Thank you for your responses to my amazement caused by the jumbled words. I was
most enlightened by Craig's pointing out that we "correct" point-of-view, topic
flow, content problems with writing before we even consider such things as
syntax and spelling. I hope you will forgive me using the word "correct" for
"improve" or make more effective. The idea of a standard is there whether we
want to admit it or not. The "standard" is something we measure the corpora
against. It's just that some standards are more important than others. (I
apologize for intentionally making "revealed" secondarily salient -- just having
fun.)
Bruce
>>> [log in to unmask] 03/20/06 1:19 PM >>>
Roger Brown did an experiment a long time ago that he reported in an article
titled "The 'Tip of the Tongue' Phenomenon". He drew from the Brown University
Corpus a set of words of at least seven letters found less often than 4 in
1,000,000 words of text. He then gave definitions of them and asked freshman
Psych students at Harvard to write down the word. If they thought they knew the
word but couldn't identify it precisely (It was on the tip of the tongue) then
they were to write down every word that came to mind until they found the word
or time ran out. He then did an analysis of the words they wrote, and he
discovered that the most memorable letters were the first and the last, the
second most memorable were the second and the second-last, etc. The least
memorable were the middle letters. In Bruce's example, note that the first and
last letters of each content word are correct. Word length is also correct, and
the rest is anagrammed. That means we can identify the word pretty easily. The
hardest word for me in the quote was "rleaved" because of the switching of the
internal <r> and <l>, which made me initially opt for "relieved", even though
that didn't meet the anagram condition. But placing the <l> second made it
highly salient.Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Spruiell, William C
Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 2:42 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Language Change
Bruce,This isn't a direct reply to your question, but I thought it might be
useful to introduce a distinction. People's ability to draw meaning from
sentences like the one you quoted may be saying something about the process of
reading in addition to, or even in some cases as opposed to, the process of
spoken language comprehension. If someone walked up to you and attempted to say
those words roughly as they are spelled ("roughly" given that some of the
clusters are non-English-able), you probably would have a great deal more
trouble figuring out what was going on. That does not, of course, mean that such
studies are irrelevant to theories of grammar, only that their relevance has to
be interpreted in reference to the status of reading as an activity in *some*
regards separate from innate language use.Bill SpruiellDept. of EnglishCentral
Michigan University
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bruce D. Despain
Sent: Saturday, March 18, 2006 9:21 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Language Change
Did anyone notice the grammatical errors in the excerpt I sent yesterday?
I think there was a message in it about how our mind also seems to overlook
grammar in trying to get meaning out of language. The first phrase in the
second sentence is dangling grammatically independent of the sentence to which
it is attached. It should probably be taken out as another sentence something
like this:
The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid was rcneltey rleaved by smoe rscheearch
at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy.
The rest of that sentence is also a bit awkward, so I'm sure this is not really
the best solution. Like a lot of what we do it was probably not felt important
enough for a rewrite from the first draft (writer was uncomforatble in the new
medium?). Inadvertently this made a second very important point. Another
message was in the message. For a teacher it is like peeling an onion. Fix the
first layer stuff first (like orthography), then the next layer will be revealed
for revision.
My question: is the next layer to be corrected the syntax and then the
morphological and phonological niceties after that. Does the syntax correct
itself when we go directly to the semantics in making meaning? Do we experiment
with different syntax until the correct meaning pops out, or does thinking of
the meaning naturally let only that one (correct) way come to the surface? Maybe
different authors can be allowed to find their own way.
I'm sure some of you can articulate this better than I have.
Bruce
----- Original Message -----
From: Bruce Despain
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Friday, March 17, 2006 11:39 AM
Subject: Re: Language Change
We've talked about the formal constraints of grammar. Look what's been going
around on the Internet. It demonstrates the kind of wiring built into the mind
for processing the printed word:
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The
phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde
Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny
iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The
rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is
bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a
wlohe. Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
Bruce
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the
intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and
privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use,
disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the
intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email
and destroy all copies of the original message.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------To
join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the
list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.2.1/279 - Release Date: 3/10/06
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the
list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list,
please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the
list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/ To join or leave this LISTSERV list,
please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the
list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NOTICE: This email message is for the sole use of the
intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and
privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use,
disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the
intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email
and destroy all copies of the original message.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at:
http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html
and select "Join or leave the list"
Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/
|
