Emily, Cameron, and I absolutely love linguistics, but we dread going to our class each Tuesday and Thursday. Our fellow classmates, graduate students included -- have no clue regarding any aspect of language. They are unaware that a dictionary provides the correct spelling and definition of words that may appear in our exercises. Is it because they are so closed-minded that they don't recognize other languages exist outside of English? Their philosophy: this is how we say it, this is how it is. One lady even said it in class, I'm not joking. She couldn't pronounce "rouge" correctly, but that only meant that whomever pronounced it differently than she did was wrong. Ugh. Oh, and there is a native Spanish speaker who does not understand the rules of her own language while Emily pulls her hair out. I understand that it may be hard to diagnose one's own language, but man, must we be so ignorant?!
In addition to all this, our book does not contain explanations of language rules, but merely exercises in which we have to guess them. I just ordered the companion our professor thought was too expensive as an additional textbook so that I can actually understand what's going on; going to class actually makes it more confusing and irritating...and we're convinced it sucks out our brain cells.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment