I have read every word of the Bonvillian Essay What I thought was interesting about the essay was the establishment of stress rules and how we may apply the same rules of our native language to a second language (especially to loan words etc.) I’d always noticed this occurrence but never really understood why this was the case other than simple forgetfulness or confusion. Our need for some base in language rules seems to dominate even our transition into a new language. I also like how in the Bini language, the speakers use tone changes in a phrase to show passage of time. Though the initial phrase itself stays constant only the changes in pitch denote past, present or future tense. It would be interesting to see how this may affect this cultures view of the passage of time (if it even does in a significant sense) as well as what other ways the use pitch in place of verb conjugation or other grammar rules. It is interesting to note that although there are an incredibly wide range of languages on Earth, they are all surprisingly similar in how they establish certain sounds and rules of use. Even languages that are seemingly unrelated. -Leslie
I found the fact that English and French have a similar amount of vowels really interesting. I had always thought French had a large amount more, but I guess it just seemed that way because of my own unfamiliarity with the language. The fact that there is a language out there with 96 consonants is amazing to me—there is no way my mouth could accomplish all of those clicks. This is disappointing, because I think the San people’s language sounds amazingly complex and beautiful.
The other thing I found interesting, if not slightly worrying, was the list of English words that were supposed to be pronounced differently. The only one I found myself saying differently out of the list was the word “construct”—which leads me to believe that the Oklahoma accent has again merged some sounds. Now I really want to hear how the rest of the class pronounces these words.
I was surprised by Bonvillain’s mention of the English tendency to draw out a word for emphasis. I had never really thought of it as a “lengthening of a vowel” in order to create emphasis. It’s just always been something I’ve done and heard others do. That type of thinking was very linguistically prejudiced of me, but I’m starting to realize the difficulty that comes with objectively examining your own language. The language we use very closely tied to who we are as people—it represents our family and the place we grew up, so trying to break it down into these neat little categories is kind of hard.
"The Form of the Message" was very enlightening. I noticed right off the bat that it was going to be another lesson on phonetics, which kind of scared me at first because I never fully understood it the first time. As I kept reading, I began to notice a lot of interesting points. It said that sounds are either vocal or nasal, which I had never thought of before but is totally true. I thought all of the illustrations of the mouth/nose area were quite helpful in assisting my understanding of the chapter itself. I also found the charts interesting for the same reason. A particular sentence that stood out to me whole heartedly was on page 112. It said, "Each language selects its phonetic inventory from among the possible human sounds." I sat and thought about that for quite awhile before I fully processed it. That is just so crazy to think about. That we as humans do that so subconsciously. The phonetics examples on every page listed after the explanation of the paragraph were also helpful. I enjoyed reading this chapter, and I am looking forward to miss Amelia's presentation tomorrow! :) -Amanda
This essay was my least favorite of all we have read. I think mainly because I have never been extremely fond of phonetics which sounds silly to say in a Linguistics class, but the way the pronunciations of words are written out gives me the creeps, and it really psychs me out mentally. I tried to push beyond the form that this essay was written in though, and I did enjoy the overall structure of the essay as it follows the format many other essays we have read follow, a numbered view on a particular subject as well as employing overlapping techniques to explain how form affects meaning.
All that being said I did find joy in the dialectical aspects of this essay. I found Charlynn's thoughts on the Oklahoma pronunciation of certain words very interesting as vowel shortening and lengthening are all characteristics are certain regional dialects. Southern speakers are generally thought to shorten vowels or omit vowel sounds if they appear in the second syllable of a two-syllable word. I'm looking forward to hearing more about glides and diphthongs in the presentation in class as they have appeared numerous times in my dialectical research.
As much as the phonetics of the text bothered me, I was glad that there was some explanation offered for each section. For example, I enjoyed reading about the different vowel sounds that exist in certain languages. I had no idea there was such a drastic difference between languages and vowels. Again, going back to something Charlynn mentioned, maybe I'm "linguistically prejudiced."
So you've read "The Form of the Message" by Nancy Bonvillain.
I have read every word of the Bonvillian Essay
ReplyDeleteWhat I thought was interesting about the essay was the establishment of stress rules and how we may apply the same rules of our native language to a second language (especially to loan words etc.) I’d always noticed this occurrence but never really understood why this was the case other than simple forgetfulness or confusion. Our need for some base in language rules seems to dominate even our transition into a new language.
I also like how in the Bini language, the speakers use tone changes in a phrase to show passage of time. Though the initial phrase itself stays constant only the changes in pitch denote past, present or future tense. It would be interesting to see how this may affect this cultures view of the passage of time (if it even does in a significant sense) as well as what other ways the use pitch in place of verb conjugation or other grammar rules. It is interesting to note that although there are an incredibly wide range of languages on Earth, they are all surprisingly similar in how they establish certain sounds and rules of use. Even languages that are seemingly unrelated.
-Leslie
I found the fact that English and French have a similar amount of vowels really interesting. I had always thought French had a large amount more, but I guess it just seemed that way because of my own unfamiliarity with the language. The fact that there is a language out there with 96 consonants is amazing to me—there is no way my mouth could accomplish all of those clicks. This is disappointing, because I think the San people’s language sounds amazingly complex and beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThe other thing I found interesting, if not slightly worrying, was the list of English words that were supposed to be pronounced differently. The only one I found myself saying differently out of the list was the word “construct”—which leads me to believe that the Oklahoma accent has again merged some sounds. Now I really want to hear how the rest of the class pronounces these words.
I was surprised by Bonvillain’s mention of the English tendency to draw out a word for emphasis. I had never really thought of it as a “lengthening of a vowel” in order to create emphasis. It’s just always been something I’ve done and heard others do. That type of thinking was very linguistically prejudiced of me, but I’m starting to realize the difficulty that comes with objectively examining your own language. The language we use very closely tied to who we are as people—it represents our family and the place we grew up, so trying to break it down into these neat little categories is kind of hard.
"The Form of the Message" was very enlightening. I noticed right off the bat that it was going to be another lesson on phonetics, which kind of scared me at first because I never fully understood it the first time. As I kept reading, I began to notice a lot of interesting points. It said that sounds are either vocal or nasal, which I had never thought of before but is totally true. I thought all of the illustrations of the mouth/nose area were quite helpful in assisting my understanding of the chapter itself. I also found the charts interesting for the same reason. A particular sentence that stood out to me whole heartedly was on page 112. It said, "Each language selects its phonetic inventory from among the possible human sounds." I sat and thought about that for quite awhile before I fully processed it. That is just so crazy to think about. That we as humans do that so subconsciously. The phonetics examples on every page listed after the explanation of the paragraph were also helpful. I enjoyed reading this chapter, and I am looking forward to miss Amelia's presentation tomorrow! :)
ReplyDelete-Amanda
I was very disturbed by the picture on this blog.
ReplyDeleteThis essay was my least favorite of all we have read. I think mainly because I have never been extremely fond of phonetics which sounds silly to say in a Linguistics class, but the way the pronunciations of words are written out gives me the creeps, and it really psychs me out mentally. I tried to push beyond the form that this essay was written in though, and I did enjoy the overall structure of the essay as it follows the format many other essays we have read follow, a numbered view on a particular subject as well as employing overlapping techniques to explain how form affects meaning.
ReplyDeleteAll that being said I did find joy in the dialectical aspects of this essay. I found Charlynn's thoughts on the Oklahoma pronunciation of certain words very interesting as vowel shortening and lengthening are all characteristics are certain regional dialects. Southern speakers are generally thought to shorten vowels or omit vowel sounds if they appear in the second syllable of a two-syllable word. I'm looking forward to hearing more about glides and diphthongs in the presentation in class as they have appeared numerous times in my dialectical research.
As much as the phonetics of the text bothered me, I was glad that there was some explanation offered for each section. For example, I enjoyed reading about the different vowel sounds that exist in certain languages. I had no idea there was such a drastic difference between languages and vowels. Again, going back to something Charlynn mentioned, maybe I'm "linguistically prejudiced."