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In my first artifact I went over through a basic conversation, asking how my friend was doing, what time he wanted to eat lunch and what else he had been doing these days (and I responded to his similar questions). Throughout I incorporated some new vocabulary/phrases I have been learning, such as "I would like to...", "difficulty (struggle)", "where were you?" 

There were moments in recording where I was quite happy with my accent (particularly those phrases and words I have known for longer and used more often), but other times I could hear my "American" accent coming through quite clearly. This usually occurred for new words, particularly those borrowed from Arabic/Persian (e.g. "mushkil" is borrowed from Arabic). However, I think what I did most poorly was having to slow down to properly enunciate words that are normally slurred together by native speakers. Particularly for the imperfect past tense, where the imperfect is said by combining 3 words (2 of which are conjugated). It is not that the native speakers mispronounce the words, but they are used to saying them and can string them together effortlessly. I, on the other hand, found it very difficult to properly enunciate without slowing down and breaking up the sentence so that it sounded quite unnatural.

As far as linguistic accuracy, I did a good job, using the correct pronouns, verb conjugations, sentence structure (my friend help me piece together one of the more complex sentences). Likewise, I believe I did a good job with cultural appropriateness. Addressing people with the correct pronoun is important in Pakistani culture (even if that person is not present), and because I was having a conversation with a friend I used the informal second-person pronoun and verb conjugations. Furthermore, the general gist of the conversation was not very formal, for example using slang like "tik tak" (meaning "pretty good") rather than the grammatically correct "tik hu" ("I am good").

Conversation reviewing material from last semester and new material.

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During the first two weeks I focused on reviewing vocabulary and grammar (e.g. sentence structure and verb conjugations). Having spoken and heard very little Urdu during the summer (much less than during the school year), I forgot a lot of the basic aspects of Urdu that I had learned last semester. I began by writing out important vocabulary that I could remember, as well as a list of English words that I knew I had learned (based on work I did last semester) but had forgotten, like family and school related vocabulary. Similarly, I wrote out a couple verb conjugation charts in the present tense for a few different types of present tense conjugations. After doing this I studied the things I needed to re-learn so that the vocabulary/verb conjugations etc. could come to mind quickly, not just after thinking for a long time. Finally, I practiced speaking Urdu with my language partner and other friends. I did this to accomplish two goals: first, to continue familiarizing myself with the things I had been reviewing and, second, to practice/review other aspects of grammar, like sentence structure.

When the semester started I was around my Urdu speaking friends, and noticed that I understood less than I was able to at the end of last semester, but my interpretive skills had not decreased as much as my speaking skills. It was only when I met with my language partner for the first time that I realized how rusty I had become at speaking the language. Not only was I much less confident with the things I could say, I also realized that even though I would have been able to recognize many words/understand sentences spoken by others, I was blanking on many words/verb conjugations/sentence structuring that I had been fairly comfortable with last semester. What has surprised me the most though, was not how much I had forgotten, but how much harder it has been re-establishing my level of competence to that of the end of last semester. I have taken long breaks from speaking other languages, like Spanish, however it usually only takes me a little bit of time to get back to a similar level of competence. It has not been the case with Urdu, but I am not too worried about this – there have been long periods of time when I have spoken lots of Spanish to the point that my competence was quite high, and I believe it is easier to “get back into” a language which one has known for a long time and can speak well, as compared to a language which one has known for a shorter period of time and at a lower level of competence.

https://youtu.be/nBznznhQ4bo

Edit: In *English" you would say "I don't have any brothers," not ASL. 

The next big topic of grammar that I went over with Suyeon is Verbs and Tenses. All verbs are composed of two parts: the verb root and the ending. For example for the verb to go, the verb root is "kha" and the ending is "da". So the infinitive form of "to go" is "khada". The verb root usually stays consistent in past, present and future forms of the verbs whereas the ending changes depending on the tense. Therefore the different tense forms of "to go" is as follows:

Present: Kha 

Past: Khasso

Future: khalkoya

Present continuous: khaguisso

All the above are used in informal situations. To make them formal, "yo" is added to the end of each form, sometimes with slight changes such as "khayo" and "khalkoaeyo". However, Korean conjugation of verbs is a little from that in English and French. In English, there are different forms of verbs for different tenses as well as for different subjects. However, in Korean there are different forms only for different tenses and they do not change for different subjects. For instance, "I go" is "choeneun khayo" and "he goes" is "ke khayo". This is very similar to Bengali as verbs are conjugated according to the tense rather than the subject. 

Along with the rules of conjugation, I also learned 20 common verbs and practiced their conjugations.

I have learned about 160 words. I know a lot of random words, but I'm currently working on putting together sentences. I need to learn more verbs. 

Most of the words that I know are objects or actions where the sign is similar to what you actually do (like painting or writing). The nouns are normally easy to remember because if you picture the object in your mind and either move your hands to look like the object or move your hands to show what you do with the object, then you will probably guess then sign. I think I actually exceeded my vocabulary goals. Learning basic words was much easier than I expected it to be. If I practice a sign a few times, it becomes almost like muscle memory and it becomes much harder to forget. 

I think my goals have been pretty realistic so far. I actually didn't know I would be able to learn so many words so quickly, so I'm pretty happy with how many words I know at this point. 

Since I have already had Korean learning activities and not finish my learning plan last semester, so I have experience how to make a plan that I can effectively finish through this semester. Time management is important factor to affect the schedule. I start to learn Korean from speaking and listening, which really helps me to study reading and writing. So far I have learned basic conversation about 10 topics. Based on these topics, I try to learn the related Korean character. It is really helpful for me to meet with Alvin Yang every week, and this is the interacting process. When I meet with any questions, I can solve with learning activities easily and quickly. Watching Korean movies with my Korean friend is also really fun and fast-way to learn a lot of vocabularies, sentences and different aspects of Korean culture. In addition, exploring Korean movie is my recent culture project. Therefore, when I talked with them about the plots of Korean movies, I have better and deep understanding. An effective learning plan helps me think, allow interacting and asking questions, use my background knowledge, and build new skills of learning language. I hope to continue my original learning plan without any changes. The only thing I want to add into my learning plan is that I will  read a small and easy paragraph weekly for helping me apply vocabularies and sentences that I have learned from last semester and this semester. 

My language partner and I went to lunch at our church. It wasn’t “silent lunch,” but everyone was signing and it was a good chance for me to practice signing while also doing other things, like eating. 

National Holiday: CHUSEOK

What is Chuseok?

It is one of the biggest and most important national holidays in South Korea. Chuseok is the Korean Thanksgiving or the harvest festival and it is based on the lunar calendar and this year it fell on September 27th and is celebrated over 4 days. 

History of Chuseok

There are three different theories behind the origin of Chuseok. The first one is that Chuseok is used to offer tributes of the harvest to the dieties and ancestors. The second theory is that Chuseok came from the Silla dynasty (57 BC - 935 AD). Chuseok used to be a month-long weaving competition between two teams. The winning team was served a large feast by the losing team. The third theory is that when the Silla won over the Baekje dynasty (18 BC-660 AD), they had a celebration with weaving, wrestling and archery competitions which was later turned into Chuseok. 

Chuseok Customs

Ancestral Memorial Services (Charye)

On the morning of Chuseok, all the family members gather at the ancestral homes to perform memorial services in the honor of their ancestors. After the services, the family has a big feast together. Traditional food served is songpyeon, which is a type of halfmoon shaoed rice cake stuffed with sesame seeds, pine nuts or chestnuts. There are many other dishes served such as broiled fish, fish fritters, beef, seaweed and fish curry, pancakes, gosari, jeok (skewers) to mention a few. The rice cake is made by the entire family. There is a saying that those who can make nicely shaped rice cake will meet a beautiful spouse or give birth to a beautiful baby. 

There is usually a controversy concerning the food preparation for Chuseok. Usually the daughter-in-laws of the families are responsible for the preparation of the food. Due to the large number of dishes served, the holiday most dreaded by the daughter-in-laws. I have seen in multiple Korean shows that the wives stay up all night cooking and would often be bullied by the mother-in-law and criticized by the in-laws while no one would lend a helping hand. 

Beolcho and Seongmyo

The family members visit ancestral graves (seongmyo) and clear the weeds around the graves (beolcho). This is done in order to show devotion and respect to the ancestors. 

Ssireum (Korean wrestling)

This is usually a custom that takes place in villages. Two competitors face each other in a sandpit and try to pin the opponent. The last wrestler standing is the winner and is considered the strongest man in the village and takes home cotton, rice or calf as the prize. 

Ganggangsullae (Korean circle dance)

Women dressed in handok (traditional Korean clothing) join hands in a circle and sing together. One of the most well-known stories about the origin of the dance is that during the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) the Korean army used to dress the young women of the village in military clothes and had them circle the mountains to look like there were more of the Korean military and thus scare the enemy. 

Liquors

At the memorial service for the ancestors, families and relatives gather to enjoy liquor made of rice. 

Shuyi Chen

Dr. Scinicariello

SDLC 105

10/29/2015

SDLC 105 Reflection Paper#2

My learning journals posted in Ning map my learning progress and goals.In my learning journey with Korean language, I made my own study plans and followed my specific tasks such as roleplaying with language partners and watching tutorials to get improvement step by step depending on my own interests instead of leading by a fixed and general construction.  I have a clear communicative goals such as carrying simple conversations with Koreans for 4 minutes by the end of this semester. Hence, I have control on my language learning.I can understand a few repetitive phrases and words  in Korean songs and Korean dramas now.  However, it’s certainly acknowledged that learning a language is a lengthy progress and I cannot wish to speak as a native speaker in a few months. But I really feel comfortable with my learning plan and current progress.

Understanding a culture, albeit slowly, enhances the effectiveness of my language learning process future-orientedly. I learned that Korean culture even directly appears in daily conversation. The hierarchy in Korean is reflected in how we address people on the ways and content people speak. For example, in comparison, the hierarchy extent in South Korea is higher that in the States. I have to clearly consider before I intend to  talk to someone in Korea regarding his/her social standing, age, occupations. If I fail to do so, I might be regarded as impolite and rude. In the future, I would like to delve in the concrete words related to the formality and informality on volume of speaking, intonation and pronunciation in a sentence.  

Due to my longtime interest in Korean language, I tried to get immersed in Korean by watching Korean dramas and listening to Korean songs in a daily base.  It is a good way to recognize the appropriate attitudes and conversations under different scenarios. Then based on the questions I generated from Korean dramas, I would inquire my language partner to get answers pertaining to sending and receiving intended meanings  in order to enrich my knowledge of sociocultural rules of Korean language.

From the reading, lyle Bachmans divided language competence into two node(s): Organizational competence and pragmatic competence. As a starter in Korean language, I might focus on Organizational competence including grammatical competence and textual competence. Although vocabulary and sentences are only  parts of language, they are still the base of language as we build up our knowledge from words and sentences.  In this semester, I will stick to my learning plan and continues my self-directed language learning progress.  Combining the practice with language partner outside of classroom and the Korean drama, I try to move forward to understand the functional aspects of communication on my Korean language learning journey step by step. Hope I can successfully master the linguistic code of Korean such as the Korean alphabet, Korean characters on sentence-level grammar this semester.Then I will try to learn to conduct few interpersonal conversations. I wish to achieve my goals in my learning plan and overcome the difficulties in my language learning journey.

As an international student from China, culture shock is a real thing that I experienced/still experiencing. Everything people talked about in the video, I had the same feeling and experience at some point during the four years I am here. I actually never thought about why was I here. I knew I came to the States to study. People kept telling me that education is much better in the United States than what we have in China. So I never thought about going back since I was already here, but I did doubt whether I made the right decision to come.

                I had the issue of being afraid to speak. The orientation was stressful. I understand that orientation is for people to make friends, to get to know your peers and learn about the school, but forcing the international students (or maybe just me) to do it in just one week is simply too much. I come to be slow in making friends. It takes me time to get comfortable around others. During the whole week, I was literally scared. I was scared of the ice breaking games, I was scared of group discussions, I was even scared of self-introduction. One thing that I remember, I had been told that Americans don’t expect any real answer when they ask “how are you” or “what’s up”, so when I ran into a girl in my orientation group the second week of class, I didn’t respond to her when she asked me “what’s up”. Actually, I didn’t know what was the “correct answer”. She told me one day last year that she though I didn’t like her. The cultural differences, the misunderstandings, make things so difficult for international students.

I was not able to attend the regular 105 class because of time conflict, but watching the video Dr. Sharon posted on blackboard allows me to learn from other students in the class. I like all of the presentations. The use of pictures and videos in the presentation help people understand the subject. I really like the video “100 years of beauty”, it is interesting and grabs people’s attention, make you want to listen to the speaker and see what she has to say about it. Using data and graphs improve the credibility and reliability of the presentation content. Shuyi’s presentation contains lots of data, which make her presentation more interesting. Nobody wants to listen to a presentation that contains false information. The subjects are so diversified, listening to presentations allow people to learn the key point of each subject and further, learn about the culture. 

There are some key factors we should keep in mind when we learn Korean language. Most importantly, the sentence structure is very different. In English, we put verbs between subjects and objects while Korean always put the verb at the end of each sentence, which means they put “subject + verb” or “subject + object + verb”. As the result, we have to listen to the whole sentence to understand what the person is talking about.

                I learned English at school in China. We take two English classes every day, recite the texts, memorize vocabularies and listen to recorded tapes repeatedly. This way of learning helped me build a strong foundation of English learning. So at the beginning stage of my Korean learning, I am trying to do the same thing. There is no class for me, but I am still using a Korean language textbook that I bought online. As I mentioned in an earlier journal, grammar learning is really important to me. The textbook can help me with that.

                After I build the foundation, I plan to proceed to spend more time on listening. Watching Korean dramas is a very helpful way. I watched lots of American TV shows when I was in China. Although I did it out of my own interest, it is undeniable that the TV shows improved my listening ability much more than listening to the recorded teaching tapes. I think this way should work for Korean learning as well.

Korea, as an Asian country, has a very different culture from what we have in the United States (Western culture). Korean people use body languages so differently that we should pay attention to it to avoid misunderstandings. One particular thing that I notice in my research is that Koreans bow a lot. Traditionally, Chinese people bow to greet others, but the Chinese bow by putting hands together and gently nodding their heads. Koreans bow more “seriously”. They bent their body and look at the floor. The degree of the bent depends on who you are bowing to. Nowadays, they still bow to elders and people that they respect while neither Americans nor Chinese do it anymore.

                Most of the body languages are used and understood the same way in Asian countries. Grown up in China, I had always been told to avoid body touch and direct eye contact with others. Korean share the same culture with China in this aspect. Making direct eye contact is considered a challenge to others. In contrast, Americans like to shake hands and hug people as greeting and to show their kindness, and they take direct eye contact as a form of respect.

The three chapters from Crystal, D’s book remind me that languages are different in many ways. The same onomatopoeia may have different meanings in different languages. When learning a new language, we cannot just assume the native speakers can understand us just because we are imitating the sound. For example, we use “wang” in Chinese. Naturally I would expect people to understand me because I am simply imitating the sound, but in fact, people use “woof” in English. The two words and sounds are so different that no one would be able to guess they refer to the same sound. Another thing that I think important is the distinguishing between naturalist view and conventionalist view. I definitely agree with the latter one. During my study of a foreign language, I tend to focus on the sound, the listening and speaking part. It is not a problem if I am just trying to speak a language. But when I want to become a higher level learner in the target language, vocabulary becomes really important. My target language this time is Korean. As far as I know, Korean is not like English in the way that the spelling of the word is not so related with the sound. Simply focus on listening and speaking would make me an illiterate person to Korean people. That is definitely not my goal of learning, so I really have to keep in mind that I should spend more time on vocabularies during my study.

Reading the article reminded me heavily of Pakistan. Although Pakistan is home to more than four dozen languages, the official language the leaders chose was not from any of the originally spoken in the country.

After Pakistan became independent in 1947, Urdu was made the official language of more than 200 million people. The language 'migrated' from North India into Pakistan. To the non-Urdu speaking population of the country, who formed the majority of the population, this was a major setback. They felt that a minority, that was less than 4% of the population, was enforcing its own culture and traditions upon them. Such was the intensity of this feeling of cultural hijacking that East Pakistan broke away from the center to become Bangladesh, in order to preserve their own language, traditions and culture. For the people who remained in Pakistan, their language, culture and traditions eroded away with time. This is visible in the degeneration of Sriaiki, which is increasingly becoming an oral tradition. There is a major scarcity of Siraiki literature in circulation. The Urdu and English languages are supplanting local languages. This means the new generations are giving up their own traditions and practices in favor of Western and Urdu cultures. In essence, replacing the language has meant replacing the entire cultural identity.

When the language of a people die, so does the cultural identity of a people. Their history disappears because they can no longer identify with their past traditions because they can no longer understand the significance of them. They will, in a sense, become extinct. However, as was seen in the assigned reading, a dying language can be revived even when there are only a handful of people speaking it. In this day and age, the way to do that is to be creative and to make use of available resources. The indigenous people of America, in this reading, made use of the internet by creating an online dictionary filled with the words of their native language, Siletz Dee-ni, to revitalize the use of the language amongst their younger generation. In doing this, they have made it possible for their history to continue within a land that is now dominated by English and Spanish, languages completely foreign and threatening to it. As long as there are people dedicated to prolonging the life of a language and doing it in effective ways, that language and the history of its indigenous people will be passed down from one generation to the next.   

Learning a language’s history can help me to learn the language because through learning about the history, I can learn about what aspects in life are considered important to that society. For example, through the Korean hierarchical treatment of people, I can deduct that respect for one’s elders and those who hold a superior ranking to one’s own is considered very valuable. I can also deduct through the familial dynamics of Korean culture, that family life is very important. Gender roles are also very important as can be seen in the speech of both men and women. Males call their older brother ‘hyung’ while females call their older brother ‘oppa.’ The same can be seen when addressing an older sister. Males call her ‘noona’ while females call her ‘unnie.’ These differences are all reflections of Korea’s past history and are unique when considering the use of the word for brother and sister in English. There exists only one description for both, whether one’s sister or brother is older or younger. In this regard, I guess it can be accepted that hierarchical respect is not as pronounced among those living in English speaking countries as much as it is in Korea. The histories of these countries were very different.

As of now in my Korean language learning journey, I am no longer taking the SDLAP 110 course. I have decided that the amount of coursework that the class required was a lot more than I had expected and that I probably would not have been able to expend as much energy into the class that was needed. As a result, my progress in learning the language afterwards has been limited to watching Korean TV shows, such as The Return of Superman, Korean dramas, such as Oh My Ghostess, and Korean music such as K-pop and ballads from dramas that I have finished watching. The Return of Superman is a reality show that focuses on the life of Korean celebrity fathers and the roles they play in their children’s lives. They are tasked on a regular basis to spend 48 hours with their child/children without their wives being around to help them. Since this is a television show that reflects the average life of Korean families, I am able to pick up on common words and phrases used in everyday speech. This is very helpful, especially in the process of learning when and how a particular word or phrase should be used. In addition to this, in the Korean drama Oh My Ghostess, these conversational expressions are further reinforced. However, the difference between the two is that in The Return of Superman, I am in a way learning the language the same way the children are learning, because there are daily instances where the parents are teaching their children new words or phrases, which in turn teaches me something new also. In the case of Korean music, I listen to it every day and each time I find myself picking up a new word every now and then, even if I have been listening to the song for weeks at a time. Through these different media platforms, I am not only learning the language over a period of time, but I am also learning a lot about the Korean culture and their cultural values. In k-dramas and television shows, for example, I am able to learn about the Korean hierarchal society based on age and experience through their use of either formal or informal speech. In addition to this, I am able to see how Koreans would act in everyday situations. I learn about various traditions that are done on special days, such as birthdays, where it is expected for people celebrating them to eat seaweed soup. Korean music, on the other hand, reveals just how conservative Korean society still is even when there are tons of k-pop stars showing lots of skin and dancing in provocative ways. Even though they outwardly appear this way, the lyrics to the songs they sing, for the most part are not explicitly stating that the topic is sex. If sex is the topic, it is often talked about and alluded to in very subtle ways. In order to improve my comprehension skills, I think that I should have a more orderly schedule set aside for just focusing on learning Korean and not trying to do it while multi-tasking with other subjects.  

I really enjoyed watching the culture shock video featuring University of Richmond international students. I have always wondered what it was like to leave the comforts of one’s own cultural surroundings for four years to study in another. Although exciting and new, it can also be very difficult and frustrating to readjust one’s cultural behaviors in order to adapt to those of a new society. Personally, I have never experienced an extreme amount of culture shock since I have never travelled outside of the United States. However, the little culture shock that I have experienced has been from meeting people of different upbringings here in the States. These happened in both high school and college. In high school, my culture shock experience occurred when I was suddenly surrounded by a predominantly white population, the exact opposite of what my elementary and middle school experiences have been. Not only did I look different from my classmates, but I talked differently. We grew up in different neighborhoods and for some time and it took me many observations of their speech patterns before I finally felt comfortable enough to speak my mind. In addition to this, in college not only was I introduced to people of regional and socio-economical differences, but I was also able to meet people from all over the world, something that I have never experienced personally before to such a great extent. These are my cultural shock experiences, but I one day hope that I can relate to the experiences of the international students in the video by saying that I too was immersed in a completely new culture different from my own.