CARAGA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY

National Highway Brgy Songkoy Kitcharao-Alegria Boundary, Agusan del Norte

Caraga Region Philippines 8609

MOTO 201
CONTENT AND PEDAGOGY FOR THE
MOTHER TONGUE
2nd Semester, 2nd Term A.Y: 2021-2022

KNOWING THE MOTHER TONGUE

(Language Knowledge Terms)

Submitted by:
Your Name
Course & Year

Submitted to:
Algemar T. Cabantac
Instructor

EMAIL: cit_registrar96@yahoo.com
CELLPHONE #: 09177231006 | 09177238789 | 09177236481 WEBSITE:www.citkitcharao.edu.ph
 CARAGA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
National Highway Brgy Songkoy Kitcharao-Alegria Boundary, Agusan del Norte
Caraga Region Philippines 8609

Nelson Mandela, a highly influential South African political leader, was once
quoted saying, "If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his
head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart." (BBC News, n. d.) Do
you believe in this quote? Why or why not? How would you understand another
person's language? How would you study the said language?

The mother tongue, or any language, may be studied and understood through
different aspects. It may be examined using the five knowledge of the language
which are: (1) Phonology, (2) Morphology, (3) Syntax, (4) Semantics, and (5)
Pragmatics.

The goal of this activity is for you to formulate illustrations or examples of each
of the five-language knowledge using your own mother tongue or another language
you have studied. Identify a mother tongue (specifically the mother tongue you used)
that you will use as an example. Write your answers on the space provided at right
side of every term. Submit your output in the LMS in a PDF file.

Language Knowledge Examples

Phonology is defined as the study of patterns in speech sound. It consists of

knowing about the sounds of a language and of describing the said sound (Brentari,
Fenlon, & Cormier, 2018).

a. Phonemes - distinctive units of

sound within a language.
b. Allophones - the different ways
to pronounce a single phoneme.
For instance, in the word "top", the
“t” is usually pronounced as a “th"
(Fromkin, Rodman, Hyams,
2018).
Morphology is defined as the rules of language that govern word formation.

a. Morpheme - the smallest unit of a

word that has information about
the word's meaning and purpose.
For example, in the word "farmer",
there are two morphemes which
are "farm" and "-er". The former
indicates an area of land used for
growing crops while the latter
indicates a person who works in
the said area of land.
b. Root word - a term that form the
basis of another word. These are

EMAIL: cit_registrar96@yahoo.com
CELLPHONE #: 09177231006 | 09177238789 | 09177236481 WEBSITE:www.citkitcharao.edu.ph
 CARAGA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
National Highway Brgy Songkoy Kitcharao-Alegria Boundary, Agusan del Norte
Caraga Region Philippines 8609

usually nouns, verbs, adjectives,

or adverbs.
c. Affixes - morphemes placed
either at the beginning, middle, or
end of a root word to come up with
a new meaning
d. Compound words - a
combination of two root words to
form a new meaning (O'Grady,
Archibald, 2016).
Syntax is defined as the set of statutes and principles that govern sentence
structure and word order in a language (Chomsky, & Lightfoot, 2002).

a. What is the common order of

subject, verb, and object or
predicate in the language being
studied? Write an example on the
right.
b. Constituents — the sub-units in
a sentence that provide a
complete thought.
c. Synctactic category — a family
of expressions that can be
substituted for one another
without losing proper grammar.
For example, there are four
synctactic categories in the.
sentence "The bird is flying above
the field." These are: "the field",
"above", "is flying," and "The bird."
Semantics is defined as the study of linguistic meanings.

a. Anomaly - a situation when

specific words or phrases cannot
be combined to make sense. For
instance, the phrase "colorless
green" does not make sense
since green is a color and
"colorless" means "without color"
(Fromkin, Rodman, Hyams,
2018).

EMAIL: cit_registrar96@yahoo.com
CELLPHONE #: 09177231006 | 09177238789 | 09177236481 WEBSITE:www.citkitcharao.edu.ph
 CARAGA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
National Highway Brgy Songkoy Kitcharao-Alegria Boundary, Agusan del Norte
Caraga Region Philippines 8609

b. Metaphor - a figure of speech

where one object or idea is used
to refer to another object or idea
for rhetorical purposes (Merriam-
Webster dictionary)
c. Idioms - expressions established
by societal norms to have
meaning aside from what it
literally indicates (Tom, 1992).
Pragmatics is defined as the study of unseen or hidden meanings in different
languages apart from its content. This meaning is provided by the context and a pre-
existing knowledge of the perceiver about the utterance.

Physical context — the actual location, a part of the utterance, that provides the
context.

a. Linguistic context – the context

provided by the utterance itself.
b. Deixis - words that cannot be
identified without the context.
Examples of these words are
here, there, him, her, yesterday,
and tomorrow.
c. References - the act of which the
speaker specifies an orientation
or a position for the deixis.
d. Inference — the perceiver's use
of additional information not
provided in the utterance in order
to understand the message.
e. Anaphora - another term, for
instance a pronoun, used to
identify an object that is being
referred to for the second time
(Yule, 2016).

EMAIL: cit_registrar96@yahoo.com
CELLPHONE #: 09177231006 | 09177238789 | 09177236481 WEBSITE:www.citkitcharao.edu.ph