Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Monday, May 7, 2012
Chapter #8 Study Questions 1- 5
1.
The “all and only” criterion means
that our analysis must account for all the
grammatical correct phrases and sentences and only those grammatical correct phrases and sentences in whatever
language we are analyzing.
2.
Phrase structure rules represents deep structure because is an abstract
level of structural organization in which all the elements determining
structural interpretation are represented.
3.
Because
these sentences could be expressed as:
a) The
parents of the bride and groom were waiting outside = "the bride's parents and the groom were waiting outside" or "the parents of the bride and the parents of the groom were waiting outside"
b)
We met an English history teacher = "We meet an English history teacher from another country"or "we met an history English teacher"
c) Flying
planes can be dangerous = "I fly planes and i believe it could be dangerous" or " I think that planes flying could me dangerous"
d) The
student complained to everyone that they couldn’t understand = "Every one complained to the students that
they couldn’t understand (Every one couldn't understand the students) or "the students complained to every one that they couldn't understand (the students claim that everyone couldn't understand)
4.
NP à{Art (Adj) N,
Pro, PN} :
(a) A lady b)
The little girl e) the
window
5. NP
Aux VP à
Aux NP VP:
a) John will follow Mary b) you knew that Cathy helped the boy
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue. Pages 1- 44
In the first part of the book Our Magnificent bastard tongue by John
McWhorter starts describing how we use the verb form –ing and the “meaningless do” in order ourselves clear when we talk
and these terms came to the English language by themselves. The book also talks
about how English is different from other languages, although some of them use
the “do and –ing” but not all of them use them in the same form as English.
McWhorter explains in four assumptions that language had change.
I
found very significant the part where McWhorter talks about the mix of
languages which gives them new words and grammar cheeks. According to him, many
of these mix languages still exist like the Patois language or “hybrid” which was
adapted by Jamaicans, is a mix of English and the language of origin they spoke
in times of slavery. The mix of these languages reminds me when we talked about
word formation (borrowing) which as we know is taking over words from other
languages, in this case is English.
Although the book has a lot of
information and it gives good examples of everything, it seems like I can’t
understand that much about it specially the par that talks about Celts (11). I only
understood all when talked about the “meaningless do and the –ing” I have a
clear view of what he is talking about there. I wonder how well I will
understand the second part of the book.
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Summary of the Film "The Linguists"
A Film to Speak.
There are 7,000 and more languages in the world and more than half of those languages are in danger or they already died. In the film linguistics produced and Directed by Seth Kramer, Daniel A. Miller and Jeremy S. Newberger is based on the travesty of two prime on linguistics who decided to go around the world and look for some of the languages that will be dead in a few years from now. This learning film trip shows how the selected unknown languages are being in danger and how they are being discriminated by the decedents who once spoke them. Many languages are disappearing and the fact that these people took the responsibility to go around the world and find those dialect before they are gone makes me think that we as spoken people should do something about it so these languages won’t disappear. According to the film some of these languages are in danger to disappear because there is nobody who would teach the following generation of people but it is a fact that if the young generation learns it they will just choose not to use or speak it. Every two weeks a language dies and we will soon have left nothing to learn from and all those old languages will past to history.
What I liked about the movie is that these guys not just went to explore languages but also cultures, they participated in parties and even rituals in order to get more information about a language and which helped them to understand better the real meaning of these cultures and dialects. They show people that there is no need to me ashamed by their native language and that there are more people like them that would like to explore more about lost languages like the Chulym which is from a part of Russia and Sora which is in India. A language defines culture and a culture is defined by its native language that should not be lost.
Article's Summary
As manufacturing and faith, a language can be lost too. In our lives we see many changes in the language we speak, we see how others try to change or trying to imitate and some even want to make a new language out of it. The language we speak, speak for ourselves, if we talk in a slang way we would be tagged as slang people, if we talk with manners we are educated and if we try to talk blending a language that is not ours with our own could result a bad translation or even an insult for ourselves.
Many people try to combine their language of origin with a new one to make others understand them or make their selves more attractive to others. But not all people think that blending their language with other and make a “new” one is the best idea and it should be stopped. An example of all this is explained in the article “from English to chinglish: the globalization of language” that shows us how the chinglish had been taken out from China just because an important celebration is coming to town. Most people who speak this “language” use it to make other people from other places understand them but seems like superior people think that Chinglish is just a laugh to China and its people.
This article also talks about how English had become the one and only most popular language among other cultures and dialect, is characterized as neutral for some group of people to avoid an overthrow between themselves whether which language from a country or culture should be the official one or not. But the fact that English had made a huge change to the cultures rights doesn’t mean that it will be good in all the senses. Many languages will be lost because of this, many people will speak chinglish or other linguistics combinations with the English like Hinglish and Franglais (French – English) and the original language will disappear.
A good illustration of this situation is stated in the article “How English is evolving into a language we may not even understand” by Michael Erard. Where it give us an example of how the use of a blending of languages could end up on one that not the English native speaker would understand and many new languages blended with English would lost its grammatical meaning. For example, in the chinglish new “language” is not just combining English with Chinese; the grammatical situation we all have could end forever and we won’t have to deal with noun or even articles. Sentences would sound like Chinese but with English words and the chinglish will take life of its own and would grow more until there is nothing else but just a language that just the native chinglish people would understand.
As the English is getting bigger, its power is becoming the mold of futures languages which is and will make English be the lingua franca of this generation and others. But the developing of the lingua franca will bring the creating of new languages and the diminishing of others. As the “From English to chinglish…” article says: “The widespread use of English brings us the concern as to how globalization is shaping the future of languages”.
Chongalicious def, chongalicious def, chongalicious def..def..def…!!!
According to Wikipedia… yes wiki... “Chonga” is the Spanish term used especially to indicate "a low-class, slutty, tough, and crass young woman oh I bet you didn’t know ahhh. And “licious” (delicious). This “term” started with a song call “chongalicious” a Spanish version of the singer fergie song “fergalicious” (fergalicious def, fergalicious def, fergalicious def..def.def!!). chonga is used among people to address the way some girls act or dress, they put make up like is there was no ending, these girls use sharpie as a lip-gloss!!! and glue instead of cream to keep their hair “perfect”. Their personality is crazy and they like to show up their “beauty”. BELIEVE OR NOT “chongalicious” is actually a word.. “she is chonging at me” meaning she’s acting like a chonga on someone, or “I use a lot of lipstick to chong myself”, “I like to be a chonga”, I like to choong all the time”, “that girl is CHONGALICIOUS!!”. Probably you guys are thinking why do I know so mucho about this word, well I was curious about it and I started to look more information up and I actually “chong” myself once (don’t worry I didn’t use sharpie or glue in my hair lol) it was fun but kind of weird.
It was hard to find a word that had multiple word formation and I think that this one could work perfectly, is not just a slang word but a word that represent somebody on his/her why of act or dress, it would be estrange to use this term but hey!.Chongalicious definition make them boys go loco!!.
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