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! :)

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.

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.

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! :)