July 27, 2011

Linguistics and kids


Believe it or not, I've never taken a linguistics class. Now I am taking one. It's my last class in the M.Ed. program. I'm learning that almost all linguists who write about first language acquisition in kids are talking about their own kids. They record the kids at home and in the car and then analyze.

Stephen: I wonder where you get tiger food.
Brother: Tigers eat meat.
Mother: [teasingly] Give it a little boy.
Stephen: [pause] Is a boy meat?

Stephen is four.

Mother: A creature is anything that's alive.
Stephen: [sounding astonished] Are we creatures?

The linguist reporting these conversations, Clare Painter, is talking about how kids learn to draw inferences from linguistically presented information. In the margins, though, I just have "Hahahahaha" and "AWESOME" and "!". I'm less interested in analysis, and more interested laughing at the hilarity of kids. Yeah, I totally want one.

July 13, 2011

"Normalicy"


"Seldomly"

"Manipulatory"

"Normalicy"

Heard during a single session of Research Methodology, a class offered to graduate students in the Department of Education.

*"Manipulatory" is actually a word. The fellow definitely meant "manipulative," though.

July 7, 2011

A way of traveling


LA FELICIDAD NO ES UNA ESTACIÓN DE LLEGADA, SINO UN MODO DE VIAJAR.

(Something like, "Happiness is not a destination, but a way of traveling.")

--In lettering in front of the Faith Fellowship Baptist Church, which I pass three times a week as I am bussing to work.