WEEK 9: SUMMARY AND REFLECTION ON LEXICOGRAPHY

SUMMARY ON LEXICOGRAPHY from afiqah rosa khadijah awatif

REFLECTION ON LEXICOGRAPHY

Lexicography concerns with the editing, compiling, writing or making of a dictionary or also known as the principles and practices of dictionary making and linguist whose specific expertise in writing dictionaries is known as Lexicographer. There are two related fields; which are Practical lexicography which deals with art or craft of compiling, writing and editing dictionaries and Theoretical lexicography which involves with the scholarly discipline of analyzing and describing the semantic, syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships within the lexicon (vocabulary) of a language. Lexicography is very important as it uses corpora to come out with dictionaries as well as grammar books. This is related to the previous part of our lesson where we learned about corpus linguistics and we knew that Lexicography is actually one of many linguistics branches that make use of corpus. 

We deduce that corpus linguistics play a vital role in producing dictionaries and grammar books as linguists must choose the most appropriate data from the corpus that reflect the most current, reliable, and relevant information for the production. We infer that dictionaries and grammar books are essential in language learning as learners must have referred to dictionaries for their vocabulary building and grammar books for the rules of the new language they are learning. As language evolves, dictionaries and grammar books also must be up to date so that learners will catch up with the progress of the language as well and use the language learned appropriately. We believe that Lexicography is an important field of study as it leads to the improvement of currently available dictionaries and creation of new dictionaries which is crucial for language learning as bilingualism or multilingualism are a common phenomenon nowadays. Development of new dictionaries in many other languages will be enormous assist for learners to learn new languages.    

Today, Islamic studies are taught and learnt through the medium of English language in addition to Arabic language. This gives opportunity for many Muslims that could not understand Arabic well but fluent in English instead to master Islamic studies as well. This can be seen in International Islamic University Malaysia where it offers Islamic Revealed Knowledge courses in English. The problem lies where certain Islamic terms are translated or being Romanized but the meaning given in dictionaries does not reflect Islamic canon at all. As English dictionaries are mostly produced by non-Muslims, there are a lot of misinterpretations of Islamic terms or certain words are given bias connotations. 

For example, halal in Islam means any actions, things, food and drinks that are permissible by Allah (s.w.t). However, Oxford Dictionary (2005) defines halal as meat from an animal that has been killed according to Muslim law and Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (2008) describes halal as meat from an animal that has been killed in the way that is demanded by Islamic law, or someone who sells this meat. This shows that these dictionaries just define halal in term of meat, contrast with Islam which includes everything whether it is an action, food, drinks and anything. We feel that Muslims should engage in dictionary making as many Islamic words need correct interpretation that connote the Islamic values and increase the credibility of Islamic English. 

References

Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. (3^rd Ed.). (2008). Cambridge University Press: New York

Oxford Dictionary. (2^nd Ed.). (2005). Oxford University Press: New York

   

WEEK 9: SUMMARY AND REFLECTION ON CONCORDANCE

SUMMARY ON CONCORDANCE from afiqah rosa khadijah awatif

REFLECTION ON CONCORDANCE

Concordancer is a basic tool used in corpus linguistics. It is a software for text analysis where it constructs a concordance which is a collection of the occurrences of word-form or word list. Some examples of concordance software are The Oxford Concordance Program  (OCP), Word Cruncher, TACT, The Child Language Analysis (CLAN), COALA and LMC (The Longman Mini Concordancer). Concordance is very useful and it has been used in language learning and teaching and other language research because concordance makes word lists,  arrange it, and calculate the frequency and percentage of the words based on different categories we want for example collocation, idioms proverb and so on. This is very beneficial as we can know easily one’s idiosyncrasy and this is useful in analyzing renowned writers’ works.   

Nowadays, everything that we want is always available and even some it’s just a click away. Many modern and advanced technologies have been developed by the experts in order to make human life easier. In this particular language field, concordance has been known and proven in making our works easy and simple. It is to make sure that people will not be lagged in terms of education and knowledge and will be through in achieving success and victory.

Concordancer as we all know comes in many versions of texts and language. The function is not only limited to English Language but it also has been developed to study the Arabic language.  So, there are no more excuses for those who reluctant or lazy to understand Al-Quran because concordance for instance provides the best method in analyzing the Arabic words in the Qur’an. Hence, it helps us to understand the Holy Quran better in an interactive mode. Furthermore, researchers and linguists can easily find the materials that they want. Moreover, not only researchers and professionals can reach for the function, but also for language beginners like students and normal people can have the access to it. Nevertheless of status, age, religion and occupation, we are strongly recommended by Allah s.w.t to find and discover the good knowledge, because only with knowledge, people can easily see the light and the true path of God.

WEEK 8: SUMMARY AND REFLECTION ON CORPUS LINGUISTICS

SUMMARY ON CORPUS LINGUISTICS from afiqah rosa khadijah awatif

REFLECTION ON CORPUS LINGUISTICS

Discourse Analysis, Pragmatics, Grammar, Syntax, Language Acquisition, Language Teaching, Lexicography, Psycholinguistics, Semantics, Sociolinguistics and Stylistics are some of the different areas of language study that make use of corpus in the research which help these branches of language study to improve and develop or to solve problem related to these fields. The study related to corpus is known as corpus linguistics. Corpus linguistics deals with corpora which enable the linguist to study the real language used by real people. Corpora consist of a large amount of authentic data which are real language used, whether it is in spoken or written form presented in machine readable form. The authenticity and large amount of data offer the reliability and validity of the corpus, thus lead to the reliability and validity of the research. 

The computer made the task easier as this technology can handle the huge corpus easily and accurately. We agree that technology and computer advancement have a lot of benefit to offer in linguistic study as it provides the linguists the easier way to collect, save, organize, retrieve, calculate and analyze the corpus. Computer makes the result obtained more reliable as computer is mistake free compared to human being. By knowing the existence of this corpus linguistic, we have broadened our knowledge on different branches of language studies that we can set interest in and use corpus for our future research.

In addition to that, as mentioned in our post on Islamization of Discourse Analysis, we know that Discourse Analysis is actually can  shape the perception of people about Islam and vice versa. Hence, corpus linguistics can be used to examine any type of discourse related to Islam. For instance, through research in corpus linguistics, we can know how Islam and Muslim are being represented in mass media such as newspaper and television .We know that the mass media can influence our thoughts. Thus, many anti-Islam people use mass media to spread the false belief about Islam. We can find that they often link Muslims with terrorism and fundamentalism through their discourse. (Paul Baker, 2012).  Therefore, because we have already known the false perceptions of Western people about Islam, we can use this opportunity to clear up all the misconceptions for instance by exposing the true knowledge of Islam itself.

Besides, corpus linguistics also can be used in analyzing the Islamic writings by looking at the language used. Hence, we will know how people use language to spread the teachings of Islam. It also allows us to compare all the Islamic writings to improve our knowledge of Islam. After all, even corpus linguistics can bring a great contribution to Islam. Thus, we must not forget that any branch of knowledge can be used to promote Islam to the people.

REFERENCE

Baker, P. (2012, May 25). Taylor & Francis Online. Retrieved April 12, 2013,

from http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17405904.2012.688297

       

WEEK 6: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

1) How has CMC transform the dynamics of interaction?

          Computer mediated content (CMC) has actually changed the dynamics of human interaction nowadays. It evolved according to the time and technology that has been advancing to different levels and circumstances. Firstly, CMC helps us in widening our interaction scope between people regardless of place and status. For instance, we have Social Network Site (SNS) that represent ourselves in the virtual site. Starting from normal webpage such as MySpace, Friendster and MSN Chat room, many other new interactive sites such as Facebook, Tagged, Skype and Twitter have been popularized. All of these sites enable us the users to connect with everybody from any parts of the world. Information and knowledge also can be shared easily regardless of time, space and place. For example, in terms of education, we can easily connect with teachers and lecturers out of our country to share thoughts and opinions on some certain issues. Other people also can join in if they are interested with it. They can enjoy the conversation or discussion among them and can freely throw out their opinions and comments.

          Secondly, CMC can actually change the notion of someone’s attitude and behavior. It can change someone who is an introvert type of person into extrovert type. This is because usually CMC mode of interaction involves the use of electronic gadgets such computer, laptop and mobile phones. Hence, it will avoid the face to face communication which is seen as burden to some people and for that they will be more active and lively to share their opinions. In virtual conversation, they do not need to open their mouth to talk or and came up with spontaneously reply. They can leave the conversation and after a while they can continue it back. Hence, it always gives time for us to reply and edit our messages.

2) How has this transformation shape society?

          In the positive lights, CMC has built a society that is open-minded and flexible. Once they are on the SNS sites, everyone that has their own opinions and views can share it directly to the intended person or even to the public. Thus, with the light and very relaxing environment, they can simply give reactions and comments without any burden. Society also has become up-to date without missing any important event that happens in the country. Many websites provide us with information and knowledge within the tip of the finger. One cannot claim that he/she does not know about anything nowadays because all information and news are actually can be got in one click. Another important point to be discussed on is the social capital network. It simply means that people from various place, religion and culture can easily be connected with CMC modes of interaction. There is no harm in having many contacts from various people as Allah s.w.t already mentioned in Al-Quran on how we should interact and get to know each other. Surah al- Hujurat, verse 13:

          O mankind! We created you from a single (pair), of a male and a female, And made you into nations and tribes, that you may know each other (Not that ye may despise (Each other). Verily, the most honored of you in the sight of God is (he who is) the most righteous of you. And God has full knowledge and is well acquainted (with all things).

          Nevertheless, there are some downbeats of using the CMC mode of interaction in our life. CMC as the mode of communication will make us lose the social and soft skills. It means that we will not have a normal and smooth face to face conversation anymore because we tend to depend too much on CMC. The value of having people talking face to face will fade away when discussion and conversation are done virtually. For instance, if a father and a son only have their conversation through computer or over short messaging system (SMS) most of the time, their relationship will not be as good as the relationship between a father who give advices and maintain the physical contact with his son.

3) Is this mode of communication in synchronous with Islam?

          As long as the communication is not equipped with contents that are contradictory to Islamic teachings, and it does not bring any harm to the mankind, it is alright. Islam is a religion that is simple and eases the followers in every possible way. But sometimes, having a real conversation (face to face) is more convincing and solidifies the bonds among the Ummah. A conversation is more meaningful if it is beautify with body languages and gestures. It gives more meanings in thoughts and deep understanding towards the person that we talk with.

WEEK 6: SUMMARY AND REFLECTION ON COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

SUMMARY ON COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION from afiqah rosa khadijah awatif

REFLECTION ON COMPUTER MEDIATED COMMUNICATION

Technology continues to develop day by day. Theories are being developed and researches are being conducted to examine the pros and cons of technology in language learning. It seems that there are different modes that are useful in language learning and teaching. Thus, it appears that Computer Mediated Communication has become one of them. We believe that Computer Mediated Communication can encourage and motivate students to engage in the language learning process and boost their accomplishment especially in language learning. Students can practice the language that they learn by interacting with other people through internet. Furthermore, this is a very crucial step for them to grasp the best way to express themselves because some people might more comfortable in using computers to communicate rather than face to face conversation. Although communicating face to face is a more effective type of communication, to some extent, it can be restricted, especially if it involves long distance communication between people around the world. A lot of things can be done through CMC, for example it helps us to keep in touch with our friends while connecting us with the outside world. 

If Computer Mediated Communication such as blogs, emails, chat rooms, Skypes, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), bulletin boards, World Wide Web and other forms of social network sites are used appropriately, such as to communicate with the native speakers, we feel that students can learn more effectively the language they are learning. Besides, it can expose the students to the different cultures and varieties of language. Nowadays, people can not only focusing on learning merely a language. In order to create an effective communication, we cannot simply depend on the language without considering the culture of its native speakers. Besides, understanding other cultures will also expose us to other people’s concept of worldviews which is related to the study of discourse analysis. This is due to the fact that language somehow will affect our worldview and vice versa. 

From an Islamic perspective, computer is a useful and effective tool to spread words of Islam for its speed and accuracy in delivering messages. Although it lacks some of the factors of face to face conversation, emoticons, cryptic language, smiley and etc. have filled the gaps. In short, computer has more benefits than drawbacks to offer if are used correctly.

WEEK 5: REFLECTION ON DESIGNING EFFECTIVE POWER POINT PRESENTATION

In order to create an effective power point presentation, Victor Chen has highlighted some important points that should be  looking at. For example, he stressed on the font size, colour used and content arrangement that will keep our power point presentation simple and clear. All these are needed to ease the presenter during the presentation and to avoid the audience from having any visual distraction due to unorganized power point presentation. Besides, as students we have to know the basic skills of creating an effective power point presentation to fulfil the assessment requirements. As for the long term benefit, Insya Allah, when we embark into the working world in the future, this skill is very helpful for us to make an excellent presentation whether for proposal presentation, meeting, special occasions and so on.

Typically, people will tend to judge us through our presentations. Hence, preparing an effective power point presentation also very important because our slides are actually what people will be looking at besides us. We know that the function of the slides is to provide information and knowledge to people. This is very much related to the Islamic method of Da’wah since Da’wah also gives us knowledge. People will not listen to us if our points are not clear enough. Hence, Islam stresses on the clarity of messages given to people. Besides, we need to keep our message simple yet informative. People will understand better if they are clear with what we say, in this case, what we show in our power point presentations.

Victor Chen also explains that we have to be consistent in creating our slides, for example by choosing only one font for the whole power points. We can see here that consistency also is needed in Islam. For instance, in preaching other people, consistency is needed to avoid any confusion of thoughts. A good da’i also must be very consistent in his/her way of giving Da’wah. Victor Chen then says that a good power point must avoid cramping all information in one shot and putting too much detail in one slide. He wants to say that we have to show any info one by one to make it easier to be understood.

Again, Islam encourages us to be moderate in giving Da’wah to allow people to accept the message slowly without any burden. This is very clear because we know that even Al-Qur’an was revealed gradually. For instance, Allah had revealed the verses related to the prohibition of drinking gradually because during the early stage of Islam, it was the habit of the Arab’s people to drink. Hence, to prevent them with one command will made them hard to accept the new ruling. After all, we have to know the right technique of creating power point presentations as the slides somehow will give us confidence during the presentation because we will not fluster if our slides are good.

WEEK 5: SUMMARY AND REFLECTION ON CALL IN LANGUAGE SKILLS

Call in language skills from afiqah rosa khadijah awatif

REFLECTION ON CALL IN LANGUAGE SKILLS

We spend most of our time listening to many things around us. Some people enjoy listening to music, watching videos, television, movies and so on. It is true that listening is a crucial aspect for language learners because in order to learn a language, they must listen to the language first. By listening to the native speakers’ of the target language, they can take note of the pronunciation, grammar, sentence structure, variety of spoken discourse, intonation, stress, pause and other aspects of language that are used by the native speakers of the target language. By doing so, it is very helpful for the learners to acquire the language promptly. This also gives space for teachers to apply the various computer applications in teaching the listening skills for example, multimedia computing and podcasting in order to make the learning process interesting.

                           

Speaking skills are unquestionably one of the most imperative means of communication. There are several opinions about how good speaking skills lead to an effective communication. Speaking skills are very important and truly one of the best assets in Islam. A good communication skill does help to increase your opportunities to communicate better with other people which will help you to spread the beauty of Islam. As the technology develops day by day, we can use many mediums to communicate with other people. Some people might have difficulty to talk face to face but they still can improve their speaking skills through computer-based activities such as chat room via internet which eventually will increase their self-confidence in speaking.

                            

The first revelation from Allah s.w.t to our Prophet Muhammad s.a.w is the commandment for him to read. As it says in Holy Qur’an in translation from Surah Al-Alaq verse 1:

         “ Read (O Muhammad), with the name of the God who creates all the creatures”.

In this verse, we know that the ever first thing that asked by Allah s.w.t to the mankind is reading as it is the key to all of the knowledge. All people are given the ability to read using our aql. Even for some people who are unlucky (virtually challenged), they still can read through many methods that can be found nowadays. As Mulisms we cannot deny that technology does help us to enhance our reading skills. Many computer software such as electronic dictionaries and online reading programs were created to help people to master the reading skills.

Parents also can help and not putting the burden on teachers only, but as adults, the “supervising mode” must be on every time the kids used the computer and try to help them as much as you can. Providing the right contents(parents can control the content in the computer and monitor the usage , well thanks to technology ) in their gadgets also a big help in order for the kids not to astray too much from their work.

Last but not least for now, it is not wrong to keep ahead and advance as long as our intention (niyyah) is not deviating from the reason  of our creation, which is to serve and keep humble yourself to the Creator.

                                 

Besides, CALL also helps students to improve their writing skills. Many interactive writing online program is available for students to learn the writing skills. Blogging for instance, exposes students to the informal writing which allow students to write freely, expressing their thoughts. Students who write will also get feedback from the readers which then will open some group discussions. However there are also writing programs that help students to improve their academic writing. Besides, many grammar and spelling checkers can be downloaded from the internet at no cost at all. Moreover, the traditional grammar teaching in the class will always make students feel uninterested to learn grammar. Instead of textbooks, computer programs and games are the effective ways to maintain the students’ attention in learning grammar. Creativity is needed in order to create interesting computer programs that are attractive and beneficial in language learning. Thus, CALL does help students in language learning because it integrates the use of computer technology which has become crucial these days.