Pa 4 MEANINGLESS SENTENCES AND STRANGE GRAMMAR
1. Can you think of an example of a meaningless sentence? Or phrases/words
that do not provide any information?
2. Can you think of any particular aspects of English grammar that still seem to
be the most problematic for you?
3. MEANINGLESS SENTENCES:
What information do the following sentences provide for you as a reader?
What questions would you like to ask the author of each of these
sentences?
It saves a large amount of money and time.
Graddol explains in details what is going on worldwide as far as English language is
concerned
Although, the idea of hypertext is quite fascinating, Diana Laurillard said:
so The ‘Net’ surfers who are not familiar with the language and who do not work
using this particular language are, somehow, made to possess this knowledge in
order to be intelligible to other members of the cyber community.
The notion of E-mail occurred at Universities decades ago but started to be
considered as important just few years ago
Many scholars, who have focused on Black English topic, concentrated their work on the
issues concerning migration from the British Isles
Communication creates a lot of possibility to show what is inside of us.
This process enables researchers to be certain and have many pieces of evidence for existence
of a particular language
There are not many cases of promoting learning foreign language among the elderly, that is
why this project can be regarded as successful because the project
It is also worth of mentioning that there is enormous number of workshops which The
Grundtvig programme involves. These workshops take place in many countries which belong
to the European Union.
This workshop takes place in Prague - the Czech Republic’s capital city and it’s working
language is English.
It’s working language is English as welland adults who come from eligible European
countries can take part in this workshop.
That and other points are in the chapter three in which the attitude toward AAVE is presented.
The language has its adherents and opponents.
M u l t i l i n g u a l i s m i s a p a r t o f l i f e f r o m a n t i q u i t y, p o s s i b l y a s o l d a s
human species.
4. STRANGE GRAMMAR:
Can you spot grammatical problems in each of the fragments? Can you
correct them?
POLGLISH [Polish calques]:
As far as French language is concerned, 25% surveyed peopleclaimed that it is the most
useful language to speak.
The number of students in European Union who participated in Erasmus Intensive Language
Courses shows Figure number 1.
This and other similar studies may guide teachers to instruct AAE young students about the
differences between AAE children’s language and GAE which can make that both teachers
and pupils gain more advantages than disadvantages in the education process.
BA writers love Present Perfect:
English language has started to develop rapidly when the United States became a superpower
The main thesis presented that AAVE had its root in British dialect. Later, it has been
abolished and the new theory that the language of African Americans has pidgin/creole
background arose.
The Puritans did not record the language spoken by Africans because they have had problems
not only with communication but also with understanding their cultural rituals, for instance
with Tituba’s voodoo rituals which were consider wrong and heathen.
The repatriation of Africans (mostly to Liberia) had begun in 1820 and made that some slaves
avoided the time of discrimination. The number of repatriated slaves has grown in the course
of the couple of years.
On 18th December 1998, Black English has been recognised as a separate language as a
consequence of a situation which is known as Oakland Ebonics controversy.
Studies of Wyatt and Seymour provided examples of using AAE features in particular
situations by African American pupils. Children have been examined during carrying out a
conversation in school and the results were very interesting.
Its/it’s
The project promoted learning outside ’traditional’ classrooms according to special needs of
it’s participants.
This workshop takes place in Prague and it’s working language is English.
Repetition:
Next project is called ‘Opening the Door to Language Learning’. This project aimed for
raising cultural awareness and spreading the idea of learning foreign language. This particular
project involved groups of people who were said to be ‘non-traditional’, especially the locals.
The project promoted learning outside ’traditional’ classrooms according to special needs of
it’s participants.
This workshop takes place in Prague - the Czech Republic’s capital city and it’s working
language is English. This workshop is designed for adults from countries which participate in
the LLP programme, and it does not matter whether they are socially handicapped, less
educated or they have some special needs. But there is only one basic condition for people
who want to participate in this particular workshop, they have to know the workshop’s
working language, which is English (level B1).The basic aim of this workshop is to teach it’s
participants effective methods via self-study, to achieve a higher level of knowledge of a
foreign language. This workshop is to teach its participants English, and if there is a chance
participants can be tought German and French too. People who participate in this workshop
are to become acquainted with several topics.
What/which
Firstly, there is a code-switching what depends on mixing different languages or using
particular words from other languages during conversation
This quotations shows that Mencken did not want to admit that AAVE is an independent
dialect because he believed that everything what concerns literature was fictional and
completely untenable.
In the early time of slave trade, the language mixing was practised by traders in order to have
easy control over the slaves, what forced the slaves to find one common language for wider
communication.