LINGUIST List 4.90

Fri 12 Feb 1993

Qs: Asian languages, Martinet, On-line Interaction, Jokes

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Directory

1. "Amy Uhrbach", Asian languages request
2. , A Query
3. lc22, Query
4. Robert Lew, query: jokes

I'm looking for decent grammars of Korean, Cambodian, and Vietnamese, in
English please. I expecially need sections on ortho- and phonotactics, or
possible combinations of sounds/letters, but I'm willing to slog through
grammars to get them. Any help would be appreciated! Email replies to
amy.uhrbachoffice.wang.com. Thanks!

 A friend of a student of mine wants to know whether A. Martinet's Economie
 des changements phonetiques has been translated into English or German.
 If it hasn't, does anyone know any book or paper -- in English or German,
 please -- through which she can learn Martinet's theory of phonetic change?

 Thank you.
 --
 Kazuto MATSUMURA
 G00814sinet.ad.jp
 ---------------------------------------------------------
 ILCAA, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies
 Nishigahara 4-51-21, Kita-ku, TOKYO 114 JAPAN
 tel: +81-3-3917-6111, ext. 488 fax: +81-3-3910-0613
 ---------------------------------------------------------

I am involved in research which explores on-line interaction (for now,
via electronic mail) between adults and children. The exchanges that I am
studying are of an educational nature, but are not traditional in terms of
the roles that the "teachers" and "students" play in them.

For example, I studied how people preparing to be teachers interacted with
elementary school children when the preservice teachers impersonated the
characters from the books that the children were reading by electronic
mail. I examined that discourse in terms of the functions of language
(Halliday) that were represented in the messages from both teachers and
students.

Now, I am beginning to study the exchanges that occur between subject
matter experts and primary, middle school, and secondary studenst and
their teachers. I would like to know if there are any published discourse
analysis protocols that I would find helpful in analyzing their electronic
mail conversations, especially those that might help me to understand the
nature of the communication that is occurring, and compare it with
published studies that explore similar questions about interaction in the
traditional K-12 classroom setting.

If you have recommendations/references on appropriate analysis protocols
and/or related research, I would be *very* appreciative if you would email
those references to me at the address listed below. PLEASE NOTE: I am
not a member of this list; please do not respond to the list itself, but to
me at: JBHarrisTenet.edu

Thanks in advance for any and all assistance that any of you are willing
to offer!

 Judi Harris
 Department of Curriculum & Instruction
 University of Texas at Austin
 Internet address: JBHarrisTenet.edu

I am looking for pairs (or bigger sets) of jokes satisfying the
following conditions:

1) The punch line contains an example of linguistic ambiguity (of
any kind).
2) This linguistic ambiguity in the two jokes is the same.
3) The build-up, or what precedes the focus of ambiguity, is
different in the two jokes.

 Here is an example:

JOKE 1:

A teacher of English was to teach a course in English grammar at
the local jail. Having had no previous experience with such
unusual students, he was rather uncertain about how he should
begin. Unfortunately, his final choice could hardly have been
less felicitous. He said, "Well, I hope all of you have an idea
of what a sentence is."

JOKE 2:

Teacher: "So, does anyone know what the word 'matrimony' means?"
Johnny: "Excuse me, sir, but my father says it's not a word.
It's a sentence."

 In both jokes above we have basically the same ambiguity:

sentence 'punishment'
 versus
sentence 'unit of syntax,'

but the build-ups are different.

 I have a strong feeling of having encountered other pairs of
this kind, but this is about the only one I've been able to
retrieve so far.

 Can you help?
 Even a single contribution would be very valuable to me.
Please reply directly to:

 Robert Lew, rlewemunix.emich.edu