Teacher Discussion Forums

At first, I had nothing to say in a reply. But having done a bit of research, I can offer you a small answer based on some info I came across: Correct me if I'm wrong, but the audiolingual approach to foreign language training involves a lot of ... repeating of utterances, right? Pattern practice? W...

Nicely done, Sunpower! I checked out the link and, wow... nicely done. Same terminology and everything.

WJ

I must admit that although I have studied Halliday and Functional Grammar, you might be using a different reference than I did. In your declarative example: 'The old couple are leaving their house to thier grandchildren.' According to my studies, I would call the nominal group 'the old couple' the '...

Exactly, 'Stephen (hates) Eddie Murhpy movies.' 'Roger (hates) Eddie Murphy movies.' 'Stephen and Roger (hate) Eddie Murphy movies.' which would be conjugated the same way as : 'They (hate) Eddie Murphy movies.' not *'Stephen and Rogers (hates) Eddie Murphy movies.' or *'They (hates) Eddie Murphy mo...

Hey Norm, As you stated, I don't believe that 'competence' and 'performance' concepts are limited to speakers and there mother tongues at all . Thanks to the fortitude of Chomsky's GG and UG theories, most followers of Chomsky never consider the '2nd language acquisition' side of things. Many articl...

So according to your explanation : Haitian Creole would be a dialect of French because, as of yet, no standard written system has been established for it. Can it be a dialect of French when they are totally incomprehensible, or when all one can understand of the other is one or two nouns per sentence?

OK, Norm, I'll volounteer. I wasn't sure how much to explain, so forgive me for my longwinded posting: This knowledge, and everything you know of yor given languages, is what linguists such as De Saussure would call 'competence'. If you woke up one morning and decided to stop talking (as some monks ...

Well put SJ, I learned the same concept : no pidgen is spoken as a mother tongue, the generation that speaks the pidgin as a maternal language transforms the pidgen into a creole, and after this process the syntax, morphology, and other aspects of the language do become more complicated as the need ...

"A question I have not seen addressed yet: Are there any ethnic groups more susceptible of developing the full-blown symptoms than others?" I don't believe so, Roger. Although Toronto does have a large Chinese population, and the disease was traced to a traveller that flew from Hong Kong to Toronto,...

I would like to add a very important distinction as well : The term 'lingua franca' desgnates the function of a specific language. Any language, pidgin or not, can function as a lingua franca to facilitate communication between two communities or individuals. French can be used as a lingua franca in...