II. Communication Review

Information sources

Information can be retrieved from books, magazines, and other print sources by simply picking up the reading materials and turning and flipping through the pages. The book, newspaper, or periodical remains one of the most efficient ways to access print information.

Print materials are also found in libraries or other repositories on microfilm and microfiche. Microfilms are 35mm films of books, while microfiche are flat and can contain hundreds of pages of text material. Microfilm and microfiche are read with specialized readers.

Other information can be retrieved on or through the computer. Written materials can be entered on a computer, usually with a word processor. This information can be accessed directly through the computer’s hard disk. Special features of most word processors and other utilities permit the user to search electronically for words and phrases. Sound, graphics, and animation may also be stored on a computer’s hard disk. These sounds and images may be accessed using specialized computer programs.

Print materials, images, sounds and animation may also be stored on CD-ROMs designed for computer use. Information on these CD-ROMs may be accessed through a CD-ROM player that is connected to the computer. Images and sounds on videotapes, audiotapes, music CD-ROMs, and videodisk may also be accessed through the computer.

Computers can be connected to telephone lines and television cables using a modem. Modems allow computers to upload and download data from other computers, usually via the Internet. “Going on line” has become a popular way to gather information.

The Internet is a vast collection of computers around the world. These computers are connected by cables and phone lines, forming a huge net. Once on the Internet, a person can have access to enormous amounts of information. Browsers such as Microsoft Explorer and Netscape Navigator turn the Internet’s electronic signals into viewable text and images. You can retrieve text, pictures, video, and sound with these browsers. Almost all periodical and newspaper information is available on line, and you can hold Internet conversations and Internet videoconferences.

The World Wide Web is the collection of sites on the Internet. Web addresses identify the different sites and the information contained at these sites. For example the Web address http://www. barronseduc. com connects you directly to the Barron’s Web site. Search engines such as Excite and Yahoo help you to find sites containing the information you want. If you entered “teacher testing,” these search engines would return a list of WWW sites in their catalog containing these key words.

ARGUMENTATION, EXPOSITION, NARRATION, AND REFLECTION

In argumentation the writer or speaker tries to convince the readers or listeners to accept a particular view or idea. There are several rules to follow to construct a well-ordered argu­ment. Your presentation should appear moderate and reasoned, and you should acknowledge the reasonableness of those who differ with you.

The statements must be believable in form and in fact. That is, the statements must distinguish among fact, opinion, and the conclusions you have drawn. The presentation should clarify the meanings of key ideas and words. The presentation must also squarely address the question and not beg the question as described in the preceding example.

The presentation must support any views or conclusions with solid evidence and arguments. The arguments can be inductive or deductive. However, these arguments must avoid the invalid and fallacious arguments noted previously.

Expository presentations simply explain. This book is essentially expository presentation. It explains about the LAST and how to pass it.

Narration presents a factual or fictional story. A written fictional account or a spoken presentation about your life as a child is a narration.

Reflection describes a scene, person, or emotion. A spoken description of your neighborhood or a written note describing how you felt when you graduated from high school are reflections.

LINGUISTICS. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

We use language, including gestures and sounds, to communicate. Humans first used gestures, but it was spoken language that opened the vistas for human communication. Language consists of two things: the thoughts that language conveys and the physical sounds, writing, and structure of the language itself.

Human speech organs (mouth, tongue, lips, etc.) were not developed to make sounds but they uniquely determined the sounds and words humans could produce. Human speech gradually came to be loosely bound together by unique rules of grammar. Many believe that humans developed their unique ability to speak with the development of a specialized area of the brain called Broca’s area. If this is so, human speech and language probably developed in the past 100,000 years.

The appearance of written language about 3500 в. с. separates prehistoric from historic times. Written language often does not adequately represent the spoken language. For example, English uses the 26-letter Latin alphabet, which does not represent all the English sounds.

Language has a structure and a function. The structure of a language refers to the way words and sentences are combined to create effective communication. The function of a language is the ability to use language to think and communicate. Understanding language development means understanding how each of these aspects develops. Much of the recent work on structural language development is related to Chomsky’s work Chomsky says that the “old” explanations of language development, modeling and reinforcement were incorrect. This is not to say that language cannot be learned through these methods because this task is accomplished every day as people learn a foreign language. Rather, Chomsky says that this model-repeat-reinforce approach is not the way that children actually learn language.

Chomsky holds that children possess an innate ability to learn language, both words and structure, merely through exposure. To bolster Ms argument, Chomsky points out that most grammatical mistakes made by children actually follow the general grammatical rules of the language and that the children’s errors represent exceptions to these rules.

For example, a child may say “Lisa goed to the store” instead of “Lisa went to the store.” Chomsky would say, goed is structurally sound and represents a good grasp of the English language. The child would certainly say hopped if Lisa had gotten to the store that way. The problem is created because the past tense for go is an exception to the past tense formation rule.

Vygotsky is a prominent psychologist who studied the relationship between thought and language. A contemporary of Piaget, he pointed out that thought and language are not coordinated during the sensorimotor and most of the preoperational stages. That is, from birth through about age 6 or 7, thought and language develop independently, with language being primarily functional.

As students move toward the concrete operational stage, their language also becomes operational. That is, thought and the structural and functional aspects of language become integrated, and students can use language to think and solve problems.

Teachers can foster language development most effectively by constantly encouraging and enabling students to express themselves by speaking and writing. Students should be encouraged to integrate writing and speaking with all subject matter, and writing and speaking should be the overarching classroom objectives to be developed in every lesson. In all cases, teachers should help children communicate in standard English while in school.

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. Linguistics studies the development of languages and language groups, vocabulary and meaning, the structure of contemporary languages, and how speech and language is learned and taught. A list of the areas of language studied by linguistics follows. Morphology studies morphemes, the building blocks of language. These building blocks include words and roots, word endings, prefixes and suffixes, case, number, and tense. Phonetics studies all speech sounds in a language and the way speech sounds are produced. Phonetics is reflected in many school curricula. Phonology studies the important sounds in a language. Transformational grammar is an approach to understanding language developed by Noam Chomsky, an American linguist. He posited that a universal linguistic structure was present in all humans. He further said that this structure naturally leads people to “transform” their thoughts into sentences that follow natural grammatical rules. There are also grammatical rules for individual languages. Chomsky pointed out that many errors found in children’s grammar follow these natural grammatical rules.

The English language emerged 1500 years ago from Germanic languages on the European continent and developed primarily in England. American English is based on the English language and includes words from every major language including Latin, Greek, and French.

English is spoken throughout Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. It is the most universally accepted language in the world, and only Chinese is spoken by more peo­ple. m all likelihood, English will become even more prominent as the world’s primary language.

Some experts estimate that there are over 1,000,000 English words, more than any other language in the world. Sounds and letters do not match in the English language. For example the word spelled t-o-u-g-h is pronounced tuf. The rock group Phish also reminds us of this variation, which often makes English words difficult to pronounce and spell.

ANALYZING LITERARY IMAGERY

When you analyze a literary passage, you should consider both the literal meaning of the passage and the imagery it evokes. Consider this sentence: “The beggar pushed his way through the crowds in the squalid slum. ” We can tell from the sentence that the person is poor and is in a run-down area. However, what imagery does the passage evoke? That is, what sights, sounds, tactile experiences, smells, taste, and experiences of temperature and movement do you have?

THE BEGGAR PUSHED HIS WAY THROUGH THE CROWDS IN THE SQUALID SLUM.

Sight. Try to visualize the beggar. Do you see a person on a street or sidewalk in an urban slum? Do you see a beggar with tattered clothes in the streets of India? Write what you visualize about the beggar. Try to visualize the surroundings. Do you see apartment houses with boarded-up windows and crowds of people sitting on comers and outside doors? Do you see the crowded streets of India teeming with people? Write what you visualize.

Sound. Try to hear the sounds. Do you hear the honking of horns or do you hear the cries of hawkers? Write about the sounds you hear.

Tactile. Try to feel the tactile experience. Can you feel the pavement beneath the beggar's feet or the press of the crowds? Write about the tactile experience.

Smell. Explore your sense of smell. Do you smell exhaust fumes or can you smell the odor of decaying food left in the sun? Write about the odors you smell.

Taste. Explore your sense of taste. Can you taste food cooking or a bit of food just eaten? Write about your taste experience.

Temperature. Explore your sensation of temperature. Can you feel the cold of night or do you experience a hot day? Write about your experience of temperature.

Movement. What movement do you experience? Can you sense the beggar's movement through the crowd? Write about your experience of movement.

POST-READING ACTIVITIES