Homework:

Finish writing your final essay, print it out and bring it to class next week. All students must complete this essay to pass this course. Students absent on this day or who fail to give me their final essay will automatically fail the course. We will also read each other’s essays and do some final free writing.

Today’s class:

Homework:

Finish writing the first draft of your final paper, print it out and bring it to class next week.

Today’s class:

1. Presentations
   1. Yamanami on Immersion Language Programs
   2. Nishimori on Semiotics
2. Does the Immersion Language program really work? What about results? Some people argue it is ineffective and expensive.
3. Signs and symbols are used particularly by cults and secret societies. Secret societies want their members to accept THEIR meaning for signs and symbols associated with the society. But signs and symbols do not “mean” anything by themselves.
4. Scottish accents: listen to this song “I’m on my way” by the Proclaimers and see what differences in pronunciation you notice between their pronunciation and standard British English. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1yYDuSf3C4[/youtube]. And here’s another one with the lyrics on-screen. [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIbf4SDRYeg[/youtube]

Homework

• Start researching, planning and researching your final essay (if you were absent today and have not yet told me your essay topic, please email it to me as soon as possible).
  • essay: 2 pages of A4 (excluding your bibliography)
  • your bibliography should have at least 3 different references
• Next class is Jan. 10th. Final essay is due Jan 17th (first version) and Jan. 24th (final version)

Today’s class

1. Presentations:
   1. Takagi – sociolinguistics: women’s English
   2. Hashimoto Mizuki – Australian English
   3. Kashihara – Second foreign language.
2. Mini-lecture on presentations (Sheffner)
   1. remember you are teaching your classmates English as well as about linguistics
   2. don’t just repeat or report what you read somewhere else; try and create new knowledge
   3. this means you need to
      1. think about what you read
      2. question what you read (don’t just believe it and repeat it)
   4. E.g.: “why is German a foreign language offered in Japanese universities?
   5. E.g., “Is whether Okinawan is a dialect of Japanese or a separate language, a political question?” In other words, is this a matter of opinion, or a matter of fact? Do you believe in an objective reality or not? This is an important question. (I recommend Ayn Rand’s essay and speech “Philosophy: Who needs it?” You can read a Japanese translation here.)
3. Pidgin English: invent your own.

Homework:

• Choose a topic for your final essay and tell me next week (last class before winter vacation)

Today’s class:

1. Presentations on dialect and accents by
   1. Kosai and Fukawa
   2. Kondo and Kamimura
2. Short lectures on
   1. the “r” sound in British English, Scottish English and American English
   2. Cockney characteristics
   3. upper-class RP

Videos used today:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R98BjmPI_5M[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlCJomksCo4[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdGKDOTs6Qg[/youtube]

Homework:

• choose a topic for your final paper

Today’s class

• presentation on “Dialect and Standard Language”
• Nonsense words in Lewis Carroll’s “Jabberwocky” poem
  • identify them
  • pronunciation
  • parts of speech
  • meaning (guess)
• brief review of “Pidgin languages”

Homework:

• Choose a topic for your final paper. This topic can be the same as your oral presentation, or a different topic. Tell me next class (December 6th).

Today’s class:

1. Presentations on Semantics (the difference in meaning between “lie” and “uso　嘘”) and Sociolinguistics (pidjin, Creoles, Singapore language policy, Singlish)
2. Writing 1: write your reaction to the two presentation topics today. Especially what do you think of
   1. Singapore’s language policy?
   2. Should Japan adopt English as an official language? Why/why not?
   3. Why do words sometimes have slightly different meanings in different languages, like “lie” and “uso”?
3. Writing 2:
   1. What English book(s) have you read recently? Was it for class or privately?
   2. What English movie(s) have you seen recently? Was it for class or privately?
   3. What English writing have you done recently? Was it for class or privately?
   4. What English speaking have you done recently? Was it for class or privately?

Homework:

Prepare your presentation.

The makeup class (to make up for November 1st’s class) was changed from Saturday Dec. 14th to Wednesday Dec. 18th, 16:45

Here is the presentation schedule for the rest of this semester:

1. Nov. 8th (week 8): Ms. Kusano and Ms. Abe
2. Nov. 15th (week 9): Ms. Hashimoto M. and Ms. Hashimoto N.  on sociolinguistics,  and Ms. Takahashi on Semantics.
3. Dec. 6th (week 10): Ms. Kamimura, Ms. Kinuta and Ms. Kondo on dialects and accents and “standard language”.
4. Dec. 13th (week 11): Ms. Kosai and Ms. Fukawa on dialects and accents and “standard language”.
5. Dec. 20th (week 12): Ms. Kashihara and Ms. Takagi on second/foreign language learning
6. Jan. 10th (week 13): Ms. Seya on discourse analysis, and Ms. Yamanami on applied linguistics

Today’s class:

Two presentations by students:

1. on sociolinguistics,  by Ms. Kusano
2. on pragmatics, by Ms. Abe
3. video: black British comic Chris James talks about his culture shock when he visited the U.S.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dI38GtWFihY[/youtube]
4. video: the opening scene of My Fair Lady (the film of the musical) showing Prof. Higgins’ upper-class accent and Liza’s working-class (London) accent [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypHNkKoJpk4[/youtube]
5. video: The King’s Speech (final scene), showing the King’s upper-upper-class British accent [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHY2UzOonig[/youtube]
6. some examples of how mismatching of speakers’ expectations can often lead to humour.

Homework:

• Start preparing your presentation
• if you were absent today or did not tell me your presentation topic, choose a topic for your presentation and email it to me by next Friday, Nov. 1st.
• Watch the video presentation “Linguistic Fundamentals – Language and Linguistics” and summarize the key points.
• Next class is in 2 weeks’ time, on November 8th.

Today’s class:

1. Write a summary of “Myth 7: Women Talk Too Much”
2. Write a summary of “Myth 1: Slang is Bad”
3. Watch the video presentation.

Homework:

1. Summarize the 3 paragraphs about “Semantics”
2. watch this video and summarize the key points [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LorhwnfLn8Q[/youtube]
3. choose a topic for your presentation from the list (click this link to download the list of topics)

Today’s class

1. translated and analyzed paragraphs 2 & 3 of “Semantics”
2. summarized the 3 paragraphs (joint construction)
3. watched the beginning of the show of number 1 ventriloquist in the world, Jeff Dunham, “Spark of Insanity”. In this part, puppet Peanut deliberately mispronounces Jeff’s names to annoy him.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBa9gT6eZL0[/youtube]

Homework: