aggierose1234’s blog

  I'm sorry I couldn't find the exact quote for this, but I saw a real-life example yesterday of why we typically use more language to politely refuse an offer. While watching Scrubs, like I often am, I couldn't help but laugh when J.D. asked a new doctor out on a date, with a lengthy, pathetic longwinded request. He was probably attempting to  invoke lots of feelings of guilt and sympathy from her, strengthening his chances of getting a "yes." However, once he was done asking, she replied with a simple 'No." Stunned, J.D. asks "Would you care to elaborate?" But once again all he gets in response is "No." Clearly this was not J.D.'s preffered response to his request. While this made for an uncomfortable moment in conversation, it made me realize that we can flout those rules as well for effect. By choosing a dispreferred answer, we are also capable of being funny, or making an indirect point.

I know it's been awhile since we discussed this concept in class, but I have been thinking about it alot this week. With proper names, it can be difficult to distinguish between several people assigned to the same name. We went around the class and discussed different ways of differentiating between, for example, two friends with the same first name. I think it was a really interesting class discussion about how people choose to distinguish one from another. Like most other people, I have the same situation which causes a great deal of confusion from time to time. See, my roommate and best friend is named Amanda. My good friend's girlfriend, and incidentally my coworker, is also named Amanda. So when my good friend Adam and I are spending time together there is bound to be talk of the Amandas. How do we make sure to keep confusion to a minimum? My roommate is MY Amanda and Adam's girlfriend is HIS Amanda. I'm not quite sure how we came up with this horribly possessive way of monickering our Amandas, but it definitely works. How do you distinguish between to friends with the same first name??

 Language evolves almost too quickly to keep up with. I was in a class discussion today about what English is the "right" English. It seems that new forms of the English language are popping up and they seem to get further and further away from the English we're used to. Some of these conversational and politeness maxims are becoming obsolete, making way for a less traditional language. With so many modern catchphrases like "your mom is so fat.." or "that's what she said," it seems that we are starting to value the opposite of what these maxims are proposing. Do we need to revise these maxims, or push to keep language centered around politeness and effective conversation? Just something to think about...

  I really got stumped on the question of "regret" as a performative verb. When we discussed it in class today, it seemed to be the general concensus that saying you regret something isn't actually regretting something. What about "I'm really regretting that last piece of pizza right now!" Isn't that regretting it? I couldn't understand why that didn't count as a performative verb. Can someone clear this up for me, please? Thanks!

I have spent alot of time recently with someone who I have mixed feelings about. Thanks to our textbook, I now know that his amiss quality is his tendency to violate the modesty maxim.  "Minimize praise of self. Maximize dispraise of self."This is the modesty maxim according to our book. Is this outdated? My friend is self-confident and successful. Why shouldn't he be proud of his accomplishments and hesitate to doubt himself? However, to me it comes across as pretentious and lacking of social skills. The textbook made it clear, but maybe this is a commentary on our society. Should we reverse our thinking and praise those who are confident and therefore successful? Or should we continue to value modesty? I know my posts are only ever questions, but that is because Linguistics makes me question things I wouldn't normally think about. So, are we selling ourselves short? Or would we fail if we started to give ourselves credit? The modesty maxim under closer observation might be outdated.

   I had a serious problem with the book the other day. Ch. 17 studied locutionary, illocutionary, and perlucutionary acts. In the homework, we had to discuss what a parrot and computer would be able to do out of the beforementioned three choices. In the answer key, the author listed that a computer could perform all three acts. This was unsettling to me, as I personally think that illocutionary and perlocutionary acts both require an ability of intent. In order to use language as a tool, or to perform an action through language, I feel that a brain with higher-level intelligence is required. Computers and parrots can imitate and vocalize, but can they MEAN something? Can they have intent? I don't think so. This has bothered me for over a week.I was just curious if anyone else felt this way. Perhaps I am just misinterpreting the book, or being overly sensitive. Let me know!

  I am always hearing interesting figures of speech in everyday language. The other day in Ovids, I overheard a guy explaining why he was all dressed up: "A guy in my fraternity had his grandmother die, so I'm going to the funeral." It really struck me. Even though I have heard that expression before, it suddenly seemed so odd...to describe someone's death like that. We have so many different ways of saying that somebody has died, which vary in appropriateness and seriousness. We've even studied many of them in our book. "Kick the bucket" "Passed away" "Died" "Went toward the light." So I got to thinking about why he would choose that particular way to say that his buddy's grandma had died. Maybe because he wanted to exaggerate how far removed he was from the event. The way he stated it gives a very minimal shock value, because it seems very impersonal to the speaker. But I doubt he was really thinking about that. Any ideas? Has anyone else ever heard that figure of speech?

   In an epidode of Seinfeld called "The Burning", Jerry is dating one of his many ladies, Sophie. Sophie leaves a message on his answering machine, beginning with "Hi Jerry, it's me." Of course, this causes a scandal, with Jerry being outraged that someone he barely knows would dare to forego their name, and assume he knows who it is. He then "It's me"'s her, which causes even more confusion when she mistakes Jerry's voice for another man's. This is a great example of how Variable Reference can cause complication in everyday conversation. Even though Jerry and Sophie both utter the same phrase, "It's me", the referent of "me" changes depending on the identity of the speaker. When there isn't enough contextual information, say even recognizing the voice of a new girlfriend, then it can get really messy! So make sure you are being clear the next time you "it's me" someone!

Hyponym

   I haven't been able to stop thinking about one of the analysis questions, all day...Number 9 has haunted me through class, lunch, a nap, and even an opera dress rehearsal. The bits and pieces I remember (breakfast, toast, small, warm, 2 ,1, fried mushroom) must all fit together in some sort of logical way. But how? I stared at that chart for a good while, attempting to arrange the items into taxonomical hierarchies, or to attach GOE ratings to them. Nothing seemed to really make sense, though. The best I could come up with was: