English As An Additional Language Quotes

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Beyond the first few thousand words of English, many words are expansions of more basic words through the addition of morphemes
Grabe (Reading in a Second Language: Moving from Theory to Practice (Cambridge Applied Linguistics))
During the late 1910s and early ’20s, immigrant workers at the Ford automotive plant in Dearborn, Michigan, were given free, compulsory “Americanization” classes. In addition to English lessons, there were lectures on work habits, personal hygiene, and table manners. The first sentence they memorized was “I am a good American.” During their graduation ceremony they gathered next to a gigantic wooden pot, which their teachers stirred with ten-foot ladles. The students walked through a door into the pot, wearing traditional costumes from their countries of origin and singing songs in their native languages. A few minutes later, the door in the pot opened, and the students walked out again, wearing suits and ties, waving American flags, and singing “The Star-Spangled Banner.
Anne Fadiman (The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: A Hmong Child, Her American Doctors, and the Collision of Two Cultures)
In the area of linguistics, there are major language groups: Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, English, Portuguese, Greek, German, French, and so on. Most of us grow up learning the language of our parents and siblings, which becomes our primary or native tongue. Later, we may learn additional languages but usually with much more effort. These become our secondary languages. We speak and understand best our native language. We feel most comfortable speaking that language. The more we use a secondary language, the more comfortable we become conversing in it. If we speak only our primary language and encounter someone else who speaks only his or her primary language, which is different from ours, our communication will be limited. We must rely on pointing, grunting, drawing pictures, or acting out our ideas. We can communicate, but it is awkward. Language differences are part and parcel of human culture. If we are to communicate effectively across cultural lines, we must learn the language of those with whom we wish to communicate. In the area of love, it is similar. Your emotional love language and the language of your spouse may be as different as Chinese from English. No matter how hard you try to express love in English, if your spouse understands only Chinese, you will never understand how to love each other. My friend on the plane was speaking the language of “Affirming Words” to his third wife when he said, “I told her how beautiful she was. I told her I loved her. I told her how proud I was to be her husband.” He was speaking love, and he was sincere, but she did not understand his language. Perhaps she was looking for love in his behavior and didn’t see it. Being sincere is not enough. We must be willing to learn our spouse’s primary love language if we are to be effective communicators of love.
Gary Chapman (The Five Love Languages: How to Express Heartfelt Commitment to Your Mate)
Literature is as old as human language, and as new as tomorrow's sunrise. And literature is everywhere, not only in books, but in videos, television, radio, CDs, computers, newspapers, in all the media of communication where a story is told or an image created. It starts with words, and with speech. The first literature in any culture is oral. The classical Greek epics of Homer, the Asian narratives of Gilgamesh and the Bhagavad Gita, the earliest versions of the Bible and the Koran were all communicated orally, and passed on from generation to generation - with variations, additions, omissions and embellishments until they were set down in written form, in versions which have come down to us. In English, the first signs of oral literature tend to have three kinds of subject matter - religion, war, and the trials of daily life - all of which continue as themes of a great deal of writing.
Ronald Carter (The Routledge History of Literature in English: Britain and Ireland)
If all art is conceptual, the issue is rather simple. For concepts, like pictures, cannot be true or false. They can only be more or less useful for the formation of descriptions. The words of a language, like pictorial formulas, pick out from the flux of events a few signposts which allow us to give direction to our fellow speakers in that game of "Twenty Questions" in which we are engaged. Where the needs of users are similar, the signposts will tend to correspond. We can mostly find equivalent terms in English, French, German, and Latin, and hence the idea has taken root that concepts exist independently of language as the constituents of "reality." But the English language erects a signpost on the roadfork between "clock" and "watch" where the German has only "Uhr." The sentence from the German primer, "Meine Tante hat eine Uhr," leaves us in doubt whether the aunt has a clock or watch. Either of the two translations may be wrong as a description of a fact. In Swedish, by the way, there is an additional roadfork to distinguish between aunts who are "father's sisters," those who are "mother's sisters," and those who are just ordinary aunts. If we were to play our game in Swedish we would need additional questions to get at the truth about the timepiece.
E.H. Gombrich
The French language is one of the most widespread languages in terms of its presence around the world. It is the only language that can be found to be used commonly in every single continent. You may or may not be aware of the fact that French is derived from Latin, along with many other languages that it is similar to such as Spanish and Italian. If you already have some knowledge of Spanish or Italian, then learning French could be quite a breeze for you. Many languages change over time as different dialects and forms come into practice simply because of time passing and people changing. The interesting thing about the French language though is that there is a governing body whose main mission is to keep and protect the French language as close to its origin as possible in terms of word additions and changes to things like grammar or sentence structure. There are many changes proposed and rejected by this governing body in an effort to maintain its integrity to the past. This is different from the English language as many new words are being added to the dictionary all the time as societies grow, change and develop. The French language and its prominence are growing rapidly as many of the countries where French is a primary language are developing countries and thus they are growing and changing. What this means for the French language is that it is also growing and becoming more widespread as these countries develop.
Paul Bonnet (FRENCH COMPLETE COURSE: 3 BOOKS IN 1 : The Best Guide for Beginners to Learn and Speak French Language Fast and Easy with Vocabulary and Grammar, Common Phrases and Short Stories)
In addition, Christ Jesus spoke a language called Aramaic. While He was born Jewish and could read the Hebrew sacred texts, it is probable that He did not speak Hebrew with his Apostles or with those people who came to hear Him speak. For, it was not common during the time of Christ Jesus for the Jewish people to speak in Hebrew. Extremely few people in ancient times could read or write. The Jewish people of the time of Christ Jesus spoke Aramaic. The New Testament Gospels, on the other hand, were written in Greek. Thus, before even beginning to speak about all the errors created by innumerable scribes re-copying the Gospels over and over again, we must confront the fact that when Christ Jesus spoke, he spoke in Aramaic. We know that the authors of the Gospels in the New Testament were not the persons traditionally named as the authors of these Gospels: Saint Mark did not write the Gospel of Mark; Saint Matthew did not write the Gospel of Matthew and so on. In order to create each one of the New Testament Gospels, some author who spoke and wrote in Greek had to have read a document already written in Aramaic (or possibly Hebrew, although this is unlikely), or possibly sat and listened as one of the Apostles or followers of Christ Jesus related the stories to him in Aramaic and then the author who spoke and wrote in Greek, translated the Aramaic tales into Greek. So, straightaway, we realize that it is impossible that we are reading the exact words of Christ Jesus; the best that we can hope for is that we are reading the best translation of Christ Jesus’ words from Aramaic, into Greek and finally into English.
Laurence Galian (Alien Parasites: 40 Gnostic Truths to Defeat the Archon Invasion!)
His features were Middle Eastern, his eyes haunted but also defiant. They were all defiant, Gray had found. When he looked at someone like al-Omari, Gray couldn’t help but think of a Dostoyevsky creation, the displaced outsider, brooding, plotting and methodically stroking a weapon of anarchy. It was the face of a fanatic, of one possessed by a deranged evil. It was the same type of person who’d taken away forever the two people Gray had loved most in the world. Though al-Omari was thousands of miles away in a facility only a very few people even knew existed, the picture and sound were crystal clear thanks to the satellite downlink. Through his headset he asked al-Omari a question in English. The man promptly answered in Arabic and then smiled triumphantly. In flawless Arabic Gray said, “Mr. al-Omari, I am fluent in Arabic and can actually speak it better than you. I know that you lived in England for years and that you speak English better than you do Arabic. I strongly suggest that we communicate in that language so there is absolutely no misunderstanding between us.” Al-Omari’s smile faded, and he sat straighter in his chair. Gray explained his proposal. Al-Omari was to become a spy for the United States, infiltrating one of the deadliest terrorist organizations operating in the Middle East. The man promptly refused. Gray persisted and al-Omari refused yet again, adding that “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” “There are currently ninety-three terrorist organizations in the world as recognized by the U.S. State Department, most of them originating in the Middle East,” Gray responded. “You have confirmed membership in at least three of them. In addition, you were found with forged passports, structural plans to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and bomb-making material. Now you’re going to work for us, or it will become distinctly unpleasant.” Al-Omari smiled and leaned toward the camera. “I was interrogated years ago in Jordan by your CIA and your military and your FBI, your so-called Tiger Teams. They sent females in wearing only their underwear. They wiped their menstrual blood on me, or at least what they called their menstrual blood, so I was unclean and could not perform my prayers. They rubbed their bodies against me, offered me sex if I talk. I say no to them and I am beaten afterward.” He sat back. “I have been threatened with rape, and they say I will get AIDS from it and die. I do not care. True followers of Muhammad do not fear death as you Christians do. It is your greatest weakness and will lead to your total destruction. Islam will triumph. It is written in the Qur’an. Islam will rule the world.
David Baldacci (The Camel Club (Camel Club, #1))
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British colonial disdain for human rights even left its mark on the English language. The word “coolie” was borrowed from a Chinese word that literally means “bitter labor.” The Romanized first syllable coo means “bitter” and the second syllable lie mimics the pronunciation of the Chinese logograph that means “labor.” This Chinese word sprang into existence shortly after the Opium War in the nineteenth century when Britain annexed several territories along the eastern seaboard of China. Those territories included Hong Kong, parts of Shanghai, Canton city (Guangzhou) and parts of Tianjin, a seaport near Beijing. In those newly acquired territories, the British employed a vast number of manual laborers who served as beasts of burden on the waterfront in factories and at train stations. The coolies’ compensation was opium, not money. The British agency and officers that conceived this unusual scheme of compensation—opium for back-breaking hard labor—were as pernicious and ruthless as they were clever and calculating. Opium is a palliative drug. An addict becomes docile and inured to pain. He has no appetite and only craves the next fix. In the British colonies and concessions, the colonizers, by paying opium to the laborers for their long hours of inhumane, harsh labor, created a situation in which the Chinese laborers toiled obediently and never complained about the excessive workload or the physical devastation. Most important of all, the practice cost the employers next to nothing to feed and house the laborers, since opium suppressed the appetite of the addicts and made them oblivious to pain and discomfort. What could be better or more expedient for the British colonialists whose goal was to make a quick fortune? They had invented the most efficient and effective way to accumulate capital at a negligible cost in a colony. The only consequence was the loss of lives among the colonial subjects—an irrelevant issue to the colonialists. In addition to the advantages of this colonial practice, the British paid a pittance for the opium. In those days, opium was mostly produced in another British colony, Burma, not far from China. The exploitation of farmhands in one colony lubricated the wheels of commerce in another colony. On average, a coolie survived only a few months of the grim regime of harsh labor and opium addiction. Towards the end, as his body began to break down from malnutrition and overexertion, he was prone to cardiac arrest and sudden death. If, before his death, a coolie stumbled and hurt his back or broke a limb, he became unemployed. The employer simply recruited a replacement. The death of coolies in Canton, Hong Kong, Shanghai and other coastal cities where the British had established their extraterritorial jurisdiction during the late 19th century was so common that the Chinese accepted the phenomenon as a routine matter of semi-colonial life. Neither injury nor death of a coolie triggered any compensation to his family. The impoverished Chinese accepted injury and sudden death as part of the occupational hazard of a coolie, the “bitter labor.” “Bitter” because the labor and the opium sucked the life out of a laborer in a short span of time. Once, a 19th-century British colonial officer, commenting on the sudden death syndrome among the coolies, remarked casually in his Queen’s English, “Yes, it is unfortunate, but the coolies are Chinese, and by God, there are so many of them.” Today, the word “coolie” remains in the English language, designating an over-exploited or abused unskilled laborer.
Charles N. Li (The Turbulent Sea: Passage to a New World)
In addition to changes in the meanings of English words, we find differences in what linguists call “register,” such as how formal language differs from informal, spoken from written, casual from stiff, etc. (We
Joel M. Hoffman (And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible's Original Meaning)
Robert DeKeyser (2000) carried out a replication of the Johnson and Newport study, working with Hungarian immigrants to the United States. He also found a strong relationship between age of immigration and performance on the judgement task. In addition, he asked participants to take language aptitude tests and found that, for participants who began learning English as adults, aptitude scores were correlated with success. However, there was no such correlation for those who learned English in childhood. These findings appear to confirm the hypothesis that adult learners may learn language in a way that is different from the way young children learn.
Patsy M. Lightbown (How Languages are Learned)
learners receiving intensive ESL instruction for five hours every day for five months of one school year (in Grade 5 or 6) were compared to learners at the end of secondary school who had received the same total amount of instruction spread over 7–8 years of schooling. On a number of measures, the students who received the intensive instruction performed as well as or better than those whose instruction was delivered in what has been called a ‘drip feed’ approach (Lightbown and Spada 1994). In subsequent research, comparisons were made between groups of Grade 5 and 6 students who participated in intensive English language instruction during a single school year, but with the time distributed differently: some students received five hours of English a day for five months; others received the same total number of hours, doing two and a half hours of English each day for 10 months. The researchers found that both groups benefited from the overall increase in hours of instruction with some additional advantages for learners receiving the more intensive instruction (Collins et al. 1999; Collins and White 2011). The advantages were evident not only in superior language abilities but also in attitudes toward the language and satisfaction with language learning experiences. Similar findings have been reported for different models of intensive and core French programmes (Netten and Germain 2004; Lapkin, Hart, and Harley 1998).
Patsy M. Lightbown (How Languages are Learned)
If you look for activation in any cortex, when language is spoken or comprehended, you will find it. Lieberman's studies of Parkinson's patents and Everest climbers, as well as Pinker's work on the past tense in English, show that there is an overlap between the parts of the brain that are used for speech and the parts that are used for syntax. In addition, the brain areas that are active when learning language are different from the ones that are active when using language once it has been learned. Moreover, different areas are activated depending on the specific language activity, like the comprehension of words, categorizing a word (in a new task versus a learned task), translating between languages, or making decisions about grammar. Modern brain imaging has also revealed that the spread of language activation across the two hemispheres of the brain can differ substantially for each individual.
Christine Kenneally (The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language)
If you look for activation in any cortex, when language is spoken or comprehended, you will find it. Lieberman's studies of Parkinson's patients and Everest climbers, as well as Pinker's work on the past tense in English, show that there is an overlap between the parts of the brain that are used for speech and the parts that are used for syntax. In addition, the brain areas that are active when learning language are different from the ones that are active when using language once it has been learned. Moreover, different areas are activated depending on the specific language activity, like the comprehension of words, categorizing a word (in a new task versus a learned task), translating between languages, or making decisions about grammar. Modern brain imaging has also revealed that the spread of language activation across the two hemispheres of the brain can differ substantially for each individual.
Christine Kenneally (The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language)
The entropy level indicates the complexity of a signal, or how much information it might hold, such as the frequency of elements within the signal and the ability to make a prediction about what will come next in the signal, based on what has come before. Human languages are approximately ninth-order entropy, which means that if you had a nine-word (or shorter) sequence from, say, English, you would have a chance of guessing what might come next. If the sequence is ten words or more, you'll have no chance of guessing the next word correctly. The simplest forms of communications have first-order entropy. Squirrel monkeys have second or third-order, and dolphins measure higher, around fourth-order. They may be even higher, but to establish that, we would need more data. Doyle plans to record a number of additional species, including various birds and humpback whales.
Christine Kenneally (The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language)
a new teaching appointment required that I become familiar with mysticism in Christianity and other religions. That’s when I realized that these were mystical experiences. Especially important was William James’s classic book The Varieties of Religious Experience, published more than a century ago, still in print, and named by a panel of experts in 1999 as the second most important nonfiction book published in English in the twentieth century. The book combines the elements that made up James himself: a psychologist fascinated by the varieties of human consciousness, and a philosopher pondering what all of this might mean.1 Part of his book is about mystical experiences. Based on James’s study of accounts of such experiences, he concluded that their two primary features are “illumination” and “union.” Illumination has a twofold meaning. The experiences often involve light, luminosity, radiance. Moreover, they involve “enlightenment,” a new way of seeing. “Union” (or “communion”) refers to the experience of connectedness and the disappearance or softening of the distinction between self and world. In addition, James names four other common features: Ineffability. The experiences are difficult, even impossible, to express in words. Yet those who have such experiences often try, usually preceded by, “It’s really hard to describe, but it was like . . .” Transiency. They are usually brief; they come and then go. Passivity. One cannot make them happen through active effort. They come upon one—one receives them. Noetic quality. They include a vivid sense of knowing (and not just intense feelings of joy, wonder, amazement)—a nonverbal, nonlinguistic way of knowing marked by a strong sense of seeing more clearly and certainly than one ever has. What is known is “the way things are” when all of our language falls away and we see “what is” without the domestication created by our words and categories. This way of knowing might be called direct cognition, a way of knowing not mediated through language. Reading James and other writers on mysticism was amazing. In colloquial language, I was blown away. I found my experiences described with great precision. Suddenly, I had a way of naming and understanding them. Moreover, they were linked to the experiences of many people. They are a mode of human consciousness. They happen. And
Marcus J. Borg (Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most)
ANAGRAMMATISM  (ANAGRA'MMATISM)   n.s.[from anagram.]The act or practice of making anagrams. The only quintessence that hitherto the alchymy of wit could draw out of names, is anagrammatism, or metagrammamatism, which is a dissolution of a name truly written into his letters, as his elements, and a new connexion of it by artificial transposition, without addition, substraction, or change of any letter into different words, making some perfect sense appliable to the person named.Camden.
Samuel Johnson (A Dictionary of the English Language (Complete and Unabridged in Two Volumes), Volume One)
mentioned earlier the importance of affirming the local and the particular in the face of forces which would dilute our identity and homogenize our cultures. But I would also note the equally compelling importance of global partnership and universal understanding - in the face of forces that would dangerously fragment our world. In the process of nurturing a healthy sense of identity, we must resist the temptation to normatize any particular culture, to demonize “the other”, and to turn healthy diversity into dangerous discord. This is why the Academies’ curricula, in addition to using English as a connecting language, will emphasize areas of focus such as comparative political systems, global economics, and global cultures, along with the importance of pluralism and a sound ethical foundation
Anonymous
Take a look at the following list of numbers: 4, 8, 5, 3, 9, 7, 6. Read them out loud. Now look away and spend twenty seconds memorizing that sequence before saying them out loud again. If you speak English, you have about a 50 percent chance of remembering that sequence perfectly. If you're Chinese, though, you're almost certain to get it right every time. Why is that? Because as human beings we store digits in a memory loop that runs for about two seconds. We most easily memorize whatever we can say or read within that two-second span. And Chinese speakers get that list of numbers—4, 8, 5, 3, 9, 7, 6—right almost every time because, unlike English, their language allows them to fit all those seven numbers into two seconds. That example comes from Stanislas Dehaene's book The Number Sense. As Dehaene explains: Chinese number words are remarkably brief. Most of them can be uttered in less than one-quarter of a second (for instance, 4 is "si" and 7 "qi"). Their English equivalents—"four," "seven"—are longer: pronouncing them takes about one-third of a second. The memory gap between English and Chinese apparently is entirely due to this difference in length. In languages as diverse as Welsh, Arabic, Chinese, English and Hebrew, there is a reproducible correlation between the time required to pronounce numbers in a given language and the memory span of its speakers. In this domain, the prize for efficacy goes to the Cantonese dialect of Chinese, whose brevity grants residents of Hong Kong a rocketing memory span of about 10 digits. It turns out that there is also a big difference in how number-naming systems in Western and Asian languages are constructed. In English, we say fourteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen, so one might expect that we would also say oneteen, twoteen, threeteen, and five- teen. But we don't. We use a different form: eleven, twelve, thirteen, and fifteen. Similarly, we have forty and sixty, which sound like the words they are related to (four and six). But we also say fifty and thirty and twenty, which sort of sound like five and three and two, but not really. And, for that matter, for numbers above twenty, we put the "decade" first and the unit number second (twentyone, twenty-two), whereas for the teens, we do it the other way around (fourteen, seventeen, eighteen). The number system in English is highly irregular. Not so in China, Japan, and Korea. They have a logical counting system. Eleven is ten-one. Twelve is ten-two. Twenty-four is two- tens-four and so on. That difference means that Asian children learn to count much faster than American children. Four-year-old Chinese children can count, on average, to forty. American children at that age can count only to fifteen, and most don't reach forty until they're five. By the age of five, in other words, American children are already a year behind their Asian counterparts in the most fundamental of math skills. The regularity of their number system also means that Asian children can perform basic functions, such as addition, far more easily. Ask an English-speaking seven-yearold to add thirty-seven plus twenty-two in her head, and she has to convert the words to numbers (37+22). Only then can she do the math: 2 plus 7 is 9 and 30 and 20 is 50, which makes 59. Ask an Asian child to add three-tensseven and two-tens-two, and then the necessary equation is right there, embedded in the sentence. No number translation is necessary: It's five-tens-nine. "The Asian system is transparent," says Karen Fuson, a Northwestern University psychologist who has closely studied Asian-Western differences. "I think that it makes the whole attitude toward math different. Instead of being a rote learning thing, there's a pattern I can figure out. There is an expectation that I can do this. There is an expectation that it's sensible. For fractions, we say three-fifths. The Chinese is literally 'out of five parts, take three.' That's telling you conceptually
Anonymous
The cherubim were never intended as an object of worship, because they were only the appendices to another thing. But a thing is then proposed as an object of worship, when it is set up by itself, and not by way of addition or ornament to another thing.Stillingfleet’sDefence of Discourses on Romish Idolatry.
Samuel Johnson (A Dictionary of the English Language (Complete and Unabridged in Two Volumes), Volume One)
In addition to being the international language of commerce, medicine, and science, English was also the standard language of evil.
Stuart Gibbs (Spy School Goes Wild (Spy School, #12))
In Boat 6, Margaret Brown had doffed her sables to free her up for rowing. She had encouraged the other women to row as well, defying the quartermaster who railed at her from the stern. But Robert Hichens had chosen the wrong group of women to bully. In addition to the forceful Mrs. Brown, the plucky Mrs. Candee, and the voluble Berthe Mayné, there were two English suffragettes on board, Elsie Bowerman and her mother, Edith Chibnall. Both were active members of Sylvia Pankhurst’s Women’s Social and Political Union, the most militant of Britain’s votes-for-women organizations. Edith was one of ten women who had accompanied Mrs. Pankhurst on a 1910 deputation to Parliament that had resulted in arrests after a scuffle with police. She had also donated a banner for a Hyde Park demonstration that read “Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God.” A full-scale rebellion against one male tyrant was soon under way in Boat 6. The women tried to taunt the quartermaster into joining them at the oars, but Hichens refused, preferring to stand at the tiller shouting out rowing instructions and doom-filled warnings that they could be lost for days with no food or water. Eventually Boat 16 came near and the two lifeboats tied up together. Margaret Brown spotted a chilled, thinly clad stoker in the adjoining boat and after he jumped over into Boat 6 to help with the rowing, she wrapped him in her sables, tying the tails around his ankles. She then handed him an oar and instructed Boat 16 to cut them loose so they could row to keep warm. Howling curses in protest, Hichens moved to block this but an enraged Mrs. Brown rose up and threatened to throw him overboard. The fur-enveloped stoker reproached Hichens for his foul language in the broadest of Cockney accents: “Soy, don’t you know you are talking to a loidy!
Hugh Brewster (Gilded Lives, Fatal Voyage: The Titanic's First-Class Passengers and Their World)
English children’s vocabulary increases rapidly during the early school years. Anglin (1993, 62) estimated that first grade English children know approximately 10,000 words, third grade pupils know 19,000 words, and fifth grade pupils know 39,000 words. The annual increase in vocabulary is estimated to be 3,000 words from the first to third grade and 10,000 words from the fourth to the fifth grade. Nagy & Anderson (1984, 20) uphold that there is “the ability to utilize morphological relatedness among words (which) puts a student at a distinct advantage in dealing with unfamiliar words”. In a later work, Nagy (1988, 46) acknowledges that: “there is no doubt that skilled word learners use context and their knowledge of prefixes, roots, and suffixes to deal effectively with new words”. In short, in addition to context, there is awareness of word-formation devices which accounts for such rapid increase in early school age English children’s vocabulary. Such high vocabulary growth would certainly be of great interest in L2 acquisition. Nakayama, N. (2008) tested the role that explicit teaching of affixes (prefixes) plays in vocabulary learning to pre- and upper-intermediate L2 learners. The participants received instructions over the contribution prefixes played in the meaning of the complex word during an academic year. L2 learners’ vocabulary was measured in the beginning and in the end of the academic year. Assisted by the instructions, L2 learners learned easier the new derived words, but, in the end of the academic year they had forgotten the derived words whose meaning they acquired through instructions over the contribution prefixes played in the meaning of the complex word (2008, 70). In the end, Nakayama, N. (2008, 68) concludes that systematic teaching of prefixes does lead to better retention of the derived word, but only with regard to short-term memory. On the other hand, it has been estimated that the only the most advanced L2 learners can acquire 3000 words a year (Bauer, L. & Nation, P. 1993); a figure comparable to that of early school age native children acquiring their L1. Hence, word-formation knowledge leads to high vocabulary growth to L2 learners, but solely to the most advanced L2 learners. We may uphold that word formation devices have to be acquired rather than learned through explixit instructions.
Endri Shqerra (Acquisition of Word Formation Devices in First & Second Languages: Morphological Cross-linguistic Influence)
As a result, different from preschool age English children, who are assumed to acquire solely Neutral suffixes during their early acquisition of word-formation devices (Tyler & Nagy 1989), pre intermediate L2 learners, whose Semantic Transparency and Formal Simplicity is additionally enhanced by Orthographic & Phonological Overlap and/or Morphological Translation Equivalence that L2 derivatives and suffixes share with their counterparts in pupils’ L1, acquire both Neutral and Non-neutral suffixes.
Endri Shqerra (Acquisition of Word Formation Devices in First & Second Languages: Morphological Cross-linguistic Influence)
Another aspect noticed in L1 acquisition is the low acquisition of multi- morphemic words (i. e., complex words composed of three or more morphemes) by preschool age English children. Preschool age English children acquire solely 0.5 multi-morphemic words per day and multi-morphemic words constitute 8% of the vocabulary first grade English children own (Anglin, 1993, 71-79). First to third grade English children acquire 2 multi-morphemic words per day. Multi-morphemic words constitute 12 % of the third grade English children’s vocabulary. Fourth to fifth grade English children acquire 7.1 multi-morphemic words per day and multi-morphemic words constitute 19% of the fifth grade English children’s vocabulary (1993, 71-79). The low acquisition rate of multi-morphemic words by preschool age English children can be explained in terms of lack of parsability of multi-morphemic words. In his ‘Complexity-Based Ordering’ Model, Hay (2000, 2002) upholds that Level 1 suffixes (usually being Non-neutral suffixes), which occur inside other suffixes, are not parsed out during the processing of a multi-suffixed word by native speakers. Level 2 suffixes (usually being Neutral suffixes), which occur outside another suffix, are parsed out during the processing of multi-suffixes words. Level 1 suffixes: -al, -an, -ant, -ance, -ary, -ate, -ic, -ify, -ion, -ity, -ive, -ory, -ous, -y, -ity, -ation. Level 1 prefixes: sub-, de-, in-. Level 2 suffixes: -able, -age, -en, -er, -ful, -hood, -ish, -ism, -ist, -ize, -ly, -ment, -ness. (Fab, 1988, 531). Level 2 prefixes: re-, un-, non-. Obviously, such lack of parsability obscures the semantic transparency of multi-morphemic words and impedes the analytical acquisition of multi-morphemic words by preschool age English children. A strenuous effort to acquire multi-morphemic words would result in acquisition of such words as a unit (as the Lexeme-Based Model suggests, see Aronoff, 1994), rather than analytically (as argued by Morpheme-Based Model). Such lack of parsability also obscures the semantic transparency of multi-morphemic words and impedes the analytical acquisition of multi-morphemic words by pre intermediate L2 learners. The degree of Morphological Translation Equivalence that L2 multi-morphemic words share with their counterparts in pupils’ L1 is also lower compared to bi-morphemic words. Consequently, multi-morphemic words will be acquired as a unit rather than analytically by pre intermediate L2 learners. Elementary books designed for pre intermediate L2 learners - in addition to the insertion of root words - should also comprise less multi-morphemic words; perhaps solely or less than 8% of their vocabulary.
Endri Shqerra (Acquisition of Word Formation Devices in First & Second Languages: Morphological Cross-linguistic Influence)
In the centuries after the Norman Conquest, the three recorded Anglo-Saxon names for the festival – Midwinter, Yule and Christmas – were joined by other additions, such as the French borrowing noël. Today, although ‘Christmas’ is by far the most common name for the festival, ‘Yule’, ‘Noël’ and even ‘Midwinter’ are still words that belong to the familiar vocabulary of the season – fossilized in carols, if not in active use. This diversity of names, reflecting waves of Anglo-Saxon, Viking and Norman settlement, testifies to a festival that has grown and adapted, like the English language itself, with the introduction of new cultural influences.
Eleanor Parker (Winters in the World: A Journey through the Anglo-Saxon Year)
Difficulties of technical translation: features, problems, rules Technical translation is one of the most important areas of written translation in modern translation practice. Like the interpretation technique, it has its own characteristics and requirements. The need for this type of work is due to economic and scientific and technical progress, as well as the development of international relations. Thanks to technical translation, people share experience, knowledge and developments in various fields. What are the features of this type of translation? What pitfalls can be encountered on the translator's path? You will learn about this and much more from our article. ________________________________________ Technical translation is one of the most difficult types of legal translation. This is due to the large number of requirements for such work. Technical translation includes all scientific and technical texts, documents, instructions, reports, reference books and dictionaries. The texts of this plan contain a lot of specific terminology, which is the main difficulty of technical translation. A term is a word or a combination of words that accurately names a phenomenon, subject or scientific concept, revealing its meaning as much as possible. The most common technical texts in the following areas: • engineering; • defense; • physics and mathematics; • aircraft construction; • oil industry; • shipbuilding, etc. The main feature of technical translation is the requirement for its high accuracy (equivalence). The task of the translator is to convey information as close as possible to the original. Otherwise, distortions may appear in the text, leading to a misunderstanding of important information. Vocabulary selection is carried out carefully and carefully. The construction of phrases should be logical and meaningful. Other technical translation requirements include adequacy and informativeness. It is equally important to maintain the style of such texts. This includes not only vocabulary, but also the grammatical structure of the text, as well as the way the material is presented. Most often, this is a formal and logical style. Unlike artistic translation, where the main task is to convey the content, and the translator can use his imagination, include fancy turns and various figures of speech, the presence of emotionality and subjectivity is unacceptable in technical translation. Let's consider the peculiarities of technical translation in English. According to the well-known linguist and translator Y. Y. Retsker, English technical literature is characterized by the predominant use of complex or complex sentences, which include adjectives, nouns, as well as impersonal forms of verbs (infinitives, gerundial inflections, etc.). Passive constructions are also often found. In this direction, it is permissible to use only generally accepted grammatical structures. Another feature of such texts may be the absence of a predicate or subject and a large number of enumerations. In addition, the finished text should have an appropriate layout equivalent to the original. Let's consider the basic rules of technical translation for a specialist: • knowledge of the vocabulary, grammar and word structure of the foreign language from which the translation is performed (at the level required for understanding the source text); • knowledge of the language into which the translation is performed (at a level sufficient for a competent presentation of the material); • excellent knowledge of the specifics of texts and terminology; • ability to use linguistic and technical sources of information; • familiarity with the specifics of the field
Tim David
There are some additional unmeasurable and unstated requirements to be a lexicographer. First and foremost, you must be possessed of something called "sprachgefühl," a German word we've stolen into English that means "a feeling for language." Sprachgefühl is a slippery eel, the odd buzzing in your brain that tells you that "planting the lettuce" and "planting misinformation" are different uses of "plant," the eye twitch that tells you that "plans to demo the store" refers not to a friendly instructional stroll on how to shop but to a little exuberance with the sledgehammer. Not everyone has sprachgefühl, and you don't know if you are possessed of it until you are knee-deep in the English language, trying your best to navigate the mucky swamp of it. I use "possessed of" advisedly: YOU will never HAVE sprachgefühl, but rather sprachgefühl will have YOU, like a Teutonic imp that settles itself at the base of your skull and hammers at your head every time you read something like "crispy-fried rice" on a menu. The imp will dig its nails into your brain, and instead of ordering take-out Chinese, you will be frozen at the take-out counter, wondering if "crispy-fried rice" refers to plain rice that has been flash fried or to the dish known as "fried rice" but perhaps prepared in a new and exciting way. 'That hyphen,' you think, 'could just be slapdash misuse or...' And your Teutonic imp giggles and squeezes its claws a little harder.
Kory Stamper (Word by Word: The Secret Life of Dictionaries)
In addition to contesting social norms of femininity, the use of bad language may also function to construct and enact new modes and versions of being a woman . . . Women were imitating other women whom they admired. Women who challenge the stereotypical image of a well-mannered lady, like Trina and Rihanna, and the bad-ass women in their communities. Swearing works as a way for women to figure out what kind of women they are, to define their femininity on their own terms.
Amanda Montell (Wordslut: A Feminist Guide to Taking Back the English Language)
The Purānas, which are encyclopedic repositories of traditional wisdom, including everything from cosmology to philosophy to stories about kings and holy men. They contain many yogic legends and teachings. The following are especially important: the Bhāgavata-Purāna (also known as Shrīmad-Bhāgavata), Shiva-Purāna, and Devī-Bhāgavata-Purāna (a Tantric work). The so-called Yoga-Upanishads (some twenty texts), most of which were composed after 1000 C.E. and include three extensive works: the Darshana-Upanishad, Yoga-Shikhā-Upanishad and Tejo-Bindu-Upanishad. The texts of Hatha-Yoga, such as the Goraksha-Samhitā, Hatha-Yoga-Pradīpikā, Hatha-Ratna-Avalī, Gheranda-Samhitā, Shiva-Samhitā, Yoga-Yājnavalkya, Yoga-Bīja, Yoga-Shāstra of Dattātreya, Sat-Karma-Samgraha, and the Shiva-Svarodaya, which are all available in English. Vedāntic scriptures like the voluminous Yoga-Vāsishtha, which teaches Jnāna-Yoga, and its traditional abridgment, the Laghu-Yoga-Vāsishtha, both available in English renderings. The literature of the bhakti-mārga or devotional path, which is especially prominent among the Vaishnavas (worshipers of Vishnu) and Shaivas (worshipers of Shiva). There is a considerable literature on bhakti in both Sanskrit and Tamil, as well as various vernacular languages. In particular, I can recommend Nārada’s Bhakti-Sūtra, Shāndilya’s Bhakti-Sūtra, and the extensive Bhāgavata-Purāna, which is a detailed (mythological) account of the birth, life, and death of the God-man Krishna, with many wonderful and inspiring stories of yogins and ascetics. This beautiful work contains the Uddhāva-Gītā, Krishna’s final esoteric instruction to sage Uddhāva. Goddess worship from a Tantric viewpoint is the core of the Devī-Bhāgavata-Purāna, which should also be studied. In addition, sincere Yoga students should also read and ponder the great yogic texts associated with the different schools of Buddhism and Jainism. To encounter the world of Yoga through its literature will challenge the practitioner in many ways: The texts, even in translation and with notes, are often difficult to comprehend and demand serious concentration and perseverance. Yet we do not have to become scholars, but our study (svādhyāya) will show us what it takes to be a real yogin and what magnificent tools Yoga puts at our disposal. It will also further our self-understanding and strengthen our commitment to practice. In his Treasury of Good Advice (1.6), Sakya Pāndita, who was one of the great scholar-adepts of Vajrayāna Buddhism, wrote: Even if one were to die first thing tomorrow, today one must study. Although one may not become a sage in this life, knowledge is firmly accumulated for future lives, just as secured assets can be used later.
Georg Feuerstein (The Deeper Dimension of Yoga: Theory and Practice)
Anglo-Norman, on the other hand, was the living language of a very small élite, deprived of their continental lands after the fall of Normandy to Spain in 1204 and forced to focus on their English possessions, and needing to work with – and increasingly marry – the numerically superior English-speaking population. In addition to its numerical advantage, English gained increasingly in prestige with the emergence of a growing and ever more prosperous anglophone mercantile class.
David Hornsby (Linguistics: A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself (Ty: Complete Courses Book 1))
Mandarin or Vietnamese, have little or no inflectional morphology: the concept of ‘plural’ in Mandarin for example has to be deduced from context (one dog, two dog, many dog and so on) and is not marked on the noun itself. Russian or Latin, by contrast, are examples of highly inflecting languages: both Latin and its daughter language, Portuguese, for example, have full verbal paradigms in which all persons in all tenses are marked by a suffix (compare English, which marks only third person singular in the present tense). In both Latin and Russian, nouns are additionally marked for case, indicating by means of a suffix their function within a sentence. English, which has lost most of its case marking except in pronouns (compare she as a subject or nominative form, and her as an accusative or object form), achieves this through word order (subjects tend to precede verbs, objects follow them), or by prepositions. In Russian, these endings vary according to the gender of the noun, and there is a separate plural form.
David Hornsby (Linguistics: A Complete Introduction: Teach Yourself (Ty: Complete Courses Book 1))
Once again we see not only additions to the English word-hoard but new ideas being introduced or current ideas being given a name – ‘humanity’, ‘pollute’, which then, as words often do, took on a larger and more complex life. New words are new worlds. You call them up and if they are strong enough, they keep in step with change and along the way describe more and more, provide new insights, evolve on the tongue and on the page.
Melvyn Bragg (The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language)
Upon encountering Islam by whatever means, Drew was soundly impressed with the appeal of the religion, initially. This ancient Middle Eastern religion attracted the North Carolinian with not only its strict moral discipline but also the modest way its worshippers dressed and the proud and sober manner in which they carried themselves. After reportedly coming under the influence of Muslim teachers, Drew came to view Islam as “the only instrument for Negro unity and advancement.” 7 Lacking knowledge of the Arabic language as well as grounding in Muslim orthodoxy, he examined its dogma as best he could by probing the international faith with a keen eye out for remedies that would help Negroes relieve the sociopolitical pain and suffering they endured early in the twentieth century as an oppressed people in the United States. The young black supplicant found no such balm in orthodox Islam. Also, he reasoned that Arabic dogma would be a tough sell to a generation of Negroes just out of slavery and barely literate in English. Most troubling of all, the Arab Muslims in the Middle East had a long and barbaric history of enslaving sub-Saharan Africans—indeed, they dominated this ruthless human trade in Morocco and Egypt. Additionally, the Moors were known to widely practice color-caste discrimination among themselves.
Les Payne (The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X)