With the start of a new term I thought I would review the previous term's courses, as well as assess my own performance.
Being my first foray into the lively forum that is modern post-graduate academia, I was expecting a certain amount of challenge, and I was presented with several. One challenge was whittling down the huge amount of readings available and digesting them in a timely manner, and another involved producing output in the form of papers and essays.
LIN 5000 (The Nature of Language) was a very satisfying course that provided a good survey of language in general, which is no small task. The readings were very helpful and the textbook was well organized and informative. The assignments that I was responsible for during the term were fairly large scale, and if I was able to do it all again I might get started a little earlier on them. In the end I think I did fairly well in the class, after a sub-par performance with my first assignment.
LIN 8001 (Second Language Learning) was a much more challenging course, and I think that taking these two at the same time might have been a little too much to handle for a first term. I would have liked to have taken this course after completely finishing LIN 5000 - the format and style of the assignments would be much more familiar. Also topics addressed in LIN 5000 seemed to come up fairly often. I did rather poorly on the first assignment, partially because of the time constraints that I inflicting upon myself, and partially because I was writing this assignment almost concurrently with the LIN 5000 class assignment. The second assignment was even more ambitious, and although I feel like I improved a bit, the results were much the same. Unfortunately I don't have access to comments because it was a take home test situation. So the end result was a pass (60% or so) in this course, but now I feel like I am better equipped to take on the next two courses.
Being my first foray into the lively forum that is modern post-graduate academia, I was expecting a certain amount of challenge, and I was presented with several. One challenge was whittling down the huge amount of readings available and digesting them in a timely manner, and another involved producing output in the form of papers and essays.
LIN 5000 (The Nature of Language) was a very satisfying course that provided a good survey of language in general, which is no small task. The readings were very helpful and the textbook was well organized and informative. The assignments that I was responsible for during the term were fairly large scale, and if I was able to do it all again I might get started a little earlier on them. In the end I think I did fairly well in the class, after a sub-par performance with my first assignment.
LIN 8001 (Second Language Learning) was a much more challenging course, and I think that taking these two at the same time might have been a little too much to handle for a first term. I would have liked to have taken this course after completely finishing LIN 5000 - the format and style of the assignments would be much more familiar. Also topics addressed in LIN 5000 seemed to come up fairly often. I did rather poorly on the first assignment, partially because of the time constraints that I inflicting upon myself, and partially because I was writing this assignment almost concurrently with the LIN 5000 class assignment. The second assignment was even more ambitious, and although I feel like I improved a bit, the results were much the same. Unfortunately I don't have access to comments because it was a take home test situation. So the end result was a pass (60% or so) in this course, but now I feel like I am better equipped to take on the next two courses.
When I first began thinking about applying to a school to further my studies I read a few books and did some research to figure out what area I would like to concentrate on. I remember clearly going to a seminar and looking through a few readers on various disciplines. I picked up a couple of them, and I remember not picking up the one on sociolinguistics. I have a huge interest in sociology, and obviously in linguistics, but just like beer and ice cream I have no interest in ingesting them both at once.
Now I'm going through the readings in the text on the social aspects of language. I'm particularly interested because the social aspects of language is part of my first assignment that is due later this month.
I live and work in an environment (Japan) that has a lot of emphasis on social norms and customs, so I'm eager to see just what kinds of issues I can take from the readings and apply to my daily life as well as in the classroom.
Now I'm going through the readings in the text on the social aspects of language. I'm particularly interested because the social aspects of language is part of my first assignment that is due later this month.
I live and work in an environment (Japan) that has a lot of emphasis on social norms and customs, so I'm eager to see just what kinds of issues I can take from the readings and apply to my daily life as well as in the classroom.
Reviewing the literature and recommended readings in LIN5000 has been interesting. The sheer volume of information to digest is a little daunting, and it still feels like we're only skimming the surface. I particularly liked the sections on dialects. Japan is a place that is rife with dialects. Where I live there are several dialects that are identifiable, mainly by neighborhood. In my previous apartment in Futami they spoke a working class version of Japanese, Banshu-ben, which is a sub-dialect of Kansai-ben. In my new neighborhood it is a little more refined Osaka-ben, probably because I'm in more of a business/farming community. Futami was a little more blue collar fishing and construction town, so it is interesting to see that reflected in the language.
I also noticed that living in a foreign country and learning another language makes the deliniations between dialects much more apparent to me than when I lived in America. Maybe it has to do with the size of the countries as well as how people migrated through. In Japan people have been living in the same places for a long time, and it seems like geography plays a big part in how dialects where formed rather than immigration.
I also noticed that living in a foreign country and learning another language makes the deliniations between dialects much more apparent to me than when I lived in America. Maybe it has to do with the size of the countries as well as how people migrated through. In Japan people have been living in the same places for a long time, and it seems like geography plays a big part in how dialects where formed rather than immigration.
So far the studies that I have undertaken have been pretty interesting, but I generally file a lot of the stuff I encounter as "technobabble that I hopefully will understand more fully later". I understand that a lot of the reading that I am doing now forms the "base of the pyramid" and that as I build this foundation of knowledge I can reach more interesting and pertinent information later.
The textbook for LIN5000, An Introduction to Language, is actually one of the more interesting textbooks that I have worked with, and I've found a lot of interesting things in there outside of the normal course of reading.
We're starting to think about our first assignment, and I'll admit the idea is a little daunting. While I am very comfortable with the material in the textbook and the reading that have been assigned, we've also been given a huge list of academic journals, books and other resources that we should use to base our assignment on. This list represents thousands of pages of material, and paring that down into valid supporting facts seems like it will take so long that I must be misunderstanding something.
I'll spend some time this weekend poking at the assignment and we'll see what comes of it. More later....
The textbook for LIN5000, An Introduction to Language, is actually one of the more interesting textbooks that I have worked with, and I've found a lot of interesting things in there outside of the normal course of reading.
We're starting to think about our first assignment, and I'll admit the idea is a little daunting. While I am very comfortable with the material in the textbook and the reading that have been assigned, we've also been given a huge list of academic journals, books and other resources that we should use to base our assignment on. This list represents thousands of pages of material, and paring that down into valid supporting facts seems like it will take so long that I must be misunderstanding something.
I'll spend some time this weekend poking at the assignment and we'll see what comes of it. More later....
I have been reading through my textbook for my LIN5000 - The Nature of Language class. The textbook is called An Introduction to Language and I don't mind telling you it wasn't cheap even at Amazon. What exactly makes a textbook expensive? Is it the same thing that makes CDs in Japan three times as expensive as in America?
Anyway, finished up the first chapter today and I was surprised to find a typo in the book (8th ed. p. 12). It's a simple typo, but it reads, "Listeners my become confused, tired, bored, or disgusted."
Call me cynical, but why does the eight edition of a US$66 book on language have a language error in it? On page 12? I was a little surprised.
The chapter was interesting and it did have a lot of good information in it. There was lots of lingo that I'm sure I will be throwing around comfortably in the future. I'm still in the over(and under)whelmed stage for now.
Anyway, finished up the first chapter today and I was surprised to find a typo in the book (8th ed. p. 12). It's a simple typo, but it reads, "Listeners my become confused, tired, bored, or disgusted."
Call me cynical, but why does the eight edition of a US$66 book on language have a language error in it? On page 12? I was a little surprised.
The chapter was interesting and it did have a lot of good information in it. There was lots of lingo that I'm sure I will be throwing around comfortably in the future. I'm still in the over(and under)whelmed stage for now.
