Exam Review Questions

Exam II Review Questions

3. Cognates are words in various languages that are very much alike in form and in meaning. For example, the word mutter in German is a cognate of the word mother in English, both meaning "a female parent".  Another example of cognates are bras (French), braccio (Italian), braço (Portuguese) and brazo (Spanish) which all mean "arm" and all derived from the Italic branch of Indo- European. Cognates help us identify what languages are related and if they share common ancestors.

11.  William Labov conducted a study of three department stores that varied in social status.  Labov tried to elicit the response "fourth floor" in order to listern to the pronounciation of the salespeople's postvocalic /r/ sound, to hear if it was present or not. This study helped identify the different types of socio-economic classes in New york City.  It resulted in that the higher the socio-economic status, the higher the percentage of the pronounciation of the postvocalic /r/. The lower working class postvocalic /r/ was barely pronounced.

"From English to Chinglish" Essay

         English is becoming the language of the world, that is, in combination with other languages. Two great articles that provides us with more detail on this global language transition are; "From English to Chinglish: The Globalization of Languages" and "How English is evolving Into a Language We May Not Even Understand" by Michael Erard.  Both articles reflect on how "Chinglish"(a combination of English and Chinese) is becoming a new language all on its own. Furthermore, we encounter as well a brief description of the spreading of the English language in other foreign countries, the rising of new languages and the disappearances of endangered languages.
       
        It was very interesting reading about the Chinese government's mission to remove and/or fix any traces and signs of Chinglish just before the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing.  Although Chinglish is becoming a big part of the Chinese Culture, the Chinese government may not agree, and thus, because of the bad translations, it is viewed as a way of receiving humiliation from the Westerners. The Chinese government goes as far as to not renewing taxi drivers annual licenses' if one fails the required English exam.  As both articles state, the reason for this continued use of Chinglish throughout China is due to a large number of Chinese people being able to read and write in English but not being able to practice the language enough, therefore producing in the new language, "Chinglish".  On the contrary, Chinglish does not seem to be going any where any time soon.  In fact, it is growing more and more as the number of users continues on increasing.  Erard proves Chinglish's rising popularity in the sentence, "It will be celebrated as a form of cultural identity, as the Hong Kong Museum of Art did in a Chinglish exhibition last year".  Chinglish is soon to be acknowledged more by the media in all ways such as with books, movies, games and is already popular in the world wide web!
        In addition, Chinglish is not the only language in combination with English, there are also plenty of other languages who have been using this mixed form of language to communicate. Other examples are: Ponglish,Singlish, and Hinglish along with many others. As Erard puts it, "Panglish", which he says will be known as the global tongue.  In the article "From English to Chinglish", the author writes about foreign countries often declaring English as a their "go to" language.   Deciding on English to be the main language is helpful for some countries, in which, negative outcomes may arise if the decision is between the local languages instead. The author of "From English to Chinglish" gives a great example of this when he mentions the officials in Iraq, and further writes, "English thus helps to muffle fears of cultural and political hegemony in both India and Iraq".
       Moreover, the two articles imply that globalization is one of the reasons for the development of new languages and as well as the downfall of others.  The Chinglish language is a great example of how a new language is emerging right before our eyes.  It can be viewed as a language that will not necessarily replace English, but instead  join as another version or form of English.  Erard states, "Someday, It may even be taught in school", in referring to Chinglish.  However, what about the languages that are no longer taught in school? These are usually the smaller indigenous languages which are in some cases only an oral language with no written form. Indigenous languages are at a higher risk of extinction as the languages of the world continue to become a part of the language melting pot.
       Reading the articles, "From English to Chinglish: The Globalization of languages" and "How English is evolving Into a Language We May Not Even Understand" enlightened me and helped me realize what the world will be like in a few years from now, language-wise.  I am a "victim" myself of speaking "Spanglish"(English and Spanish) so I can relate in many ways to this topic.  I can see how the combination of two languages alone can bring a whole new light to a culture and as well as how quickly the spread of new languages can develop in today's world, just as how fast languages can be forgotten.  It is also safe to say that globalization has a huge part in this development.  Good thing there are foundations and projects that solely work on the preservation of indigenous languages such as Enduring Voices.

Want to do brunch this weekend?

       By now, most of us have used or at least heard of the fun word, brunch.  So what does this word exactly mean? Breakfast and lunch of course! The etymology of this word is just as exciting as using the word.  Did you know that this word was coined in 1895 in Britain as a way to describe a late morning Sunday breakfast for the people who drank to their heart's content on Saturday nights festivities and parties? These people are known as carousers.   This new idea of eating at a later time of day eliminated the need to wake up early on Sundays, thus making one more happy and relaxed. To brunch, has also become a fashionable and social thing to do, were many chose to gather with friends and family to enjoy brunch together in a social manner. So, what time can be classified as the "right time" for brunch? There is not an exact time, but it has been said that if you begin to "brunch" before 10:30AM then it is to early to be described as such. The ideal hours for brunch are recognized to be between the hours of 10:30AM to 2:00PM.  In comparison to brunching in 1895, brunch in our current times is not an obligatory Sunday only event.  We are now known to brunch at any given day of the week.  Even some restaurants, colleges, hotels and etc. are known to offer brunch as part of the menu.  

This small word is packed with multiple word formation processes.  One of the process of formation for this word that we can quickly acknowledge is blending, and this is pretty obvious as we can see that the word was produced by two words(breakfast and lunch). The beginning of breakfast was joined to the end of the word lunch.  This word is also represented as coinage because it was an invented word.  Another word formation process we can identify in this word is analogy for the reason that this word is similar to the word lunch.  In addition this word is classified as a conversion word because although it is a noun we can also use brunch as a verb.  For example, I like to have brunch(noun) every day;  We brunch(verb) only on Sundays.  Finally, we can classify brunch as a borrowing word formation process since the root of the word brunch originated in Britain, yet is very much used world wide.  I chose brunch because I simply enjoy saying it as much as I enjoy doing it. In fact, I just may be having brunch this weekend.  :)