Week 7, Post 3: Picky, Picky!

Analyze "Pot Legal," "Weird Friday," "Spelling" and "Introductions" to find examples of the following "spoken language interference."  Look for:
Phonology (e.g. difference between our sound system and writing system)
Morphology (e.g. the need to correctly encode word endings and word parts in writing)
Syntax (e.g. difference in the grammar of spoken utterances and written sentences)
Semantics (e.g. differences in the types of words and meanings that we use in speaking and writing)
Pragmatics (e.g. differences the way we construct our message and get it across to listeners/readers.)

Gaffs, flubs, boo-boos...there's no shortage of oopsy-daisies in these writing samples.  Rather than analyze each sample for all five errors or compile by error category, I decided to take a choice line or two from each sample to discuss.  I found some samples a tad more compelling to write about than others (thus, the absence of "Spelling" in my post here)...

1. "Weird Friday"
While it's possibly the most conversational in its flow, "Weird Friday" is rich with SLIPS.  One of my favorite is the following.  The writer's mother asks him where he'd like to go, and he tells her:

     So I replied, "I don't know mom were ever you want you is the one that is driving."

This line feels very honest (even if it's tough to read) in that this student is writing the way he speaks.  It's missing commas before and after the object; these are Phonology errors.  The object, mom, ought to be in caps; another Phonology error.  Writing wherever as were ever breaks two rules -- one for spelling (where) and one for breaking up a compound word; for both causes, were ever should be classified a Phonology issue.  After want, we need a  period to conclude the main idea, plus a capital Y: two more Phonology flaws.  There are two sentences here, but the writer's trying to pack them into one.   This is what we call a run-on sentence; as a sentence boundary issue, we'd label this a Syntax error.  In the second sentence, the verb are is incorrectly converted to the third person is, making it a Morphology gaff.  The use of that for a person is another Syntax error, since the appropriate choice is who.

2. "Introductions" (A)
It's not always easy to tell how to classify an error.  In fact, sometimes there's more than one way to skin a morpheme.  For example, in "Introduction," we find:

     Sandra was attending my class in Mexican Lit. at Venice High School...

Something smells fishy, but why, exactly?  My ESL background forced me to teach plenty of simple past vs. past continuous, so I have a hunch what's at issue here.  Ideally, past continuous is used when we need to distinguish one action in the past from another that had already begun.  For example,

     I arrived late, just as the pastor was delivering his closing words.

We also use past continuous in a more casual way to speak about past activities (whose terminations are less important than the action):

     So, yesterday, I was so busy: I was running around town, buying groceries, picking up my kids, smoking crack...

In the sample sentence above from "Introductions," Sandra's attendance is an action unaccompanied by a second action, so using past continuous, not simple past, goes unjustified.  Also, this is a sample writing for a class, so a breezy, casual voice seems inappropriate.  For both of these reasons, the incorrect tense form marks it a Morphology error.  At the same time, it smacks of vernacular, so we could call it a Semantic error, too.

3. "Introductions" (B)

Another "chatty" style issue in the same sample gives us this couplet:

     Everyone knew who was Gerardo.  Loves to meet people and make friends.

The noun clause "who was Gerardo" works fine in some other languages (Spanish, German), but English requires the verb to follow the noun in this case.  We should chalk it up as a Morphology error, but many people of non-SE background speak this way on a regular basis (it may count as a distinct dialect), so we could also say it's a Phonology error as well.

The second sentence, Loves to meet people and make friends., is one of the few fragments in these samples; it lacks a noun.  As such, it's a sentence boundary error or Syntax error.  Because of the inappropriately casual style, this marks it a Semantics issue as well.

4.  "Pot Legal"
Krauthammer's article says most student errors tend to be Phonological, especially spelling and punctuation (59%, according to Connors and Lundsford).  Because of this, "Pot Legal" is a bit more unusual and, to me, much more interesting.  Particularly fun are sentences lacking like this:

     Gray is a man who has already had his success in life and for that reason he wants to smoke mariguana legally.

It makes you wonder: does Gray, a politician, want to legalize pot for his constituents, now that he has enough clout to pull off such controversial shenanigans?  Or has he always been riding around with Cheech and Chong in that funky van, blowing reefer?  Is he now going to show up to work with red eyes and giggling -- only legally?  

All snickers aside, this qualifies as a Pragmatics error, due to its general lack of coherence.  Oh, and mariguana (is this a variation on iguana?) is misspelled, a blaspheme against Phonology.


And now that I, Jehova Almighty, have lain judgements and hurled lightning bolts, I stride off into the sunset...