language of head or heart? jasmin banic, goethe-institut, san francisco [email protected]...
TRANSCRIPT
Language of Head or Heart?
JASMIN BANIC, GOETHE-INSTITUT, SAN [email protected]
ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING:
HOW DO YOU CONDUCT YOUR LANGUAGE CLASSES?
• Monolingual vs. bilingual?
• What would be your #1 linguistic goal with the following text?
• Grammar? Semantics? Features of Romanticism?
“If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes in his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes in his heart.”
Nelson Mandela
HEAD VS. HEART
Pinker, Steven: “How the Mind Works”“The Romantic movement in philosophy, literature, and art began about two hundred years ago, and since the emotions and the intellect have been assigned to different realms. The emotions come from nature and live in the body. They are hot, irrational impulses and intuitions, which follow the imperatives of biology. The intellect comes from civilization and lives in the mind. It is a cool deliberator that follows the interests of self and society by keeping emotions in check. Romantics believe that the emotions are the source of wisdom, innocence, authenticity, and creativity, and should not be repressed by individuals or society. Often the romantics acknowledge a dark side, the price we must pay for artistic greatness.”
Similarity by Ending
English Spanish German Italian
-tycreativity, society, authenticity
-dadcreatividad, sociedad, autencidad
-tät, -shaft, -keit Kreativität, Gesellschaft, Glaubwürdigkeit
-tàcreatività,società, autenticià
-tioncivilization
-cióncivilización
-tionZivilisation
-tàciviltá
Similarity by Formation
English Germansing, sang, sung singen, sang,
gesungen
begin, began, begun beginnen, begann, begonnen
False Cognates English German Spanish Italian
ultimately últimamente/recently
embarrassed embarazada/pregnant
moderator der Moderator/news anchor
caution die Kaution/security deposit
salir/ to go out salire/to go up
guardar/to keep, to guard
guardare/to look
burro/donkey burro/butter
Jasmin’s Suggestions
• Ongoing Addition to your Syllabus
• Visual Recognition
• Encouraging Word Formation: Your students as WORDSMITHS!
• Audio + Video Assignments: TV, YouTube, Street signs & Ads
References Chomsky, Noam: “Language and Mind”, 1972Jackendoff, Ray: “Patterns in the Mind”, 1994Pinker, Steven: “How the Mind Works”, 1997Pinker, Steven: “Words and Rules – The Ingredients of Language”, 1999Pinker, Steven: “The Stuff of Thought – Language as a Window into Human Nature”, 2007Erard Michael: “Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean”, 2007 McWhorter, John: “What Language is (And what it isn’t and What it Could Be), 2011
