Byambaa Khurelbaatar
Learning Journal #1
SDLC 105
All of the reads by D. Crystal were interesting and very eye opening. The section "How the brain handles language" broke down how each part of the brain works and how each processes different things. It's always great to have knowledge of how our brain operates that way we have a deeper understanding of what is happening while we are doing everyday tasks. The discussion of neurolinguistic processing caught my eye more than the rest because I never really thought about how complex the process of saying a simple greeting was. Also, slips of the tongue is something to pay attention to because this happens to me all the time but from reading this piece I understand that it doesn't happen randomly there is actually a process for it.
In "How to investigate language structure", it included useful information as to how to go about learning a different language. By learning the different levels of language structure (semantics, grammar, and medium of linguistic transmission) it helps me plan and organize my practice sessions better. "How we mean" and "How we analyze meaning" were both intriguing sections of the author's book. It is true that one simple word can have many different meanings which makes it a bit more complex for people to learn a language. For new language learners it might be hard to figure out when to use each meaning of a certain word. In my independent study class last week, my group had to come up with synonyms for the word "maverick" and at the end we came up with about 25 words. Just that alone amazes me because we can use multiple words just to describe one thing. She stated "different languages 'parcel out' the world in different ways." This is another interesting thing to point out because I know that every language has different ways of talking about one thing. Overall, all of the reads for this week added great insights and required me to think deeply about how I am speaking, how my brain carries out that process, and how complex learning a language could really be.
Comments
What are some steps that you can take in your language learning process to prevent slip of the tongues? Is there a method to learning certain strings of vocabulary that could help with this? Could you learn sentence structure in a more effective way?