Foundations of Linguistics
Turning Point Handout
All of the following are minimal pairs
EXCEPT
1. fare / fair
2. fair / care
3. Fair / pear
4. Fare / wear
Which of the following words contains
a consonant digraph?
1. Shirt
2. Trunk
3. Pajamas
4. Extra
Which of the following transcriptions best represents
the way a native speaker of standard American English
would pronounce the word “these”?
1. [θiyz]
2. [ðiyz]
3. [ðis]
4. [θis]
Which of the following best represents the stress
pattern for the word “creative” in
“He’s a very creative boy.” ?
1. xxX
2. Xxx
3. XXX
4. xXx
A non-native speaker of English may pronounce “that”
as “dat”. This is an example of
1. Phoneme substitution
2. Choice of Allophone
3. Palatalization
4. Voicing
Which of the following is in the “passive voice”?
1. Demitry has been working nights.
2. The train is due at 3 o’clock.
3. Eva has passed her exams.
4. Dinner is being prepared.
Although Yih Ming quickly learned the irregular past
tense (went & came). She then began to say “goed”
and “comed” . This represents the concept of
1. Redundancy Reduction
2. Overgeneralization
3. Phonemic Awareness
4. L1 Transfer
Which term refers to the point past which the LL cannot
progress without exceptional effort or motivation?
1. Fossilization
2. Pidginization
3. Reduced Speech
4. Information Gap
Which of the following is an example of
“invented spelling”?
1. “home” for “house”
2. “bog” for “dog”
3. “elefunt” for “elephant”
4. “friend” for “friend”
Which of the following would be most appropriate for
a beginning ESOL student who is not participating in
class?
1. Create activities that require students to
participate orally & interact with each other.
2. Understand that new students are often
reluctant to participate and more time may
be required.
3. Refer the student for special education
evaluation.
4. Call the student’s parents & tell them how
important class participation is.
Which field of study is concerned with the meaning
of words, idioms, and non-literal expressions?
1. Semiotics
2. Semantics
3. Morphology
4. Syntax
Students in a 6th grade class are making fun of a new
student’s accent. What should the teacher do?
1. Plan after school speech remediation.
2. Ask all students to speech more slowly and
clearly to be understood.
3. Use an adult volunteer to read to the new
student & model standard dialect.
4. Expose the class to others who speak with
dialectical variations to show the value of
diversity
An instructional activity that focuses on specific
minimal pairs would assist ESOL students by
1. Helping them distinguish between
different sounds in English.
2. Familiarizing them with how native
speakers interact in English.
3. Comparing English sounds to sounds
present in the home language.
4. Centering their attention on English
spelling patterns.
Which of the following is NOT true of Cummins’
cognitive academic language proficiency?
1. It is context reduced.
2. It is critical to success in formal
educational settings.
3. It is needed to engage in social discourse
effectively.
4. It takes longer to acquire than basic
interpersonal communication skills.
The study of morphology includes all the
following EXCEPT
1.
2.
3.
4.
Meaning of suffixes & prefixes
Combining words to make new words
Inflecting nouns & verbs
Sound-to-letter correspondence
Which activity focuses on students’
development of metalinguistic awareness?
1. Explain to a peer how to make a paper
airplane… to a 4-year old.
2. Explain how changing “It’s mine” to “It’s
mine?” changes the sentence meaning.
3. Study a list of 10 words with plural endings.
Which rule can you think of that explains
how to add plural endings?
4. Based on what’s been learned in class, put
these rocks in bins marked “igneous”, etc.
Which activity focuses on students’
ability to switch register?
1. Explain to a peer how to make a paper
airplane. .. to a 4 year-old.
2. Explain how changing “It’s mine” to “It’s
mine?” changes the sentence meaning.
3. Study a list of 10 words with plural endings.
What rule can you think of that explains
how to add plural endings.
4. Based on what’s been learned in class, put
these rocks in bins marked igneous, etc.
Which activity asks students to interpret
paralinguistic features of communication?
1. Explain to a peer how to make a paper
airplane… to a 4-year old.
2. Explain how changing “It’s mine” to “It’s
mine?” changes the sentence meaning.
3. Study a list of 10 words with plural endings.
Which rule can you think of that explains
how to add plural endings?
4. Based on what’s been learned in class, put
these rocks in bins marked “igneous”, etc.
Who’s /whose, sun/son, feet/feat These word
pairs can best be described as
1.
2.
3.
4.
Antonyms
Synonyms
Homophones
Allophones
A native speaker of English would be most likely
to use a rising intonation at the end of which of
the following utterances?
1. Would you like some coffee?
2. I’m from Wisconsin.
3. He switched with Elizabeth.
4. Do you want it long or short?