Okay, so I found this and thought it was adorable! The video goes through the seven different stages of language learning and explains what they all are as well as how they work. Using cute drawings as well as videos, she shows very nicely how all of the stages. I thought that this video was super cute and it was also really interesting to me because I am very close to children that are all going through the different stages (My sister is pregnant as well as having an 18 month old daughter. I also have a goddaughter who just turned 4 months old a week ago.) It's kind of cool to know what's going on in their language acquisition and also to know what stage their in!
So, this video is all about saving languages through music. The speaker, Susanna Zaraysky, speaks briefly about the diminishing numbers of languages in our world. She then goes on to talk about how she hopes to revitalize languages through music. From here, she sings a lovely song in an endangered language. It's very beautiful and makes me smile. Ever since I was a child I've been interested in both endangered as well as dead languages. I wanted to learn as many of them as I could, perhaps even bring some of them back. I don't really know why, but it was something that I wanted to do. I really do hope that she's successful in her efforts! If you want to skip ahead to her singing, it starts at 2:35.
Well, hello again! So today I found a lovely video about old slang that should be brought back to life! Some of it is super funny, some of it is a little scary (i.e., the "Bag O' Mystery aka a sausage). The video mostly goes through a bunch of old slang words and their meanings. Really interesting! I do believe that some of the slang words should be brought back, but I can only do so much as a single person! It all depends on other wonderful people like yourselves! Sorry this is so short, but there isn't too much I can say about this, other than it's fun!
Now, I know that this isn't specifically about how sounds are made in languages, but I thought that it was an amazing example of how the sounds can change for the same object in different languages. We all know that there are different words depending on what language you speak, but they all share the meanings. This video is a funny take on how the same thing can sound so similar (or in Germany's case so different) depending on the language that's being spoken.
The pronunciation is so different in each language, some are soft and gentle, others sound harsh and powerful. To hear the differences of each language all side-by-side is actually a very beautiful thing to me. All languages share a beauty in their nature, twisting about in a rise and fall of sounds that make up a speech of which others can understand with ease. The whole concept is mind-boggling as well as stunning. I hope you all can enjoy the video! See you in class!
Signing Out!
Juliana Mandile
Hello again! Long time no see! (Just kidding, I totally forgot this was due today so I'm literally posting this a few hours after class.) I did the typical lazy-student act when asked to write about a concept in a chapter. I cracked my book open to the chapter, flipped some pages and pointed! Lucky for me, it was actually a concept that I was interested in!
So, the video (since I know most people won't actually watch the whole thing) is just giving examples of the four maxims of conversation, or better known as Grice's Cooperative Principle. Using The Big Bang Theory they go over the four maxims on conversation which are; Maxim of Quality, Maxim of Quanity, Maxim of Relation, and Maxim of Manner.
When reading about the maxims in class, I honestly didn't really understand them too well. They all seemed pretty much the same and I really couldn't tell them apart. This video actually gave me a pretty good understanding of how they differ, not to mention how often the maxims are used in everyday life and not even noticed.
Well, that's all I've got today! Sorry it's so short! I'll see you all again in class on Thursday!
Signing off!
Juliana Mandile
Awww!!! Who doesn't love babies? (Besides the vast majority of my friends.) Me personally, I love babies right when they're getting up into that age where they're talking and making little gibberish noises. I'd have full out conversations with my nieces and nephew when they'd be gabbing up and storm, but it never made sense on my end what they were saying. I just thought it was funny to watch them as they got so excited to talk with me. I guess, at least according to this article, that they may have actually been making sense all along! Huh! Who knew!
According to this article, baby chatter is actually a language all of its own. The concept is interesting and it piqued my interest because my newest niece is very deeply in her chattering stage and learning new words everyday. I think that this stage in language development is vital to children learning language (though I am clearly not an expert.)
I can definitely see myself agreeing with this article (especially since I've always been a firm believer in speaking proper English and like adults to babies. [Though I'll be the first to admit that I start making the noises around a cute baby.]) In all of my experience with babies, I've never seen a child in my family have a hard time grasping the concept of language, but we always spoke to them like normal people. Most of the time. I completely agree though that babies have a language all of there own! Hell! My cousin and I still speak ours on occasions!
I didn't particularly wish to go and learn more about the topic, just because of the time crunch as well as I don't believe it's something I really need to know. Babies have gibber jabbered for ages and they're going to continue gabbing before they learn language. There currently isn't a way to decipher what their meanings are, so I don't truly see a reason to go out and learn more about it.
This topic can relate to the world because the world is always going to have little munchkins running underfoot, so it's nice to have a better grasp on how they learn language and what's totally normal for them. I believe this concept applies to all language-learning infants and it will continue to apply towards them for a long time.
Well, that's all I got for you tonight guys! I'm sorry that it was a bit rushed and sloppy, I'll have something better next time!
Signing Off!
Juliana Mandile
Hello again to you all! Now, I don't know if you're like me at all (though I'm sure we all have at least one of these moments once in our lives) but do you ever just stand there, red and flustered in the face, flailing your arms and searching for a word that doesn't exist? Or is it just me? To be totally honest, I experience lexical gaps (now I know the word for it is a lacuna!!!) on a daily if not conversational basis! There are ideas out there that I just want a word for! (For example, that FUWBBUWBWUBWUBWUB noise you get while wiggling a piece of sheet metal.) Now, at first, this video just seemed fun and silly because it was talking about a word for a non-virgin, but it quickly gained far more interest to me when it began talking about lexical gaps and how all languages have them.
Interestingly enough, I know very little about linguistics (though I call myself an English major and I get a happy tingly feeling within my soul as we discuss language-y things in class.) I found though that I'm constantly trying to fill my own lexical gaps by constantly making up words to fit what I want. Not very English-Major of me, but it works and keeps me happy. The video gave me a new word to add to my vocabulary though and made me giggle with glee!
Once again, I don't think there's much to agree or disagree with this video (it's pretty much an informational video). If I had to pick a side though and discuss what I'm agreeing with, I'd say yeah! Post things you think are funny and learn new things about them! In all seriousness though, lexical gaps are something I wish we had less of or that we could find ways to fill.
After watching this video, I have the sudden urge to run out and see how many lacuna's I can come across in a week and then look into something even more curious to me- are there actually words out there for what we want and we just don't know them, or is it a true lacuna with no real word within our English? I have a feeling that if I actually find the time to do so, it'd make for a very fun and interesting research project!
Lacuna's are aspects of every language (as mentioned in the video about Romanian and their lack of a word for 'shallow'). It's curious though that if we can describe a phenomenon, why do we have no word for it? Not just in English, but in all languages. Why are lexical gaps possible and how could we bridge these gaps? What would happen to language in itself if we found a way to name everything? Could it possibly lead to creating a universal language? All of these questions swim through my head and it makes my inner nerd giddy.
Well, I think that's it for this week! See you all for Blog #4!
Signing Off!
Juliana Mandile
Hello again my darlings! Today I was able to locate this, oddly fascinating article about a mutual word (and feeling) most of us understand on a deeper level.
Huh?
That's right! One of the most universal words that we can all understand is "Huh?" Which in my case is a wonderful thing! I know that throughout my day, on average, I use the word 'huh' or 'uhh...' at least twenty or thirty times. So, finding this article made me VERY happy to know that if I was ever lost in a foreign country, there's at least one very large part of my vocabulary that other people would understand!
Now, I don't know about you, but finding words that are similar ("amor" vs "amore") just make the little perfectionist inside my head scream and shout for joy! Knowing that there's a word that can be understood in any language has me literally bouncing for joy right now. In the video, they mention the concept of a universal language and how there's been several attempts throughout history to unite us under one language... As appealing as this sounds to me, I think it would be a horrible idea. Like we've been learning in class, our languages help form our thoughts, and our thoughts are what make us, well, us. Our languages give us a uniqueness that makes us unlike anyone else who ever is, has, or will be living.
Something that drew me to the article (as I stated before) was honestly the fact that it used one of my favorite words (not to mention I honestly think that for every article I look at, I consider the pun factors longer than I actually spend reading the article). The article itself is about universal language which makes it absolutely perfect to do a little blog entry about for a language class, plus it gives me, the author, something silly to giggle about as I type away!
Now, I don't know about you, but I never realized that Coca Cola had risen so high in the world that it was considered a universal word. I think it goes to show how huge the soda industry has risen. That, or they make some pretty awesome commercials. And Polar Bears are cute. Another word that I think they should add to that list though is Disney. I don't think that there's a child alive who knows the words "Coca Cola" but doesn't know "Disney". I think that there might come a day when I do more research on the topic of why "Disney" isn't in the universally known words list, but I think I'll have to save that for another day. Or another blog post. Whatever piques my interest first.
On the subject of research though! I've always loved the idea of secret languages (kind of like the Chickasaw language we just had to decode for the Chapter 2 questions) so I think I'd have to say... No. I wouldn't do more research or delve deeper into the topic of universal languages. Yeah, it'd be cool to know the words I could use so that everyone would understand me no matter where I am, but I think that a universal language is just a waste of time. Not to mention I adore individuality and anything that is unknown and strange to me.
A universal language (at the moment at least) has no affect on the world due to the fact that one does not exist. Yet. For the moment, we're all stuck with our own individual languages (oh the horror! Individuality!) Maybe sometime in the far future, after the world has gone through some major reconstructions of society they'll unit us under the same old boring language... But in the meantime! We each get our own special language that changes even within our own borders! Yay!
With that being said, this one was fun! See you all again next week!
Signing Off!
Juliana Mandile
Now, I don't know about a lot of you, but I personally swear like a freaking sailor (though I'm toning down the swearing significantly due to my respect towards the others in this class who may not like curse words). Since I was a child, swearing has been totally off limits. If I so much as uttered "damn" under my breath, my parents would lovingly plop my butt in the bathroom and gently wash my mouth out with soap. The thing though is that, swearing is as much a part of language as asking for directions.
It doesn't matter what language you look at, they all have swear words. I know for a fact that there are a lot of high school kids whose main interest in foreign languages is to learn all of the curse words and the best way to cuss someone out. What is it about cursing that's so bad though? Aren't they just words, after all? The subject has intrigued me (and led to several arguments at the dinner table) since I could actually understand what those words I had heard on the playground meant.
The video goes into a little bit of detail about the history of swear words and how they've changed over the years. Some swears disappear while others become more prominent. In my own lifetime, I've seen the death of some swears (words that are no longer considered "bad" or "vulgar") as well as the rise of some others (which even I won't use). Why is it that language changes in these ways? I wish that the article had gone a bit deeper into the subject, but alas! I shall be left to wonder! Or I can use my curiosity about the subject to go and do further research!
Another thing that the video goes into that makes me chuckle is how swearing actually makes us feel better. How is it that by yelling a few choice words into the sky will accomplish some form of pain relief? Yet we've all done it; whether it be when we broke a bone, or at 3 am when your pinky-toe decides to make sweet love with the corner of the door. Cursing feels good! If the world were more accepting of cursing (instead of shielding their children's ears when someone trips over the air and scuffs their leg) wouldn't it eradicate the usage of curse words anyways? It's these questions that keep me up at night, but that's besides the point! The point is, if we as a society were more accepting of cursing, perhaps it wouldn't be used as much by curious children.
Anyways! Enough of my rambling about the oddities of swearing! I believe that I covered most of the topics we were supposed to focus on (a bit jumbled and out of order, but it's all there)! So, I believe I shall leave you with this... Signing off!
Well hello all!
My name is Juliana Mandile, a fellow student at the glorious Glendale Community College!
This is my last semester of community college, and from here I plan on transferring to ASU in pursuit of my Bachelors degree in English. Due to my degree choice, I was alerted that I needed a few more ENG 200 classes, so I decided that this class looked like a lot of fun! Little did I know that I was going to be able to be making weekly blog posts for all of you lovelies!
Forgive me if I sound sarcastic, I'm actually just a happy person who enjoys adding frivolous adjectives to my sentences. With the occasional sassy comment. Or two. Or ten. I love making anything punny and cracking bad jokes at inappropriate times. It's a bad habit that I love. It also makes awkward situations all the more awkward!
In all seriousness though, some of my hobbies include reading as many novels as I can get my hands on. I will devour anything from journals to the most fantastical fiction imaginable. So long as it can keep my short attention span captured, I'll be reading it. I enjoy my art, usually spending free moments sketching when I'm not in the ceramics studio attempting to create something beautiful. It rarely happens, but when it does, I'm ecstatic. I enjoy sewing and writing in my journal as well as cooking. I play games with friends and like to believe I'm a very well rounded person. (There's a pun there since I'm definitely not a skinny girl.)
I'm not very big on different languages. I can say "hello! My name is Juliana!" in a few different languages, but after that I'm lost. I took two semesters of ASL, but promptly forgot most of what I learned. Though you can still on occasions see me attempting to sign random words in conversations, or trying to spell out longer words with my fingers. I grew up very close to a Mexican family and so I can usually understand when I'm being yelled at or told to go and stand in a corner. I watch more anime than is good for me, so there are some Japanese words that I can pick out of a conversation, but I'm far from fluent. I've always wanted to learn other languages, I've just had trouble sticking to them before I want to go and do something else.
So that's me! I'm actually looking forward to posting every week and putting in my two cents on what I've been looking into! I hope that I don't bore any of my classmates (or offend my teacher) with my thoughts and comments!
Signing out!
Juliana Mandile
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