Project First Step

First Step... 

Do animals have language? 

What 2-3 areas of linguistics will you tie together with this project?

-  Communication styles, dialect, and identity

What do you want to know or explain about these areas? To whom?

- I would like to know if animals do have a style of communication and if so can it be considered a language. Also are there different forms of dialect within specific species of animals. Then lastly do what does the language or lack of language say about the animals identity. I may want to narrow my research down to one animal since these questions are so broad. 

What format does this project need to take in order to reach the target audience(s)?

- I would really love to incorporate some videos into this project, maybe not videos that I have created but ones I enjoy. I can also include sound clips of animals "communicating." I would prefer this project to be more interactive and fun as opposed to a written paper. 

Where will you look for what you need to know?

- I will be looking for scholarly research on the Lewis databases but also exploring more interesting outlets such as Netflix documentaries. I am sure there are also a lot of informational videos on YouTube. 

Langauge

What is language?! 

Language is a way to share thoughts, ideas, and transfer information. Language is difficult, varies from person to person, and culture to culture. There are many forms and types of language. There can be different forms of language within a language. 


*Person, messages, meaning, individuals, communication, emotion, transaction, culture, class, novel utterances. 

Should sign language fill foreign language requirement?

Yes of course. It has all of the characteristics of a language. English sign language is the same as English it is just not spoken but signed. Still able to share thoughts, ideas, and transfer information. 

Field Observation

Field Observation

                Penny did take a little while to warm up to the class but once she did it was easy to see clear overgeneralizations, holophrastic and telegraphic usage, as well as consonant clusters. At the start Penny was demonstrating mainly holophrastic patterns; it seems that maybe this was according because she was nervous. After the third or four group sat with Penny she was leaning more toward telegraphic speech. I noticed that some consonant clusters were present, at one point Penny said “Kitty Kat.” When she said it the K’s were more present than the vowels in the words. Also the first time Penny identified the “Guy” it was difficult to understand, it seemed she was only saying the G. Toward the end of class Penny started to overgeneralize. I can’t blame her after being asked “what’s this” or “what color is this” about a million and one times I would start to just say what I thought the person wanted to hear too. Many times Penny would identify an object or photo as lion and then make the sound of a lion. Penny had a great grasp of understanding novel sentences. When asked if she wanted to try a toy she was extremely responsive and when asked to share she was clear that she was not interested.