This weblog is where I will be posting any blog updates having to do with:
- the English language (taken as a whole)
- the Japanese language (taken as a whole)
- other specific languages (taken as wholes)
- English linguistics
- the theory of linguistics (as applicable to many languages, including English, Japanese, and Chinese)
- Japanese linguistics, especially the aspects which do not have exact corollaries in English (e.g. Japanese onomatopoeia) or which are in stark contrast with English linguistics (and therefore amusing to this blogger) (e.g. SOV vs. SVO sentence patterns, implicitly understood Present/Future verb tense in Japanese vs. two separate verb tenses in English, "make me do it" = "let me do it", both in how it's written and in how it's pronounced, in Japanese but not in English)
With regards to linguistics, anything is fair game but keep in mind who your readers are going to be! I have taken courses in linguistics, but this is rather like saying I have taken courses in psychology or in creative writing. Those do not make me qualified to prescribe psychoactive drugs or to write the next great American novel; and neither does my exposure to linguistics in college qualify me to teach it to others. If you are more well-trained in linguistics than I am, I heartily welcome your input. Just try to put it into simpler or less-technical terms for myself and for my other readers.
Some examples of "fair game":
- we can discuss phonemes, we can discuss syntax, we can discuss the evolution of language in the human brain (from embryo to child to adult), ... on and on it goes. Pretty much anything you'd find in the Table of Contents of a college text on linguistics is fair game. ;) In fact, let's use Wikipedia's own table of contents as a very good starting ground:
Generative linguistics: Phonology · Morphology · Syntax · Lexis · Semantics · Pragmatics
Comparative linguistics: Etymology · Historical linguistics · Phonetics · Sociolinguistics
I love all of these. :) I admit I'm especially fond of phonology, syntax, etymology, and historical linguistics, but there's not a one in that list that I could say I dislike doing problem sets for or discussing in a group of like-minded individuals. I love linguistics. :)
- feel free to write out examples in IPA. I encourage all of my readers to learn IPA. And I could do with a refresher course myself! I will do my best to lead by example. However, I do ask that you try to present an English homophone beside any words you write first in IPA. For example, if you write the word "bought" in IPA, and we were discussing dialectal differences between NYC and Indiana, it would be prudent to inform the reader that this word does rhyme with "caught" but does not rhyme with "cot." The New Yorker will agree, the Hoosier will become confused, and learning proceeds from there. Better than any script, though, is actually SPEAKING the sound you wish to convey! To that end, I will be using my microphone quite frequently when I blog here. I encourage you to do the same.
