JASMIN BANIC, GOETHE-INSTITUT, SAN FRANCISCO
JASMIN.BANIC@GMAIL.COM
ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING:
Language of Head
or Heart?
HOW DO YOU CONDUCT
YOUR LANGUAGE CLASSES?
•
Monolingual vs. bilingual?
•
What would be your #1 linguistic
goal with the following text?
•
Grammar? Semantics? Features
of Romanticism?
HEAD VS. HEART
“If you talk to a man in
a language he understands,
that goes in his head. If you talk
to him in his language, that goes
in his heart.”
Nelson Mandela
Pinker, Steven: “How the Mind Works”
“The Romantic movement in philosophy, literature, and art
began about two hundred years ago, and since the emotions
and the intellect have been assigned to different realms. The
emotions come from nature and live in the body. They are hot,
irrational impulses and intuitions, which follow the imperatives
of biology. The intellect comes from civilization and lives in the
mind. It is a cool deliberator that follows the interests of self and
society by keeping emotions in check. Romantics believe that
the emotions are the source of wisdom, innocence,
authenticity, and creativity, and should not be repressed by
individuals or society. Often the romantics acknowledge a
dark side, the price we must pay for artistic greatness.”
Similarity by Ending
English
Spanish
German
-ty
-dad
-tät, -shaft, -keit
-tà
-tion
-ción
-tion
-tà
creativity,
society,
authenticity
civilization
creatividad,
sociedad,
autencidad
civilización
Kreativität,
Gesellschaft,
Glaubwürdigkeit
Zivilisation
Italian
creatività,
società,
autenticià
civiltá
Similarity by Formation
English
German
sing, sang, sung
singen, sang, gesungen
begin, began, begun
beginnen, begann,
begonnen
False Cognates
English
German
Spanish
ultimately
últimamente/
recently
embarrassed
embarazada/
pregnant
moderator
der Moderator/
news anchor
caution
die Kaution/
security deposit
Italian
salir/ to go out
salire/to go up
guardar/to
keep, to guard
guardare/to
look
burro/donkey
burro/butter
Jasmin’s Suggestions
•
Ongoing Addition to your Syllabus
•
Visual Recognition
•
Encouraging Word Formation: Your students as WORDSMITHS!
•
Audio + Video Assignments: TV, YouTube, Street signs & Ads
References
Chomsky, Noam: “Language and Mind”, 1972
Jackendoff, Ray: “Patterns in the Mind”, 1994
Pinker, Steven:
“How the Mind Works”, 1997
Pinker, Steven:
“Words and Rules – The Ingredients of
Language”, 1999
Pinker, Steven:
“The Stuff of Thought – Language as a
Window into Human Nature”, 2007
Erard Michael:
“Slips, Stumbles and Verbal Blunders
and What They Mean”, 2007
McWhorter, John: “What Language is (And what it isn’t
and What it Could Be), 2011
THANK YOU
Jasmin Banic, jasmin.banic@gmail.com