Blogs

I personally do not believe language is purely a biological phenomenon, but there is a definitely biological phenomenon associated with it. Studies show that damage to specific areas of the cortex correlates with the loss of certain kinds of linguistic ability. Damage to the Wernicke's area, which may result in a reduced ability to comprehend speech, while damage to the Broca's area results in a reduced ability to speak. Basic speech is generally generated in the Wernicke’s area and is then transferred to the Broca’s area for encoding. Our speech production relies on different parts of our brains, even though not every brain is alike, we have extremely similar processes and motors in regard to producing and interpreting language.

I try to best conceptualize or process meaning with context, which is often not provided. In trying to understand a word or phrase on its’ own is a difficult task, especially if it is in a foreign language. In Chapter 30, there is a paragraph about collocations and it discusses how they differ greatly between languages, which makes mastering foreign languages even more difficult. The example given is: in English, we “face” problems, but in Hebrew, we “stand in front of problems”. As a native speaker of Mandarin and someone studying two other foreign languages (Russian and Turkish), I recognize that I generally have the tendency to compare one language to another. With semantic relationships such as lexemes and collocations, comparing two languages generally will not benefit you, especially since they likely will not share the same meaning in certain words. I think this paragraph about gave me a deeper insight to try to think about a language on its’ own rather than trying to compare it to one I am more familiar with. English, Mandarin, and Russian are extremely different from each other and I do not doubt that Turkish would be the same. Although I am not at that level of Turkish to currently think even past the alphabet and certain greetings, I will be much more aware of trying to think of the language as independent, rather than trying to translate it word-for-word into English. In understanding nuances and words, trying to find specific examples of usage would be the most useful for me. There have been many times I translated a word and ended up using it incorrectly in the context with what I was trying to say. I am not really afraid to make mistakes in language, especially since I think that is the best way for one to learn. However, I can learn more by trying to make efforts to find context for a word I want to use in sentence or phrase. Comparing languages can be useful, but sometimes it may not benefit you and have you making more mistakes in comparison to the original thought you had in mind.

I asked Julie for a recommendation for an Indonesian movie to watch, and she recommended "Nagabonar 2", a 2005 sequel to a movie from the 1980s about a pickpocket during the Japanese invasion of Indonesia during World War II who (through quite funny and zany means) ends up a general of the Indonesian army. Being a sequel, it took reading some of the plot of the original movie to understand what was going on; a lot of the plot of the second one is based on the gravesite of Nagabonar's (the main character) mother, uncle, and best friend, the land surrounding which Nagabonar's son wants to use to build a large tourist resort. The clash of modernity and sentimentality/tradition is very evident throughout, and the character of Nagabonar is very lovable and very funny. I watched with English subtitles, but made sure not to spend too much time looking at them, and was able to figure out a good amount of the dialogue. It definitely makes me want to watch the original movie, if I'm able to find a better copy than the pixelated version on YouTube. 

Julie helped me draft a message to Danis Sugiyanto, an Indonesian master musician who teaches at ISI Solo (in the city I would like to stay in for most of the Darmasiswa) who was here for the Spring 2018 semester teaching us in the gamelan ensemble. I gave him some updates on how I and the other members of the gamelan were doing, and expressed my desire to study in Solo. His response was very enthusiastic, and he said he would see me soon in Solo City. It feels very reassuring to have someone there who I already know pretty well and who will be able to help me acclimate to the city's and the institute's culture. 

I continued working on my Bahasa skills over the Winter break, because at the beginning of this semester we had Gusti Sudarta, a Balinese master musician, dancer, and shadow puppeteer, his wife and Wayang assistant Jenny, and two Javanese master musicians, Darsono and Sumarsam, here at UR for about a week for a collaborative performance with the Richmond Symphony. I was happily surprised at being able to hold short conversations using only Indonesian, although I had a tough time adjusting to Gusti's accent because the Balinese dialect of Indonesian is rather different than the Javanese dialect. Gusti and Jenny will be here for another week, and I plan to cook them a Brazilian dinner using my mom's recipes at Julie's house. 

With Julie we continued discussion of the effects of the 1965-66 genocide, and some of the long-term effects of Dutch colonial rule that continue to affect Indonesian (especially Javanese) society today. Julie shared some of her perceptions of lived experiences as a Chinese-Indonesian from Jakarta, and the stigmas that this group faces even in a city as multi-cultural and metropolitan as Jakarta. She also shared some Indonesians' perceptions of white people and the impact the tourism industry has on Indonesians, and I hope to allow this information to inform my interactions with my future teachers in Java. I appreciate that Julie shares this information with us because for my future research, I hope to represent myself as a representative of my own culture and actively work against the perpetuation of behaviors that allow stigmatization of westerners in Indonesia to persist. 

With Thalia we continued incorporating Bahasa Gaul into our learning, using "textbook" language and slang terms side-by-side to look at the ways in which conversation ought to be adjusted according to context. In my free time I have been looking up "blog" videos by Indonesians on the subject of food, music, pop culture, etc. and have been hearing some of the bahasa gaul we have been learning sprinkled throughout these videos. This makes me feel a lot more connected to my goal of immersing in Indonesian culture, and although I'm usually able to only grab a few words out of each sentence (a lot of the narrators/bloggers speak very quickly), I'm able to pick up more and more of the "gist" of what's being expressed. 

In our first session with Julie we began to discuss the history of Indonesia, beginning from ancient times with the original migration of peoples and trade from India through southeast Asia and the resultant influences on Indonesian mythology and religion. Our homework for this week is to research and summarize in one page the history of Indonesia from 1900 - 1950. I expected it to be difficult to fit all that I considered important during this time, and that it was! However, it gave me a good theoretical background to continue researching Indonesia's rich and complicated history, and it was even more of a challenge to, for the next class, compile a one-page history of Indonesia from 1950 to 1998, the year of the fall of Suharto's military dictatorship. Julie shared insights about her experiences during this time, including leaving to study in the United States. We began to discuss the October 1965 revolt and the subsequent mass killings of suspected communist party members, and Julie recommended some good resources for further research on the subject. 

With Thalia we began our study of slang terms, and she presented us with a great resource on "bahasa gaul" (language for socialization". A lot of these terms are region-specific and are influenced by the local language, so I look forward to getting both Julie and Thalia's input on common bahasa gaul phrases. We utilized these terms in conversation and pre-constructed dialogue, and for homework Thalia had us check out a facebook page devoted to Indonesian slang terms, originally made by an Australian college student, that has grown increasingly popular with Indonesians and students of Indonesian language and culture to facilitate learning this element of language that, while receiving little attention in formal academia, represents a crucial aspect of cross-cultural communication. 

With Julie we continued learning descriptors for time and dates, and learned more about asking questions and the many positions "apa" (what) can take within a question depending on what one wants to ask. I am beginning to get more of a handle of dates; my next thing to work on is building large numbers (such as years), because it's quite a slow process currently. We worked on some more culinary terms as well, learning vocabulary for different types of meat; Julie extended this by sharing some of the dietary restrictions that exist related to religious identities throughout Indonesia. 

With Thalia we began working on vocabulary related to housing and amenities, building of some of the introductory terms from Let's Learn Indonesian 1. We incorporated terms for different parts of the house by describing their relative positions, before taking turns asking for and giving directions to the bathroom, the bedroom, etc. Next we worked on tourism locations (tempat wisata), and learned about some of the activities Indonesian youths partake in during their free-time. Thanks to my time as a researcher (and tourist) in Bali, I was able to connect some of the vocabulary I was less familiar with then in this activity. 

During our first lesson with Julie, we began with descriptive terms for people, ways of addressing younger and older people, and terms for relatives/family members. We engaged in conversation about our families using these new vocabulary terms and asked each other questions about our respective families. During the second session we continued with terms for dates and times, delving slightly more into numbers from 1 to 100. Most of the information for numbers and dates is review for me, although I am still having a tough time getting the days of the week in the right order. 

With Thalia we continued working on familial descriptors, and performed role-playing for a conversation between two Indonesians over a family photo. For homework we were assigned to create a fiction about the family of Wayan, an Indonesian man with a large family. We continued our study of the textbook to build this text and I made my text into a description partially based on my drum teacher in Bali so that I could focus on Indonesian words for artists/musicians. We have all expressed interest in learning some slang words and vernacular language from Thalia, and as a younger person she considers herself more "in the know" about such vocabulary than Julie. I very much look forward to learning more about this, so that my Indonesian language skills can extend beyond sterile textbook language. 

For our first two weeks, we met together with both our language instructors, Julie and Thalia, and discussed our goals for the semester and any prior experience we have had with the Indonesian language. Julie then "began from the beginning", utilizing objects in our immediate vicinity, focusing on articles of clothing and pieces of furniture, to immediately begin building vocabulary and teach us how to listen to Indonesian sentences and respond using the words she had introduced. 

We decided that Let's Learn Indonesian 1 would be our main text from which Bo and I would study, while Brad would continue his study with a text from further along in the same series. We began to build vocabulary lists of the words being introduced by Julie and Thalia. 

Since we have similar interests when it comes to learning Bahasa Indonesia and are at similar levels of ability, Bo and I will be learning introductory materials such as vocabulary for dates and times, useful phrases for conducting business in Indonesian, and culinary terms to begin.

While it seems obvious that language and its use originates in the brain, the specifics of such communication has yet to be elaborated upon. Some brain structures, such as Wernicke's Area (responsible for speech comprehension) and Broca's Area (responsible for speech formation) have been discovered and their purposes found, yet these are only the broad pathways responsible for communication and further specifics have not been elaborated upon. Part of the reason for this is that each individual's brain is unique, and, while similar in structure to other brains, may have a completely different pathway for accomplishing a task than another brain. However, in the future, being able to map these pathways for each individual may facilitate not only faster language learning but also faster learning in general.

Although every brain is unique, the owners of those brains often may think in the same way, especially if they speak the same language. This is because in order to be understood by a large group of people, a language has to in some way shape a person's thoughts. While this linguistic determinism is not explicitly mentioned in the text of the reading, the author does admit the "different languages 'parcel out' the world in different ways". This seems like a tacit admission that the way we speak influences the way we think. 

I very much appreciated the distinction between words and lexemes that the author explained. I previously didn't know how to relate a group of words that have the same association/sense and this helped increase my understanding of language. I don't know how yet I can apply this knowledge to my learning of a foreign language, but it was also very helpful to know that I will have to relearn many collocations that may not apply in another language.

SDLC105%20reflection%231.docx

Reflection%20Paper%20%231.docx

F.%20Heinzel%20SDLC%20Paper1.docx

I never really had experience learning a foreign language until last year, which was when I decided to learn Russian. For my language requirements in middle school and high school, I chose Mandarin even though it was my Native language. Starting Russian was a journey for me, especially since I had no experience learning a foreign language. There were so many different aspects to it, such as the Cyrillic alphabet and using language-learning terms that I do not really know. I enjoy learning language because there are many words in other languages that cannot be translated back into English and it often gives you a sense of the culture/values within the language. For me, the hardest part about learning a new language is speaking. I personally believe that having the ability to read and write is great, but speaking and being able to hold a conversation is the most valuable part of language learning. I struggle with it, but I work to fight this fear since I realize I will never improve if I do not make efforts to speak.

The Learning Styles survey said that I was an Auditory Learner and I agree with this outcome because I realized that I was learning language best when I was studying abroad. I did not spend as much time on written assignments, but being able to use the language on a day-to-day basis gave me a better grasp of the language than just doing homework. I also usually find myself reading test questions and reading things out loud. According to the Multiple Intelligences Survey, I scored 4.29 on both Self and Social (interpersonal). A high score on Self suggests that I take in information from another individual and will discuss the matter on another occasion. I do agree with the part that I prefer to do things on a basis of trial and error and giving myself time to absorb new information. The Social score implies that I like to read/write dialogues and develop my ideas from other people. I do agree with that since I find it more helpful for me to write dialogues for foreign language, since it gives me freedom and creativity to work with the knowledge I have. My last Multiple Intelligence was Language (Linguistic). I like to repeat new words and use them from the point I obtain them in my vocabulary. I keep a journal in Russian and try to work myself to discuss topics I may find difficult to do. I like to analyze long pieces of work for my own knowledge.

Looking at the FIRE model is a little more difficult for me to figure out where I fall in the language learning stage, just because I find different activities and styles of learning more beneficial at different levels of language learning. I prefer less lectures/rigid instruction when I am in an upper-level setting, but I prefer it when I am starting from zero. In some points, I prefer bigger classes because I can learn from other individuals through their strengths and their mistakes, but sometimes it may be too big and the class may feel like it is lagging. In other cases, I prefer small classes because it makes it easier for us to learn as a group. I personally think speaking and having opportunities to write give me the freedom to learn language best. However, this is hard to do at a beginner level of language.

At this point in time with my Turkish studies, I believe that the most important activities to maximize my self-learning experiences are to rewrite words as much as I can and to listen to the pronunciation of every word. I am not at the stage where I can make dialogues or really absorb as many new words as I can from other people, so I would need to work on my language learning through less creative ways such as flashcards and copying words. During the course of this semester, I am looking forward to learning Turkish and definitely coming across many obstacles along the way, but does a person really learn if they did not struggle?

SDLC Reflection Paper.docx

Reflection%20Paper%201.docx

Reflection%20Paper%201.docx

SDLC%20reflection%20paper%201.docx

Reflection%20Paper%20%231.docx

ReflectionPaper1.docx

SDLC%20Reflection%20Paper%201.docx