Chapter 12 Student Activities

Texting Project

Texting is an interesting subject for sociolinguistic analysis. Our thoughts about “text speak” are largely determined by age. Older people often describe it as “sloppy” language (I still text inefficiently in complete, punctuated sentences and had to figure out what the “jk” in McWhorter’s title referred to!). For younger people, abbreviations like “omg” or “idk” make perfect sense and feel completely natural. They’re also far less likely to judge their peers harshly for using “txtng” shorthand.

Ask students to watch this short TED Talk about texting by linguist John McWhorter: http://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk

After watching the video, ask them to write responses to the following questions. (This can also be done as an in-class discussion activity.)

• Before watching McWhorter’s presentation, how did you feel about texting? Do you think these feelings reveal anything about your age and social background? Did his talk do anything to change your perspective on texting as a means of communication?
• McWhorter makes the argument that texting is not killing proper language but is actually a rather sophisticated development in language use. How can he say that? What are the basic points of his conclusion?

Translation Challenge Activity

Students learning a new language are sometimes surprised by how different syntax and grammar are between languages. There’s a lot more to language translation than simply substituting English words for the words of another language. This activity illustrates the challenges faced by linguistic anthropologists deciphering languages in the field.

• Provide students with a paragraph-length passage in another language (preferably one that uses the Roman alphabet and is not spoken by any students in the class). This can be anything: newspaper, website, magazine, book, and so on.
• Divide students into small groups (or any size depending on available materials). Provide them with English to “foreign language” dictionaries. (Google Translate is another option, though it will make things easier by doing some syntax correction:http://translate.google.com). Groups should cooperatively translate the text into intelligible English, including reordering of words and interpretation of meaning for clarity.
• What does this activity reveal about the complexity of linguistic systems?

Understanding Body Language

Videotape interviews from a local or national news broadcast where ordinary people (rather than actors) are being filmed or interviewed. Play the tape for your class without sound, and see if your students can interpret the facial expressions and gestures.

Phonetics Exercise

To illustrate the difference between phonetic and phonemic contrasts, use the [p] sound in the words “bin,” “pin,” and “spin.” Have your students tear off a strip of paper from their notebooks about 2 inches wide and 8.5 inches long. You should have one prepared as well. Have students feel their larynx (Adam’s apple) to illustrate minimal pairs by showing that [b] and [p] differ in voicing. The voiced sound ([b]) causes the larynx to vibrate, while the voiceless [p] does not. Now place the paper near your lips and pronounce the two words again. “Pin” should emit a puff of air that will move the paper, while “bin” will not. Have students try this as well. Now ask students what will happen to the paper for the word “spin.” In English consonant clusters, [p] loses its voicing, even though we hear it as a [p]. The example shows that even though we hear the consonants differently, we group the [p] in “pin” and “spin” together as part of the same sound.

Political Spin

Ask your students to watch interviews with political consultants on one of the cable stations or listen in on one of the talk radio stations. Have them write examples of what has come to be called “spin” to minimize the impact of some scandal or other political problem under discussion. How are these attempts to “spin” the news using new frames that give a different meaning to older words?

Speech on Campus Fieldwork Project

Have your students observe and describe in writing how people in different social positions speak. You may suggest that some students listen to public exchanges between faculty and students and that others study staff and students interacting in the library, interactions between staff and students in the dining hall or cafeteria, students interacting on a sports team, or students of different ages interacting anywhere on campus. Have students consider how status is marked linguistically by the vocabulary, pronunciation, or grammar.