1. Functions:
- Pragmatics: These are speech acts, for example greeting, informing, requesting information, requesting actions, and taking turns.These are also very small units, one or two utterances.This can also be separated in to two categories, Inter-personal (speech acts, turn taking) or Intra-personal (private, regulate cognitive and social emotional) .
- Rhetorical function: This varies by genre,the argument embedded in academic conversation about narrative. These are also related to social, and instructional tasks and settings. There are three types, these are single authority (narrative poetry), coordinate and collaborate among people (conversations) and can be mixed or embedded.
- Depth: This is how much a person knows about a word.
- Breadth: This is how many vocabulary words a person knows.
- Speed: How hast a person can access these words for receptive( How we receive language) or expressive acts (producing language). How fast you can get to the words you know.
3. Structures: Units of language and ways to combine them.
- Phonology: These are the units of sounds, there are about 44 phonemes in the English.
- Syntax: This is the form of sentences, phrases and clauses. Nouns, verbs, prepositional phrases.
- Morphology: The smallest units of meanings.
- Semantics: This is the interpretation of phrases and clauses.This includes subject, predicate, object, modifier, quantifier, agent, action, topic, comment.
What can you do at home?
- Use rare, interesting words in your vocabulary with your child. Just because your child is young does not mean that they do not understand large words. So next time dinner tastes "good", how about this dinner is "delicious"!
- Read out loud to your child, this way they can learn new vocabulary words that they can use in their daily conversations.
(class notes, 1/25, 2/17)
