someone's totally taking publicity photos for the cafe and we're totally in them, computers & all
The internet peeps are coming tomorrow morning! I started my class Tuesday night and they're wonderful, which is such a relief. The party's on for Saturday.
I met with Jeff yesterday, and he reassured all of my doubts. I've found a hypothesis for this paper and a topic for my PhD as well. It's about discourse markers in code switching. That means that every time I hear fluent Irish, it's always "Irishirishirishirishirish just irishirishirish y'know irishirishirishirishirish, irishirish well irishirishirish just..."
Discourse markers are little words that don't carry any meaning; they mark the boundaries of phrases and ideas. Code switching is a fancy anthro term for throwing in the random word or phrase in another language (that the speaker and hearer have in common). Jeff says there have been plenty of papers on code switching that mention discourse markers, but never one that focuses specifically on discourse markers. And he says if I need a broader topic than Irish, I could widen it to pretty much any bilingual situation. French speakers could just as easily say "d'accord" as "OK" and they serve exactly the same linguistic function with little, if any, difference in meaning. So why should French speakers say OK? (seems they do.) So that's the topic for my imaginary future PhD. As for my master's, my hypothesis is that as Irish learners progress up the levels, certain motivations will hang on more strongly than others (let's say that people who have an Irish-speaking significant other will want to keep learning longer than those who wanted to do it just kinda because). I also have a wonderful environment for testing language attitudes because I have a few Irish people in my class, who can serve as the "control" group (I compare their attitudes towards Irish with all the frillions of other surveys that have already been taken on the Irish vis-a-vis Irish) while all the foreigners are my experimental group. I'll have a questionnaire written by the end of the day tomorrow, and will also begin writing up my intro next week. It's 4 or 6,000 words of background information: motivation and language learning, Irish attitudes towards Irish, adults and minority languages, yak yak. YAY.
The class watches movies on Thursdays and I'll play IPA bingo with them first. The students are more laid-back, but the dress code for teachers is much stricter than IH. Last night I dreamed about abuse again (this time more physical), but this time by the end of the dream I was able to tell the guy to stop and he went all meek. Still, I wonder why I've dreamed of abuse twice. There was an ogre in the dream, too; Glamour says that means I'm indulging in a dangerous vice. It doesn't take a chemical engineer to figure that one out. I spent the 30-euro book voucher a few days ago, buying four books in a 3-for-2 +one at full price deal. I've already finished Gods Behaving Badly (the Greek gods live in modern London), and have started Bonk (a less pedantic Bill Bryson writes about the history of sex research), Eat Pray Love, and The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Juicy fresh bookflesh is divine.
Rob asked for a discount on his rent because he's not using electricity or internet. I reminded him that every time he uses the shower, hot water, washer, light, computer, fridge or stove he's using electricity. Also, he's paying the same that we are; we're just making our own money back. We put out a lot of our own money for this place, Karolina and I, much more than we can afford not to get back most of.
Right now, Katie and I are at a cafe not far from our place which supplies free internet, using which I reserved a router so we can get the home stuff working immediately tomorrow. Apart from charging nearly 3 euro for an eeny cup of chai, I like this place. It has Whole-Foods-style salads sold by weight, natural-y beverages, a sushi cooler, free tastes of brownies and a Bread Basket with pieces of bread (presumably yesterday's) in paper bags for free. Also it plays big band music. We are fans. And tomorrow's the solstice. It rained the past two days but there's been sun so far today. Summer is beginning in earnest; here's to it.
I met with Jeff yesterday, and he reassured all of my doubts. I've found a hypothesis for this paper and a topic for my PhD as well. It's about discourse markers in code switching. That means that every time I hear fluent Irish, it's always "Irishirishirishirishirish just irishirishirish y'know irishirishirishirishirish, irishirish well irishirishirish just..."
Discourse markers are little words that don't carry any meaning; they mark the boundaries of phrases and ideas. Code switching is a fancy anthro term for throwing in the random word or phrase in another language (that the speaker and hearer have in common). Jeff says there have been plenty of papers on code switching that mention discourse markers, but never one that focuses specifically on discourse markers. And he says if I need a broader topic than Irish, I could widen it to pretty much any bilingual situation. French speakers could just as easily say "d'accord" as "OK" and they serve exactly the same linguistic function with little, if any, difference in meaning. So why should French speakers say OK? (seems they do.) So that's the topic for my imaginary future PhD. As for my master's, my hypothesis is that as Irish learners progress up the levels, certain motivations will hang on more strongly than others (let's say that people who have an Irish-speaking significant other will want to keep learning longer than those who wanted to do it just kinda because). I also have a wonderful environment for testing language attitudes because I have a few Irish people in my class, who can serve as the "control" group (I compare their attitudes towards Irish with all the frillions of other surveys that have already been taken on the Irish vis-a-vis Irish) while all the foreigners are my experimental group. I'll have a questionnaire written by the end of the day tomorrow, and will also begin writing up my intro next week. It's 4 or 6,000 words of background information: motivation and language learning, Irish attitudes towards Irish, adults and minority languages, yak yak. YAY.
The class watches movies on Thursdays and I'll play IPA bingo with them first. The students are more laid-back, but the dress code for teachers is much stricter than IH. Last night I dreamed about abuse again (this time more physical), but this time by the end of the dream I was able to tell the guy to stop and he went all meek. Still, I wonder why I've dreamed of abuse twice. There was an ogre in the dream, too; Glamour says that means I'm indulging in a dangerous vice. It doesn't take a chemical engineer to figure that one out. I spent the 30-euro book voucher a few days ago, buying four books in a 3-for-2 +one at full price deal. I've already finished Gods Behaving Badly (the Greek gods live in modern London), and have started Bonk (a less pedantic Bill Bryson writes about the history of sex research), Eat Pray Love, and The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Juicy fresh bookflesh is divine.
Rob asked for a discount on his rent because he's not using electricity or internet. I reminded him that every time he uses the shower, hot water, washer, light, computer, fridge or stove he's using electricity. Also, he's paying the same that we are; we're just making our own money back. We put out a lot of our own money for this place, Karolina and I, much more than we can afford not to get back most of.
Right now, Katie and I are at a cafe not far from our place which supplies free internet, using which I reserved a router so we can get the home stuff working immediately tomorrow. Apart from charging nearly 3 euro for an eeny cup of chai, I like this place. It has Whole-Foods-style salads sold by weight, natural-y beverages, a sushi cooler, free tastes of brownies and a Bread Basket with pieces of bread (presumably yesterday's) in paper bags for free. Also it plays big band music. We are fans. And tomorrow's the solstice. It rained the past two days but there's been sun so far today. Summer is beginning in earnest; here's to it.