Blog 9: Fun with Accents

So, because of our movie in class, I was looking into accents. I found this video. Amy walker does 21 different accents from all over the world. It is fascinating how shit nails some of these so perfectly. Also, if you notice, she does more that one from the same country, just in different locations. I totally wish I could do that!!! Amy Walker has a whole youtube channel on her accents and impersonation of different people and place. She does Disney Princesses and Villians. It is quite interesting, if you have time to check it out!

Blog 8: Bilingual Education

The article I chose this week ties into my EDU 220 class on Stuctured English Immersion. Arizona does not participate in bilingual education, they sticlty instruct all student in English only. This article basically talks about struggles that ELL, English Language Learners, face when stuck in an English only school setting. It says that it can lower self-esteem and take a longer time to actually learn the language. What the article didn't talk about were the levels of fluency ELL students go through while learning the language. There are 5 levels: Pre-emergent, Emergent, speech emergence, intermediate fluency, and fluency. It can take 5-7 years for a non-English first language speaker to become fluent. The way schools know if a student is in need of SEI or ELL classes is by the home language survey. If parents put anything other than English as the students first language, there will be given the AZELLA test. This test shows where they are in fluency of English. A student must pass the AZELLA twice consecutively in order to be marked at fluent. However, because Arizona is an English only state, we do on tot foster the child's first language. Therefore, in some cases, the actual first language if the student is lost. Personally, I think if students were taught English in there first language, both languages could be truely fluent.

https://www.proenglish.org/projects/bilingual-education.html

Blog 7: Drop Dead Languages....focus on Middle English

England in the late 1000s, the 1100s, and 1200s became a bilingual country. Norman French was the prestige language, English the language of everyday folk. Few Normans learned English in this early Middle English period. French was the language of court, of law, of the literature of the period (though remember that Latin was still a significant literary and religious language). Since few Anglo-Normans learned English, initially, there was little borrowing of French words into English in the period 1066-1300. The changes in English during this period were nevertheless quite substantial.
Early Middle English (1100-1300) has a largely Anglo-Saxon vocabulary (in the North, with many Norse borrowings). But it has a greatly simplified inflectional system. The complicated grammatical relations that were expressed in Old English by means of the dative and accusative cases are replaced in Early Middle English with constructions that involve prepositions. This replacement is incomplete. We still today have the Old English genitive in many words (we now call it the "possessive": the form dog's for "of the dog"; but the apostrophe here doesn't mean that anything has been "left out." But most of the other case endings disappear in the early ME period, including, you'll be happy to learn, most of the dozens of forms of the word the. Grammatical genders also disappear from English during the Early ME period, further simplifying matters.

Some of these developments don't leave much trace in the record. In fact, just as enormous changes are in action, we lose sight of them historically. Such a trade-off is almost necessary. The Old English literary tradition ends soon after 1066. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle keeps going till 1154, but as we've seen, it isn't the most talkative of books in a good year. With the clergy and court of Norman England working in French or Latin, the great outpouring of literature in English effectively stops cold in the late 1000s, and the 1100s, though a great century for cathedrals, are a linguistic Dark Ages for the English language. We have only scraps, such as a passage in a charter of Henry II (from the year 1155) which begins:

"Henri, þurh godes 3efu ænglelandes king gret ealle mine bissceopas 7 ealle mine eorlas 7 ealle mine scirereuan 7 ealle mine þeinas frencisce 7 englisce . . . " --a fascinating cultural and legal document but not really stirring reading. Moreover, such scraps seem like ad hoc measures taken by the powerful side in a bilingual situation--we might as well try to read contemporary Spanish through official (and awkwardly translated) government documents in 2000s Texas.
 

English begins to re-establish itself in the 1200s, in the sense that native speakers developed the beginnings of a literary culture. (The majority clearly spoke English without interruption, of course.) We look at some of a very early major work of English literature, Layamon's Brut, in short #8.

In the mid-1200s, an English friar named Thomas of Hales wrote a remarkable piece called "Love Rune," an erotic (and because he was medieval, probably also allegorical) lyric poem. In the middle of the poem, Thomas realizes that it's probably a good idea to start sucking up to Henry III for a bit:

He is ricchest mon of londe,
So wide so mon spekeð with muð;
Alle heo beoð to His honde,
Est and west, north and suð!
Henri, King of Engelonde,
Of Hym he halt and to Hym buhð. 
Mayde, to þe He send His sonde,
And wilneð for to beo þe cuð.
Ne byt He wið þe lond ne leode,
Vouh ne gray ne rencyan; 
Naveð He þerto none neode,
He is riche and weli mon!
If þu Him woldest luve beode,
And bycumen His leovemon,
He brou3te þe to suche wede
That naveð king ne kayser non!
The language here seems transitional between Old and Middle English. Of course, Thomas had no idea he was in transition; he was just writing poetry. One thing we do not see in Layamon, or Thomas, very much, is French vocabulary. There's the odd line here "vouh ne gray ne rencyan," where "rencyan" is an Old French word for a luxury fabric--very much the kind of thing we'd expect there to be no English word for in this cultural situation. Other than that, I don't see any French words here ("riche" is in French, of course, but they got the word from Germanic, not the other way round; it's good Old English vocabulary).
 

After about 1300, it's a different story, and we can see more of it happening. In the years 1066-1300, the Norman dynasties saw themselves as part of an international aristocratic community. They were as comfortable on the Continent (where they owned many feudal possessions) as in Britain. Norman French high culture extended across much of Western Europe, including Ireland. But after 1300, English kings increasingly identified themselves with England and its people. Also in the 1300s, religious dissidents like John Wycliffe, at great risk to themselves, broke with the Norman tradition of allegiance to the Roman church and produced the first English versions of the Bible in many centuries.

Later Middle English shows heavy French borrowing and continued reduction of the inflectional system. It is in many respects "modern" except for two key factors: 1) it was probably pronounced quite a bit differently from modern English; and 2) it had no central standard. Instead there are several different literary standards in Middle English (as there were in Old English) and no sense till very late in the period that any one of those literary standards was a "dialect" in opposition to a national "standard." Late in the Middle English period, with the introduction of printing into England in 1470 and following, and the adoption by the printing industry (centered in London) of many features of "Chancery English" as standard in its orthography and usage, we have the first inklings of modern Standard English.
Why did English speakers borrow so many French words in the period after 1300? What kinds of words got borrowed?
To understand these dynamics, let's look at some vocabulary that was borrowed in the "early" period, before 1250 or so. (Selected from Williams, Origins of the English Language, NY 1975.) In addition to obscure words like "rencyan," some French words that appear in early English texts include "canon, countess, sermon, custom, virgin, purgatory, tournament, witness, constable, medicine, butler, abbey, crown, baron." There are others, and from other registers; such everyday words as "fruit, rich, poor, pay, mercy, change, very, catch" also enter English during the Early Middle period. But basically, words in what we might broadly term "administrative" use crossed over first--concepts used in Norman law, religion, and economics (and that applies to the more everyday words too, if you think about it).
Between 1250-1350, we see words entering like "easy, season, sound, piece, count (as in number), continue, form, join, move, please, sudden, face, use, people, task, solid, second, final, honest." By and large, simpler words, truly everyday words--and why? What kinds of people were using them; why would they introduce them into English? I suspect that a sort of Franglish was in circulation among a lot of noble but not necessarily intellectual Anglo-Normans who were learning English for the first time and for good, and carrying with them an entire linguistic heritage.
After 1350, French borrowings tend to be words like "combustion, harangue, register, solace, furtive, conjecture, representation, explicit"--not esoteric words at all, but Latinate, learned, and multisyllabic, the words of educated and literate people who moved between French and English and Latin easily.
[We've never stopped borrowing from French, but the imports have slowed considerably--"quiche" and "vinaigrette" are two of the major imports into common English during my lifetime. C'est la nouvelle cuisine!]
 

Modern Standard English is strongly influenced by the dialect spoken in London and the surrounding counties in the years 1350-1450. This was only one of several competing literary standards in its own day. It is the language of Geoffrey Chaucer, but Chaucer had no sense that he was writing the "true" or "pure" English of his time--he recognized (in fact he pretty much had to) that there were other English standards in other parts of the country, standards that produced literary works like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight or Langland's Piers Plowman. In retrospect, we come to see Chaucer as the great model for "standard" Middle English because his dialect was the one chosen as the standard in the century after his death.

We've looked a little at some Middle English dialects, and it's now time to talk in some detail about Chaucer's English--which, with some variation, is the language of other Southern Middle English writers like John Gower, John Lydgate, and Thomas Malory. Until the 1300s, the language of the English court and bureaucracy centered on London had been French, with Latin reserved for some special civil and ecclesiastical purposes. In a few decades that all changed, with French mostly disappearing from the privileged uses where it had flourished since the Norman conquest. John H. Fisher's essays in The Emergence of Standard English (Kentucky 1996) are some of the best sources of information on this process.

The first time that contemporary records admit that Parliament was conducted in English, for example, is 1362 (Fisher 45). Before that, records of Parliamentary addresses and debates were recorded in French or in Latin--though it's likely that a lot of this business was carried on in English and translated into French or Latin purely "for the record." The Parliament of 1362 passed a law requiring courts to conduct proceedings in English; though that law was ignored by common-law courts until the 1700s (!?), the court of Chancery--which was in a very broad sense the "federal"--that is, Royal and Parliamentary--bureaucracy of its time--conducted its business in English from the mid-1300s.
 

Fisher notes that the crucial years of institutional transition were 1420-1460, however. Before that time, legal documents in England are still predominantly in French and Latin; during that time, there is an entire shift to English. The Royal council and the subsidiary courts that processed petitions to Parliament began to conduct their business in English, and this "Chancery English" became the standard written form of a national government that began to address all of its subjects in Chancery English as a standard form instead of in standardized French and Latin. Fisher also notes that the Kings of England, especially starting with Henry V (who reigned 1413-1422) had a great impact on national language policy--for one thing, because starting with Henry they began to speak and write in English instead of French.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/the-10-coolest-dead-languages

Blog 6: Every Day Idioms

The article I chose this week deals with the proper use of idioms in English that are popular in America. It talks about how some people coming from other countries, where their native language isn't English, hear am idiomic statement and may take it in the literal meaning of the phrase. Some examples could be "taking a bull by the horns", "a fish out of water", and "sounding like a broken record". The article talks about ways to learn how to recognize and understand idioms. The most effective way is to listen carefully to the world around you. Soon enough, with enough pracitce,idioms will become apart of daily speech.

http://abcspro.vbatech.com/PublishedArticles.htm

Blog 5: English Language Learners

So, as a prospective teacher I am obligated to take some classes that help me prepare for a mulitcultural classroom. In  that classroom, there may be student that are still learning how to speak English. I chose this article to aid me in some techinques that run side-by-side with my ELL class.

This article is telling me to approach each child individually, because different children will be at different levels of English Language Learning. I know from my ELL class there are 5 stages to language acquisition. Pre-preproduction, early production, speech emergence, intermediate fluency, and fluency. Each of these has a time frame of an average ELL student. It could take 5-7 years to become fluent. That really is a long time.

Within this article it talks about the basic construction of a classroom. This can affect the way ELL students learn. I, personally, like the cooperative learning, or group learning, scenarios. The article also talks about 4 skill areas: Function, form, fluency, and vocabulary. Functions are the purposes of communication. Form refers to the structure of the English language, like grammar and sentence stucture. Fluency is the ease in speaking the language. The development of a wide and varied vocabulary is essential. Research shows that English language learners should be taught key vocabulary, or brick words, prior to a lesson in order to assist them in their language development.

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http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/article/strategies-teaching-english-language-learners

Blog 4: Translation of English to French and back to English



So, I am a total Disney FREAK, for real! I am totally in love with most of the stories and movies! SO I was recalling the movie I saw in fouth grade that got me interested in French. We watched Beauty and the Beast all in French. SO it sparked my intrest to a little comparison on how they translated our English version over to French and then their French Version over to English. This is what I found....

This is the English version. As you may see, this is pretty standard for what we saw as children. Now the French version is a little different. There are translation differences, mainly because some of our English words do not transfer over well into French and they have to substitute.

If you notice there are pretty big changes with the words from French to English! However, if you read the translation it is similar to the actual words in English!!

 

Au revoir!







Blog 3: Nonverbal Communication

My article this week is on nonverbal communication. Not only is this important with deaf people, but all the people you speak to and even pass by cause perceive what you are saying or displaying based on your demeanor. We are constantly giving off nonverbal symbols, gestures, how loud or fast we speak, or the way we stand. Nonverbal communication usually accommodates what we are saying. This can help gain trust. When our nonverbal gestures do not match up, this can cause suspicion and distrust.
The human face is very expressive and able to portray emotion without even speaking.

As shown above, the face can convey a vast number of different emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger, excitement, worry, doubt, etc.
The average human is also sized up by how they present their body. There are a multitude of different movements and postures one can express.

Gesturing is part of our daily life. Do you talk with your hands? Have you ever pointed out something using your hands? What about having an argument? We speak and use our hands to animate what we are talking about. However, there are some American gestures that mean different things in other languages. So be careful when using gestures around strangers :) 

A lot of how we communicate has to do with touch. Think about when you shook hands with a stranger. Was their handshake firm and sturdy or timid and weak? When you leave your grandma after a lunch date do you give her a quick one shoulder hug with a pat on the back or do you give her a warm bear hug? This is all forms of nonverbal communication

Finally, your tone of voice tells stories that your words may lack. People read into how you say things not just what you say. With your tone you can indicate sarcasm, anger, excitement, affection, or confidence.

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/eq6_nonverbal_communication.htm