am still thinking about one of the sections that was presented in the video, "Colorless Green Ideas..." One section asked why we say, "Big red balloon" instead of "Red big balloon". I now find certain idioms and sayings that seems to only flow and sound right one particular way in English.

Pragmatics seems like a "sticky" thing to teach. Do we correct a student when he or she says, "Red big balloon", after all it is still correct. The balloon is red and big so what does it matter the order with which it is stated? I think pragmatics is important to stress only when considering certain social situations in which the pragmatics are very important in the communication, for example a job setting.

Overall, the class went really well and I look forward to analyzing more sayings in English.