Query Details
| Query Subject: |
Berlin & Kay & ESL for children
|
|
| Author: | Steven Schaufele | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Query: |
Dear Colleagues, In my Intro to General Linguistics course the other day, we were discussing the Berlin & Kay hierarchy of colour terms, and one of my students mentioned an interesting experience. She has a part-time job teaching English to young (pre-school) children here in Taipei, and she's noticed -- repeatedly, she says -- that it's easier for them to learn the words `black', `white', and `red' than words like `purple', `gray', or `brown'. Noticing that the first three words refer to concepts high on the Berlin & Kay hierarchy -- and therefore, hypothetically, of nearly universal significance -- while the second group occur quite low on the hierarchy, she wondered if there migh be some connection between her experience and the facts upon which Berlin & Kay's hierarchy was originally based. (Be it noted here that Chinese recognizes 10 of Berlin & Kay's 11 `basic' colours; the one that English has that Chinese doesn't have is pink.) Has anybody else had a similar experience in foreign-language teaching -- found that words referring to the first few items on the Berlin-Kay hierarchy are easier for (especially young) learners to master than those farther down the list? And has any research been done on possible correlations between 2LA (or 1LA, for that matter) and the Berlin-Kay hierarchy? If there's sufficient interest, i'll post a summary of responses. Best, Steven Steven Schaufele (Ph.D.) Assoc. Prof. (Linguistics) English Dept., Soochow University Waishuanghsi Campus Shihlin Distric Taipei 11102, Taiwan |
|
| LL Issue: | 15.752 | |
| Date posted: | 02-Mar-2004 | |
|
Back |
||
|
|
||
|
Sums main page
|
||
|
About LINGUIST
|
Contact Us
|
Report Broken Link
While the LINGUIST List makes every effort to ensure the linguistic relevance of sites listed on its pages, it cannot vouch for their contents. |
|
