VARIETIES OF ENGLISH: SOUTH AFRICAN ENGLISH

It is amazing to realize how human societies acquire and use a language in order to develop themselves according to their specific needs. Here is a summary of the history, use, vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation of this language variety of English, currently used by about 2.7 million people in the country.
And last but not least! To put theory into practice, don't miss this inspiring video where we can listen to one of South African English most relevant speakers, Nobel Prize winner for Peace, Nelson Mandela, talking about a topic so relevant to our current situation: "the importance of humility".

STANDARD VS NON-STANDARD ENGLISH

Another interesting linguistic issue is the value of standar and non-standard varieties of English.

Here is an interesting speech by Professor David Crystal on the subject. Don't miss it!

ENGLISH AND WORLD ENGLISHES

In this interesting video, professor David Crystal talks about the evolution variation and adaptation of English and by extention of any language. Don't miss it!

JACQUES DERRIDA EXPLAINS WHAT DECONSTRUCTION IS.

In modern Critical and Literary Theory, the work of  Jacques Derrida shed light on interesting aspects such as the relationship between language, thought and even ethics. Here's a good summary of one of his most famous assertions: There is nothing outside the text.

And in the video below, we'll see how Derrida himselfs defines Deconstruction:

JACQUES DERRIDA ON WRITING "OF GRAMMATOLOGY"

In this interesting video, the philosopher explains his truly exceptional epiphany when writing his masterpiece "Of Grammatology", where he discussed the work of writers such as Claude Lévi-Strauss, Ferdinand de Saussure, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Étienne Condillac, Louis Hjelmslev, Martin Heidegger, Edmund Husserl, Roman Jakobson, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, André Leroi-Gourhan, and William Warburton.

THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR?

"The Death of the Author" (French: La mort de l'auteur) is a 1967 essay by the French literary critic and theorist Roland Barthes (1915–1980). Barthes' essay argues against traditional literary criticism's practice of incorporating the intentions and biographical context of an author in an interpretation of a text, and instead argues that writing and creator are unrelated. The title is a pun on Le Morte d'Arthur, a 15th-century compilation of smaller Arthurian legend stories, written by Sir Thomas Malory. 
A really interesting view that challenged traditional literary criticism and theory, read this summary from the Wikipedia and watch the following video. 

LANGUAGE VARIETIES: JAMAICA, AN EXAMPLE OF THE EVOLUTION OF ENGLISH IN THE CARIBBEAN

The evolution of languages goes hand in hand with the evolution of the people who live in a certain area and follow certain stages. 

The varieties of English spoken in the West Indies give us a fascinating insight into the way languages emerge and evolve when people from different origins come into contact and find a way to communicate. Read this interesting article and learn new concepts such as pidgin or creole to understand much better the human process of communication!

IS THE SYNTAX OF LANGUAGE SIMILAR TO A COMPUTATIONAL SYSTEM?

What does an optimal communicational system have in common with a computational system? What are the core syntactic principles of language? Wow! Interesting question.
Listen to Institute Professor & Professor of Linguistics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology Noam Chomsky talking on this interesting topic: human cognitive nature, which in its properties is similar to a snowflake.

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OLD ENGLISH ROMANTIC POETRY: WULF AND EADWACER

Love poetry isn't a modern thing at all and nor are the plots! Let's go back in time to the beginnings of Old English Literature, to the Exeter Book, written during the period between the 8th and the 10th century, let's read and listen in Old English to  this poem, a woman's song, she is lamenting being apart from her lover Wulf, possibly by the doings of her husband Eadwacer. Click here to read the text and translation of this  Old English love triangle!
" Leodum is minum   swylce him mon lac gife;       It is to my people as if someone gave them a gift.        willað hy hine aþecgan,   gif he on þreat cymeð. They want to kill him, if he comes with a troop.
Ungelic is us.                                                             It is different for us.
 Wulf is on iege,  ic on oþerre.   "                            Wulf is on one island I on another.  

THREE SECRETS YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT SPOKEN ENGLISH!

To improve you pronunciation and listening skills, there are three secrets to take into account:

1.ENGLISH IS A STRESS-BASED LANGUAGE
2.LINKING
3.COLLOCATIONS

Don't miss professor Judy Thomson's Ted Talk!

DO WE THINK IN WORDS? FIND THE ANSWER IN...IBIZA !

The nature of thoughts is still a mistery! However, research is unveiling more and more clues to answer eternal questions such as this one. If you want to know more, travel to Ibiza (my dear homeland) with some BBC journalists, click on this BBC link,  and find out the answer.

Don't forget that this BBC website, called, Crowd science, has  great podcasts and clips, with lots of answers for you to quench your thirst for knowledge!
And if you want to practice your English with lots of people from different corners of the world, save some time to visit our island this summer and enjoy its gorgeus heritage, crystal-clear beacches, cosmopolitan atmosphere and hospitaly of its people! You'll be welcome!

STANDARD AND NON-STANDARD LANGUAGE

With his habitually clear and direct style, Professor David Crystal sheds light on our concepts of what standard and non-standard English are. Should we expect standard English to be universal? 

WHY ARE HUMANS SO SMART? HAS THIS SOMETHING TO DO WITH LANGUAGE? FASCINATING!

Why are we so smart?  (supposing we are smart, of course :)
Listen to Professor StevenPinker's lecture addressing such fascinating topics such as evolution, cognition, language and cooperation, on occasion of the bi-centenary of the publication of Darwin's "The Origin of the Species".

HOW DO WE DECIDE WHAT'S RELEVANT IN OUR CONVERSATIONS?

The answer: we pick up what is really reeeeeelevant!
Relevance theory may be seen as an attempt to work out in detail one of Grice’s central claims: that an essential feature of most human communication is the expression and recognition of intentions (Grice 1989: Essays 1-7, 14, 18; Retrospective Epilogue). In elaborating this claim, Grice laid the foundations for an inferential model of communication, an alternative to the classical code model.

JOHANNES GUTENBERG AND THE PRINTING PRESS

The invention of the printing press was such an important turning point in world history that I think it well deserves a post on this blog. How did it work? how did this new invention and its introduction in Britain in 1476 influence the dissemination of London English?  What were its consequences not only Europe, but in the whole world? Click here to read more and watch this video: 

MANNERS MAKETH MAN: LANGUAGE, FACE AND POLITENESS

The quote by William Horman (1440-1535) Manners maketh man has reminded us of the importance of manners and politeness for centuries! In Pragmatics, these concepts were borrowed and a Politeness  Theory was formulated. It concerns the nature of politeness and how it functions in interaction and inlcudes politeness strategies. Here's an excellent summary

MEANING BEYOND SENTENCES: IMPLICATURES, ENTAILMENT AND PRESUPPOSITIONS

These  three concepts play a fundamental role in the negotiation of meaning: let's take a sentence  "Are you married?" the implied meaning would be totally different in different situations! Can you think of any? And the presuppositions would be totally different too; let alone the consequences!

Entail is defined as   "to cause or involve by necessity or as a consequence"

If you are interested in Linguistics and the secrets of meaning, I suggest you  watch this video by the Lingspace with lots of examples.

HOW FAR IN TIME COULD WE GO AND STILL UNDERSTAND ENGLISH?

Good question! If you are a student of the History of English or you's simply interested, watch this video and your questions will be answered with plenty of good examples:

EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION? SOMETIMES

In spite of what we saw in my previous post, communication is sometimes far from being that efficient, therefore, when the Conversational Maxims are flouted, the situation can turn quite problematic or really amusing, like  our Big Bang favourite characters show us in this video:

COOPERATION IN CONVERSATION TO ACHIEVE EFFICIENT COMMUNICATION!

In social science generally and linguistics specifically, the cooperative principle describes how effective communication in conversation is achieved in common social situations, that is, how listeners and speakers must act cooperatively and mutually accept one another to be understood in a particular way. As phrased by Paul Grice, who introduced it, "Make your contribution such as it is required, at the stage at which it occurs, by the accepted purpose or direction of the talk exchange in which you are engaged (read more .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle)

Here's how the lingspace channel tells us the details: