Response Journals for Introduction to English Linguistics
Reflection
Session 1: Introduction
In the first session we became acquainted with our teacher. What I found nice was that our teacher not only asked us why we were learning English or why we wanted to get the teacher degree, but she also told us about herself: something about her as a person and about her research intererests as well.
She also provided us with all that information about the course we needed.
The presentation was very interesting. It was not a mere demonstration of slides and a simple enumeration of facts, but there were some brainstorming questions about what a language is, how we can define it. The presentation was not overladen with the information.
Everything was understandable and very interesting. We were given some definitions of a language and then they were very well explained. We also talked about linguistics in general and a short history of linguistics. Although I find history very boring, this presentation which contains only important facts and is provided with images made me think that the history of linguistics has to be fascinating.
Session 2: Origins and Properties of Language
Animal and Human Communication
In the second session we discussed origins and properties of language. On the second slide we could see a very funny picture about the emergence of language and I personally found this stuff really helpful so that the students do not sleep in the session.
A very interesting topic in this session was about non-verbal communication. I had known before the session that there were some factors, which influenced my interlocutor, and that were not only words I produced. All the properties of language were very interesting.
They seem quite obvious, but I have not hit upon an idea that, for instance, we actually have a limited set of linguistic resource but we can express anything we only want. The videos about the animal ‘language’ that were shown in the session were very good illustrative examples.
Session 3: The Linguistic Sign
The linguistic sign is a magic key to understanding the theory of a language and an excellent answer to child’s questions “Why is a dog called ‘dog’ and not ‘cat’?”. I have been asking myself for a very long period like a little child “, why is ‘table’ a table and ‘cookie’ a cookie and not the other way?” Now I can answer this question.
It is so. It is conventional and it is called ‘arbitrariness’. It has changed my life.
I think I already heard something about types of communication but there was a very good table with different types, their functions and examples. I find it quite useful.
Session 4: Language and the Brain
The fourth session had something completely new for me. This area of linguistics is very interesting and as I know is now high investigated. Brain investigations are now very important as we need to be able to answer questions about the connection between language and brain, how thoughts become words, this helps us to know how we can teach or simply how we can create a robot which could think and produce its thoughts.
We also will be able to treat Aphasia. Videos about Sarah were very interesting as we could see illustratively what Aphasia is and what features it has.
Session 5: Language Acquisition
The fifth session about language acquisition was a little bit funny. What seems to be funny is actually very important in our lives. I know now that children’s discomfort sounds, crying belong to language development.
What I also found very interesting but it was not discussed much in class is bilingualism as all these children are bilingual (with Russian and German, some of them have 3 languages) and there are some errors which are connected with direct translation of grammatical constructions or using German words in Russian speech.
Session 6: Second Language Learning
There we discussed the second language learning. There is a very important difference between learning and acquisition. I already mentioned that I teach Russian as a mother tongue but I also have some students who learn Russian as a foreign language.
In order to be able to teach Russian as a foreign language I had to learn it from another side. Maybe, in this case I can say that I have acquired Russian and then learned it consciously.
What really provokes my curiosity is inconsistency between spelling and pronunciation in English and other languages, for example, ‘night’ /naɪt/ , and not */nɪght/, German ‚Schule’ /ʃu:lə/ and not */skhu:lə/ or Russian ‚газового (gazowogo)’ /gazawawa/ and not*/gazowogo/.
Session 8: Sound Patterns of Language: Phonology
The minimal pair test for phonemes is fascinating. Although it is a German example, I would like to introduce it. This can prove that one phoneme can be “very” meaning-distinguishing. In the pair ‘u’ and ‘ü’ spelling is important as well (do not forget the umlaut): ‘schwul’ /ʃvuːl/ and ‘schwül’ /ʃvyːl/.
A new phoneme, which is called ‘glottal stop’, was introduced in the session and our teacher not only explained how it is produced, but also pronounced it.
Session 9: Morphology and Word Formation
This is one of my favorite topics. I used to like word formation of Russian, English, German in school and what I have discovered after the 9th session. When we take one word with the same meaning from these 3 languages ‘introduction’, ‘Einführung’ and ‘введение’, we can see that they all have a prefix ‘intro-’, ‘ein-’, ‘в-’ and they mean ‘into, to the inside’.
I do not think these words originated as calques. Hence, we can speak about the meaning of an inflectional morpheme. Moreover, it somehow corresponds with our minds. In these 3 languages the meaning of the word can be understood if we analyze the components such as prefixes and stems.
All these stems mean the same ‘lead’. To sum up, the meaning of these independent words consisting of components with the same meaning we can describe as ‘something leading into something’.
Session 10: Grammar and Syntax
This topic covers very much information and is somehow difficult. There is a lot of terminology, and unfortunately I missed this session, but the presentation is very well structured and I got a very clear understanding of what prescriptive and descriptive approaches to grammar are.
I know now the difference between finite and non-finite verbs as well. I am also interested in deep and surface structures because I always think whether two different expressions/utterances with the same meaning represent the same idea (have really the same meaning) or there are some differences.
Session 11: Semantics
This is also one of my favorite topics. I would like to mention that the last page of our handout has wonderful jokes based on the semantic relations. One more time, the presentation and its demonstration in class were very good and interesting.
I would like to say that some definitions of semantic relations became clear for me as I had confused homonyms, homographs and homophones. I know now what is the difference between polysemy and homonymy as well.
DE
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