Welcome, AP English Language scholars of MHS Class of '09! It's a great pleasure to greet you as the first-ever AP-3 class, and a special pleasure to welcome you to your home on the web--your class blogsite.
Ever since we first began using online bulletin boards as a way to converse about literature and writing (all the way back in the early '90's, and please don't feel the need to comment about how long ago that was, or how old you were then), it was always my intent to do the same in my classroom. Admittedly, it took a little longer than I thought, but here we are.
I have put this space together for the benefit of your academic pursuit--to expand your ability to converse about the texts we will be discussing. This space is essentially yours to post relevant--and presumably intelligent--comments and questions regarding our readings. At the moment, that would consist of Hayakawa's work in general semantics, your summer reading assignment Language in Thought and Action, and the scrapbook that will demonstrate your understanding of the concepts established in Chapters 1-8. No doubt you have many question to pose--you can be certain that I did, when I first read it.
Please note the following rules:
1. ONLY students enrolled in MHS AP English III may post comments here. This is not a discussion board intended for the world.
2. anyone who posts must do so with their REAL first name. Any posts found to be made using names other than real (for example, posting using another student's name) will be dealt with according to school disciplinary policy.
3. all discussion will proceed in respectful, scholarly manner.
4. to ensure that #3 is obeyed, I will personally monitor all discussions on this blog. It's not that I don't trust teenagers to behave in responsible ways. . .oh, wait--yes, it is. I don't. Don't take it personally.
5. Do not expect me to comment on every posting, even if a question has been directly asked of me by one of you. I am much more interested to see whether your fellow scholars are capable of suggesting viable answers and explanations. I reserve the right to comment when and if I deem it necessary. Frequently, I will allow a discussion thread to continue unabated, in order to bring that thread into class for further investigation.
6. From time to time, if the mood strikes me, I may make a comment or pose a question, or refer you to some additional reading I've discovered. Just because I've done that does not make you obligated to respond. . .at least, not yet.
7. Just in case you haven't been told this yet--or you have, but forgot--please remember: this course is designed in every respect as the equivalent to the traditional Rhetoric/Composition class required of all college freshmen. That's right--you're taking a college-level class, two years ahead of time. Reconcile yourself to the gravity of that reality right now, and be prepared to handle the work that will reasonably emerge for you this year. Conduct yourself with that level of academic responsibility in mind.
8. Oh--and, yes, the blog will be a required element of your grade each marking period, so make it a part of your daily online ritual. Check it frequently, and post or comment consistently. The concept of "participation" is now no longer restricted to the classroom walls!
That's all I can think of at the moment, but I also reserve the right to change/adjust/modify/ invent as we go along. Because I can, that's why.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts, and seeing you all in in class come September.
MR. LAZ
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14 comments:
O.K. Everyone this is Ben Friedman just making sure that I know how to post things...let me see if this works before I write anything else...
Welcome aboard, Ben Friedman--your comment posted successfully! Nice to have you with us. --LAZ
Good it worked! So I'm done reading the chapters and before I ask any questions (and I definitely have them), I'd like to say that I'm very glad the book by Hayakawa was as thin as it was. I was expecting a book heavy enough to do bicep weights with...
I found it pretty interesting, especially Chapter 4 (the "How Words Mean" part)...
The first question I can think of is about the prologue to Book 2...The Story of A-Town and B-Ville...I read the story and thought that I understood it until it said: P.S. Those who have concluded that the point of the story is that the social worker and the Advertising Executive were "only arguing about different names for the same thing" are asked to reread what they mean by 1)"only" and 2)"the same thing" ...well that is pretty much what I concluded so I reread the story and still can't really explain "only" or "the same thing", so can someone help me out here? Or is it that I'm totally missing the entire "moral" of the story? What exactly was the point?
Hey, this is Ian Bussard and I was just making a test post to see that this works for me.
Okay- sorry I'm leaving another comment but I made a Gmail account and wanted to test it.
Hey, everyone! I'd like to comment on what Ben wrote about, since I know I read the same "P.S" sentence about 5 times. I think I can relate the story to the "glass half full" or "glass half empty" theory and how each had a different affect on the towns(A and B). In town A they used the "glass half empty" strategy to get the town back on its feet but ended up sinking it farther into trouble. Town B using the opposite "strategy" solved the problems with a more positive, forward approach ("half-full").
I could say also that whether I call the glass "half full" or "half empty" it does not matter, there is still the same amount of water in the glass. I think the author Hayakawa doesn't quite agree. I think he believes that as proven by the outcomes in towns A and B that the "strategies" (welfare vs. insurance checks)were NOT the same thing because of the feelings and outcomes associated with each one. They both symbolize totally different things (or you could say they "mapped" different "regions" ??? lol). In this book he repetitively mentions that words are nothing more than sounds that symbolize things we encounter in our experience. welfare seemed to dispirit and drag people down while insurance checks helped people get back on their feet. So therefore they weren't talking about the same thing at all. I hope this makes some sense and that someone will post their ideas on this subject.
I agree with what Cristy said. I think to understand the situation, you have to look back to page 19 ("the map is not the territory..."). The Social Worker and the Advertising Exec were using different "names" because the things they were talking about were completely different. As we see in chapter 5, "loaded" words have different judgments built into them.
Everyone has heard the expression, "One man's treasure is another man's trash." Similarly, welfare isn't a very attractive idea for the person who is receiving it because it can be embarrassing. This "loaded" word and all the judgments built into it were avoided by using another system: B-Ville's insurance. The B-Villers were gaining something different from the checks and, consequently, the town prospered. So the "only/same thing" question is addressing two unique ideas; they are only identical to people who see only the words and not the actions which they symbolize.
How do we make our own posts on here (not comments on another post)?
OK nice thanks guys! I pretty much get it now...I understood the whole thing about maps/territories when I read it but I never really connected it to the A-Town and B-Ville example, but it definitley applies now that I think about it...since the "definitions" of the words they were talking about made them separate things because you could say that part of the words' "definitions" were the feelings associated with them...feelings which were different in each town by a lot..Do I have this right?
Also if anyone has any questions for me about other parts of the book tonight, I'll try to answer to answer them tonight or tommorow morning because I'm going away for a week starting tommorow PM.
Hey, this is Amy Z. Ok, so I've never blogged before but here it goes. In the selection from the book at the top of the blog, it says that a word can never mean the same thing twice. So, Bessie the cow is not refering to the same cow a moment before. But do we really attach names to "objects" or to the personal characteristics or personalities. When I refer to Sarah am I refering to her personality and self or to her physical appearance. If the first, then isn't "Sarah" refering to the same personality, the same self as the moment before since that's how we identify people? Even if Sarah decides to grow a mustache and speak in a different language or dye her hair, we still call her Sarah. Her name doesn't change when her appearance changes so isn't Sarah refering to the same self or personal characteristics as those a moment ago? Does this make sense?
Hey, it's Amy! Ok, I've never blogged before but here it goes. So the selection from the book at the top of the blog says that a word can never mean the same thing twice. Bessie the cow is not referring to Bessie the cow a second ago because the electrons are always moving and Bessie is never the same. But when dealing with living creatures, do we really attach words to physical appearances or to individual personalities, selfs, and personal characteristics? When I refer to Sarah, aren't I referring to Sarah's personality? Sarah could change her nose, dye her hair, and grow a mustache but we still refer to her as Sarah because she acts like Sarah and has the same integrity as Sarah. When John isn't acting the way he usually does or isn't showing characteristics related to his personality we say, "What have you done with John?" or "You can't be John!" So, if we attach names to personalities, aren't we refering to the same personality that existed a moment ago and thus words can mean the same thing twice? Does this make any sense?
That's so crazy, I thought it didn't work last time! Yep, definitely new at blogging!
Hi, it's Erin. I've been thinking about that postscript at the end of the story about A-town and B-ville (seriously, I think that you can ponder that one forever). Everyone has had some great thoughts and I'll try to add mine. As I thought about it, I kept returning to where one says, "welfare is welfare, isn't it? If you'd only call things by their right names..." and the other replies, "but, confound it, insurance is insurance, isn't it?"
It made me wonder about #2 ("the same thing"). I know Hayakawa made the point that words never mean the exact same thing twice. Maybe what he's trying to get across is that if the same word doesn't always mean "the same thing", how can two things that are supposed to be synonyms mean "the same thing"? Obviously, though, the words weren't really synonyms since they stood for different things and produced drastically different results.
As to the "only" part (#1), the only thing that I can think of is that Hayakawa called the story "a semantic parable", and a parable is a story that teaches a larger idea. So while on one level the story means one thing, you can take it to yet another level and glean a different lesson. So maybe we're supposed to look further.
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