ENGLISH SUMMARY NOTES
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I. LINGUISTICS
A. Scope of Linguistic Studies
1. Phonology – studies the combination of sounds into organized units of speech, the
combination of syllables and larger units.
a. Phoneme is a distinctive, contrasted sound unit, e.g. /b/, /æ/, /g/. It is the smallest
unit of sound of any language that causes a difference in meaning.
b. Allophones are variants or other ways of producing a phoneme.
2. Phonetics – studies language at the level of sounds: how sounds are articulated by the
human speech mechanism.
3. Morphology – studies the patterns of forming words by combining sounds into minimal
distinctive units of meanings called morphemes.
a. Morpheme is a short segment of language which (1) is a word or word part that has
meaning, (2) cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violating its
meaning, (3) recurs in different words with a relatively stable meaning.
b. Allomorphs – are morphs which belong to the same morpheme e.g., /s/, /z/, and /ez/
of the plural morpheme /s/ or /es/.
c. Free morphemes can stand on their own as independent words, e.g., beauty in
beautifully, like in unlikely. Thus, they can occur in isolation.
d. Bound morphemes cannot stand on their own as independent words. These
morphemes are also called as affixes.
e. Inflectional morphemes never change the form class of the words or morphemes to
which they are attached. They show person, tense, number, case, and degree.
f. Derivational morphemes are added to root morphemes or stems to derive new
words.
4. Syntax – deals with how words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences, and
studies the way phrases, clauses, and sentences are constructed.
a. Structure of predication –refers to the two components: subject and predicate
b. Structure of complementation – has two basic elements: verbal and complement
c. Structure of modification – includes two components: head word and modifier
d. Structure of coordination – covers two components: equivalent grammatical units
5. Semantics – attempts to analyze the structure of meaning in language and deals with the
level of meaning in language.
a. Lexical ambiguity – refers to the characteristic of a word that has more than one
meaning.
b. Syntactic ambiguity – refers to the characteristic of a phrase that has more than one
meaning e.g. Filipino teacher.
6. Pragmatics – deals with the contextual aspects of meaning in particular situations; studies
how language is used in real communication.
a. Speech act theory – advances that every utterance consists of three separate acts
(1) locutionary force – an act of saying something and describes what a speaker
says, (2) illocutionary force – the act of doing something and what the speaker
intends to do by uttering a sentence, and (3) perlocutionary act – an act of affecting
someone; the effect on the hearer of what a speaker says.
b. Categories of illocutionary acts – refers to categories proposed by John Searle to
group together closely related intentions for saying something:
• Representative – stating, asserting, denying, confessing, admitting, notifying,
concluding, predicting, etc.
• Directive – requesting, ordering, forbidding, warning, advising, suggesting,
insisting, recommending, etc.
• Question –asking, inquiring, etc.
• Commissive – promising, vowing, volunteering, offering, guaranteeing,
pledging, betting, etc.
• Expressive – apologizing, thanking, congratulating, condoling, welcoming,
deploring, objecting, etc.
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Declaration – appointing, naming, resigning, baptizing, surrendering,
excommunicating, arresting, etc.
7. Discourse – studies chunks of language which are bigger than a single sentence.
B. Language Views / Theories of Language
1. The Structuralists support the idea that language can be described in terms of observable
and verifiable data as it is being used.
a. Language is a means of communication.
b. Language is primarily vocal
c. Language is a system of systems.
d. Language is arbitrary.
2. The Transformationalists believe that language is a system of knowledge made manifest
in linguistic forms but innate and, in its most abstract form universal.
a. Language is a mental phenomenon. It is not mechanical.
b. Language is innate. Children acquire their first language because they have a language
acquisition device (LAD) in their brain.
c. Language is universal: all normal children learn a mother tongue; all languages share
must share key features like sounds and rules.
d. Language is creative and enables speakers to produce and understand sentences they
have not heard nor used before.
3. The Functionalists advocates that language is a dynamic system through which members
of a community exchange information. It is a vehicle for the expression of functional
meaning such as expressing one’s emotions, persuading people, asking and giving
information, etc.
• They emphasize the meaning and functions rather than the grammatical
characteristics of language.
4. The Interactionists believe that language is a vehicle for establishing interpersonal
relations and for performing social transactions between individuals.
• Language teaching content may be specified and organized by patterns of exchange
and interaction.
C. Language Acquisition / Theories of Language Learning
1. Behaviorist learning theory – the language behavior of an individual is conditioned by
sequences of differential rewards in his/her environment.
According to Littlewood (1984), the process of habit formation includes the following:
a. Children imitate the sounds and patterns which they hear around them.
b. People recognize the child’s attempts as being similar to the adult models and reinforce
(reward) the sounds by approval or some other desirable reaction.
c. In order to obtain more of these rewards, the child repeats the sounds and patterns so
that these become habits.
d. In this way t he child’s verbal behavior is conditioned (‘shaped’) until the habits coincide
with adult models.
• Behavioralists see three crucial elements of learning: (1) a stimulus, which serves to
elicit behavior, (2) a response triggered by the stimulus, and (3) reinforcement which
serves to mark the response as being appropriate and encourages the repetition of
the response.
2. Cognitive learning theory. Noam Chomsky believes that all normal human beings have
an inborn biological internal mechanism that makes language learning possible.
• Cognitivists / innatists ‘mentalists account of second language acquisition include
hypothesis testing, a process of formulating rules and testing the same with
competent speakers of the target language.
3. Krashen’s Monitor Model (1981). This is the most comprehensive theory in second
language acquisition. It consists of five central hypotheses.
a. The acquisition / learning hypothesis – claims that there are two ways of developing
competence in L2:
Acquisition – the subconscious process that results from informal, natural communication
between people where language is a means, not a focus nor an end in itself.
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Learning – the conscious process of knowing about language and being able to talk about
it, that occurs in a more formal situation where the properties of a language are taught
b. The natural order hypothesis suggests that grammatical structures are acquired in a
predictable order for both children and adults _ certain grammatical structures are
acquired before others, irrespective of the language being learned.
c. The monitor hypothesis claims that conscious learning of grammatical rules has an
extremely limited function in language performance: as a monitor or editor that checks
output.
d. The input hypothesis. Krashen proposes that when learners are exposed to
grammatical features a little beyond their current level those features are acquired.
e. The affective filter hypothesis. Filter consists of attitude to language, motivation, selfconfidence and anxiety. Learners with a low affective filter seek and receive more input,
interact with confidence, and are more receptive to the input they are exposed to.
• Teachers must continuously deliver at a level understandable by learners
• Teaching must prepare the learners for real life communication situations
• Teachers must ensure that learners do not become anxious or defensive in
language learning.
• Formal grammar teaching is of limited value because it contributes to learning
rather than acquisition
D. Language Teaching Implications
1. Language theories provide some basis for a particular teaching method or approach.
• Structuralism / behaviorism has produced the audiolingual method (ALM), oral
approach / situational language teaching, bottom-up text processing, controlled-tofree writing.
2. The cognitive learning theory results to the cognitive approach that puts language analysis
before language use and instruction by the teacher, before the students practice forms.
• Learning as a thinking process gives birth to cognitive-based and schema-enhancing
strategies such as Directed Reading Thinking Activity, Story Grammar, Think-Aloud,
etc.
3. The functional view of language introduced methods which are learner-centered, allowing
learners to work in pairs or groups in information gap tasks and problem-solving activities
where such communication strategies as information sharing, negotiation of meaning, and
interaction are used.
• These communication-based methods include the Communicative Language
Teaching / Communicative Approach, Notional-Functional Approach, Natural
Approach
4. Cognitive – affective has given rise to a holistic approach to language learning or whole
person learning. It also includes the humanistic approach, allowing learners vocabulary for
expressing, sharing and understanding one’s feelings, values, and needs.
• The humanistic techniques cover Community Language Learning.
II. LITERATURE
A. Goals of Teaching Literature
1. Develop and/or extend literary competence. Jonathan Culler defines literary competence
as the ability to internalize the ‘grammar’ of literature which would permit a reader to
convert linguistic sequences into literary structures and meaning.
2. Develop and/or enhance learners’ imagination and creativity.
3. Develop students’ character and emotional maturity.
4. Develop creative thinking.
5. Develop literary appreciation and refine one’s reading taste.
B. Methods in Teaching Literature
1. Lecture Methods: formal, informal, straight recitation
2. Discussion Methods: pair work, buzz group, group work
3. Public Speaking Methods: memorizing, interpretive reading (Readers Theater, Chamber
Theater), debate, panel forum
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4. Audio-Visual Methods: using slides, transparencies, film, VCD, DVD,
5. Project Methods: scrapbook making, exhibit/diorama, dramatization, literary map, time
line, video/audio scriptwriting
6. Field Research Methods: field trip, author interview
7. Creative Writing Methods: journal writing, closure writing, team writing, writing workshop
C. Some Strategies and Techniques in Teaching Literature
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Show and Tell and Blurb Writing– using the title and cover design
Movie Poster and Movie Trailer – transforming a literary piece into film
Writing Chapter Zero / Epilogue – writing a prequel or sequel
Mock Author Interview – assigning a student to play the role of the author
Biographical Montage – compiling authentic materials about the author
Graphic Representations – using sketching or other visual representations
Sculpting – making a tableau or montage
Creative Conversation, Speech Balloons, or Thought Bubbles – supplying dialogues
Worksheets – completing grids or writing responses
Transforms – translating or turning a piece into another genre
D. Literary Criticism
This involves the reading, interpretation and commentary of a specific text or texts which
have been designated as literature. Literary criticism is the application of a literary theory to
specific texts. Literary theory identifies what makes literary language literary and the function
of literary text in social and cultural terms.
1. Classical Literary Theory –literature is an imitation of life.
a. Mimesis (Plato) – literature is an imitation of life.
b. Dulce et utile (Horace) – function of literature is to entertain or to teach/instruct
c. Sublime (Longinus) – style may be low, middle, high, or sublime
d. Catharsis (Aristotle) – purgation of negative emotions of fear and pity
2. Historical – Biographical and Moral – Philosophical Approaches
a. A literary work reflects its author’s life and times or the life and times of the characters
in the work.
b. It emphasizes that literature functions to teach morality and to probe philosophical
issues.
3. Romantic Theory. William Wordsworth articulated it in his Preface to the Lyrical Ballads as
literature which should
a. Has a subject matter that is ordinary and commonplace
b. Use simple language, even aspiring to the language of prose
c. Makes use of the imagination
d. Conveys a primal, simple, uncomplicated feeling
e. Present similitude in dissimilitude (similarities in differences)
4. New Criticism – believes that literature is an organic unity. To use this theory, one
proceeds by looking into the following: the persona, the addressee, the situation (where
and when), what the persona says, the central metaphor (tenor and vehicle), the central
irony, the multiple meaning of words.
5. Psychoanalytical Theory – applies Freudian psychoanalytic ideas to literature.
a. It looks into the character’s or author’s motivations, drives, fears, desires.
b. It believes that creative writing is like dreaming – it disguises what cannot be
confronted directly – the critic must decode what is disguised.
6. Mythological / Archetypal Approach – is based on Carl Jung’s theory of collective
unconscious.
a. Repeated or dominant images or patterns of human experience are identified in the
text.
b. It also uses Northrop Frye’s assertion that literature consists of variations on a great
mythic theme that contains the following:
• The garden: the creation of life in paradise
• Alienation: displacement or banishment from paradise,
• Journey: a time of trial and tribulation,
• Epiphany: a self-discovery as a result of struggle,
• Rebirth / resurrection: a return to paradise.
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7. Structuralist Literary Theory – comes from the linguistic theory of Ferdinand de Saussure
which recognizes language as a system or structure. To Vladimir Propp and Tzvetan
Todorov, structuralism should identify the general principles of literary structure and not to
provide interpretations of individual texts. Three dimensions in individual literary texts:
a. The text as a particular system or structure in itself (naturalization of a text)
b. Texts are unavoidably influenced by other texts (intertextuality)
c. The text is related to the culture as a whole (binary oppositions)
8. Deconstruction – interrogates our common practices in reading and exposes the gaps,
incoherence’s, the contradictions in a discourse and how the text undermine itself or how a
text contradicts itself. Deconstruction draws much from the works of Jacques Derrida. The
process involves
a. Identifying the oppositions in the text
b. Determining which member is favored/privileged and looking for evidence that
contradicts it
c. Exposing the text’s indeterminacy
9. Russian Formalism – led by Viktor Shklovsky – aims to establish a ‘science of literature’
and discover the literariness of a text by highlighting the devices and technical elements
used by the author. These elements should include :
a. baring the device – e.g. distorting time in various ways – foreshortening, skipping,
expanding, transposing, reversing, flashback, flashforward, etc.
b. defamiliarization – this means making strange and using fresh ways of describing
things
c. retardation of the narrative – the technique of delaying and protracting actions by
using digressions, displacements, extended descriptions, etc.
d. naturalization – refers to how we endlessly become inventive in finding ways of
making sense of the most random or chaotic utterances or discourse.
e. carnivalization – Mikhail Bakhtin used this term to describe the shaping effect of
carnival on literary texts. The festivities associated with the carnival are collective and
popular; hierarchies are turned on their heads (fools become wise; kings become
beggars); opposites are mingled (fact and fantasy, heaven and hell); the sacred is
profaned; the rigid or serious is subverted, mocked or loosened.
10. Marxist Literary Theory. It aims to explain literature relation to society – that literature can
only be properly understood within a larger framework of social reality. Marxist literary
critics would like to look at the structure of history and society and then investigate whether
the literary work reflects or distorts this structure. They insist that literature has a social
dimension – it exists in time and space, in history and society. Moreover, writers are
constantly formed by their social contexts and social class.
11. Feminist Criticism. Branching out from Marxism, it is a political discourse; a critical and
theoretical practice committed to the struggle against patriarchy and sexism.
a. Feminism asks why women played a subordinate role to men in society.
b. It studies the male-dominated canon to understand how men have used culture to
further their domination of women.
c. Its studies literature by women for how it addresses or expresses the particularity of
women’s life and experience. Feminist critics insist that women’s experience is
different from men.
12. Postcolonial Criticism. Postcolonialism refers to the independence enjoyed by Third
World countries after the decline of colonial rule by imperialist powers. The many concerns
of postcolonial criticism include the following:
a. attempt to resurrect their national culture and to combat the misconceptions about their
culture
b. dramatizes the colonial experience and their response to it
c. escape from the implicit body of assumptions to which the language of the colonizing
power, English, was attached.
d. study diasporic texts outside the usual Western genres, especially works by aboriginal
authors, marginalized ethnicities, immigrants, and refugees.
e. analyzes nationality, ethnicity, and politics with poststructuralist ideas of identity and
indeterminacy, and hybrid constructions (Homi K. Bhaba)
13. Post Modern Literary Theory. Postmodern refers to the culture of advanced capitalist
societies, which has undergone a profound shift in the ‘structure of feeling.’ Postmodern
texts have the following features:
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a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
j.
k.
l.
Fragmentation
Intertextuality
Discontinuity
Decentering
Indeterminacy
Dislocation
Plurality
Ludism
Metafictionality
Parody
Heterogeneity
Pastiche
III. LINGUISTIC APPROACHES TO READING
A. Bloomfield Approach – Leonard Bloomfield and Clarence Barnhart advocate that the child
should be acquainted with the letters of the alphabet at the very start. The child should begin
with capital letters and then go to small letters.
B. Fries Approach – Charles Fries’ basic concept: Learning to read in one’s native language is
learning to shift, to transfer, from auditory signs for the language signals which the child has
already learned to visual or graphic signs for the same signals for language perception. The
aim is to develop high-speed recognition responses to English spelling patterns.
C. Eclectic Approach
1. Reading as interest – development of the recreational reading habit; the major
approach is personalized or individualized reading.
2. Reading as language process
• Language Experience Approach – a strategy which views reading as an
extension of speaking: thinking/experiencing, talking, writing, reading.
• Psycholinguistic Approach – view reading as an interaction of thought and
language, a process of combining psychology and linguistics. This approach
advances that reading, like listening, is a receptive process, used to understand a
written message, that readers reconstruct the author’s meaning in their own words.
3. Reading as culture – focuses on the relation between dialect differences and the
written message as well as on one’s cultural heritage. It makes instruction relevant to
the pupil’s cultural background.
4. Reading as a learned process – emphasizes on controlled development of skills in a
structured sequence progressing from simple to complex
• The Basal Textbook Approach – follows this general format: scope-and-sequence
or flow chart for all an overall view of skills; kindergarten readiness workbooks;
first grade, second grade and above skill books; teacher’s guides and
assessment tests. The standard basal text lesson follows these steps:
▪ background or motivation
▪ vocal development
▪ purposeful or guided silent reading
▪ discussion
▪ purposeful rereading
▪ skill instruction in word recognition, comprehension skill with the use of
workbooks
▪ enrichment activities
• The Linguistic Approach – look at reading as recognizing and interpreting
graphic symbols representing spoken sounds which have meaning. It stresses
sound-symbol regularity and systematic exposure to frequently used sounding
patterns.
• The Phonics Approach – believes that the English spelling system is essentially
regular in its correspondence between letters and speech sounds and that letter
sounds can be blended together to form words. For second language learner’s
short phonics drills on crucial sounds like f, v, j, sh, th, z, a and the schwa are
needed.
• Programmed Instruction – includes step-by-step learning, learning, immediate
feedback, regular and constant review and individual progress through materials.
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The Skills Monitoring Approach – reading is analyzed in terms of skills arranged in
hierarchies. This approach entails
▪ a scope and sequence chart of reading skills
▪ a battery of tests for preassessment of reading abilities
▪ based on test results, instruction to adjust to pupils’ interest, abilities, and
needs
▪ a continuous assessment using both formative and summative tests
▪ a corrective or remedial measure
▪ an adequate and challenging enrichment activities for the bright pupils.
IV. STAGE AND SPEECH ARTS
A.Level / Context of Speech Communication
1. Intrapersonal – involves only oneself.
• Internal discourse like thinking, analysis, contemplation, meditation
• Solo vocal communication like thinking aloud, soliloquies
• Solo written communication not intended for others like diaries, or personal journals
2. Interpersonal – involves an exchange between sender and receiver of a message. It may
be direct (face-to-face) or indirect (via telephone, e-mail, teleconference)
• Dyadic communication; two people talking
• Group communication; study group, committee meetings
• Public communication; scholarly lectures, political campaigns
B.The Speech Arts
1. Different types of public speech according to purpose
• Informative – to present facts, knowledge, information
• Persuasive – to reinforce or modify the audience’s beliefs
• Occasional or entertaining – to amuse the audience
2. How the speech is delivered
• Impromptu speech – delivered with little or no preparation
• Extemporaneous speech – delivered with some prepared structure such as notes or
outlines
• Memorized speech – reciting speech from memory
• Manuscript speaking – reading the speech word-for-word from its written form or the
manuscript
3. Types of oral interpretation
a. Solo interpretation
• Story telling – oral sharing of a personal or traditional story; it may be illustrative
(using drawings) or creative / dramatic (using gestures and creative movements) for
entertaining or educating
• Interpretative / interpretive reading – also called dramatic reading, oral reading, or
reading aloud by using the elements of voice and diction to convey meaning and
mood
• Declamation – recitation of a poem from memory and is marked by strong feelings
• Monologue – interpretative oral performance of prose or poetry in which the
interpreter plays a role
b. Group interpretation
• Reading concert – also known as Readers Theatre- oral reading activity with
speakers presenting literature in a dramatic form
• Chamber Theater – theatrical approach to performing narrative literature
• Speech Choir – also choral reading, choric interpretation, vocal orchestration –
ensemble reading technique where a group of readers recite as one in coordinated
voices and related interpretation: (1) reading in unison – several voices sound like
one instrument, (2) solo and chorus – soloists recite lines and chorus recites
refrains, (3) responsive reading – lines are recited alternately by solo or chorus
V. STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH
A.Sentences. Every sentence must have both a subject and a verb.
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1. Three kinds of sentences
• A declarative sentence states a fact, e.g., “Connie loves Rommel.”
• An interrogative sentence asks a question, e.g., “Does Connie love Rommel?”
• An exclamatory sentence registers an exclamation, e.g., “Like, I mean, you know, like
wow!”
2. Three basic structures
• A simple sentence makes one self-standing assertion, i.e., has one main clause, e.g.,
“Connie loves Rommel.”
• A compound sentence makes two or more self-standing assertions, i.e., has two main
clauses, e.g., “Connie loves Rommel and Rommel enjoys it.”
• A complex sentence makes one self-standing assertion and one or more dependent
assertions, subordinate clauses, dependent on the main clause, e.g., “Connie who has
been desiring Rommel these twelve years, loves him, and Rommel, what’s more, still
enjoys it.”
In compound sentences, the clauses are connected by coordinate conjunctions, in
complex sentences by subordinate clauses.
3. Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Relative Clauses
• A restrictive clause modifies directly, and so restricts the meaning of the antecedent it
refers back to, e.g., “This is the girl that started all the fun.” One specific girl is intended.
The relative clause is not set off by a comma.
• A nonrestrictive clause, though still a dependent clause, does not directly modify its
antecedent and is set off by commas. “These girls, who came from Iloilo, are all sweet
and charming.”
4. Appositives. An appositive is an amplifying word or phrase placed next to the term it refers
to and set off by commas, e.g., “Henry VIII, a glutton for punishment, had six wives.
B.Basic Sentence Patterns (based on syntax)
1. Parataxis – Phrases or clauses arranged independently, in a coordinate construction, and
often without connectives, e.g., “I came, I saw, I conquered.”
2. Hypotaxis – Phrases or clauses arranged in a dependent, subordinate relationship, e.g., “I
came, and after I came and looked around a bit, I decided, well, why not, and so
conquered.”
Hemingway favors a paratactic syntax while Faulkner prefers a hypotactic one.
3. Asyndeton – Connectives are committed between words, phrases, or clauses, e.g., “I’ve
been stressed, destressed, beat down, beat up, held down, held up, conditioned,
reconditioned.”
4. Polysyndeton – Connectives are always supplied between words, phrases, or clauses, as
when Milton talks about Satan pursuing his way, “And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps,
or flies.”
5. Periodic Sentence – is a long sentence with a number of elements, usually balanced or
antithetical, standing in a clear syntactical relationship to each other. Usually it suspends
the conclusion of the sense until the end of the sentence, and so is sometimes called a
suspended syntax.
6. Loose Sentence - a sentence whose elements are loosely related to one another, follow in
no particularly antithetical climactic order, and do not suspend its grammatical completion
until the close. A sentence so loose as to verge on incoherence is often called a run-on
sentence.
7. Isocolon – the Greek word means, literally, syntactic units of equal length, and it is used in
English to describe the repetition of phrases of equal length and corresponding structure,
e.g., “Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink but in tears, not in pleasure but in passion,
not in words only, but in woes also.”
8. Chiasmus – is the basic pattern of antithetical inversion, the AB:BA pattern. The best
example is probably from John F. Kennedy’s first inaugural address: “Ask not what your
country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”
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9. Anaphora – begins a series of phrases, clauses, or sentences with the same word.
Churchill’s exhortation in 1940:
We have become the sole champion now in arms to defend the world cause.
We shall do our best to be worthy of this high honor.
We shall defend our island home, and with the British Empire
we shall fight on unconquerable until the curse of Hitler is lifted from the brows of mankind.
We are sure that in the end all will come right.”
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