Apling Word Web B

This Word Web shows the connection between the arts and the individual. I have chosen worship, language, and identity to portray the individual. In her article, Language, Identity, and the Ownership of English, Norton relates identity to desire and relationship. Desire can be for security or recognition or affiliation. Relationship is with the world, over time as well as space. For simplicity, my artistic rendering deals only with relationship. I see the individual as having relationships in three different directions: with God, with others, and with self. These relationships define an individual in context, and they have been expressed through the arts for thousands of years.

In the words of others, pondering the paradox that is applied linguistics…

Dance and philosophy
I would not know what the spirit of a philosopher might wish more to be than a good dancer.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, section 381
Dance and language
Dance is the hidden language of the soul.
Martha Graham
Our bodies speak a language of their own.
Ibrahim Farrah
Dance and poetry
The dance is a poem of which each movement is a word.
Mata Hari
Dance and the universe
Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances.
Maya Angelou
Dance and music
Those who dance are considered insane by those who can't hear the music.
George Carlin
Dance is the music made visible.
Morocco
Dance and teaching
To dance is to share- to share is to teach.
Selayma

I have taken dance as an example and shown through the reflections of others how it connects to different aspects of the arts as well as to teaching. Susan Griss wrote a fascinating book called Minds in Motion, A kinestetic Approach to Teaching Elementary Curriculum. She talks about how dance can be used to enhance the teaching of many different subject matters- from language arts to science to math. Here is what she has to say of the benefits of using dance in the classroom:

"As in the creation of any art form, choreography- making formal and aesthetic decisions to create a dance that can be repeated- calls upon and develops a multitude of skills.
The creative process of choreography leads children to develop the germ of an idea through many stages of brainstorming and exploration, analysis and synthesis, refinement and editing. Discipline, persistence, and the ability to be organized and to take risks are general requirements for success."

In her article Communicative Language Teaching for the Twenty-First Century, Savignon discusses how Communicative Language Teaching has included such activities as play and theatre in the quest for language competencies: sociocultural, strategic, discourse, and grammatical. She asserts that "learner attitude is without a doubt the single most important factor in learner success."

This idea of using various interactive means to learn is certainly not new. When Friederich Schiller wrote about education in 1795 he had this to say about it:

"Play, I must insist, is never trivial. The balance of freedom and rule, of joy and restraint as evident in games and sport is all one with the agility and speed of intellect in its highest reaches; for as intellect meets with perception, necessity puts aside its seriousness, because it grows light. A joy of discovery, of surprise, enlivens our most somber inquiries. Man must needs keep before him his games as reminders; for if he is serious with the agreeable, the comprehensible, and the good, with Beauty he plays. Which is to say, he resolves a tension and achieves a state of equipoise, a subtle ballance between tension and release, in effect, a disipline of expression of a kind familiar to performing artists- an artistry of living and of inquiry. That is aesthetic education."

Here is a question: what is linguistics applied?
Applied linguistics, language topics magnified
Applied linguistics, what theories are in fashion?
Monitor model, put forth by monsieur Krashen

All about theory? No, it’s all about Method
The latest and best, and yet looking back one could
See that ‘new’ is old- nothing new under the sun
The latest and best, truly they have all been done

With science and art, language has form and motion
Applied linguistics, a political question
Perhaps paradox, teaching language and culture
With science and art; poetry, rhyme and meter

My identity: is it the language I speak?
My identity: I think, therefore do I speak?
‘Tis never simple, and yet with analysis
And ability to ponder in synthesis

Perhaps paradox, what is linguistics applied?
All about Method, language topics magnified
Perhaps paradox, a political question
Applied linguistics, to my culture and nation

This poem is based loosely on Serbo-Croatian epic verse. In the origional, the first section of each line contains four syllables, and the second section contains six. However, with my topic, the length of the words was causing this to not work out well, so I extended the line by two syllables. The first section of each line is five syllables, and the second section is seven. Another important feature of the origional meter is that the last two syllables of each line section must belong to the same word. This feature I have retained. On the other hand, the use of short syllables followed by long marks the ends of lines in Serbo-Croatian epic verse; wheras to an English speaker, rhyme is much more perceptable, so I used rhyme instead. These poems are composed on the spot, as the poets perform spontaneously for hours at a time. One device that aids in this is the use of stock phrases. In my epic linguistics poem, I use several stock phrases.

This term, I had the good fortune to take a class called Rhythm and Meter of the Worlds Languages, a class given through the foreign languages department. Yet it applies very nicely to linguistics, and has played a strong role in both major projects in this Applied Linguistics class. And I really think that Applied linguistics is an analysis and synthesis of many facets of culture, communication (verbal and non-verbal), society, and individual identity- as well as the grammar and lexicon and other aspects of language.

Apling Word Web A

Communication needs language, language needs words. But how does one define words, and how do they relate to one another? Words have complex ties of affiliation with one another, they define one another, and they carry a cultural context. This is why it is impossible to translate poetry accurately. This is also why it is difficult to communicate across language and cultural barriers. According to Kramsch, "language is used to inform, persuade, imply, but also to misinform, decieve, obfuscate, and control peoples' thoughts and actions- that is, to create a cultural context that is both enlightening and confusing."
This colorful mix of words attempts to illustrate how words are related to each other- as one color goes to the next through the spectrum, so one word leads to the next. The main words are printed larger, and the accompanying definitions are smaller, done in matching font color.