Worksheet 4 – Linguistics Eng B
Discourse analysis, Language and the brain & Writing
Discourse
1. One definition of discourse is ‘language beyond the sentence’ and discourse analysis deals with
the analysis of both written and spoken language. The questions below relate to discourse.
a. What is cohesion and cohesive ties? Give some examples.
b. Student Emmy says the following to her friend: “Dr. Boertien told me that my text was
incoherent. What did he mean by that? I don’t get it!” You are Emmy’s friend. Please,
help Emmy out by giving her some good advice, so that she can improve her text.
c. Explain the concept of turn-taking.
d. In what field of linguistics do people study turn-taking, completion points, and hedges?
What do the latter two terms mean?
e. Paul Grice, the co-operative principle… Learn it by heart! Write down the four maxims
that support the principle; then, explain each one of them. (If you want to deepen your
knowledge of the co-operative principle and Gricean theory, please visit
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/implicature/ . )
2. What is the implicature in the conversation below?
-How did you like the guest speaker?
-Well, I’m sure he was speaking English.
3. A 15-year-old boy interviewed his 80-year-old grandpa about what school was like when
grandpa was young. The grandson couldn’t quite believe grandpa’s story. Apparently, they had
very, very different classroom schemas (or schemata). What is schema theory
(schemas/schemata)?
The brain
4. If you study neurolinguistics, you are studying… what?
5. Nowadays we know that the brain includes areas which are particularly important for certain
human capacities. Here are some questions about human language capacity and/or the brain:
a. In what hemisphere (left or right) do we find areas which are linked to language?
b. There is something called the anterior speech cortex, or Broca’s area. What is Broca’s
area?
c. There is something called the posterior speech cortex, or Wernicke’s area. What is
Wernicke’s area?
d. What is the motor cortex and why is it relevant for a student of linguistics to know
about?
e. Yule (2010: 159-160) writes about the localization view. Explain the connection(s)
between this localization view, the lateralized brain and one of the theories of the origin
of speech (language), namely the tool-making source (see Yule, 2010: 5).
6. What is the story behind so-called spoonerisms? Identify the intended phrases for the
spoonerisms given below!
Spoonerism
Tips of the slung
Tease my ears
A lack of pies
It’s roaring with pain
Wave the sails
Fighting a liar
You hissed my mystery lecture
Nosey little cook
Cattle ship and bruisers
A blushing crow
Tons of soil
You’ve wasted two worms
We’ll have the hags flung out
Our shoving leopard
A half-warmed fish
Is the bean dizzy?
Our queer old Dean
Know your blows
Go and shake a tower
Bowel feast
Go help me sod
Intended phrase
7. Give some examples of malapropisms (the tip of the tongue phenomenon).
8. There is a website called http://www.saltmannen.se/. At this site, you find examples of slips of
the ear (with regard to lyrics) that people have sent in – visit the website! Now, don’t be shy,
please, share your own slips, or slips that you have heard others say/sing! Here is one (totally
stupid) slip of the ear from Pia:
Artist: Gyllene Tider
Original text/lyrics: Himmel nummer 7, himmel nummer 7, visst lurar du mig, eller hur, eller
hur, eller hur?
But I sang: In the lumberty, in the lumberty, visst lurar du mig, eller hur, eller hur, eller hur?
Comment: “Lumberty”?!?!? What is that? Nothing! But I thought lumberty (cf. lumber; British
old-fashioned objects that are being stored because they are not being used, according to
Macmillan Dictionary) was a British English word for American English timber. The funny thing is,
why would Gyllene Tider suddenly start singing in English in a Swedish song, and about timber of
all things? I have never really understood why I happened to experience this particular slip of
the ear… Please, note that I was in my teens when it happened, so I blame it on innocence!
Unfortunately, I did not realize my mistake until I was 25 or something – embarrassing.
9. Please, listen to two examples of aphasia, which you access on YouTube:
Broca’s aphasia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2IiMEbMnPM
Wernicke’s aphasia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVhYN7NTIKU
What is characteristic of Broca’s aphasia? What is characteristic of Wernicke’s aphasia? Also,
consult Yule (2010: 162-163) about aphasia.
Writing
10. Explain what pictograms and ideograms are.
11. Chinese is said to be based (to a certain extent) on the use of logograms. What are logograms?
12. Japanese is at least partially based on a syllabic writing system, a syllabary. What is a syllabary/a
syllabic writing system?
13. What is an alphabet?
14. Briefly describe the historical background of the English alphabet.