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.