April 7 Discussion Post

Not all bilingual speakers are the same. Firstly, according to Barto-Sisamout and Nicol,  “because language is intimately tied to culture and one’s sense of group, bilingual people may have a more complex and multifaceted sense of self and group than monolinguals.” The cultures, as well as language structures (for example, grammar, word order, and parts of speech), related to different languages are all unique, with their own similarities and differences; bilingual speakers will engage with and relate very different concepts in their understanding of two languages. Though these definitions are flexible, and their names tend to vary among researchers, linguists may classify bilingual speakers as coordinate, compound, or subordinate. Coordinate bilingualism usually occurs when speakers grew up learning two languages, and they interact with each one as its own concept. Compound bilingual speakers generally relate their languages in such a way that they understand the ideas communicated…

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Discussion 10

If I got a research grant for a linguistic study of Hebrew, I would want to explore the “new” words in Modern Hebrew, the ones that didn’t exist in Biblical Hebrew and had to be created. Words like “car” or “newspaper” didn't exist thousands of years ago, so they had to be made up. From the research I’ve done so far, much of this work goes back to Eliezer Ben-Yehuda, known as the father of Modern Hebrew. He seems to have come up with many of these new words before the work was eventually based on by a group of linguistic scholars. A lot of the vocabulary still used today can be traced back to him. To create these words, he took from other Semitic languages, like Arabic and Aramaic, and combined their influences with Hebrew roots. What I’m really curious about is how many of his original words are still used today. How much of his vocabulary stuck, and how much was changed or replaced later by scholars or everyday speakers? He did publish dictionaries, which give us a record of his…

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Discussion 10

If I were to receive a research grant to do linguistic research on Korean, I would begin by focusing on their social hierarchy and how that respect affects their everyday communication. I would have to review any existing research about what Korean people think of honorifics. Then select two regions, such as urban and rural, to compare the differences in cultural areas. For design methods, I would do interviews, surveys, and record conversations. Structural components I would look into, including phonetics and dialectal variations in pronunciation. The syntax to see how different sentences are, because even though the language has particles to tell which is the subject or the object, I wonder if each region has a preference in writing. Also, semantics to see if certain words and phrases have different meanings between the regions while following honorifics.

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Learning Language Journal

Right now, learning Hebrew is going well, although it definitely has some challenges. One of the biggest issues for me so far has been the alphabet. Unlike English, Hebrew uses an entirely different alphabet, with new letters and symbols that I am still getting used to recognizing and pronouncing. Even simple things, like remembering that the letter א (aleph) is often silent or that ב (bet) can make a b or v sound depending on the context, are hard. I have also noticed that some letters look very similar to each other. I am not too worried about the alphabet right away because my main goal is to improve my speaking skills.To help build my vocabulary, I have started using flashcards, simple stuff like fruits, colors, and basic phrases. For example, I have learned words like bitter, carrot, orange, and carrot. So then I can string together sentences like: The orange carrot is very bitter. One thing that has really stood out to me is how important context is when learning a new language.…

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