Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Last Class Pictures

So here are the pictures from our last language and linguistics class.
> Nim doing her presentation.
Here we can see Miss Sarada reviewing Nim's presentation, and thivya subtly posing on her left. :P
> Thivya doing her presentation.


Our 'good luck' cake.Group picture! :) But sadly Habibah, Vijaya, Hadi and Jamuna are not in the picture. :(
Thivya and Ainu enjoying their cake. :)
Okay, I guess this would be the last post! :) Good luck to all for your exams.
and i would like to thank Miss Sarada for making this class our most favourite and interesting class! we have really gained alot from this class, how to do research, how to be actually involved in a class, how to voice out our opinions, and it's all thanks to you! :)

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Important Notice!

our revision class on 14/4/2009 would start at 11 a.m. :)

and the areas that will be covered in exams are topics 3 to 6, 8,9, and 12.

3.Malaysian languages: Standard Malay: Origins, Ties with Bahasa Indonesia, Borrowings, etc.
4.Malaysian languages: Malay dialects of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak.
5.Malaysian languages: Chinese and Indian languages and dialects.
6.Malaysian languages: Other languages, pidgins and creoles.
8.First and Second Language Acquisition.
9. Language History and Change.
12. Phonemes of English.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Presentation Pictures



Here are the pictures from last week's presentations! :)

>Vijaya explaining morphemes.


>Ainu participating in vijaya's activity (identify affixes) > kimal participating.
>Ainu playing her video of the deaf and mute child. Ainu presented on the topic Language and society.
> The whole class paying attention to Ainu's presentation.
>Habibah presenting her topic - language and culture.
>kimal and hadi taking turns presenting their topic- the history of malay.


we'll try to take a group picture next week! dress up! :P

Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Information

Introduction to Language and Linguistics…Presentation(7/4/09)

1.All living languages change. Select a language. Study the history of the language. Discuss the changes. Give egs and reasons for the changes.

2.Explain ‘varieties’ of a language. Explain the varieties of a selected language. Give egs. Show how they differ from the standard language.

3.What is the importance of a language to society? Is culture important? Explain and give egs. Can language/culture die? Explain.

4. Phonemes & Morphemes in English

Groups -
1. Nimz & Kimz
2. Thivya
3. Wani & Sidra
4. Jamuna & Vijaya

-take about half an hour
-make hardcopy of the research


*Revision = 14/4/2009 (Last Day)

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Next Week

1. Presentations - Hadi and Habibah will be presenting next week.

2.Research and read up on -

i) Language History & Change
ii)Language Varieties
iii) Language, Society & Culture

Note: Groups will be required to present on the above topics.

Bring your research to class.

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Presentations - Evaluation

Evaluate the presentations. Give comments/ feedback that are constructive. Use the following as a guide to help you focus on various aspects of the presentation. Post your comments in the blog.

1. Briefly explain the aim of the presentation.
2. Do you think the group achieved the aim? Yes/No. Explain.
3. What was the most interesting/boring aspects of the presentation? Explain why.
4. Did the group/individual manage to hold the attention/interest of the whole class? Explain how.
5. Did the presentation help you reflect, collaborate, ask questions, etc? Was it a learning experience? Explain whether you got a better understanding of the topic.
6. How would you have done the presentation to make it more interesting?

Sunday, March 8, 2009

New Questions/Topics!

Miss Sarada:

Sidra is doing a wonderful job for you guys.From 'comment counts' to providing links.So what are you waiting for?Comments=marks.

Here are some questions for you to think of to comment on.

1.Who is a 'native speaker'of a language?
2.Can 'near native like'proficiency in a language be acquired?How?Quote research and give examples.
3.Discuss the Nativist,cognitivist and behaviouristic theories in relation to language learning.
4.Why do languages change?
5.What is the role of language in society?
6.Is there a link between culture and language?Explain.

Note:Please bring relevant research to class on Tuesday.Need to see the hard copy.The above together with other topics will be discussed further in class.

I see our friend Hadi is promoting his country...heh,heh.How much of Hadi's culture do you know?Are there any similiarities between the different Malaysian cultures and where Hadi comes from?Is it important you get to know his culture?Why?

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Comment Count

I noticed that most of you keep commenting on the chat box, but there aren't many comments in the forum section... remember only actual comments regarding our class or the topics miss sarada gave us counts. so i decided to do a comment count so that, if you missed to comment on a topic, you can check here and do so .. :)

1. Forum 1: Ainu, Sidra, Thivya,Nim, G. Vijaya, Kimz
http://lnljan2009.blogspot.com/2009/01/first-forum.html

2. 3 orginal malay words: Hadi (malaysian), Bib, sidra, G.Vijaya
http://lnljan2009.blogspot.com/2009/02/3-original-malay-words.html

3. Mother Tongue: Pooja/Vijaya, Bib, Sidra,Nim, Jamuna, Ainu
http://lnljan2009.blogspot.com/2009/02/origin-of-your-mother-tongue.html

4. Malaysian English: Bib, Sidra,Nim , Thivya , g.vijaya, Ainu, Kimz
http://lnljan2009.blogspot.com/2009/02/malaysian-english.html

5. 2nd Forum: Ainu, Sidra , Nim , thivya, G.Vijaya
http://lnljan2009.blogspot.com/2009/03/information.html

6. New Questions/Topics! : Ainu, Thivya, Nim, G. Vijaya
http://lnljan2009.blogspot.com/2009/03/new-questionstopics.html

7. Presentation Evaluation: Thivya, G.Vijaya, Sidra, Ainu, Nim
http://lnljan2009.blogspot.com/2009/03/presentations-evaluation.html


Looks like only 1/3rd of the class have actually been commenting.. I have added links to each topic so that you don't have to search for the links... take this opportunity to comment and share with us our opinions guys! :)

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Information & 2nd Forum

Presentation Schedule
17/3/2009 - Group 1 & Group 2

24/3/2009 - Group 3 & Group 4

31/3/2009 - Group 5 & Group 6

Quiz - 5%
In the course plan it is stated that the Quiz is valued at 5% ... All the topics that would be taken under consideration in this 5% is -

>Blog
>Forum
>Discussions
>Participation
>Quiz

Next Week Topics
Topic 8: First and Second Language Acquisition.
Topic 9: Language History and Change.
Topic 10: Language Varieties.

Forum 2 : HOW WAS THE MID SEM TEST?
Start commenting! :)

Friday, February 13, 2009

Course Plan

COURSE PLAN

Course Leader: SARADA NAIR
Course Title:
Introduction to Language and Linguistics
Semester: January

Email : snair20032003@yahoo.com

Course Code: EGB 1013

Year: 2009


Status: Degree

Course Plan Version: Final


Amendment Date: -

INTRODUCTION:
In general, this is a course that aims to prepare students with deeper understanding on the notions surrounding language and linguistic. It is a step-by-step framework that offers simple and reader-friendly explanations on the topics covered. The contents covered are thorough: ranging from the origins of language up until language, society and culture. Besides exposing students to the forms and functions of language, it is also hoped that all the topics covered would prepare students to ask a lot of the kinds of questions that professional linguists ask.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
1. To introduce students to the internal structure of language (its form).
2. To introduce students to the varied uses of language in human life (its function).
3. To prepare students to ask a lot of the kinds of questions that professional linguists ask.


LEARNING OUTCOME: Students will have a deeper understanding on the notions surrounding language and linguistics.


TEXT BOOKS:
George Yule (1998). The Study of Language (Second Edition). Cambridge University Press. Cambridge: Great Britain.
Parker,F and Riley,K. (2005). Linguistics for Non-Linguists. Pearson. Singapore.

Course Policy/Attendance policy Students are required to abide by the university’s Academic Regulation pertaining to all matters during their course of study. Students are advised to take note that class attendance is very important.

COURSE ASSESSMENT:
Character: 5%
Quiz: 5%
Assignment:20%
Mid Term Test:20%
Final Examination:50%
Total:100%

Just right click on the table and click save as, to have a larger view of the table! :)

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Quiz Topics

1.The origins of language and the development of writing.

2.What is language?.

3.Malaysian Languages:Standard Malay:Origins,Ties with Indonesian Language,Borrowings,etc.

4.Malaysian languages:Malay dialects of Peninsular Malaysia,Sabah n S'wak.

6.Malaysian languages:other languages,pidgins and creole.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

10/2/2008 Course Notes

Discussion-Malaysian English/1st and 2nd Language Acquisition(10/2/09)

•1.Define Malaysian English.What is the difference between Malaysian English and Singapore English?
•2.Explain the status of English in Malaysia.
•3.What is ‘Manglish?’Give egs of ‘Manglish’.
•4.Explain the difference between ‘acquisition’ and ‘learning’.
•5.What is 1st language/2nd language/mother tongue?
•6.How does language acquisition take place?Discuss the stages in language development.
•7.Discuss the theories behind language acquisition.

Malaysian English

Malaysian English (MyE), formally known as Malaysian Standard English (MySE), is a form of
English used and spoken in Malaysia as a second language. Malaysian English should not be confused with Malaysian Colloquial English which is famously known as Manglish or Street English, a portmanteau of the word Malay and English, mostly spoken by the non-Malays.

Features

•(1) Malaysian English and
SINGAPORE ENGLISH have much in common, with the main exception that English in Malaysia is more subject to influence from Malay.

(2) Pronunciation is marked by: a strong tendency to syllable-timed rhythm, and a simplification of word-final consonant clusters, as in /lɪv/ for lived.

(3) Syntactic characteristics include: the countable use of some usually uncountable nouns (Pick up your chalks; A consideration for others is important); innovations in phrasal verbs (such as cope up with rather than cope with); the use of reflexive pronouns to form emphatic pronouns (Myself sick I am sick; Himself funny He is funny); and the multi-purpose particle lah, a token especially of informal intimacy (Sorry, can't come lah).

(4) Local vocabulary includes: such borrowings from Malay as bumiputera (originally
SANSKRIT, son of the soil) a Malay or other indigenous person, dadah illegal drugs, rakyat the people, citizens, Majlis (from ARABIC) Parliament, makan food such special usages as banana leaf restaurant a South Indian restaurant where food is served on banana leaves, chop a rubber stamp or seal, crocodile a womanizer, girlie barber shop a hairdressing salon that doubles as a massage parlour or brothel, sensitive issues (as defined in the Constitution) issues that must not be raised in public, such as the status of the various languages used in Malaysia and the rights and privileges of the different communities; such colloquialisms as bes (from best) great, fantastic, relac (from relax) take it easy; and such hybrids as bumiputera status indigenous status, and dadah addict drug addict .


Malaysian English is generally
non-rhotic, regardless of the fact that all /r/s are pronounced in native Malay.
Malaysian English originates from
British English as a result of British colonialism in present-day Malaysia.
It has components of
American English, Malay, Chinese, Indian, and other languages: vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar.
Like South-Eastern British English, Malaysian English employs a broad A accent, as such words like bath and chance appear with /ɑː/ and not /æ/.
The /t/ phoneme in words like butter is usually not
flapped (as in most forms of American English) or realised as a glottal stop (as in some other forms of British English, including Cockney).
There is no
h-dropping in words like head. Malaysian English does not have yod-dropping after /n/, /t/ and /d/. Hence, for example, new, tune and dune are pronounced /njuː/, /tjuːn/ and /djuːn/ rather than /nuː/, /tuːn/ and /duːn/.


Words or phrases only used in Malaysian English

• Handphone (often abbreviated to HP)Mobile phone .
•KIV (keep in view)Kept on file, held for further consideration.
•Outstation means both 'at work out of town' or less frequently 'at work overseas/abroad'.
•MC (medical certificate). Often used in this context, e.g. 'He is on MC today.


Different Meanings

•last time -previously on the previous occurrence.
• a parking lot- a parking space, e.g. "That new shopping mall has five hundred parking lots(malaysian."a parking garage (from US English)
•an alphabet -a letter of the alphabet, e.g. "The word 'table' has five alphabets(malaysian)."a set of letters used in a language
•Bungalow- A mansion for the rich and/or famous; or a fully detached house, regardless of the number of floors it has. Lately, some housing developers have changed the usage of this word further and we now see terms like "a semi-detached bungalow“(malaysian).A small house or cottage usually having a single storey and sometimes an additional attic storey that is free standing, i.e. not conjoined with another unit.


Vocabulary

•Cik: Ms
•Dadah: Drugs (As in narcotics,etc)
•Encik: Mr
•kampung (archaic spelling: campong): a village
•lepak: loiter
•Mat Salleh : a white person typically a man
•Puan: Madam

Syntax

•Can I come too? for "May I come too?"
•Have you got any? for "Do you have any?"
•I've got one of those already. for "I have one of those already."
•It's your shot. for "It's your turn."

Phonology and Pronunciation

•Officially, Malaysian English uses the same pronunciation system as British English. However, most Malaysians speak with a distinctive
accent. The accent has recently evolved to become more American, due to the influx of American TV programmes and the large number of Malaysians pursuing higher education in the United States. For example, this increased the emphasis on "r" in words such as "referring" and "world".

Malaysian English

See anything....hear anything that resembles 'Malaysian English?'Please share your observations with your friends by posting them in the blog.

Friday, February 6, 2009

3/2/2009 Course Notes

Here are the notes, and questions we did on our last class. :)

Standard Language

Standard language(also standard dialect)-a particular variety of a language that is recognised as ‘correct’.
-it is the language used by the media,schools,courts,for official functions,etc.-it encompasses grammar,vocabulary,spelling,and to some extent pronunciation

Standard English

•There are 2 major varieties of ‘Standard English’,i.e.British English and American English which has the largest number of native speakers.

Dialect

•Different groups of people speak the ‘same’ language differently.For eg.when New Yorkers,Malaysians,the Blacks,the Hispanics, etc.speak English,there are systematic differences in the way each group speaks.Yet,each group is mutually intelligible to the other.
•The Danish,the Norwegian and the Swedish can converse with one another and are mutually intelligible.They are considered languages because they are spoken in different countries.
•Similiarly,Hindi and Urdu are mutually intelligible ‘languages’.They are considered languages because they are spoken in different countries.
•The various languages spoken in China,such as Mandarin and Cantonese,although mutually unintelligible have been referred to as dialects of Chinese because they are spoken within the same country and have a common writing system.

The Malay Language

•An Austronesian language with some 33 million speakers in the Malay Peninsula,Sumatra,Borneo,and parts of Indonesia.
•The history of the Malay language can be divided into 4 periods-
•A)Old Malay(682-1500C.E.)
•B)Early Modern Malay(1500-1850)
•C)The Late Modern Malay(1850-1957)
•D)Contemporary Malay(after 1957)

Borrowed vocabulary

•The Malay language has many words borrowed from Arabic(religious terms),Hindustani,Sanskrit,Tamil,Portuguese,Dutch,Chinese and lately English(scientific and technological terms)
•There are only very few true Malay words.eg.Batu(rock)is an original Malay word.Do you know of others?

Pidgins

-a variety of a language(eg.English)developed for some practical purpose,such as trading,among people who had a lot of contact,but who did not know each other’s languages.
-the origin of the term ‘Pidgin’ is from the Chinese Pidgin version of the English word ‘business’.

English Pidgins

Characteristics of English Pidgins:
•-absence of any complex grammatical morphology.
•-limited vocabulary
•-suffixes such as ‘s’(plural)and ‘s’(possessives)
•Eg.tu buk(two books),di gyal pleis(the girl’s place)
•-buk bilong yu –is said instead of ‘your book’
•-haisimap (hoist him up) or lift
•-yumi-(you plus me)
•-hed(head)
•-i-arrait(he alright)-baimbai(by and by)

Creoles

•-When a pidgin develops beyond its role as a trade language and becomes the first language of a social community.
•Eg.Tok Pisin can be described as ‘Creole”.
•-spoken by a large number of people in Hawaii.
•-a Creole develops as the first language of the children of Pidgin speakers.

Discuss the following in groups and present your findings to the rest of the class.(Quiz-20m)

•1.Explain with examples the following:a)Standard language b)dialect c)creole d)pidgin
•2)Explain the origin of the Malay language.Focus on the different eras in the history of the Malay language.
•3.What are the different Malay,Chinese,Indian languages/dialects in Malaysia?Explain the difference between language and dialect?
•4)Explain the differences between the Malay language and Bahasa Indonesia.
•5)Why does a language borrow words from other languages?Does the Malay language have borrowed words?List the words and their origin.

Origin of your mother tongue

Miss Sarada: Hmm,here's another one...look into the origin of your mother tongue...research and post your findings here.

3 Original Malay Words

Miss Sarada: Remember what Hadi mentioned in class?That the Malay language has only 3 original words.Research and post your comments.

Announcements

1. The Introduction to Language & Linguistics class under Miss Sarada will start at 2.00pm until further notice. This is to make up the time lost during Chinese New Year Holiday.

2. Miss sarada: I'd like to discuss your presentations in the next class(10/2/09).How you intend to do it,etc,etc,etc.Hopefully,the discussion will help fine tune your presentation.So come prepared.

3. Please comment under the right post. I will update the blog with new posts, with different titles, and please, do comment under the right post. :) And don't worry about starting new posts.. as long as you have a new topic to discuss, please do so! :)

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Wow! What a class it had been. I first came into the Language and Linguistic Class with nothing but a pen and A4-sized notebook. No preparation whatsoever for what's in store. Heck, I didn't even know what the course was about. I was all prepared for a straightforward, spoon feeding session so I can go back to my other jobs; the ones that pay the bills and keep me going as a full time student.
Imagine my shock when given a set of questions I have to find the answers to myself! Thankfully, after the initial surprise has won off, I got into the groove of researching again, something I loved doing in my days as a journalist. I know from experience though that research can be a daunting and time consuming job. Dishearteningly too, 90% of research might end up on the floor and only the 10% is usable in answering a question. Even then, perhaps only 5% is truly relevant. What one do get from research is the invaluable knowledge that lingers in your mind (if you had been actually reading your stuff instead of printing it out blindly).
For that, I can imagine this class will take up most of my time this semester. Fortunately the topic is interesting so I'm not complaining. Yet. ;-)

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

First Forum!

Date: 13.1.2009
Title: First Forum

What is language?
Can you explain the origin of language?
Can you imagine a world without language?

please go to http://mail.google.com/ and set up a gmail account before you comment.
and remember to log in before you comment! :)