Glossary

Glossary

 

1.      Semantic: is the study of the relationship between words and meanings, this relation includes the relation of words to the objects denoted by them, also the relation to the interpreters or the users of the words and the relation of signs or syntax. Not tied the context.

2.      Pragmatic: is the study of the meaning of some expressions or utterances that the speaker says and how it is interpreted by a listener according to the context.

3.      Speech acts: are the communicative acts or expressions that suggest a particular purpose, convey a particular meaning like requests, offers, and according to that, the possible answers to the listeners.

4.    Politeness: in a conversation, it is an established expression or command to show respect, sympathy, kindness to another person.

5.    Face-Threatening Acts: Are those feelings or the conscious that people especially adults had, when they are communicating or learning a second language, because they feel fear or shame to the other people thought.

6.    Negative face (Negative ≠ bad): A person’s negative face is silent and quiet, prefers be alone, that person does not need to do friends, is independent.

7.    Positive Face: A person’s positive face is friendly and kindness because need to be accepted to form part a specific group, and express with the other people of the group their feelings and thoughts.

8.    Communicative competence: is the ability to communicate or express something you want, using their language competences in general, and also specifics like linguistic competences, sociolinguistic competences, pragmatic competences.

9.      Semantic competence: handles about the organization of the meaning in the conscious and awareness of learners. Explain the lexical semantics, which deals with questions of word meaning like reference or connotation, also interlexical relations, such as synonymy, antonym.

10. Sociolinguistic competence: is concerned with the knowledge and skills required to be accepted in the society, the basic rules or norms we have to take into account depending to the context and the language use. Example: linguistic markers of social relations; politeness conventions; expressions of folk-wisdom; and dialect and accent.

11. Pragmatic competences are concerned with the ability and knowledge about the messages and principles in communication that the user learnt in different context or cultures. Example, discourse competence, functional competence, design competence.

12. Discourse competence is the ability of a user to organize sentences in sequence so as to produce coherent chunks of sentences of language. Also this concern the ability to control the ordering of sentences in terms of: topic or focus, cause and effect, also the ability to structure and manage discourse in terms of: thematic organisation, coherence and cohesion, logical ordering etc.

13. Foreign Language (FL): When the target language is not the main language spoken in their real life or context. Students learn in the classroom sometime they want to learn.

14. Second Language (SL): When the person is learning the second language immerse in the context, the most people speak this language and to learn becoming in a necessity.

15. Teaching of pragmatics:  the purpose is to the students learnt and they are able to communicate in specific situations, using the correct expressions depending of the context or they want to express, irony, kindness. It I about: speech acts, conversational structure, conversational implicature, etc.

16. Nonverbal communication: is the body language, expressions, gestures that we represent in a conversation, and sometimes is more important than verbal communication, because we can show dislike or like for the topic we are talking.

17. Literal meaning: refers to the semantic meaning or concept, according to the knowledge you already had. No consideration of context is involved.

18. Explicature : Goes beyond the literal meaning. It is the interpretation of the utterance using contextual information and context, related to pragmatics.

19. Implicature:  It is an additional conveyed, suggested meaning that the speaker implies without directly expressing, in order to the listener infers that aspect of the meaning in the utterance.

20. Figurative language: is used in some situations when we are unable to find the words which, used in their literal and conventional meaning or sense, will adequately express our meaning. Examples, irony, metaphor, comparison.

Journal Figurative Language‏

25th October

Figurative Language‏

This class was based about figurative language, the teacher did a presentation summarizing the topic, and then we watched a video about the series Friends. At last in pairs we did an activity to reflect about the video and the topic we had seen.

The main topics we studied were: three stages of interpretation, literal meaning, explicature and implicature. Also about Figurative language which is is often employed whenever we are unable to find the words which, used in their literal and conventional sense, will adequately express our meaning, a clear example of this is Irony, sarcasm, presuppositions, metonymy, metaphors and similes.

The video was about Chandler, who is friend of Joey and Ross, he knows that they both friends are interesting in the same girl and any of them knew it.

The video was so funny and entertaining for us, the main figurative language used was Irony, because Chandler used expressions like “Really? Right across the street?” to said the supposed surprise to Joey met a girl, also Chandler said Excellent! You know, Ross met somebody too! To laugh of his friends because they had met the same girl, for that reason the main figurative language was Irony, which communicates an opposite meaning; when a speaker says something that seems to be the opposite of what he means.

In this class I learnt about the different meanings of an utterance, depending of the intention of the user, if it is sarcasm to express our displeasure or irony like to the video. Also in pairs we had to reflect of the use of that in a classroom, I think we can use it to the students become more familiar with a real context of language, the use the language and the intentions of the speakers.

Another use of these videos could be learning about the daily day expressions and culture. It is useful, because first the students need to know the vocabulary and idiomatic expressions. The focus will be the intonation, body language, gestures and the intentions.

Journal Denotation and reference

September 20^th, 2013

Denotation and reference

This class was explained by two partners’ presentation about the topic Denotation and reference, although they explained well, I did not understand at all, until the teacher explained again. To practice about this topic in pairs we had to do some exercises.

The activity was identifying referents and the noun phrases to which they refer in the text, for example, in the first paragraph about Sharks, the referent was: Sea animal, and the referring expression was: Is one of the most feared fish in the ocean having the reputation of attacking humans. The other topic was the solar system, in which the referents were the starts, the planets, and the feasibility of sustainable life.

I learnt about the direct reference theory, which is a description theory, we do not need the name when we are talking about someone or something; we only use a description to refer to any person. There are two main concepts: Referent: that person or subject I am referring, and referring expressions: there are pronouns, deictic, and some characteristics or descriptions that help us to identify the referent we intent to convey. 

Also is important the Referential, when you have something in mind, whoever with some characteristics and the Referental use is when we already have a name or referent. Inferring is connecting previous knowlegde to go beyond; the speaker say information that listener interprets.

These practice excercises are meaningful to keep in mind the topics we had seen in class, i think that were good and simple examples that helped me to understant it in a better way.

Journal Semantics as part of grammar

      September 6^th, 2013

        Semantics as part of grammar

In this class we had an introduction about semantics and the relation with grammar, the teacher presented and explained slides, so we could understand the topic.Then the teacher asked us the following question, why should semantics be considered as part of grammar? In order to hand it. We could socialize the topic in pairs.Semantics should be considered as a part of grammar because it is important take into account aspects like: How much knows the speaker about the language, linguistic competence and also that knowledge depends of the speakers and the meaning they give to these words.

 Semantics, in general studies the meaning of a word, but it depends of the user, for example if it is a child, adult, someone with a lot of studies, of someone that never was to the school. This also depends of the context, and the experience that the user had have, the relation will depend about their previous knowledge. 

This class allowed me to clarify the different uses of semantics and how can this influence in the meaning of a word, depending of the user or the context in general.

Journal The denotational theory of meaning

·       September 11^th, 2013

·         

     The denotational theory of meaning

In this class was explained the denotational theory of meaning, through an exposition, and then we had to answer some questions in order to include it in the portfolio.

    The denotational theory refers to our beliefs, so the meaning that comes to our mind, when we talk about a word or concept, that already is famous, and has a perception. In pairs we had to give one example of an expression for which this is false.

·     We wrote about Gabriel Garcia Marquez, because when we talk of him, we almost immediately think in the price Nobel of literature. But that does not say that it is the only meaning. Maybe we can was talking about another person, a friend, a partner, so it can change the meaning depending of the context and the connotation of the speaker.

     The activity was good because we could interact with our partners also we could realized the real importance of the topic, the denotation of a word or phrase is a part of its meaning, however, the part referred to varies by context.

Journal Teaching pragmatics in the language classroom

13^TH November

Teaching pragmatics in the language classroom

  This class was the continues of teaching pragmatics, it was meaningful for me, because the presentations began, and we did different activities in which we could include the most important aspects about pragmatics, these topics were interesting and useful to my daily life, to my future and also my  language teaching process.

 My partners explained about politeness, with some examples, we had to read a paper and identified the polite expressions, then we socialized them and the group explained why it is important, or usually when we should use it. I think be positive politeness is necessary in our lives, job, relationships with your friends, boyfriend, etc. because there are the good manners to ask for permission, ask for a favor, apologize, and we could have some problems in a different culture if we do not applied some manners or etiquette.

 The presentations were clear and I like the examples they used to explain the topics. Then my partners and me had our presentation,  the students made groups of three people, chose and emotion to dramatize the dialogue, all they participated actively, at the moment they had to act, was funny and clear the context and the emotion they had. At the end of our presentation we gave then some concepts of explanations about Greeting with a difference.

I really enjoyed this class, I felt good in our presentation, and I think the purpose of the activity was done. Only at first we were not paying all the attention necessary, but then the groups were involved in the rest of the class.

Journal Teaching pragmatics online activity

  8^TH November

 Teaching pragmatics online activity

   This class was about Teaching Pragmatics, the activity was, looking and choosing in the web site one topic or lesson plan about teaching pragmatics in the language classroom in order to later we have to do a presentation.  I liked this activity because at last, we could put into practice all theory we were studying in class, and really we could see how pragmatics is taught in real language learning students.

     We worked as a group; we made groups of three people in order to do the presentation, my partners and me discussed and tried to find an interesting and simple topic for our mini class. In the web site we could find a lot of topics, like: spot the problem, it is about to discuss and raise students’ awareness of pragmatic violations, in the areas of openings, closings, and requests. Another topic was:  Politeness is more than “Please”, which objective is to learn some politeness strategies in English. Finally, we decided to talk about Greetings with a Difference, is about some different ways of greeting people.

        The microteaching was planning thus, first the students make groups of three, and each one has a paper with a dialogue in order to act or do role plays, after they choose a draw with an emotion, the students try and guess the context for each dialogue. Finally we say the conclusions of the topic.

      The importance of this class was the motivation and creativity we used to realized all things we as teachers to be have to take into account at the moment of planning a class, like the age, the English level, the environment, etc. also it was meaningful for me to overcome the face threatening or fears, because soon we have to do practices in schools, and it is important to be self-confidence and creative at the moment we are teaching.