February, 2012

Fiction Exercise: Final part

Tweet The fiction-writing exercise described in the posts of February 2, 7, 13, 16, and 21 was the first assignment of a class in which the students would later write essays on assigned subjects, using works of fiction and poetry as sources.  The goal was to provide the students with some insight into what it takes to write fiction. (Poetry […]

Fiction Exercise: Part 5

Tweet The fiction-writing exercise described in the posts of February 2, 7, 13, and 16 was the first assignment of a class in which the students would later write essays on assigned subjects, using works of fiction and poetry as sources.  The goal was to provide the students with some insight into what it takes to write fiction. (Poetry […]

Linguapax Award

Tweet Do you know there is an “International Mother Language Day?”  It’s today, February 21st. It is sponsored by Linguapax, a non-governmental organization supporting linguistic diversity, in the belief that “…essential vehicles of identity and cultural expression are inseparable from the goals peace and intercultural understanding.” The Linguapax Award for 2012 is being given to: […]

Fiction Exercise: Part 4

Tweet The fiction-writing exercise described in the posts of February 2, 7 and 13 was the first assignment of a class in which the students would later write essays on assigned subjects, using works of fiction and poetry as sources.  The goal was to provide the students with some insight into what it takes to write fiction. (Poetry […]

Text messages and language change

Tweet Imagine what a Shakespearean era mom would think of the way we speak today. Moms from a couple of hundred years before that would have been appalled at the way Shakespeare spoke. Language is always changing, sometimes slowly, but always inexorably. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that researchers in Canada and Belgium are studying text […]

Fiction Exercise: Part 3

Tweet The fiction-writing exercise described in the posts of February 2 and 7 was the first assignment of a class in which the students would later write essays on assigned subjects, using works of fiction and poetry as sources.  The goal was to provide the students with some insight into what it takes to write fiction. (Poetry writing was […]

Censoring teachers’ speech

Tweet The Web of Language, Dennis Baron’s excellent blog, reports: “The Arizona State Senate is considering a proposal to fire teachers who swear. SB 1467 bans their use of any words that would violate FCC regulations against obscenity, indecency, and profanity on broadcast radio and television. A teacher would be suspended without pay after the first offence, […]

Where do ideas come from?

Tweet One area of linguistics, Psycholinguistics, concerns itself with how the mind creates the matter which produces ideas.  Ideas are a precursor to the words which express them — a Chinese speaker and an English speaker can view a work of art or a car accident and have the same “idea,” but the words which […]

Fiction Exercise: Part 2

Tweet The fiction-writing exercise described in the post of February 2 was the first assignment of a class in which the students would later write essays on assigned subjects, using works of fiction and poetry as sources.  The goal was to provide the students with some insight into what it takes to write fiction. (Poetry writing was […]

Writing fiction to study literature

Tweet The fiction-writing exercise described in this series of posts was the first assignment of a class in which the students would later write essays on assigned subjects, using works of fiction and poetry as sources.  The goal was to provide the students with some insight into what it takes to write fiction. (Poetry writing was […]