Two students lead the assigned lessons in the class. The
lesson 4 is The Sound Pattern of Language, which is presented by Miss Somchan
Socheata. She asks us to discuss about some technical terms and their meanings
in groups, and I asks each group to give the definitions to each words such as
phonology, phonemes, allophones, minimal pairs, minimal sets, phonotactics, and
syllables. Phonology is the description of the systems and patterns of speech
sounds in a language. Phonemes are small components of sound in language.
Minimal pairs is the two words that are identical in form except for a contrast
in one phoneme. Minimal sets is a group of words can be differentiated by
changing one phoneme. Phonotactics is the strategy of combining sounds
together. Syllable is a unit of sound consisting of a vowel and optional
consonants before or after the vowel.
Ms. Khim
Matyana presented the lesson 5. She presents us whole lesson and gives us some
exercises to complete. This lesson is about word formation, she presents us
some technical terms with slide presentation. The term Etymology is a Latin
word which is defined as emtymon “original form” + logia “ study of”. Thus,
etymology means the study of the origin and history of the word.
There are many word formation processes
that are included in this lesson. Fist, coinage is the invention of totally new
terms. For example, there are some new world such as aspirin, nylon, vaseline,
and zipper. Second, borrowing is the talking over of words from other
languages. For example, English borrow the word tycoon from Japanese. Third,
calque/loan-translation is a special type of borrowing in which there is a
direct translation of the elements of a word into the borrowing language. For
instance, English translates directly the perros
calientes (Spanish) to hot dogs. Fourth, compounding is the process of
joining two separate words to produce a single form. For example, the bookcase
comes from the combination of the words book and case. Fifth, blending is the
combination of two separate forms to produce a single form. It is similar to
compounding process but it eliminates some consonants. Example, the smog derives
from the combination of the words smoke and fog. Sixth, hypocorism happens when
a longer word is reduced to a single syllable, then –y or –ie is added at the
end. Example the word Aussie is reduced from Australian. Seventh, backformation
is a very special type of reduction process in which a word is reduced to from
a word of another type (usually verbs). Example, the verb donate comes from the
noun donation. Eighth, conversion refers to the change in the function of a
word, as for example a noun to be used as a verb without any reduction.
Example, Someone has to chair the meeting. Ninth, acronyms
are the new words formed from the initial letters of a set of other words.
Example, the word CD comes from the full word of compact disk. Tenth,
derivation is the production of creating a new word by adding suffix, prefix,
or infix. Eleventh, kamhmu is a kind of
language spoken in Southeast Asia. They can change verbs into noun by just
adding rn. Example, “see” is a verb; “snree” is a noun. Twelfth, multiple
processes happens when there is more than one processes involved with the
creation of a word. Example, the word snowball is the compounding and
conversion.
I learnt a lot from both lessons “ The Sound
Pattern of Language” and “ Word Formation”. In the first section, I learnt many
technical terms that are key components to understand the sound pattern of
language. By knowing many technical terms, I can differentiate the phonemes and
allophone. In the second section, I learnt many different ways of word formation,
which I have never known before. After I learnt this lesson, I understand more
about the roof of the words.
I found that I could not catch the
lessons easily because I did not read the lessons in advance. If I have read
the lessons in advance, I would understand the lessons quickly. Therefore, I
will read and try to understand the lesson before the classes start.
Yule, G. (2009). The study of language. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
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