SESSION 1:
HAVING A DISCUSSION
In this session you will listen to an informal conversation between two people talking about cars and the environment. Check the following expressions:
1. Watch this video "How to write a discussion essay":
Then, choose a topic and express your own opinion using the expressions above.
SESSION 2:
We have already talked about the power of language to create new words. It is actually us who have that power in our hands. An example of this has been during the quarantine, many new words have been coined and have become part of our daily language
Have a look at the following word cloud. By the way, I used a free word cloud generator, Worditout, to create this cloud. You can use this wonderful tool to create your own glossaries. It's a visual help to remember the new words you come across with.
Do you recognise these?
Many important events have happened this year, being the emergence of a new pandemic that has changed almost every aspect of our lives the most important one. But how has our vocabulary been affected by this unfortunate event?
1. Listen to Maddie giving a quick recap of 2020 and the effect on our language. For example, what were the two words of the year chosen by the Cambridge and Merriam-Webster?
Read the quiz below and take notes while listening. After listening, give an answer to each of the questions based on the ideas Maddie gave in the audio.
1. Can you remember some of the 2020 events Maddie listed? Which ones do you remember or were shocked by the most?
2. What were the two words of the year chosen by the Cambridge and Miriam-Webster?
3. How has the word ‘remote’ been used in the past and what have we seen happen with it recently?
4. ‘Social-distancing’, ‘remote-learning’ and ‘track-and-trace’ are examples of what?
5. ‘The coronavirus pandemic’ has various abbreviations. What is the slang version used by many young people today?
6. When was the last time the word ‘fatality’ was particularly common? What does this suggest?
7. What are Maddie’s predictions about the future of using sanitiser and face masks?
8. What system is being used in the UK at the moment to try to control the pandemic?
9. It has been proven that a number of young adults are asymptomatic to coronavirus. What is the most common symptom that they do have?
10. Have you heard or used some of the words discussed? Write down as many as you can remember and put them in order of your familiarity with them.
SESSION 3:
Language is alive, it moves and changes with time. And in English this is even more true. Spanish has its own sentinels that give custody of it by controlling the inclusion of new words in the RAE dictionary. But what happens with English?
In English, it's basically a controlled anarchy. There is a combination of consensus and reputation, and nobody can change the rules by fiat. English speakers must agree and adopt a word before it is considered proper English.
However, there are a number of dictionaries (like the Oxford English Dictionary), style guides (like the New York Times') that are considered the authority. They are highly influential as far as business and formal English go.
Professors, editors, etc may consider your speech/writing "incorrect" if it does not adhere to a certain style guide or has words pronounced/spelled in ways that aren't listed in a certain dictionary.
The Spanish Royal Academy of Language has traditionally been more restrictive. Maybe that's one of the reasons why the English language currently tops a whopping 1 million distinct words versus the Spanish 93.111 words, haha, yes, it is a ridiculous huge difference.
English is so creative! there are a number of mechanisms that conform word formation. Word formation is defined as the process of creating a new word. All new words are created by one of these mechanisms.
1. Read and add one word to each: Derivation: The commonest method of creating a new word adding a prefix or suffix to an existing one. Example: helpful, acceptance
Back formation: The opposite of derivation, to create a new root word by removing a phantom affix. The noun sleaze, for example, was back-formed from “sleazy” in about 1967. Compounding: The juxtaposition of two existing words. Repurposing: Taking a word from one context and applying it to another. For example, mouse.
Conversion: Taking a word from one word class and transplanting it to another. Example: friend can now serve as a verb as well as a noun (“Why didn’t you friend me?”).
Eponyms: Words named after a person or place. You may recognise Alzheimer’s, atlas, cheddar, alsatian, diesel, rimmel, sandwich... Abbreviations: An increasingly popular method. There are three main subtypes: clippings, acronyms and initialisms: pram (perambulator), taxi/cab (both from taximeter cabriolet), mob (mobile vulgus), goodbye (God be with you), van (caravan). Loanwords: In English most loans are borrowed from French, Latin and Greek; Nahuatl (tomato – via Spanish), Tahitian (tattoo), Russian (mammoth), Mayan (shark), Gaelic (slogan). Calques: flea market, brainwashing, loan word are translations of borrowings. Onomatopeia: The creation of a word by imitation of the sound it is supposed to make. Plop, ow, barf, cuckoo, bunch, bum.
Reduplication: The repetition, or near-repetition, of a word or sound: flip-flop, goody-goody, boo-boo, lovey-dovey, tom-tom, hip hop ... Nonce words: Words pulled out of thin air, bearing little relation to any existing form. Confirmed examples are few and far between, but include quark (Murray Gell-Mann), bling (unknown) and fleek (Vine celebrity Kayla Newman).
Error: Misspellings, mishearings, mispronunciations and mistranscriptions: scramble, for example, seems to have originated as a variant of scrabble.
Portmanteaus: Compounding with a twist. Take one word, remove an arbitrary portion of it, then put in its place either a whole word, or a similarly clipped one. Thus were born sitcom, internet, sexting. Some words came about through a combination of methods: yuppie is the result of initialism ((y)oung and (up)wardly mobile) plus derivation (+ -ie). In the 20th century, quite a few were born by using using -ie (and -y) suffix: talkies, freebie, foodie, hippy, roomie, rookie, roofie, Munchie, Smartie, Crunchie... Now, the passion for initialisms seems to be wearing off, perhaps because things have got a little confusing; PC, for example, can now mean politically correct, police constable, per cent, etc.
2. Now read the article: 15 new English words you need for 2020 and incorporate these new words to your glossaries along with a sentence.
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