Linguistics reading response

Linguistic Reading Response

Chapter 10 , `Phonetics ' by Edward Callary

It is interesting to note that contrary to popular belief , more often than not different pronunciations are the result of different contexts - variances in social settings , the use of formal and informal pronunciations , etc . Unfortunately , Americans have long labored under the misguided assumption , especially where language is concerned , that there is one right way to do something , and all other ways are wrong (Callary 118 . Sounds used in language are produced by the human vocal apparatus , thus the term `Articulatory phonetics ' to

refer to sounds described by the `articulations (actions ) of the vocal tract

We produce speech sounds by modifying a stream of air as we push it by the lungs through the trachea and ultimately out of the oral or nasal cavities , or both (Callary 119 . Stated this way the production of speech sounds seems trivial , obvious , and incredibly easy . But the facts of articulation prove otherwise , with the production of even the simplest sound the result of an amazingly complex activity involving coordination of muscles all working in precise timing . Studying language scientifically is quite a challenging and difficult undertaking (as the assigned reading pages illustrate , with all the allophones , phonemes morphemes , etc , though people might generally take the nuances of language for granted . Aside from the technical aspects of language , one needs to also consider its other socio-linguistic components - origin cultural factors , and regional variations , among others

A History of the Spanish Language ' by Ralph Penny

Considering that it is already a `dead ' language , it is still pretty amazing that Latin is the ancestor of Spanish (and , by definition , of all other Romance languages , spread by soldiers , traders and farmers of the Western Roman Empire two thousand years ago to the present population of the Spanish-speaking world . Interestingly , Romance languages do not descend from Classical (i .e . literary ) Latin , but non-literary varieties , often referred to collectively as 'Vulgar Latin (Penny 5 . `Vulgar ' Latin differs only in the sense that is spoken by the Latin-speaking population with little or no school education

In the contemporary scene , there is a significant Spanish-speaking populace within the United States of America with the waves of human migration from Spanish-speaking countries , e .g . Mexico . To a certain extent , Spanish has influenced the development of the English language as it is being spoken in the USA , notably in states with notable Latino populations

The African Heritage of American English ' by Joseph E . Holloway and Winifred K . Vass

In a similar vein to the Spanish-American experience is African-Americanism . Considering that at least 70 percent of the ancestors of Americans of African descent came from the Mande (West Aftican ) and Bantu (Central African ) ethnic groups (Holloway and Vass xix , it is not surprising that these two cultures contribute substantially to the diverse North American ethnic stock . This is evident in jazz closely associated with black musicians , whose history and origins can be traced to the Old Congo Square of New Orleans . Yet available dictionaries and related...