Day 2
'Cause Bridget says it's cool and Sauvage Noble is already updated ...
Good day today.
The ASL phonology class is starting out a little basic, but a few good theoretical issues have already been raised which will be fun to think about. For example, one of the profs today described nonmanual behavior as prosodic rather than phonemic - this will definitely take getting used to, or else intense debating. *smile*
In other news, I need to buy earplugs. The class is taught in ASL, by two really beautiful, clear signers whom I enjoy watching in the same way that I like listening to good orators. So hearing the interpreters repeat (more or less) the same thing, several beats behind, is really distracting. Don't get me wrong, they're excellent interpreters, but it's like watching a dubbed foreign movie where they forgot to delete the original soundtrack ... and the dubbed version is out of sync. Anyway. Glad, on the other hand, that I'm not too rusty by now to follow what's being said.
Next up was second-language acquisition. Seems fun, a bit more science than pedagogy, for which I am grateful. Then Ecology of Language Evolution; I took Mufwene's creoles course when he taught it as a visiting prof my freshman year, and I was afraid it would be substantially the same thing. Luckily, it looks like it's going to go deeper into the more abstract population-genetics aspect of the theory, which I was curious about when I took the earlier course. Yay. Plus, I like the almost-snarky uber-civilized post-colonial bad-boy sensibility Mufwene brings to his lectures and writing; edgy is fun, especially when it's an edge I approve of. :c)
The Academic Goody Bag of the Day award today is split between sign phonology, in which there is a class blog (which I'll link to if I get permission, but which is just happy-making), and ecology of language evolution, in which any student who could read French got an advance copy of his new book (which makes me feel like a member of some cool secret society). Huzzah.
And now ...
Geeky quotes of the day:
"If adults spent as much time practicing babbling - ba ba ba da da da - as babies do, I guarantee you, you too could speak Spanish like a native speaker!" - Suzanne Flynn
"We now have minds. Prior to 1950, we didn't have them, and then by 1954, we got them." - SFlynn
"You can't be a historical linguist without being a historian." - Salikoko Mufwene
"Languages don't migrate alone! They migrate with speakers!" - SMufwene
"I have a heresy to introduce: We communicate with each other not because we all have the same grammar, but because we are all equipped to interpret the output of each other's grammars." - SMufwene
[Fun interpreter moment: professor signs THAT NOT COUNT, which is as far as I know an English idiom to begin with; prof mouths "that doesn't count"; interpreter says "that isn't - " then realizes she has the auxiliary verb wrong, and goes with "that isn't necessarily an inherent feature of the language." In context, the same meaning, but I'm sooo glad there are professionals doing this instead of me; my brain would have melted at about that point.]
Ok, off to bed to rest my sore muscles (from fight rehearsal tonight - yay!) and my pleasantly active brain. Syntax tomorrow!
Good day today.
The ASL phonology class is starting out a little basic, but a few good theoretical issues have already been raised which will be fun to think about. For example, one of the profs today described nonmanual behavior as prosodic rather than phonemic - this will definitely take getting used to, or else intense debating. *smile*
In other news, I need to buy earplugs. The class is taught in ASL, by two really beautiful, clear signers whom I enjoy watching in the same way that I like listening to good orators. So hearing the interpreters repeat (more or less) the same thing, several beats behind, is really distracting. Don't get me wrong, they're excellent interpreters, but it's like watching a dubbed foreign movie where they forgot to delete the original soundtrack ... and the dubbed version is out of sync. Anyway. Glad, on the other hand, that I'm not too rusty by now to follow what's being said.
Next up was second-language acquisition. Seems fun, a bit more science than pedagogy, for which I am grateful. Then Ecology of Language Evolution; I took Mufwene's creoles course when he taught it as a visiting prof my freshman year, and I was afraid it would be substantially the same thing. Luckily, it looks like it's going to go deeper into the more abstract population-genetics aspect of the theory, which I was curious about when I took the earlier course. Yay. Plus, I like the almost-snarky uber-civilized post-colonial bad-boy sensibility Mufwene brings to his lectures and writing; edgy is fun, especially when it's an edge I approve of. :c)
The Academic Goody Bag of the Day award today is split between sign phonology, in which there is a class blog (which I'll link to if I get permission, but which is just happy-making), and ecology of language evolution, in which any student who could read French got an advance copy of his new book (which makes me feel like a member of some cool secret society). Huzzah.
And now ...
Geeky quotes of the day:
"If adults spent as much time practicing babbling - ba ba ba da da da - as babies do, I guarantee you, you too could speak Spanish like a native speaker!" - Suzanne Flynn
"We now have minds. Prior to 1950, we didn't have them, and then by 1954, we got them." - SFlynn
"You can't be a historical linguist without being a historian." - Salikoko Mufwene
"Languages don't migrate alone! They migrate with speakers!" - SMufwene
"I have a heresy to introduce: We communicate with each other not because we all have the same grammar, but because we are all equipped to interpret the output of each other's grammars." - SMufwene
[Fun interpreter moment: professor signs THAT NOT COUNT, which is as far as I know an English idiom to begin with; prof mouths "that doesn't count"; interpreter says "that isn't - " then realizes she has the auxiliary verb wrong, and goes with "that isn't necessarily an inherent feature of the language." In context, the same meaning, but I'm sooo glad there are professionals doing this instead of me; my brain would have melted at about that point.]
Ok, off to bed to rest my sore muscles (from fight rehearsal tonight - yay!) and my pleasantly active brain. Syntax tomorrow!