One thing that I have recently noticed about language is how many words can vary in definition across different regions. For example, in the US, when we think of a hotel, we thing of a place that people will stay in for a couple nights as part of a vacation. Embassy Suites, Plaza Hotel are all places that bring up images of staying for a couple nights while you are on vacation. However, in India, the word Hotel has a different vibe to it. When a person says Hotel Saravana Bhavan, this is not a place that a person will stay in for a couple nights as an English person would think. Instead, Hotel Saravana Bhavan is a restaurant where people go in to eat a meal such as lunch or dinner. While the idea of staying for a couple nights versus eating is completely different, one thing they both have in common is that they use the word “hotel”. The other difference is that the perception Americans would have of hotel differs from the perception that Indians have of a hotel. As a part-Indian myself, I have always found it interesting yet difficult to adapt to both meanings. When I visited India, my parents would say we are going to this hotel tonight, and only when we got there, I’d realize it was a restaurant, not a place you stay at. Thus, one thing I really understood is that within our lexicon, some words can have multiple meanings that differ in region.
LOBS: Accents and Grammar
This time, during one of my office hours with a teaching assistant, I saw a perfect example of the Language Myth “Bad Grammar is Slovenly” in action. The way this conference worked is that my TA is an Indian, and he was having an office hour with a couple other people. When people would try and cut each other off, or make mispronunciations, he questioned their grammar and what they were trying to say. This, to me shows that my TA had a descriptive grammar because he had to learn all the patterns for grammar by himself, which made him very knowledgeable. On the other hand, some students seemed to have a prescriptive grammar, because they were continuously interrupting each other and making similar grammatical mistakes, which could have demonstrated prescriptive grammar. The rules for grammar seemed to be arbitrarily “ingrained” in the English students as they felt whatever they spoke was right even if it was not. This then caused me to question and try to understand the mechanisms of how we learn and process language, until I understood this situation was similar to Language Myth 12. Thus, I was happy to find a perfect example of Language Myth 12 in action.
LOBS: Ungrammatical vs. Grammatical
Today, while I was talking with a friend on text message, I could not help but stop and think about the language used. We were discussing a project that we had to complete for a class that meets once a week. I went to class once at the wrong time and told that to my friend. He then responded “oh, you go to class now”. I could not help but wonder whether this was ungrammatical or a joke and a fault of my parsing. I thought for a little bit because I was talking in past tense, and he responded in present tense over an event that happened in the past. Thus, I was wondering whether this subject-verb agreement could work in a different language or dialect to represent present tense over past tense.
LOBS: English Study experiment
Last week, I was able to participate in a LOC experiment as part of one of the requirements for the class. The experiment was entitled “English Study” by Lauren Squires and this was a very interesting experiment in a variety of ways. One thing that was interesting was how, in part 1, when I was reading sentences, the experimenter made it so only one word shows at a time. I thought this was intriguing because it forced me to draw from my memory to try and remember the full sentence as some sentences were very long. This, to me, was like trying to draw from my mental lexicon when I am trying to speak or write a sentence. I also had to answer questions about each sentence regarding tense and which words were stated. This was a nice play on syntax as I had to understand how sentences are arranged in a grammatical way. Thus, one thing I understood from this experiment is the connection between reading a sentence and memory, as we are always remembering a word from a sentence as we read it even if we cannot see the sentence all at once.
LOBS: slang terms
One thing I have always been very curious of is many of the slang terms we use in today’s World. One example of a slang term is “y’all”. In reality, a person means, “you all”, but such a word or contraction does not exist in English. I have found myself using that slang term numerous times even when I had to learn English myself. When I was at a dinner last week with some of my friends, one of them used that slang “y’all” repeatedly, and I could not help but wonder why slang terms are used so often as I thought to my Linguistics class. Thus, one thing I seek to understand is the origins of such slang terms and how they have evolved over time.
LOBS: 4/16/2016
While I was studying at the library by myself, I ran into one of my old friends, who introduced me to somebody else who had a very thick accent from the South. One word that stood out to me on the way he pronounced was “quarter”, in which he’d put emphasis on the “quar” part of the word. Obviously, since he told me he was born in America, the very different accent caught me off guard. Then, I though back to one of my language myths, and realized that as different cultures are brought together, language starts to evolve and become more complex and diverse. Thus, it was interesting to meet somebody with a completely different accent in America.
LM 1: The Meanings of Words Should Not Be Allowed to Vary or Change
This Language Myth was very philosophical in its take on the origins of words and their meanings. The myth for this week was that there are multiple meanings of words that change over time based on speakers and the context and there are skeptics who believe that changes in language is not right. These skeptics argue that language is meant to be set in stone and that a word’s meaning and importance should be defined based on its origins. The example the author gave was how aggravate means “to irritate” in English although this word is derived from the Latin word “aggravare”, which means “to make heavier”. The thing though with this myth is that in English, there are many words which have changed their meanings over the centuries. Thus, the one thing I seek to understand is how many words even came into existence and what in particular caused their meanings to change over time. Going off this, I also want to understand how definitions of words have evolved and changed to what they are now.
LOBS: Suprasegmentals
The reading for last week on Suprasegmentals was a way for me to learn more about the mechanics involved with articulation. I was able to learn that not everything about articulation is set-in-stone, such as the pronunciations of words. I also was able to see that there are many aspects such as tone, length, speed, and stress in language that can create meaning in what we speak. I was able to actually get an insight and realize that the rules that exist in grammar are designed specifically to prevent speaking errors that can stem from suprasegmentals. For example, if a comma does not exist in a sentence where there should be one, a person would say it with no pause, and then there will be a completely new meaning. Thus, one thing I seek to understand is how suprasegmentals are formed and how are grammar has been designed so that there are little ambiguities when we speak.
LM 13: Black Children are Verbally Deprived
Language Myth 13 was a very unique Language Myth because it was a take on the idea of dialects, language style, and, to some extent, history in the features of language. One important thing about our language is that there are differences in the varieties in English that can sometimes correlate with ethnicity. In this case, accents play a big role as well as place of origin. History has always regarded Black people as the “inferior group” and thus, people have looked upon them is “ignorant and language deprived”. However, as the perspectives on the status of Black Americans have changed, so to have the myths about Black Americans. Another thing I found interesting is that the basis for language differences is that when people from different cultures come together, the languages reflecting these cultures mix and adapt. Thus, one thing I ponder and seek to learn more about is how this such “melting pot” can contribute to the evolution of linguistics and the way we use language as a mode of understanding and communicating.
LOBS: The nature of phonetics
This week’s chapter unit of Phonetics brought up some really interesting concepts that I had noticed while reading. One thing that really struck out to me were the features for the articulation part of phonetics. More importantly, the manner of articulation was what really interested me because of the way our vocal tract might be constricted when speaking. While this interest me, the one thing I was interested in is how we group words and phrases into phonetic symbols and why they have the phonetic symbol they do. Doing the reading helped me understand this idea a little, but the why and reasons for groupings behind phonetic symbols is one thing I seek to understand more in this unit.