English Language Unit 2

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Greetings from te 21st Century…

November 11th, 2008 by · No Comments · amandaf

I’m not sure if anyone will be blogging, given that the exam is fast approaching…I’m sure you are all revising madly :)

BUT, I am at a 21st Century Learning Conference, and some of the speakers’ ideas have really connected with ideas we have played with in Lang. Professor Peter Buckskin, Dean of the David Unaipon Centre at the Uni of SA, presented a perspective on indigenous education and disadvantage. He chastised Julia Gillard (she opened the conference) about her lack of comment on Indigenus issues and education i her keynote address – edgy!  He then focused on the issue of language – which I’m sure to some conference delegates seemed odd – but we linguists have already talked about the links between language and identity.

Contemporary Education research suggests that students learn more when they feel they are respected and cared about as people (well, duh). Professor Buckskin argues that, until we recognise indigenous languages as being worthwhile (and, heaven forbid – praps learn some of ‘em!), we can’t really say that we value indigenous students and respect their identities. This then makes indig students’ comfort at school, and therefore learning, difficult to improve.

As Luke has commented in the past (about other ideas) this is such a simple and obvious idea….but one that we just don’t seem to be ‘getting’ in this country.

I am interested in your ideas – should we/how can we acknowledge/incorporate/utilise/respect indigenous language and culture in the Australian schooling system?

A

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Crazy English spelling…

November 11th, 2008 by · No Comments · kathrynh

This post really related more to Outcome 1, but seeing as it’s exam time perhaps it is useful! And anyway, it is always fun to look at our crazy spelling – no wonder we have so many problems with it! Sometimes it really does seem like a good idea to throw it all out and start again…

http://syberchic.net/english.html

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question

November 1st, 2008 by · 1 Comment · tamaraf

can pidgins be created from more than 2 different languages?   are there any examples of this?

just curious.

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Indiana University Creole Institute

October 27th, 2008 by · 1 Comment · brookew

Hey,

I was just researching some info on where pidgins and creoles are taught. I came across this awesome website about a uni/institue that actually teaches creoles. Here is some info;

The Creole Institute at Indiana University is recognized as the only center in the United States that is equipped with linguistic and related educational issues in Haiti. It specializes in research and training in the area of applied linguistics with a focus on French-based creoles. The Institute is also heavily involved in the study of French outside of France, especially varieties found in North America with special reference to Louisiana.  The Institute’s most recent textbook, Ann Pale Kreyòl, is used widely across the United States in universities and other language institutions, and is available for purchase through this website, along with various audio materials and dictionaries.

The website is…..www.indiana.edu/~creole/

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What r creoles made up of??

October 27th, 2008 by · No Comments · brookew

Hey guys,

Just a really quick question as i have left my english book at skool. What r pidgins and creoles made up of??

is it syntax from the less dominant laguage, and morphology and lexicon from the dominant??

i get all this mixed up!!

Thanks heaps,

Brooke

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October 21st, 2008 by · No Comments · petag

So, I typed ‘hello’, ‘hallo’, and ‘ola’ into lexicon and it was pretty much what I expected, that English is used a lot more than German or Spanish. What I found most interesting was that the use of ‘ola’ really started to increase about April of this year. In fact, it’s now used a lot more often than ‘hallo’. I wonder what has happened for that change to take place?

Also, as Kathryn has noted before, there’s a huge drop in people saying ‘hello’ around Christmas and New Years. But, I wonder why there was an increase around August 31st? Weird.

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Australian Kriol! At last!

October 20th, 2008 by · 2 Comments · joshe, melindae

About Roper River

The Australian Kriol (or Roper River Kriol), was developed via European settlers making contact with the indigenous people of northern territory and northern Queensland. Today, around 30,000 people speak it and its vocabulary is very similar to that of the English language, but has large grammatical and syntactic structure differences, thus making it its own language.

How It Became To Be

When European settlement was achieved in 1870, an influx of both English and Chinese speakers followed. In order for communication to occur between new comers and the local Aboriginal people, pidgins developed throughout the territory. By 1900, Northern Territory Pidgin English was widespread and well understood. However, when cattle stations were set up in the Roper River area and a community was formed, The Northern Territory Pidgin English was taught to the children born into the community, the children grew older (as most do (except those ones in Neverland, ugh!) that’s right, I just put a bracket inside a bracket, take THAT prosodic markers!) and used it to communicate between one another, therefore ladies and gentlemen, we have a Creole!

Cool stuff (like me, but more like books and stuff)

The Roper River Kriol has its own translation of the bible which was 29-years in the making was released on the 5th of May 2007, also there is a Lord’s Prayer written/spoken (don’t get technical on me) which is as follows;

“Dedi langa hebin,
yu neim im brabli haibala, en melabat nomo wandim enibodi garra yusum yu neim nogudbalawei.

Melabat wandim yu garra kaman en jidan bos langa melabat,
en melabat wandim ola pipul iya langa ebri kantri garra irrim yu wed en teiknodis langa yu seimwei laik olabat dum deya langa hebin.

Melabat askim yu blanga gibit melabat daga blanga dagat tudei.

Melabat larramgo fri detlot pipul hu dumbat nogudbala ting langa melabat,
en melabat askim yu blanga larramgo melabat fri du.

Melabat askim yu nomo blanga larram enijing testimbat melabat brabli adbalawei,
en yu nomo larram Seitin deigidawei melabat brom yu.

Ol detlot ting na melabat askim yu, Dedi, dumaji yu bos,
en ola pawa kaman brom yu, en yu na det brabli shainiwan lait,
en melabat kaan lukbek langa enibodi. Oni langa yu na.

Amin.”

Try and find some words similar to English and post them in a comment.

♥ you lang class,

Josh and Mel

 

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TOEIC

October 20th, 2008 by · 2 Comments · tamaraf

…..stands for Test Of English for International Communication.

It is used to measure the English skills of people working in international environments.
It is a two-hour multiple choice test, that consists of 200 questions. 100 questions cover listening comprehension, and the other 100 cover reading comprehension.
The candidates are given a score between 5 and 495 for the reading and listening comprehension, the final score is given and is a result somewhere between 10 and 990.
Participants then receive a certificate, in one of five colours depending on their score.

  •       orange (10-215)
  •       brown (220-465)
  •       green (470-725)
  •       blue (730-855)
  •       gold (860-990) .

4.5 million people take the test each year.

TOEIC was first introduced in Japan in 1979, then became available in Korea in 1982. Since then the test has expanded and is being used in Asia, Europe and the Americas.

This must be how China is recruiting the best English speaking applicants for employment!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOEIC
http://www.teachandtravel.net/toeic.htm

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Gurrumul = World Music?

October 20th, 2008 by · 1 Comment · amandaf

Did anyone see the ARIAs last night?

 

I was really interested to note that Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was nominated for World Music release. What do you guys think about this? Gurrumul speaks little English (he has a translator with him at all times) and sings in his native Yolngu.

Should a singer who comes from Arnhem land, and speaks a language native to this country, be nominated in the same category as people who sing in languages from other parts of the world, while Australians who sing in English are seen as the norm?

This annoys me. Am I being silly?

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World Vision… Killers of Language?

October 17th, 2008 by · 6 Comments · sarahw

My family and I sponsor a child through World Vision, her name is Andrea and she is almost two years old. Just the other day we were sent a package of a Christmas card and gift for us to write in and then send to her. The card had a big “Feliz Navidad” on the front, I was already pretty sure that this was Spanish (which it is, meaning “Merry Christmas”) but it got me thinking I wasn’t sure where she was from and whether Spanish was the official language there. So I went and looked at the card with her picture on it and information on her. Turns out Andrea is from Chile and her actual language is “Mapudungun” so I have done some research into Chile and her language.

Chile is a country in South America occupying a long and narrow coastal strip. Spanish is the Lingua Franca and I’m pretty sure the “official” language of Chile as it has many indigenous languages, including the one spoken by Andrea. Mapudungun is made up of the words “Mapu” meaning ‘earth’ and “dungun” meaning ‘speak, speech’ and is spoken in central Chile and west central Argentina by the Mapuche people(from “mapu” and “che” ‘people’). There are an estimated 275,000 active users of the language, 200,000 in Chile and 75,000 in Argentina. I won’t get into all the grammar, lexicon and stuff to do with the language but lets just say it has nothing to do with English. It is not a pidgin or creole and it’s all pretty interesting if you want to look it up.

What I most wanted to talk about is World Vision’s affect on speakers of indigenous languages such as Andrea. They obviously knew what language she spoke (because they provided this info to us) and yet they still organised a card to be sent to her in Spanish and as well as the present that she was getting which was a pack of English Alphabet Cards (for each letter of the alphabet there was an english word and picture.) Before her second birthday she is already being influenced by two very powerful and global languages; Spanish and English. How will this affect her? Will she still learn her native language?

But I just found it interesting that World Vision, out there saving lives could be killing languages in the process. Don’t get me wrong what World Vision do is absolutely amazing but maybe they should be a bit more careful in how they do it.

Thanks for reading… I wanna hear other people’s opinions! :D

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