1a. The Nature of Language: Specific information about the English Language.
1b. Worksheet on Linguistic Terms
2a. Knowing the English Language: Specific information about the English Language.
2b. Test your Metalinguistic Knowledge
3a. Language and Culture: reality of culture linked with language
3b. Don Show – Culture
We can download all these articles when the scheduled time arrives. To obtain the Grade in this Module 2, we have to do two activities within this week. (a) Module 2 Quiz: Multiple Choice questions from those three articles. (Optional but recommended to attempt), (b) Discussion Forum: After reading the articles given there, we can choose any one of them and write the summary of that article and reflection on it within 250 words. Then, we can give at least one comment on other participant's post in the Discussion Forum. This is the assignment of module 2, (and all other modules) from which we can obtain Grade for the Module.
Among those articles, I decided to write my reflection on the first article:
The Nature of Language
After reading this article, I got some important points that can be very much helpful to a language teacher. After knowing the nature of language, a teacher can easily cope up with the issues related to language teaching. While we try to understand about the nature of language, we have to learn about correctness of language, form, meaning and use of language, and varieties of a language. These elements are called the nature of language.
1) Correctness of Language: Prescriptive View vs. Descriptive View
When we talk about the correctness of language, we can perceive it in two ways: prescriptive view vs. descriptive views. Both accept the rules or existence of rules or importance of rules, but the difference is that – how we arrive at the rules. According to prescriptive view, grammar rules come from grammar books. People should follow these prescribed rules. Prescriptive views strictly follow the rules regardless of how people use language. The language is changeable. The prescriptive view is counter to the nature of language and the nature of the language users. According to descriptive view, grammar rules come from the users of language. Descriptive view considers the language as correct if the users of language see it as correct.
2) Three characters of a language: From, Meaning, and Use
Diane Larsen Freeman says that any of the language can be characterized in these three ways: form, meaning, and use. Form is an element of language which deals with accuracy and syntactical aspect of a language – how is it formed? Meaning is another element of language which deals with semantic aspect of a language – what does it mean? Use is the element which deals with the appropriateness of a language – when/why is it used? All these three elements are essential for perfect communication. For example – if you teach vocabulary, i.e. 'home' – 'home' has a form. It's a noun, common noun, count noun. 'Home' has meaning – some place where you reside. 'Home' has use. It can be contrasted with house, apartment, residence, bungalow, habitat, etc. We must learn when to use one and when to use the other.
3) Language Communities: Varieties of a Language
A language may have different name and variety as per it's use, such as – dialects, pidgin, creole, etc.
a) Dialects: A varieties of the language used by a particular community in a particular region, differentiated through pronunciation, word choice, and sometimes even grammar.
b) Pidgin: An emerging language which is the fusion language of two different groups of people who speak different languages to interact with each other, often for the purpose of trade. It is not a fully developed language.
c) Creole: When pidgin is widely used for long time, becomes more highly developed language, and often used as native language by a community, it is called creole.
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