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. Meaning of suffixes & prefixes2. Combining words to make new words3. Inflecting nouns & verbs4. 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. Antonyms2. Synonyms3. Homophones4. 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?