MCC 101                                Talk to Me

Assignment 9: due Monday November 21, 2005

1. Find and read the prologue first two acts of “Pygmalion” by George Bernard Shaw. This is the play that “My Fair Lady” was based on. It’s a classic, so you should be able to find it in any bookstore, but it’s also online at http://www.bartleby.com/138/index.html. We’ll finish it before the end of the semester, so if you are so inclined, read on! If you have seen the movie My Fair Lady, note how it differs.

2. Pick one of the next two short research topics and submit a 4-5 paragraph report on the blog (and include it in your written homework). You can do the research online. Post the source reference and a short comment on whether the source seems credible/ reliable. Please check the blog to see if anyone has already found that source. If so, and you agree with the reliability judgment, try to find another source. If you disagree, say how and why you disagree.

a. Where does the name Pygmalion come from?

b. What is the “Pygmalion Effect”. One online source is           http://www.accel-team.com/pygmalion/

3. Read Chapter 11 in Fromkin book.

This chapter talks about how languages change over time. Fromkin concentrates on the phonetic changes that have happened (pronunciation of “sanity” so that it doesn’t sound like “sane –ity”). There are other changes that she also talks about: new words, new syntax, etc. Of these three things: a) pronunciation, b) syntax and c) lexicon -> what do you think the time horizon (roughly, in order of magnitude) of changes to these three aspects of language. Why?

	Time necessary to change	Why this long (and not longer or shorter)?
Pronunciation
Syntax  (order)
Lexicon (Vocabulary)

How does this compare with first language acquisition (baby talk)?

Post your hypothesis about the time and the baby talk on the blog.

Do exercises #1 (look back in Ch 6 for what these phonetic symbols sound like), 3, 5, 9, 10, 13