LINGUIST List 3.165

Thu 20 Feb 1992

FYI: Galician, Phonics, CAL

Editor for this issue: <>

Directory

1. Margaret E. Winters, Galician
2. Dominic Berducci, Re: 3.146 Queries: Gangs, Phonics, Place Names, Replicability
3. (ominic Berducci, hooked on phonics
4. "Bruce E. Nevin", phonics
5. Letticia Galindo, Re: 3.137 Queries: Like, Swahili/Yoruba, ESL
6. , RE: 3.151 Proto-World

For information on Galician and what is being published about
it, see the yearly bibliography issue of the "Comparative
Romance Linguistics Newsletter", published every spring through
the Comparative Linguistics discussion group of the MLA. I don't
have a current mailing address at home, but if anyone wants it,
I'll be glad to post it from my office during the week.

 Margaret Winters

Message 2: Re: 3.146 Queries: Gangs, Phonics, Place Names, Replicability

Hooked on Phonics

It may work for adults who cannot read and who know the content and
context of words. But for children it appears to allow them to
'read' sounds or replicate sounds.

It depends what you mean by reading. If you beleive readers interact
with text rather than decode sound/meaning relationships then
"Hooked on Phonics" does not work

Dom Berducci----berduccilinc.cis.upenn.edu

I too have heard the radio ads for "Hooked on Phonics," which
aim to strike at our fears of a literacy crisis. They encourage
the presumably illiterate adult audience (else why listen to radio?)
to call a phone number which requires, ironically, a knowledge of
the beginnings of the alphabet and promise what all the other
quick-fix language ads over the years have promised: to make you
(the sucker) who always feared you were worse than everyone else
and whose language use continually reinforced that fear, finally
just as good as your rivals and peers. You may have heard as well
the ads for tapes that will improve your vocabulary (They begin,
"People judge you by the words you use..." or something of the
like)-- which you can listen to in your car while you're stuck
in traffic (nothing to memorize, nothing to read--another quick
fix for a major malaise).

If I'm not mistaken, H-O-Ph does something like make sounds into
songs, making reading fun (almost as fun as listening to the radio--
the station I've heard the commercial on is an all-news Chicago
station).

And the NCTE I believe has come out with a strong denunciation of
the hucksterism involved in this particular program. No, I don't
know if it works, but I wouldn't bet on it or anything else sandwiched
between sound bites and competing ads for reconditioned copy machines
and basement de-waterers. Context, as we know from reading, is all!

Dennis Baron debaronuiuc.edu
Dept. of English office: 217-244-0568
University of Illinois messages: 217-333-2392
608 S. Wright St fax: 217-333-4321
Urbana IL 61801

> LRUDOLPHvax.clarku.edu

On Phonics vs. visual recognition of word shapes, the two methods seem
to be complementary and both necessary to optimum pedagogy. See Marilyn
Adams' book surveying the issues, published last year.

	Bruce Nevin
	bnbbn.com

Message 5: Re: 3.137 Queries: Like, Swahili/Yoruba, ESL

TO THE FELLOW NEEDING INFO ON CAL--THE ADDRESS IS

CENTER FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS
1118 22ND ST., NW
WASHINGTON, DC 20022
(202)429-9292

Message 6: RE: 3.151 Proto-World

The "bow-wow" and other ding-dong origin theories are mentioned in Max Muller's
late 19th disagreements with Darwin's remarks on language origins in Origin of
Species. Muller, I believe,was being sarcastically skeptical of the idea that
human language could have been distilled from the cries of animals and the song
dialects of birds Darwin mentions. I don't have a specific reference
handy but they are in
 Limber, J. (1982). What can chimps tell us about the origins of language
. In S.Kuczaj (Ed.), Language Development: Volume 2 (pp. 429-446). Hillsdale,
 NJ: L. E. Erlbaum.

Its been quite while and I don't recall if Muller himself concocted these
or just used them.