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0:00
(Speaker one)All right, guys, we're going to move into syntax. So, welcome to this week. But first, we're going to start with one mini-lecture on two other fields of linguistics called semantics and pragmatics. We've thrown these words around a little bit during the semester, but we're just going to spend 10-15 minutes here talking about what those are, and then we're going to put them away and move on. So, thus far in this semester,
0:22
we've looked at several branches of linguistics: we looked at phonology, orthography, morphology. Phonology: we studied sound. Orthography: we studied spelling and writing. Morphology: we studied small units of meaning. We're going to go into syntax, which studies word order, right? So, what order can words go in a clause, in a sentence, in a phrase? But let's look at semantics real quick, which is the study of word meaning.
0:51
And this is different than morphology, which studies small units of meaning. And I think you'll be able to naturally see how it's different as I show you what it is. And then, we're going to end with a couple slides on what pragmatics is. And we spent a little time on pragmatics back when we covered sociolinguistics early this semester. So, we're just going to touch base on that again. Semantics. Okay, in order to look at semantics,
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I want to start with thinking about one word we have in English, which is synonym. Synonym. And you guys know what this word means. If you think about the units, we did the same exercise: homophones, homographs, homonyms.
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We see the "nym" part of this word again, right? And we know that the suffix "nym" means "word" and "syn" means "co." So a synonym is a "co-word." Basically, in short, a synonym is saying that in English, we have synonyms. So, we have words that mean the same thing. And I think many of you have probably done this when you've written papers before. You write a word in your sentence. You think you could use a smarter word.
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So, you right-click and look at synonyms, right? You look for replacement words that sound a little better. So, this begs the question, though, in any language, really, can two words ever really me an the same thing? And so let's answer that question by looking at the word cat. Let's say you're writing a paper for me on cats, on the cat you have at home. Well, let's say, I want to mix it up a little bit, and I don't want to use the word cat
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80 times in my paper. I want to use a synonym, right? What are some other words that also mean cat? So if I look up synonyms of cat, I get kitten, kitty, bobcat, cheetah. I mean, right away, right there, I hope you're seeing that. Oh, shoot. I can't necessarily replace the word with cat because if I'm trying to write a paper about my domestic cat, the one in my home, I cannot replace that word with cheetah and still be communicating the same thing,
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unless you really have a cheetah at home, which I hope you don't. So then we get further down, and we see lion, and then we see pussy. So, pussy is a synonym for cat.
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But as soon as I said that word or as soon as you got on the screen, you went, "Oh, wait, but not really," right? It has alternative definitions. So, to answer our question, can two words really mean the same thing? The answer is no. Two words can never mean the same thing.
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So I bring this up because here's an example question I found in a prior Texas exam: Which of the following sentence is the underlying word used correctly?" So, remember, here in semantics, we're dealing with meaning. We just discussed how two words can't really ever mean the same thing, and how words have, they have very fixed definitions. There's a way to use a word and there's a way not to use it. Even though they might sound similar or sound appropriately like the right word,
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we know when we can identify that it's not the right word. If you were given this question: in which of the following sentences, is the underlying word used correctly? You would want to read through and figure out, "Gosh, what doesn't sound right?" We'll start with the first one. When my supervisor spoke with me, she inferred that I'd better start showing up on time. So inferred means that you have
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basically deduced a certain reason, deduced to a conclusion from evidence.
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Based on that definition, it doesn't really work there. She has deduced a conclusion from evidence that I'd better start showing up on time. Well, it kind of works, right? Because that's what a synonym does. It gives you another word that's in the same definition realm, but it's not really the right word. So, what you would do with a question like this is you would read through each and figure out which ones don't sound exactly right. That's the way you can answer a question
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because you are a speaker of the language. You are an advanced speaker of the language. You, because of how much you use the language, already can read this and go, "It doesn't sound like the right word." Because what you're picking up on is the rule I just shared with you: No two words really mean the same thing. So, go ahead and look at this question and pause the screen. When you think you have the answer, go ahead and hit play because I'm going to show you the answer right now.
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So pause if you want to figure it out.
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For those of you who didn't want to figure it out or didn't pause, or for those of you who are paused and now joining me, the answer to this is C. When I made that remark, I didn't mean to imply that you had caused a problem. Based on the way inferred, infer, and imply are used in these three examples, that is the only one using it in the most appropriate, best-fit sense. That's why we care about semantics. We care about meaning because we know certain
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words mean more of the right thing than another word might in the same situation.
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In semantics, we also deal with denotations and connotations. So, we're going to come back to that example, cat using this. A denotation is the literal definition of a word. Okay, so I say cat. You can go to Google, look up the definition, and it means small domesticated mammal with fur. Okay, great. That's the literal meaning. Also, if I Google the definition for the word pussy, the first definition there is a cat. In a way, those are synonyms.
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Because literally the definition of pussy is a cat, and cat, and cat by definition, is a small domesticated mammal with soft fur. Awesome. Those are denotations. This is the literal definition. The problem is we also have a lot of connotations. So, that's the meaning behind the word that you might not find in the dictionary. What does it mean in our society? What does that word mean?
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Connotations are the meaning beyond the literal definition of the word, and there are other meanings associated with the word. I know when I use the word pussy that you thought of several different definitions. I'm going to stick with one and play it safe. But pussy—you are a pussy— could mean you are a weak, cowardly man. Pussy doesn't just mean a cat. Depending on how I'm using it, it has a negative connotation,
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meaning someone's cowardly. Specifically, per the dictionary, it says man, not woman, for the record. So that's the difference between denotations and connotations. But let's look at a wider class of words. What's the difference between calling someone a drug addict and a druggie? Okay, there is a difference, and all it has to do is it's a semantic difference. A drug addict might be how you describe somebody in more of a professional sense
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or maybe someone you love. Like, let's say, hypothetically, my brother was a drug addict. He's someone I love and care for. So, I might communicate with you, my brother is a drug addict. If I say my brother is a druggie, that's obviously showing that I might not have as much affection, or empathy, or care for his situation. A druggie has negative connotations to basically mean more useless, worthless. Where a drug addict might
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be more the professional term. So these, this is connotations. They have the alternative meaning behind the literal definition.
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What's the difference between saying my student is handicapped and my student is crippled? Okay, one is more professional, appropriate, and the other one is not. Literal definition: they mean the same thing, but one is layered with a lot of political and social rules, and why we would, we wouldn't use one of these words for a reason. And those are semantic choices we're making all the time that are driven primarily by social rules. Like, we could have talked about
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this in social linguistics and it would have fit just fine. Moving on, in semantics, we also look at lexical collocations. These are two or more words that constitute a whole unit of meaning. That definition might be over your head, but here's what I mean: set an alarm, come to an agreement, best regards, a bouquet of flowers.
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These are word combinations that are frequently produced together.
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It's not that complicated if you think about it. Just think about these are word combinations that when we're communicating something, he sent me a bouquet of flowers.
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Though I'm going to start with the article 'a,' bouquet,
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adjective, preposition of flowers. Now, okay, that's a combination of words that we use frequently when we're talking about flowers.
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But let me paint it this way: which are you more likely to say? Let me set my alarm. Let me situate my alarm. Let me place my alarm. I'm guessing of those options, you're more likely going to say, "Let me set my alarm." In fact, the other two, "Let me situate my alarm" and "Let me place my alarm," they work. By definition, those actually make sense. But we don't use those two. We have a lexical collocation where we say "set my alarm."
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That's just a grouping of words that we use when we're talking about that job. Okay, so those are what lexical collocations are: they're words that we accept as groups and chunks and phrases together. It's not that hard, but let me show you a question that I saw on a different Texas exam or a sample exam. An ELL writes the following excerpt in an essay about their summer job: "Mr. Hunter, also a good boss." "Since Mr. Hunter had a big confidence, he led the company fluently."
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And the question is this: The errors in the second sentence primarily involve what? I want you to look at clues when you're looking at something like this. Specifically, you need to read questions closely because I wants you to look at the errors in the second sentence. When I first looked at this question, I was trying to figure out what was wrong with the first sentence. That's not what it's asking.
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So you want to look at the second sentence and then you kind of want to work your way through some of these options and figure out what you think it is: word choice, word structure, word order, and spelling.
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So go ahead and pause and take a second. I'm going to show you the answer and tell you why it's the answer. But if you don't want it yet, go ahead and hit pause. The answer is word choice. The main error in this sentence is word choice. So "Since Mr. Hunter had a big confidence, he led the company fluently." Word order wise, so that syntax that we're going to go into, it's in order.
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I don't want to move words around. I might want to add words, maybe. But mainly, if you read this the way I did, you want to replace words. I don't like that he said "a big confidence. " I'm like, "a big confidence." I haven't heard that before. Never heard "big confidence" used together as a collocation. Word structure, word order, those word structures, so that has to do with morphemes and that stuff. That seems fine. Word spelling, no issues there.
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So we know it's word choice. Specifically, the example they gave with this was: the second sentence contains incorrect lexical collocations. That is, certain words in English cannot idiomatically and customarily be used to modify certain other words, even though the overall meaning is decipherable. Here's what it's saying: This sentence still makes sense. You and I both understood this sentence, but the issue is that the right words weren't used together.
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I've never, the first part of this sentence, "since Mr. Hunter had a big confidence," I understand what that means, but I want to correct it. Like, "Since Mr. Hunter had a big head or had a lot of confidence," I want to replace it with other words that make the lexical collocation sound more familiar to me. Otherwise, it did make sense.
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I used the word "idiomatic" in that last question. Let me tell you what an idiom is. These are two or more words that constitute a whole unit of meaning. Well, I just gave you that definition for lexical collocations. But it's not quite lexical collocation. For those lexical collocations, we said, "Set an alarm." But if you look at "set an alarm," each one of those three words makes sense. Set to place something, one, alarm.
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Okay, something that's time-related. Each word by itself makes sense, and collectively "set an alarm," makes sense at large. Okay, so that's different than a lot of our idioms that we're going to deal with our students. let's talk about the idiom, "put my foot in my mouth." And I actually used this idiom with my friend from Nicaragua, three years ago. We were walking somewhere, and I said, "Oh, and then I did this at the staff meeting and I really put my foot in my mouth."
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And she was—she's spoken English her whole life, but she had never heard that idiom before. And if you haven't heard it before, it's basically saying, “I said something stupid that I regret saying.” So, "put my foot in my mouth." If we look at this at the semantic level, "put," place something, "my foot," that's a body part of me, "in my mouth." Semantically, it doesn't mean what it's supposed to mean on the surface level. Not like "set an alarm"
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that on the surface level means what it needs to mean, but "put my foot in my mouth" has a different semantic meaning. It means on the backend, "I'm embarrassed about what I said." So I, I stopped talking. Okay. I regret, I made a regretful decision. That's the difference between those lexical collocations and idioms is that idioms have really deep meaning that's deeper than the surface level.
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and these are word combinations that are frequently produced together.
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The reason I show you idioms is because of this question. Second language learners often experience problems with the semantic and colloquial cultural components of the English language. Which language component will most likely be impacted by this situation?
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The first one has to do with phonological analysis. The second one, syntactic and phonological. The third one, figurative language and idioms. And the fourth one, lexical and structural components.
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If you don't, I'm going to go ahead and explain it. If you don't want to hear the explanation that will lead you to the answer, go ahead and hit pause right now.
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For those— welcome back— those of you who stayed with me.
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You need to look at some of the clues here. So, in that question, second language learners often experience problems with the semantic and cultural components of the language. Okay, right there you have two words telling you, helping you narrow down some of these answers that it is not— some of the wrong answers. When we talk, we're talking about semantics right now. We're talking about meaning of words.
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In sociolinguistics, we talked about culture. Does it make sense that A or B—
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that deal with phonological components, phonology—would be the answer? No, it doesn't. Let's look at C and D. D, lexical and structural components. Okay, getting closer. Lexical, we're dealing with words. Lexicon, lexical means "word," But structure, what does structure have to do with culture? That can't be it. So, then we look at C, and that is your answer: figurative language. "I put my foot in my mouth," It's figurative speech for "I said something stupid," and idioms.
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this has to do with semantics. So that's how you would deduce down to that question.
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Also in semantics, we look at cognates and false cognates. And I have yet to see a Texas exam question on this, but I know it's in the new lesson prep material. This is why we're going over this section. Cognates are two words. A word, let's say in Spanish, and a word in English that sound the same and mean the same thing. So, basically it's saying that I, as an English speaker, if I wanted to learn Spanish cognates, there would be a list of words in Spanish
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that I would actually have some success in learning very quickly because they're almost identical to the English words. I'm going to take you to some examples and then we'll come back to this slide.
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Here are some examples of cognates between English and Spanish these are words that sound about the same and mean the same thing between the two languages. Excuse my Spanish accent or my American accent on my Spanish, but we have "car." Then in Spanish, we have "carro,"
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Both mean the same thing, and the pronunciation is roughly the same.
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As an educator, cognates are a great thing. Those are words you could start with your students— start working on with your students— that they would have a lot of success in learning. A little higher success in pronouncing and also probably a good success in memorizing them because they're vaguely familiar to them. False cognates, on the other hand, are the exact opposite. These are words that sound the same in both languages but mean completely different things.
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Okay, and this is where second language speakers often say accidental things that end up being funny. Here's a list on the English chart of English words and Spanish, the correct Spanish word that means the same thing. Okay.
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but what they actually get it confused with. Okay.
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Let's go down to the third from last. We have the English word "embarrassed."
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I'm embarrassed. So I put my foot in my mouth,
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and then in Spanish, the word embarrassed is actually, Oh, you guys are going to laugh at me. So we've got avergonzado. It's okay. You can laugh at me. But that would be the Spanish word meaning that has the same meaning as the English word "embarrassed." The problem is, is that in Spanish, there's the word, embarazada, zada, probably saying that wrong too.
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But that word sounds a lot like the English word "embarrassed." So typically, English speakers will hear that Spanish word,
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embarazada, and they think it means embarrassed because it sounds the same, and it's not spelled the same, but it's very close, similar in spelling. The problem is, in Spanish, that word means "pregnant." When you think you're trying to communicate in Spanish that you're embarrassed, you can actually be communicating in Spanish that you're pregnant. Those are completely different meanings. So these are called false cognates. When two words between two languages look the same,
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so people think they mean the same thing, but they actually mean the opposite thing.
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Okay, let's jump into pragmatics real quick. We wrapped up semantics. We had some important stuff there, but I want to roll over to pragmatics. Pragmatics has to do with all the social cues that accompany language. So all the things that somehow we know are right and wrong in our society that are not really written down anywhere. Okay. Let me give you a scenario: You invited your friend over for dinner. Your child sees your friend reaching for
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some cookies and says, "Better not take those, or you'll get even bigger." You can't believe your child could be so rude. So we just got done talking about semantics. Semantically, if we want to look at what that child said, when I read this, I think of my six-year-old daughter. "Better not take those, or you'll get even bigger." Semantically, if we're looking at literal meaning, the child's saying, "Well, cookies can make you gain weight."
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There's the literal meaning. But pragmatically has to do with all those social cues that are behind language. So if we look at meaning and context and what the child is likely saying or what the mother thinks the daughter is saying, is that the daughter, the child, is calling the friend fat. And that's what pragmatic deals with. We looked at these examples early in the semester. An ELL student says, "Give me your pencil," while taking your pencil.
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Well, that's breaking some of our social rules, our social norms, which is, well, you should ask somebody for a pencil. You don't just take it from them. Or another pragmatic error is you see your student in the hallway and you say, "Hey, how are you?" And you keep walking. But the student proceeds to stop and chats with you for 20 minutes, missing the social cue that in English, when you say, "Hey, how are you?" you don't stop and chat. It's usually just to acknowledge
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that you see somebody and then you go on.
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Breaking the social norm would be trying to stop and strike up a whole conversation, taking "How are you?" as a literal question rather than just a quick hello. So that's all I'm going to cover with pragmatics. Really fun field, but I just wanted you to have a touch base on that before we went into syntax. So now that you've finished this mini lecture, go on to the exercise, the semantics and pragmatics exercise. And then after that, you'll move on to your next mini lecture. Thanks.
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