Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Bab 10 Tugas
Bab 10 Tugas
Bab 10 Tugas
TUGAS-TUGAS
TEXT 1
factors. Some of the factors have to do with the social context where the learning
takes place: the classroom, interaction in the community with native or bilingual
persons, and cultural beliefs about learning and the status of the target language.
strategies.
Learners are actively involved in the acquisition process and utilize various
In addition, students have preferred learning styles, reflected by the way they
teachers to determine the ways their students learn in order to help them acquire
motivation play a major role in the learning process and can affect in significant
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There are numerous formats and tasks teachers can use to construct test
items in the four language skill areas. Testing considerations need to take into
account the language focus and subjective and objective methods for assessing
different linguistic abilities and skills. Testing speaking skills represents a number
of challenges involving the choice of methods, appropriate language samples, and
scoring procedures. Magnan suggests the development of a multi-sequence
testing plan, and Omaggio offers a useful framework for preparing test items.
Specific tests in English, French, German, and Spanish illustrate the range of
techniques used by classroom teachers in assessing student achievement in
listening, speaking, reading, and writing. Many of the test items emphasize the
assessment of language in context and the use of authentic materials.
Language testing in the context of the classroom should be seen in relation to the
particular curricular goals.
There are many different types of testing techniques teacher can use to
assess students' language learning and the extent to which instructional
objectives are being accomplished. Language test are typically classified
according to the measurement purpose: proficiency, diagnosis, and achievement.
Language abilities can be tested on the basis of discrete and/or integrative
methods, linguistic and/or communicative competence, language modalities, and
aspects of communicative competence. Communicative competence can be
characterized in term of various systems of knowledge and skills: grammatical,
sociolinguistic, discourse, strategic, textual, and pragmatic. Some of the
distinctions that are made with respect to communicative language testing point
to the necessity of emphasizing the actual uses of language in specific cultural
situations such as listening to a radio announcement, reading a newspaper to find
out more about local events, and writing a personal letter to a friend.
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INTERFERENCY
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LEONARD BLOOMFIELD
Leonard had six main publications during his lifetime, and they too have had
their own little mark in the history of linguists. His first main book came in 1914,
when he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois. It was called
Introduction to the study of Language; this dealt with the overall aspect of
language and was just the beginning of Leonard's profound career. After this
Leonard went into the grammatical aspect of the Philippine language, he wrote
and published his next main book Tagalog Texts with Grammatical Analysis
(1917). The next book was called Menomini Texts (1928), one of Bloomfield's
least favorable publications. In the middle of his writing career came Language
(1933), which was the book he is renowned for. From here Leonard went deeper
into grammar, and wrote The Stressed Vowels of American English (1935). The
last main book of Leonard Bloomfield's career was when he went back into the
scientific research of language. It dealt with the overall aspect of language and
science, and didn't get as much publicity as Language. This book was called
Linguistic Aspects of Science (1939). At the end of Leonard's writing career, he
tried to write about other languages (Dutch and Russian) but couldn't really get
the true feeling out of this, like he did with his other books. In the end, Leonard
Bloomfield is not only considered one of the best Linguists of his time, he is
considered one of the best of all time.
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TEXT 9
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Nobody feeling unhappy after succeed arrived on the island. They all
exploring and collecting the gold and other different valuable goods from there.
Jim and his crew sail home after they got what they want, but some also stay
there permanently. Later on, so many others came and spent their life in this
treasure island.
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a toothpick, use the toothpick in your right hand and cover your right hand and
your mouth with your left hand.
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TRANSLATING LITERARY WORKS
1. Linguistic Problems
In term of linguistic factors, according to the writer, at least there are two
points to consider: collocation and obscured (non-standard) syntactical
structures. The word "collocation' used here refers to words or word groups with
which a word or words may typically combine. The combination may by
syntagmatic or horizontal, like make a speech (not say a speech), run a meeting
(not do a meeting), etc. Something to remember is in different languages the
collocates tend to be different. The Indonesian phrase for run a meeting is not
melarikan rapat but mengadakan rapat.
The other class of collocation is pragmatic or vertical. This consists of words
belonging to the same semantic field or be semantic opposite. Different from the
first class, the collocates in this class may be the same for several languages.
Land, sea, air are exactly the same as tanah, laut, udara.
Whatever the reason is, where there is an accepted collocation in the SL, the
translator must find and use its equivalent in the TL if it exists. But a closer
attention should also be paid to the collocation with similar form in the SL and TL,
but different meaning.
The second point to consider in term of linguistic matters is obscured (non-
standard) syntactic structures. Such kinds of structures may be intentionally
written in a poem as a part of the expressive function of the text. Hence, such
structures should be rendered as closely as possible.
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The first step to deal with this problem is to find the deep (underlying)
structure. According to Newmark (1981: 116), the useful procedure is to find the
logical subject first, and then the specific verb. If the two important elements are
discovered, the rest will fall into place. After that the translator can reconstruct
the structure in the TL as closely as possible to the original structure. Besides, the
structure of each phrase or clause should be examined clearly also.
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Literary or Aesthetic Problems
Aesthetic values or poetic truth in a poem are conveyed in word order and
sounds, as well as in cognitive sense (logic). And these aesthetic values have no
independent meaning, but they are correlative with the various types of meaning
in the text. Hence, if the translator destroys the word choice, word order, and the
sounds, he impairs and distorts the beauty of the original poem. Delicacy and
gentleness, for instance, will be ruined if the translator provides crude
alliterations for the original carefully-composed alliterations. So, the problems in
translating a poem is how to retain the aesthetic values in the TL text.
The aesthetic values, according to Newmark (1981: 65) are dependent on
the structure (or poetic structure), metaphor, and sound. Poetic structure
includes the plan of the original poem as a whole, the shape and the balance of
individual sentences in each line. Metaphor is related to visual images created
with combinations of words, which may also evoke sound, touch, smell, and
taste. While sound is anything connected with sound cultivation including rhyme,
rhythm, assonance, onomatopoeia, etc. A translator cannot ignore any of them
although he may order them depending on the nature of the poem translated.
Poetic Structure
The first factor is structure. It is important to note that structure meant
here is the plan of the poem as a whole, the shape and the balance of individual
sentence or of each line. So, it does not have to relate directly to the sentential
structures or grammar of a language, even in fact it is very much affected by the
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sentential structure. Thus, maintaining the original structure of the poem may
mean maintaining the original structure of each sentence.
The simple examples below show one stanza of Chairil Anwar's Senja di
Pelabuhan Kecil and its two translations: the first is done by Boen S. Oemarjati
and the last is by Burton Raffel. Try to compare which one is better? (Do not
consider the semantic aspect for this stage.)
The translations of the first line both are good in the sense that they put
the adverb, "this time" first, but the translation of the main clause in the second
translation is better for it tries to maintain the "poetic structure" of the line. The
further we read the lines, the better we can catch the importance of maintaining
the structure as an attempt to maintain the beauty of the poem. And finally we
may agree that the second translation is more successfully in maintaining the
poetic structure.
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Metaphorical Expressions
Metaphorical expressions, as the second factor, mean any constructions
evoking visual, sounds, touch, and taste images, the traditional metaphors, direct
comparisons without the words "like' and "as if", and all figurative languages.
Intentionally, the writer does not use the term metaphor in the sub-heading since
it has different meaning for some people. What is generally known as (traditional)
metaphor, for example, is not the same as metaphor meant by Newmark.
To understand the meaning of metaphor as proposed by Newmark, it is
advisable to understand the following terms: object, image, sense, metaphor,
and metonym. Object, called also topic, is the item which is described by the
metaphor. Image refers to the item in terms of which the object is described. It is
also called vehicle. The next term, sense, refers to the point of similarity between
aspects of the objects and the image. Metaphor here means the word(s) taken
from the image. And finally, metonym refers to one-word image which replace
the object, which is in many cases figurative but not metaphorical.
In the expression "rooting out the faults", for example, the object is 'faults',
the image is 'rooting out weeds', the sense is (a) eliminate, (b) with tremendous
effort, and the metaphor is 'rooting out'. The expression 'the seven seas' referring
'the whole world' is not metaphorical. It is figurative and a metonym.
Newmark (1981: 88-91) proposes seven procedures to translate metaphors
in general. The first procedure is reproducing the same image in the TL if the
image has comparable frequency and currency in the appropriate register. This
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procedure is usually used for one-word metaphor, e.g. ray of hope. Ray of hope
can be simply translated into sinar harap.
The second procedure is replacing images in the SL with a standard TL image
within the constraints of TL cultures. The English metaphor 'my life hangs on a
thread', with this procedure, can be translated into Indonesian 'hidupku di ujung
tanduk'.
The next is translating a metaphor by simile, retaining the image in the SL.
This procedure can be used to modify any type of metaphor. The 'my life hangs
on a thread', with this procedure, can be translated into 'hidupku bagai
tergantung pada sehelai benang'.
And the rest of the procedures, translating metaphor (or simile) into simile
plus sense, conversing metaphor into sense, deleting unimportant metaphor, and
translating metaphor with some metaphors combined with sense, are not
considered appropriate for poetry translation.
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Socio-cultural Problems
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pronunciation of TL word, he applies naturalization. The current example is the
Indonesian word "mal" as the naturalization of the English word "mall".
In addition, the translator may find the cultural equivalent word of the SL or,
if he cannot find one, neutralize or generalize the SL word to result 'functional
equivalents'. When he modifies the SL word with description of form in the TL,
the result is description equivalent. Sometimes a translator provides a generic or
general or superordinate term for a TL word and the result in the TL is called
classifier. And when he just supplies the near TL equivalent for the SL word, he
uses synonymy.
In componential analysis procedure, the translator splits up a lexical unit into
its sense components, often one-to-two, one-to-three, or -more translation.
Moreover, a translator sometimes adds some information, whether he puts it in a
bracket or in other clause or even footnote, or even deletes unimportant SL
words in the translation to smooth the result for the reader.
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The present study suggests four main macro-skills for any translator who begins
his/her work in the field of translation. These are: reading comprehension,
researching, analytical, and composing skills. These macro-skills include many
sub- or micro-skills that need to be mastered.
Reading comprehension
While we are translating, we do not think of our activity as being broken down
into phases. After doing our first translations, many automatic mechanisms come
into play that allow us to translate more quickly; at the same time, we are less
and less conscious of our activity.
Osimo (2001) indicates that in order to think about the translation process and
to describe it, our essential task consists of analyzing its phases, even if we are
aware of the fact that they do not always coincide with perceptibly different or
distinguishable moments. If we want to describe a process that often is beyond
the translator's own consciousness, we are forced to divide the process into
different phases which, in the everyday practice of translation, can reveal the
inter-twining, almost entangling, of these phases. The first phase of the
translation process consists of reading the text. The reading act, first, falls under
the competence of psychology, because it concerns our perceptive system.
Reading, like translation, is, for the most part, an unconscious process. If it were
conscious, we would be forced to consume much more time in the act. Most
mental processes involved in the reading act are automatic and unconscious.
Owing to such a nature-common and little-known in the same time-in our opinion
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it is important to analyze the reading process as precisely as possible. The works
of some perception psychologists will be helpful to widen our knowledge of this
first phase of the translation process.
When a person reads, his brain deals with many tasks in such rapid sequences
that everything seems to be happening simultaneously. The eye examines (from
left to right as far as many Western languages are concerned, or from right to left
or from top to bottom in some other languages) a series of graphic signs
(graphemes) in succession, which give life to syllables, words, sentences,
paragraphs, sections, chapters, and texts.
Simply reading a text is, in itself, an act of translation. When we read, we do not
store the words we have read in our minds as happens with data entered using a
keyboard or scanner into a computer. After reading, we do not have the
photographic or auditory recording in our minds of the text read. We have a set
of impressions instead. We remember a few words or sentences precisely, while
all the remaining text is translated from the verbal language into a language
belonging to another sign system, which is still mostly unknown: the mental
language.
TEXT 16
The mental processing of the read verbal material is of a syntactical nature when
we try to reconstruct the possible structure of the sentence, i.e. the relations
among its elements. In contrast, it is of a semantic nature when we identify the
relevant areas within the semantic field of any single word or sentence; and it is
of a pragmatic nature when we deal with the logical match of the possible
meanings with the general context and the verbal co-text.
The difference between a reader and a critic is negligible: the reader trying to
understand has the same attitude as the critic, who is a systematic, methodical,
and self-aware reader. While reading, the individual reads, and perceives what he
reads, drawing interpretations and inferences about the possible intentions of the
author of the message.
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Hnig (1991), the existence of a sort of "central processing unit" supervising the
coordination of the different mental processes (those connected to reading,
interpretation, and writing) and at the same time projecting a map of the text to
be.
TEXT 17
Researching skills
Enani (2002b) notices that "the most commonly heard advice to translators is 'if
you don't know the meaning of a word, look it up in the dictionary.' It is the
commonest and the vaguest insofar as the definite article suggest that the
dictionary is known to both speaker and listener." He indicates that there are
different kinds of dictionaries that a translator should refer to; a bilingual
dictionary, a dictionary on a historical basis, dictionaries of current English,
dictionaries of idioms, specialized dictionaries (dictionaries of common errors,
dictionaries of idiomatic usage, slang dictionaries, technical dictionaries)
encyclopedic dictionaries, dictionaries of neologisms, and monolingual
dictionaries.
Despite this long list of different kinds of dictionaries, it is a single dictionary that
the translator is supposed to refer to each and every time s/he translates. The
choice of the best, or the most appropriate, dictionary depends on the style of the
protext (original text, text before translation) and on the different types of users
of the translation.
Calderaro (1998) indicates two major users of the meta text (text after
translation) who may use the translated version; the specialist user and the lay
user. Identifying the prospective users of the metatext is very important in the
process of researching, as this will determine which kind of dictionaries the
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translator will refer to, which level of information should be presented and to
"detect the exact moments when it is necessary to establish a balance between
the scientific level of the author and the knowledge the user supposedly has."
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Analytical skills
The text, according to Bell (1998) is analyzed in two ways: micro- and macro-
analysis of the actual text: monitoring for cohesion and coherence, and checking
for coherence between the actual text and the potential text-type of which it is a
token realization. Micro-analysis has the purpose of verifying text cohesion and
inner cohesion of the single units of text. Macro-analysis is aimed at checking for
coherence and cohesion between the created text and the model in the category
to which the text belongs. For example, if the text is an instruction booklet for a
household appliance, or a story for a newspaper, often there are models for such
types of text to which we frequently (consciously or unconsciously) adhere.
Such an analytic exam was necessary in order to identify the individual mental
processes involved in the above-mentioned activities; we know, however, that
such activities are actually carried out in very short time span. During this mental
work, there is a constant shift of focus between micro-analysis and macro-
analysis, between micro-expression and macro-expression, i.e. a constant
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comparison between the meaning of the single utterances and the meaning of the
text as a whole, or, on a larger scale, a constant comparison between the sense
of the specific text and the comprehensive sense of the corpus which forms the
"intertext," whether or not the translator is aware of this fact. In this context,
"intertext" should be understood as the intertextual universe in which a text is
located.
Translators are advised to use the following strategies in the analysis stage:
Identify beginnings and endings of ideas in the text and the relationships
between these ideas.
Identify the "best" meaning that fits into the context;
Identify the structure in the Target Language that "best" represents the
original;
Identify transitions between ideas and the "best" connectors in the target
language that represent the original.
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Translation skills for novice translators (5)
Composing skills
At this point, the mental construction resulting from interpretation seeks an outer
expression. Osimo (2002) suggests that, in this expression stage, there are two
substages. One is aimed at expression, the other at cohesion. The translator,
having finished his/her interpretative work, has two needs: first, to externalize
the set of impressions caused by the text and translate into speech elements the
impressions the mind produced by contact with the prototext; and second, to
make this product coherent within itself, i.e., transform the set of speech
elements into a text (the metatext). He describes the passage from mental
content to written text in these terms:
As a novice translator, or a student translator, you are invited to make use of the
following basic strategies:
a. Syntactic strategies:
o Shift word order.
o Change clause/sentence structure.
o Add or change cohesion.
b. Semantic strategies:
o Use superordinates.
o Alter the level of abstraction.
o Redistribute the information over more or fewer elements.
c. Pragmatic strategies:
o Naturalize or exoticize.
o Alter the level of explicitness.
o Add or omit information.
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It is important to know the characteristics of quality multicultural children's books and how
these characteristics can be used practically by teachers and librarians wishing to build a
collection of quality multicultural children's books. Educators, with little time to peruse the
literature that discusses characteristics of quality multicultural books, or to search bookstore
shelves, have a need for a list that can provide the information for them.
Quality multicultural books are difficult to find, even with time to search. The percentage of
books with multicultural themes is low, but there are ways to find them. For example, when
looking up a specific book, one Internet site provided other authors' names and book titles
similar to the current selection. With this information, authors' names and various subjects
could be cross-referenced to find additional selections. Aside from this search format, also
used by some public libraries, there was no other way to find books besides searching the
bookshelves of libraries and bookstores --a tedious process.
This project provides for educators a practical tool for evaluating and selecting multicultural
children's literature, and a list of books to help start a good book collection. Educators can
use the checklist with books they already have, or with books they find on bookshelves or in
catalogs in the future.
Literature Evaluation
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My main goal with this project has been to gain knowledge of and experience with the issues
surrounding multicultural children's literature so that when I begin to build my own collection
of classroom literature I will be prepared to evaluate and choose quality books. Another goal,
and an added benefit, has been to create a list of evaluation criteria for fellow educators
looking to do the same. Because this project has been so personal, there may be some books
missing from the list of quality literature for the very reason that I would not wish to use or
purchase the book at this time. Also, it cannot be a comprehensive list, if for no other reason
than because of time constraints. It is, however, a useful list for starting a collection of quality
multicultural books as I highly recommend each selection. The evaluation tool will serve to
assist anyone who wishes to find other books to add to their collection.
Following is a copy of the evaluation tool and an annotated list of the 35 multicultural books
focusing on the experiences, lifestyles and issues of Native American, African American,
Asian American, and Latino and Hispanic cultures. Books about both Latino and Hispanic
cultures are combined into one section. This Latino/Hispanic section is intended to identify
areas of the world where the cultures represented are from - that is, Mexico, Puerto Rico,
Cuba, and other Caribbean islands. It is not within the scope of this project to try and place
the specific cultural groups under the correct umbrella group. Doing so would be a difficult
and possibly unnecessary task. While the people of a specific ethnic group may identify
themselves under one such group, one person within a group may identify him or herself
otherwise. This is true for each of the four cultural groups represented in this list. Today,
many Black American tend to be identified as "African Americans" regardless of their actual
heritage, and Native Americans from different tribes traditionally hold separate beliefs and
have distinct customs based on history and heritage.
Therefore, within the four sections of the annotated list, each title is individually labeled with
the specific cultural group represented in the story. I hope you find this to be helpful, yet non-
intrusive on the individual needs and beliefs of the people being represented.
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historical convention. It didn't have to happen the way it did. In principle, the
word "pare", "wint", or even "apple" would have worked just as well in
associating a word with the concept pear! But given that the word "pear" has
come to signify the concept pear in English, no one has the power to simply
change it at will. In other words, the relationship between a word and a concept
is arbitrary in one sense (in terms of its origin) but not in another sense (in
terms of its use).
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Saussure's way around this obvious objection is to say that his interest is
in the structure of language, not the use of language. As a scientist, Saussure
limited his investigation to the formal structure of language (langue), setting
aside or bracketing the way that language is employed in actual speech (parole).
Hence, the term structuralism. Saussure bracketed out of his investigation any
concern with the real, material objects (referents) to which signs are
presumably related. This bracketing of the referent is a move that enabled him to
study the way a thing (language and meaning) is experienced in the mind. In this
sense, his motivation was similar to Husserl's. And in the end, Saussure never
offered a method for investigating how language as a system hooks up to the
world of objects that lie outside language. As we shall see, this was to have far-
reaching effects.
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words, it doesn't matter how the form of the signifier varies, as long as it is
different from all the other signifiers in the system (langue). To the structuralist,
meaning arises from the functional differences between the elements (signs)
within the system (langue). An economic analogy helps to illustrate Saussure's
theory of meaning. The signs of a linguistic system are like the coins of a
monetary system or currency. Thus, a system of signs (words of a language) is
analogous to a system of values. A quarter has a certain monetary value
determined by its exchange value. Quarters can be exchanged for other things
because they have a designated (but flexible) value. Quarters can be used to buy
goods or commodities. But they also have a fixed value in relation to other coins.
So, for example, a quarter is equal to two dimes and a nickel; it is more than a
penny; it is less than a dollar, etc., etc.
Linguistic signs also have values in relation to other signs. For example,
the word "bachelor" can be "exchanged" for the term "unmarried man". This is, in
many ways, an equal exchange. That's what it means for words to be
synonymous - they have the same meaning or linguistic value. They can be
substituted or exchanged for one another just as the quarter can be exchanged
for two dimes and a nickel.
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The first thing to notice is that, according to structuralist theory, meaning is not a
private experience, as Husserl thought, but the product of a shared system of
signification. A text is to be understood as a construct to be analyzed and
explained scientifically in terms of the deep-structure of the system itself. For
many structuralists, this "deep-structure" is universal and innate.
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Second we should note that in structuralism, the individual is more a product of
the system than a producer of it. Language precedes us. It is the medium of
thought and human expression. Thus, it provides us with the structure that we
use to conceptualize our own experience.
And third, since language is arbitrary, there is no natural bond between words
and things, there can be no privileged connection between language and reality.
In this sense, reality is also produced by language. Thus, structuralism can be
understood as a form of idealism.
It should be clear from what we've just said that structuralism undermines the
claim of empiricism that what is real is what we experience. It can also be seen
as an affront to common sense, esp. to the notion that a text has a meaning
that is, for all intents and purposes, straightforward. This conflict with common
sense, however, can be favorably compared with other historical conflicts (e.g.
Copernicus' heliocentric system). In other words, things are not always what they
seem. Thus, the idealist claim of structuralism can be understood in the following
way: Reality and our conception of it are "discontinuous". This view has important
implications, as we shall see below.
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different languages, dialects and accents. Fourth, the concept of power is
introduced, with a definition and discussion of where in society power is located.
The chapter concludes with a discussion of political, correctness, focusing as an
example on the debates on the terminology associated with disability.
1.2 Why study language?
People find the subject of language interesting and worth studying for
many different reasons. Language can, be used as a way of finding out more
about.
how our brains work, from investigating how children learn language, or
how damage to our brains results in certain kind of language disorders
(psycholinguistics):
how to learn and to teach different languages (applied linguistics);
the relationship between meaning, language and perception (philosophy);
the role of language in different cultural (anthropology);
the styles of language used in literature (stylistics);
the different varieties of language people use, and why there are
linguistics
differences between different groups (sociolinguistics);
how to make computers more sophisticated (artificial intelligence).
Many of this areas overlap, and the topics discussed in this book employ ideas
and methods from more than one area listed above. Frequently, people who not
linguists are interested in language too. To test the truth of this statement, you
only have to look at the letters pages of the newspapers and count the number of
letters printed per week which are on language related issues.
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Structuralism and Semiotics
Structuralism
Structuralism is a way of thinking about the world which is predominantly
concerned with the perceptions and description of structures. At its simplest,
structuralism claims that the nature of every element in any given situation has
no significance by itself, and in fact is determined by all the other elements
involved in that situation. The full significance of any entity cannot be perceived
unless and until it is integrated into the structure of which it forms a part.
Structuralists believe that all human activity is constructed, not natural or
"essential." Consequently, it is the systems of organization that are important
(what we do is always a matter of selection within a given construct). By this
formulation, "any activity, from the actions of a narrative to not eating one's peas
with a knife, takes place within a system of differences and has meaning only in
its relation to other possible activities within that system, not to some meaning
that emanates from nature or the divine. Major figures include Claude Lévi-
Strauss (LAY-vee-strows), A. J. Greimas (GREE-mahs), Jonathan Culler, Roland
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Barthes (bart), Ferdinand de Saussure (soh-SURR or soh-ZHOR), Roman
Jakobson (YAH-keb-sen), Vladimir Propp, and Terence Hawkes.
Semiology
Semiotics, simply put, is the science of signs. Semiology proposes that a great
diversity of our human action and productions--our bodily postures and gestures,
the the social rituals we perform, the clothes we wear, the meals we serve, the
buildings we inhabit--all convey "shared" meanings to members of a particular
culture, and so can be analyzed as signs which function in diverse kinds of
signifying systems. Linguistics (the study of verbal signs and structures) is only
one branch of semiotics but supplies the basic methods and terms which are used
in the study of all other social sign systems (Abrams). Major figures include
Charles Peirce, Ferdinand de Saussure, Michel Foucault (fou-KOH), Umberto Eco,
Gérard Genette, and Roland Barthes (bart).
Sign vs. Symbol - According to Saussure, "words are not symbols which
correspond to referents, but rather are 'signs' which are made up of two parts
(like two sides of a sheet of paper): a mark,either written or spoken, called a
'signifier,' and a concept (what is 'thought' when the mark is made), called a
'signified'" (Selden and Widdowson ). The distinction is important because
Saussure contended that the relationship between signifier and signified is
arbitrary; the only way we can distinguish meaning is by difference (one sign or
word differs from another).
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Interpreting Discourse
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two parts (‘If you are wearing no shoes, you will receive no service’).
We can even cope with texts, written in English, which appear to break a
lot of the rules of the English language. The following example, provided by Eric
Nelson, is from an essay by a student learning English and contains all kinds of
errors, yet it can be understood.
My Town
My natal was in a small town, very close to Riyadh capital of Saudi Arabia.
The distant between my town and Riyadh 7 miles exactly. The name of this
Almasani that means in English Factories. It takes this name from the people’s
carrier. In my childhood I remember the people live. It was very simple. Most
the people was farmer.
This example may serve to illustrate a simple point about the way we
react to language that contains ungrammatical forms. Rather than simply reject
the text as ungrammatical, we try to make sense of it. That is, we attempt to
arrive at a reasonable interpretation of what the writer intended to convey. (Most
people say they understand the ‘My Town’ text quite easily.) It is this effort to
interpret (or to be interpreted), and how we accomplish it, that are the key
elements investigated in the study of discourse. To arrive at an interpretation,
and to make our messages interpretable, we certainly rely on what we know
about linguistic form and structure. But, as language-users, we have more
knowledge than that.
TEXT 27
Foreign Influences on Old English
The Contact of English with Other Languages.
The language that was described in the preceding chapter was not merely
the product of the dialects brought to England by the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles.
These formed its basis, the sole basis of its grammar and the source of by far the
largest part of its vocabulary. But other elements entered into it. In the course of
the first 700 years of its existence in England it was brought into contact with at
least three other languages, the languages of the Celts, the Romans, and the
Scandinavians. From each of these contacts it shows certain effects, especially
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additions to its vocabulary. The nature of these contacts and the changes that
were effected by them will form the subject of this chapter.
TEXT 28
TYPE OF COMMUNICATION
Human communication, like that of honey bees or vervet monkeys, relies
on the use of a code. Interpretation of signs produced by the communicating
individual is impossible for any other individual who does not know the meaning
of them. There is, however, a fundamental divergence between the code used by
bees and the type of code we use when we speak. In the dancing of bees there is
a feature that semioticians describe as ‘iconic’: just as an image resembles the
concrete situation which it represents, so there is a likeness between the pattern
of the bee’s movements and the behaviour it produces in the hivemates. From a
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technical point of view, one can say that the iconic aspect of the dance lies in the
continuous relationship between the set of patterns and the area containing the
locations of the food sources.
Systems which maintain such a relation based on likeness are called
‘analogue’ systems. There are several analogue aspects in human language.
Stress, for instance, is governed in part by strict rules, notably as concerns its
position in an utterance; but it can have varying degrees of intensity which mark
shades of importance. For example, in recounting some event, to give an
indication of how improbable it may be, in English one can vary the stress and
the length of the third syllable of the word unbelievable in the statement ‘It was
absolutely unbelie vable’; and in the equivalent French statement one can do
something similar with the syllable in- in C’e ´tait absolument incroyable.
Another analogue aspect of our communication behaviour is seen in the
gestures and movements we make: we make systematic use of our hands,
sometimes of our whole bodies (though the role of such movements in our
communication is not yet clearly understood). When these gestures designate
locations or indicate move- ment away, whether concrete or abstract, they
usually do so in an iconic way. The most obvious of these is the demonstrative
gesture whereby we indicate a location by pointing towards it. It is interesting to
note that chimpanzees are able to interpret such demonstrative gestures.
A demonstrative gesture is not arbitrary; there is an analogue relation between
the gesture and its meaning which can be modeled via a continuous
mathematical function.
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