Clara Jean Juanzo

LET Reviewer for English Majors

1. I.  Linguistics

1.    Scope of  Linguistic Studies

1.    Phonology – studies the combination of sounds into organized units of speech, the combination of syllables and larger units.

2.    Phoneme is a distinctive, contrasted sound unit, e.g. /b/, /æ/, /g/.  It is the smallest unit of sound of any language that causes a difference in meaning.

3.    Allophones are variants or other ways of producing a phoneme.

1.    Phonetics – studies language at the level of sounds: how sounds are articulated by the human speech mechanism.

2.    Morphology – studies the patterns of forming words by combining sounds into minimal distinctive units of meanings called morphemes.

3.    Morpheme is a short segment of language which  (1) is a word or word part that has meaning, (2) cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violating its meaning, (3) recurs in different words with a relatively stable meaning.

4.    Allomorphs – are morphs which belong to the same morpheme e.g., /s/, /z/, and /ez/ of the plural morpheme /s/ or /es/.

5.    Free morphemes can stand on their own as independent words, e.g., beauty  in beautifully, like in unlikely. Thus, they can occur in isolation.

6.    Bound morphemes cannot stand on their own as independent words. These morphemes are also called as affixes.

7.    Inflectional morphemes never change the form class of the words or morphemes to which they are attached. They show person, tense, number, case, and degree.

8.    Derivational morphemes are added to root morphemes or stems to derive new words.

1.    Syntax – deals with how words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences, and studies the way phrases, clauses, and sentences are constructed.

2.    Structure of predication –refers to the two components : subject and predicate

3.    Structure of complementation – has two basic elements : verbal and complement

4.    Structure of modification – includes two components : head word and modifier

5.    Structure of coordination – covers two components : equivalent grammatical units

1.    Semantics – attempts to analyze the structure of meaning in language and deals with the level of meaning in language.

1.    Lexical ambiguity – refers to the characteristic of a word that has more than one meaning.

2.    Syntactic ambiguity – refers to the characteristic of a phrase that has more than one meaning e.g. Filipino teacher.

4.    Pragmatics – deals with the contextual aspects of meaning in particular situations ; studies how language is used in real communication.

1.    Speech act theory – advances that every utterance consists of three separate acts (1) locutionary force – an act of saying something and describes what a speaker says, (2) illocutionary force – the act of doing something and what the speaker intends to do by uttering a sentence, and (3) perlocutionary act – an act of affecting someone; the effect on the hearer of what a speaker says.

2.    Categories of illocutionary acts – refers to categories proposed by John Searle to group together closely related intentions for saying something:

• Representative – stating, asserting, denying, confessing, admitting, notifying, concluding, predicting, etc.
• Directive – requesting, ordering, forbidding, warning, advising, suggesting, insisting, recommending, etc.
• Question –asking, inquiring, etc.
• Commissive – promising, vowing, volunteering, offering, guaranteeing, pledging, betting, etc.
• Expressive – apologizing, thanking, congratulating, condoling, welcoming, deploring, objecting, etc.
• Declaration – appointing, naming, resigning, baptizing, surrendering, excommunicating, arresting, etc.

1. Discourse – studies chunks of language which are bigger than a single sentence.
2.  Language Views / Theories of  Language

1.    The Structuralists support the idea that language can be described in terms of observable and verifiable data as it is being used.

1.    Language is a means of communication.

2.    Language is primarily vocal

3.    Language is a system of systems.

4.    Language is arbitrary.

5.    The Transformationalists believe that language is a system of knowledge made manifest in linguistic forms but innate and, in its most abstract form universal.

1.    Language is a mental phenomenon. It is not mechanical.

2.    Language is innate. Children acquire their first language because they have a language acquisition device (LAD) in their brain.

3.    Language is universal: all normal children learn a mother tongue, all languages share must share key features like sounds and rules.

4.    Language is creative and enables speakers to produce and understand sentences they have not heard nor used before.

6.    The Functionalists advocates that language is a dynamic system through which members of a community exchange information. It is a vehicle for the expression of functional meaning such as expressing one’s emotions, persuading people, asking and giving information, etc.

• They emphasize the meaning and functions rather than the grammatical characteristics of language.

1. The Interactionists believe that language is a vehicle for establishing interpersonal relations and for performing social transactions between individuals.

• Language teaching content may be specified and organized by patterns of exchange and interaction.

1. Language Acquisition / Theories of Language Learning

1.    Behaviorist learning theory – the language behavior of an individual is conditioned by sequences of differential rewards in his/her environment.

According to Littlewood (1984), the process of habit formation includes the following :

1. Children imitate the sounds and patterns which they hear around them.
2. People recognize the child’s attempts as being similar to the adult models and reinforce (reward) the sounds by approval or some other desirable reaction.
3. In order to obtain more of these rewards, the child repeats the sounds and patterns so that these become habits.
4. In this way t he child’s verbal behavior is conditioned (‘shaped’) until the habits coincide with adult models.

• Behavioralists see three crucial elements of learning: (1) a stimulus, which serves to elicit behavior, (2) a response triggered by the stimulus, and (3) reinforcement which serves to mark the response as being appropriate and encourages the repetition of the response.

1. Cognitive learning theory.  Noam Chomsky believes that all normal human beings have an inborn biological internal mechanism that makes language learning possible.

• Cognitivists / innatists ‘ mentalists account of second language acquisition include hypothesis testing, a process of formulating rules and testing the same with competent speakers of the target language.

1. Krashen’s Monitor Model (1981).This is the most comprehensive theory in second language acquisition. It consists of five central hypotheses.

1.    The acquisition / learning hypothesis – claims that there are two ways of developing competence in L2:

Acquisition – the subconscious process that results from informal, natural communication between people where language is a means, not a focus nor an end in itself.

Learning – the conscious process of knowing about language and being able to talk about it, that occurs in a more formal situation where the properties of a language are taught

1. The natural order hypothesis suggests that grammatical structures are acquired in a predictable order for both children and adults _ certain grammatical structures are acquired before others, irrespective of the language being learned.
2. The monitor hypothesis claims that conscious learning of grammatical rules has an extremely limited function in language performance: as a monitor or editor that checks output.
3. The input hypothesis. Krashen proposes that when learners are exposed to grammatical features a little beyond their current level those features are acquired.
4. The affective filter hypothesis. Filter consists of attitude to language, motivation, self-confidence and anxiety. Learners with a low affective filter seek and receive more input, interact with confidence, and are more receptive to the input they are exposed to.

• Teachers must continuously deliver at a level understandable by learners
• Teaching must prepare the learners for real life communication situations
• Teachers must ensure that learners do not become anxious or defensive in language learning.
• Formal grammar teaching is of limited value because it contributes to learning rather than acquisition

1. Language Teaching Implications

1.    Language theories provide some basis for a particular teaching method or approach.

• Structuralism / behaviorism has produced the audiolingual method (ALM), oral approach / situational language teaching, bottom-up text processing, controlled-to-free writing.

1. The cognitive learning theory results to the cognitive approach that puts language analysis before language use and instruction by the teacher, before the students practice forms.

• Learning as a thinking process gives birth to cognitive-based and schema-enhancing strategies such as Directed Reading Thinking Activity, Story Grammar, Think-Aloud, etc.

1. The functional view of language introduced methods which are learner-centered, allowing learners to work in pairs or groups in information gap tasks and problem-solving activities where such communication strategies as information sharing, negotiation of meaning, and interaction are used.

• These communication-based methods include the Communicative  Language Teaching / Communicative Approach, Notional-Functional Approach, Natural Approach

1. Cognitive – affective has given rise to a holistic approach to language learning or whole person learning. It also includes the humanistic approach, allowing learners vocabulary for expressing, sharing and understanding one’s feelings, values, and needs.

• The humanistic techniques cover Community Language Learning.

1. II.             Literature
2. Goals of Teaching Literature

1.    Develop and/or extend literary competence. Jonathan Culler defines literary competence as the ability to internalize the ‘grammar’  of literature which would permit a reader to convert linguistic sequences into literary structures and meaning.

2.    Develop and/or enhance learners’ imagination and creativity.

3.    Develop students’ character and emotional maturity.

4.    Develop creative thinking.

5.    Develop literary appreciation and refine one’s reading taste.

1. Methods in Teaching Literature

1.    Lecture Methods : formal, informal, straight recitation

2.    Discussion Methods : pair work, buzz group, group work

3.    Public Speaking Methods : memorizing, interpretive reading (Readers Theater, Chamber Theater), debate, panel forum

4.    Audio-Visual Methods : using slides, transparencies, film, vcd, dvd,

5.    Project Methods : scrapbook making, exhibit/diorama, dramatization, literary map, time line, video/audio scriptwriting

6.    Field Research Methods : field trip, author interview

7.    Creative Writing Methods : journal writing, closure writing, team writing,  writing workshop

2. Some Strategies and Techniques in Teaching Literature

1.    Show and Tell and  Blurb Writing– using the title and cover design

2.    Movie Poster and Movie Trailer – transforming a literary piece into film

3.    Writing Chapter Zero / Epilogue – writing a prequel or sequel

4.    Mock Author Interview – assigning a student to play the role of the author

5.    Biographical Montage – compiling authentic materials about the author

6.    Graphic Representations – using sketching or other visual representations

7.    Sculpting – making a tableau or montage

8.    Creative Conversation, Speech Balloons, or Thought Bubbles – supplying dialogues

9.    Worksheets – completing grids or writing responses

10.  Transforms – translating or turning a piece into another genre

1. Literary Criticism – involves the reading, interpretation and commentary of a specific text or texts which have been designated as literature. Literary criticism is the application of a literary theory to specific texts. Literary theory identifies what makes literary language literary and the function of literary text in social and cultural terms.

1.    Classical Literary Theory –literature is an imitation of life.

1.    Mimesis (Plato) – literature is an imitation of life.

2.    Dulce et utile (Horace) – function of literature is to entertain or to teach/instruct

3.    Sublime (Longinus) – style may be low, middle, high, or sublime

4.    Catharsis (Aristotle) – purgation of negative emotions of fear and pity

5.    Historical – Biographical and Moral – Philosophical Approaches

a. A literary work is a reflection of its author’s life and times or the life and times of the characters in the work.

b. It emphasizes that literature functions to teach morality and to probe philosophical issues.

1. Romantic Theory. William Wordsworth articulated it in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads as literature which should

a. have a subject matter that is ordinary and commonplace

b. use simple language, even aspiring to the language of prose

c. make use of the imagination

d. convey a primal, simple, uncomplicated feeling

e. present similitude in dissimilitude (similarities in differences)

1. New Criticism – believes that literature is an organic unity. To use this theory, one proceeds by looking into the following : the persona, the addressee, the situation (where and when), what the persona says, the central metaphor (tenor and vehicle), the central irony, the multiple meaning of words.
2. Psychoanalytical Theory – applies Freudian psychoanalytic ideas to literature.

a. It looks into the character’s or author’s motivations, drives, fears, desires.

b. It believes that creative writing is like dreaming – it disguises what cannot be confronted directly – the critic must decode what is disguised.

1. Mythological  / Archetypal Approach – is based on Carl Jung’s theory of collective unconscious.

a. Repeated or dominant images or patterns of human experience are identified in the text.

b. It also uses Northrop Frye’s assertion that literature consists of variations on a great mythic theme that contains the following : (1) the garden : the creation of life in paradise, (2) alienation : displacement or banishment from paradise, (3) journey : a time of trial and tribulation, (4) epiphany : a self-discovery as a result of struggle, (4) rebirth / resurrection : a return to paradise.

1. Structuralist Literary Theory – comes from the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure which recognizes language as a system or structure. To Vladimir Propp and Tzvetan Todorov , structuralism should identify the general principles of literary structure and not to provide interpretations of individual texts. Three dimensions in individual literary texts :

a. the text as a particular system or structure in itself (naturalization of a text)

b. texts are unavoidably influenced by other texts (intertextuality)

c. the text is related to the culture as a whole (binary oppositions)

1. Deconstruction – interrogates our common practices in reading and exposes the gaps, incoherences, the contradictions in a discourse and how the text undermine itself or how a text contradicts itself. Deconstruction draws much from the works of Jacques Derrida. The process involves

a. identifying the oppositions in the text

b. determining which member is favored/privileged and looking for evidence that contradicts it

c. exposing the text’s indeterminancy

1. Russian Formalism – led by Viktor Shklovsky – aims to establish a ‘science of literature’ and discover the literariness of a text by highlighting the devices and technical elements used by the author. These elements should include :
2. baring the device – e.g. distorting time in various ways – foreshortening, skipping, expanding, transposing, reversing, flashback, flashforward, etc.
3. defamiliarization – this means making strange and using fresh ways of describing things
4. retardation of the narrative – the technique of delaying and protracting actions by using digressions, displacements, extended descriptions, etc.
5. naturalization – refers to  how we endlessly become inventive in finding ways of making sense of the most random or chaotic utterances or discourse.
6. carnivalization – Mikhail Bakhtin used this term to describe the shaping effect of carnival on literary texts. The festivities associated with the carnival are collective and popular; hierarchies are turned on their heads (fools become wise; kings become beggars); opposites are mingled (fact and fantasy, heaven and hell); the sacred is profaned; the rigid or serious is subverted, mocked or loosened.

1.    Marxist Literary Theory. It aims to explain literature relation to society – that literature can only be properly understood within a larger framework of social reality. Marxist literary critics would like to look at the structure of history and society and then investigate whether the literary work reflects or distorts this structure. They insist that literature has a social dimension – it exists in time and space, in history and society. Moreover, writers are constantly formed by their social contexts and social class.

2.    Feminist Criticism. Branching out from Marxism, it is a political discourse; a critical and  theoretical practice committed to the struggle against patriarchy and sexism.

a. Feminism asks why women played a subordinate role to men in society.

It studies the male-dominated canon to understand how men have used culture to further their domination of women.

b. It studies literature by women for how it addresses or expresses the particularity of women’s life and experience. Feminist critics insist that women’s experience is different from men’s.

1. 12.   Postcolonial Criticism. Postcolonialism refers to the independence enjoyed by Third World countries after the decline of colonial rule by imperialist powers. The many concerns of postcolonial criticism includes the following :

a.  attempt to resurrect their national culture and to combat the misconceptions about their culture

b. dramatize the colonial experience and their response to it

c. escape from the implicit body of assumptions to which the language of the colonizing power, English,  was attached.

d. study diasporic texts outside the usual Western genres, especially works by aboriginal authors, marginalized ethnicities, immigrants, and refugees.

e. analyze nationality, ethnicity, and politics with poststructuralist ideas of identity and indeterminacy, and hybrid constructions (Homi K. Bhaba)

1. 13.   Post Modern Literary Theory. Postmodern refers to the culture of advanced capitalist societies, which has undergone a profound shift in the ‘structure of feeling.’ Postmodern texts have the following features :

a. fragmentation                                                            g. intertextuality

b. discontinuity                                                             h. decentering

c. indeterminacy                                                            i. dislocation

d. plurality                                                                      j. ludism

e. metafictionality                                                          k. parody

f. heterogeneity                                                             l. pastiche

1. III.            Linguistic Approaches to Reading
2. Bloomfield Approach – Leonard Bloomfield and Clarence Barnhart advocate that the child should be acquainted with the letters of the alphabet at the very start. The child should begin with capital letters and then go to small letters.
3. Fries Approach – Charles Fries’ basic concept : Learning to read in one’s native language is learning to shift, to transfer, from auditory signs for the language signals which the child has already learned to visual or graphic signs for the same signals for language perception. The aim is to develop high-speed recognition responses to English spelling patterns.
4. C.     Eclectic Approach

1.    Reading as interest – development of the recreational reading habit; the major approach is personalized or individualized reading.

2.    2.     Reading as language process

• Language Experience Approach – a strategy which views reading as an extension of speaking : thinking/experiencing, talking, writing, reading.
• Psycholinguistic Approach – view reading as an interaction of thought and language, a process of combining psychology and linguistics. This approach advances that reading, like listening, is a receptive process, used to understand a written message, that readers reconstruct the author’s meaning in their own words.

1. Reading as culture – focuses on the relation between dialect differences and the written message as well as on one’s cultural heritage. It makes instruction relevant to the pupil’s cultural background.
2. Reading as a learned process – emphasizes on controlled development of skills in a structured sequence progressing from simple to complex

• The Basal Textbook Approach – follows this general format : scope-and-sequence or flow chart for all an overall view of skills; kindergarten readiness workbooks; first grade, second grade and above skillbooks; teacher’s guides and assessment tests. The standard basal text lesson follows these steps:

(a)    background or motivation

(b)    vocal development

(c)    purposeful or guided silent reading

(d)   discussion

(e)    purposeful rereading

(f)     skill instruction in word recognition, comprehension skill with the use of workbooks

(g)   enrichment activities

• The Linguistic Approach – look at reading as recognizing and interpreting graphic symbols representing spoken sounds which have meaning. It stresses sound-symbol regularity and systematic exposure to frequently used sounding patterns.
• The Phonics Approach – believes that the English spelling system is essentially regular in its correspondence between letters and speech sounds and that letter sounds can be blended together to form words. For second language learners short phonics drills on crucial sounds like f, v, j, sh, th, z, a and the schwa are needed.
• Programmed Instruction – includes step-by-step learning, learning, immediate feedback, regular and constant review and individual progress through materials.
• The Skills Monitoring Approach – reading is analyzed in terms of skills arranged in hierarchies. This approach entails

(1) a scope and sequence chart of reading skills

(2) a battery of tests for preassessment of reading abilities

(3) based on test results, instruction to adjust to pupils’ interest, abilities, and needs

(4) a continuous assessment using both formative and summative tests

(5) a corrective or remedial measures

(6) an adequate and challenging enrichment activities for the bright pupils.

1. IV.            Stage and Speech Arts
2. Level / Context of Speech Communication

1.    Intrapersonal – involves only oneself.

• Internal discourse like thinking, analysis, contemplation, meditation
• Solo vocal communication like thinking aloud, soliloquies
• Solo written communication not intended for others like diaries, or personal journals

1. Interpersonal – involves an exchange between sender and receiver of a message. It may be direct (face-to-face) or indirect (via telephone, e-mail, teleconference)

• Dyadic communication ; two people talking
• Group communication ; study group, committee meetings
• Public communication ; scholarly lectures, political campaigns

1. B.     The Speech Arts

1.    Different types of public speech according to purpose

• Informative – to present facts, knowledge, information
• Persuasive – to reinforce or modify the audience’s beliefs
• Occasional or entertaining – to amuse the audience

1. How the speech is delivered

• Impromptu speech – delivered with little or no preparation
• Extemporaneous speech – delivered with some prepared structure such as notes or outlines
• Memorized speech – reciting speech from memory
• Manuscript speaking – reading the speech word-for-word from its written form or the manuscript

1. Types of oral interpretation

a. Solo interpretation

• Story telling – oral sharing of a personal or traditional story; it may be illustrative (using drawings) or creative / dramatic (using gestures and creative movements) for entertaining or educating
• Interpretative / interpretive reading – also called dramatic reading, oral reading, or reading aloud by using the elements of voice and diction to convey meaning and mood
• Declamation – recitation of a poem from memory and is marked by strong feelings
• Monologue – interpretative oral performance of prose or poetry in which the interpreter plays a role

                  b. Group interpretation

• Reading concert – also known as Readers Theatre- oral reading activity with speakers presenting literature in a dramatic form
• Chamber Theater – theatrical approach to performing narrative literature
• Speech Choir – also choral reading, choric interpretation, vocal orchestration – ensemble reading technique where a group of readers recite as one in coordinated voices and related interpretation : (1) reading in unison – several voices sound like one instrument, (2) solo and chorus – soloists recite lines and chorus recites refrains, (3) responsive reading – lines are recited alternately by solo or chorus

1. V.             Structure of English
2. Sentences. Every sentence must have both a subject and a verb.

1.    Three kinds of sentences

• A declarative sentence states a fact, e.g., “Connie loves Rommel.”
• An interrogative sentence asks a question, e.g., “Does Connie love Rommel?”
• An exclamatory sentence registers an exclamation, e.g., “Like, I mean, you know, like wow!”

1. Three basic structures

• A simple sentence makes one self-standing assertion, i.e., has one main clause, e.g., “Connie loves Rommel.”
• A compound sentence makes two or more self-standing assertions, i.e., has two main clauses, e.g., “Connie loves Rommel and Rommel enjoys it.”
• A complex sentence makes one self-standing assertion and one or more dependent assertions, subordinate clauses, dependent on the main clause, e.g., “Connie who has been desiring Rommel these twelve years, loves him, and Rommel, what’s more, still enjoys it.”

1. Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Relative Clauses

• A restrictive clause modifies directly, and so restricts the meaning of the antecedent it refers back to, e.g., “This is the girl that started all the fun.” One specific girl is intended. The relative clause is not set off by a comma.
• A nonrestrictive clause, though still a dependent clause, does not directly modify its antecedent and is set off by commas. “These girls, who came from Iloilo, are all sweet and charming.”

1. Appositives. An appositive is an amplifying word or phrase placed next to the term it refers to and set off by commas, e.g., “Henry VIII, a glutton for punishment, had six wives.

1. Basic Sentence Patterns (based on syntax)

1.    Parataxis – Phrases or clauses arranged independently, in a coordinate construction, and often without connectives, e.g., “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

2.    Hypotaxis – Phrases or clauses arranged in a dependent, subordinate relationship, e.g., “I came, and after I came and looked around a bit, I decided, well, why not, and so conquered.”

1. Asyndeton – Connectives are committed between words, phrases, or clauses, e.g., “I’ve been stressed, destressed, beat down, beat up, held down, held up, conditioned, reconditioned.”
2. Polysendeton – Connectives are always supplied between words, phrases, or clauses, as when Milton talks about Satan pursuing his way, “And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies.”
3. Periodic Sentence – is a long sentence with a number of elements, usually balanced or antithetical, standing in a clear syntactical relationship to each other. Usually it suspends the conclusion of the sense until the end of the sentence, and so is sometimes called asuspended syntax.
4. Loose Sentence –  a sentence whose elements are loosely related to one another, follow in no particularly antithetical climactic order, and do not suspend its grammatical completion until the close. A sentence so loose as to verge on incoherence is often called a run-onsentence.
5. Isocolon – the Greek word means, literally, syntactic units of equal length, and it is used in English to describe the repetition of phrases of equal length and corresponding structure, e.g., “Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink but in tears, not in pleasure but in passion, not in words only, but in woes also.”
6. Chiasmus – is the basic pattern of antithetical inversion, the AB:BA pattern. The best example is probably from John F. Kennedy’s first inaugural address: “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
7. Anaphora – begins a series of phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word. Churchill’s exhortation in 1940: “We have become the sole champion now in arms to defend the world cause. We shall do our best to be worthy of this high honor. We shall defend our island home, and with the British Empire we shall fight on unconquerable until the curse of Hitler is lifted from the brows of mankind. We are sure that in the end all will come right.”