I liked the concept of "shades of gray." To make sure I get it though, I wanted to throw out some examples and see what you all think.
The example used in class was:
Have you seen the credit card bill?
This would be a shade of grey because you can be speaking of the information on the bill or the actual bill itself.
What about this example:
Did you watch Cashmere Mafia last night?
I would think this could be shades of grey because it could mean did
you stare at the tv with no sound and not really pay attention to the
show, or it could mean did you understand the context and follow what
happened.
For that matter, we could just say:
Are you watching the TV? That would be shades of grey because
you could mean are you watching the TV as the repair man fixes it or
are you watching sportscenter.
How about this example:
Are you going to DanceBlue this weekend?
No, I have no talent whatsoever.
Would this be micro senses. Because you could go to DanceBlue and
not dance, or you could go and dance poorly, or you could not go at
all. What do you all think?
When we were discussing major questions linguists ask from Chapter 5, it got me thinking. One question I wrote down was, Why do some words have different meanings when spelling is the same? These are Homonym's such as bank (the place we all keep our money) vs. bank (on a river). This was actually from Chapter 6.
Notice in the question how I underlined "different." When I first started writing I accidently wrote "the different" because I was going to write the same then realized different was the word I needed (not same). I started thinking. Why do we say "the same" and not "the different."
This is just one thing I was thinking about that I'm guessing we will get to at a later point in the semester.
Back to Homonym's. I think this is very interesting and
confusing. Are there Homonyms in other languages? How do
you learn a language if two words are the same? Is that why they
say English is so confusing? Are names Homonyms? For
example how about the name, Apple. All of these crazy famous
people keep naming their children things like Apple. Does that
count as a Homonym because it means (the little girl) and the fruit?
I am recently reading the book, "Invisible Man" for
another class. The book takes place in Harlam and discusses the
life journey and struggles faced by the main character, a black male
who is harassed by upper class white men. There is a scene where
a black farmer is speaking to a high class, intelligent white man and
says, "And I caint stop -- although I got a feelin' somethin' is wrong. I git aloose from the woman now and I'm runnin' for the clock. At first I couldn't git the door open, it hand some kinda crkily stuff like steel wool on the facing. But I gits it open and gits inside and it's hot and dark in there."
I was thinking about the way the author portrayed
this character through her writting when we normally would not write
this way because it is spoken and therefore the mode is different than
the norm. Online messaging also came to my attention. Do
you think that instant messaging and text messaging have different
modes? Sometimes I use the same words, but sometimes I dont'
because it takes too long to type on text messages. Do you all
have this same problem?
If you haven't heard the unfortunate news, Heath
Ledger passed away earlier today. I immediately turned on CNN to
hear how it happened, when it happened, why it happened and what his
family and friends thought. This is what I found:
"Actor Heath Ledger found dead."
"Ledger found dead in Mary-Kate Olsen's appartment."
"Pills found alongside of Ledger's bed, but no assurance of cause of death."
As a journalist, I am always wanting to know the
major details of events. I am always looking to report the main
events of the game, the player with the most points, the coach's
reaction, etc... After thinking about this I realized that journalists
use speciticity, probably more than anyone else. We are taught in
our classes to find out details and always report details. If you
think about it, it's kind of interesting, because it's what people want
to hear. Just thought that was interesting.
I didn't mean for this to be disturbing, but it was
major news today and triggered my thoughts about linguistics.
RIP: Heath Ledger
"The key to wisdom is this - constant and frequent
questioning, for by doubting we are led to question and by questioning
we arrive at the truth."
Peter Abelard
I found this quote on brainyquotes.com and I thought it was really
interesting. It makes perfect sense but it twists your mind
a little. I think it should be considered Pleonasm because of the
redundancy of "question." At the same time it makes perfect
sense, so I wonder if it's really an anomaly at all. Just
something interesting. What do you think?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opHo2rDVKeU
Check out this old Budwieser commercial. It reminded me of the
example we discussed in class about changing the volume, tone or accent
of "Prince William will inherit the throne." There is also some
iconic example with the noise of the frog's hitting each other with
their tongues. Also note when the frog says, "Who's your Daddy?"
HELLO BLOG READERS! I am so excited to start blogging with my LIN 318 class. Internet knowledge is becoming so essential, what better way to have out of class discussions than blogging. And Plus, as a journalism major, blogging is very good practice for my future. You will, however, probably notice some grammatical errors and especially some spelling errors because it's one of those things I just can't tackle, but I am trying to improve, so please feel free to comment corrections. What else can I say? Well, I LOVE linguistics. I took LIN 210 and 211 to replace taking a second language and fell in love with these classes. I am currently also enrolled in Grammatical Analysis (LIN 516) and took Language and Gender last semester. I am hoping these two classes will help me improve my overall communications along with my erroneous spelling and grammar. :)
