BEHIND THE WORDS

VIDEO Nº1: The Inspector needs "a flawless American accent" This is so funny that Inspector Clouseau can not say "I would like to buy a hamburger" in the 2006 movie version of Pink Panther starring Steve Martin. Inspector Clouseau went to America in pursuit of the most world famous American food: the Hamburger. Due to his poor English, the Frenchman Clouseau decided to quickly improve it. However, it is impossible for him to pronounce the words as a native speaker. Both speakers, the teacher and the French man are using forms associated with Standard English, but have different pronunciations. According to George Yule, these differences in pronunciation have to do with their dialects. VIDEO Nº2: Student 'dialects'? This is a scene from the Sketch Show where a group of students, all with a fatal flaw with their writing, attempt to form a study group. It is very clear to see the difference between gendered speech, for example, men seem to "

George Yule has worked as an English teacher in Britain, Canada, Jamaica, and Saudi Arabia. He has also taught Applied Linguistics in the Universities of Edinburgh, Hawaii, Louisiana State and Minnesota. He is the author of several books with Oxford University Press, including Pragmatics , Explaining English Grammar , Focus on the Language Learner and The Study of Language. On his latter book, the author presents information in bite-sized sections, clearly explaining the major concepts in linguistic, from how children learn language to why men and women speak differently through all the key elements of language. These are my study notes on the last three chapters of this book: CHAPTER 18: "REGIONAL VARIATION IN LANGUAGE" The Standard Language: It is an idealized variety associated with administrative, commercial and educational centers, regardless of region. If we think of Stardard English, it is the variety we normally try to teach to those who want to lear

WHAT IS "ACADEMIC" WRITING? According to L. Lennie Irvin, most people who arrive at college or university often fear the unknown and have misconceptions about what "Academic" Writing is. The author claims that after their freshman years, students have half-baked ideas about what they are doing when they write an essay. At the very worst, some of them have no clear idea at all.  L. Lennie Irvin points out the importance of developing a "writer´s sense" within the writing situation. In writing, learners are separated from the audience in place and time so they must create a context. As their words are silent, they need to use punctuation and word choice to communicate their tone. Furthermore, students need to develop researching skills, complex text reading ability, key disciplinary concepts understanding, and some strategies for synthesizing, analizing and responding critically to new information. This context must be physical, social and cultur

The study of discourse and context has been gaining popularity in recent years such as semantics and pragmatics. One main point of the context is the environment in which a discourse occurs. The book “Discourse and Context in Language Teaching (A Guide for Language Teachers)” by Celce-Murcia & Olshtain recommends language teachers to incorporate an awareness of discourse and pragmatics in their teaching if they wish to implement a communicative approach in their classrooms. The following is a summary of the four main skills which are presented in this book.

Thesis Statement: The Backbone to your Essay A Thesis Statement is a single, specific claim that your essay supports. Also, it determines what kind of paper you are writing and it appears at the end of the first paragraph of your essay. It includes: a topic or subject , your opinion about it and the reasons that support your claim.  First, the topic refers to what your paper will deal with. It must be clear and narrow.  Second, the claim is what you think about the topic. You should research to help you if you do not know much about the subject, Finally, the blueprint of reasons are the three points that will persuade your readers to believe your claim. They can be listed at the end or at the beginning of the Thesis Statement. Another possibility is to list them in the sentence after the Thesis Statement. Later, you will expand on each detail in the body of the essay. To conclude, a Thesis Statement is an arguable statement, it means that some people will agree