Day Two.Two

Publishers Proof arrived today!

Duration- 1:08:28

Session Activity- Go through Swadesh List

Item Produced- Words for Swadesh list, The origin of Cut Off, 3 idioms, and a history story

Linguistic Effective- Because of earlier jaunt with nouns, I was able to spot and not a few different consonants I did not note in the first session. The list system went well, and the speaker was comfortable with questions and able to provide 95% of answers. After the session, I summarized what I thought was happening to the sounds. He didn't seem too interested in the content, but he seemed relieved that what he was doing was helping someone

Linguistic Ineffective- Sandwiches are still not possible. Connection words are difficult to grab as the speaker cannot isolate them (i.e. at, in, and on were not answerable questions.). The speaker was sleepy, and at times seemed lulled. He was also disappointed when I did not answer the greeting phrases in french

Linguistic Provisional Improvements- Step my game up when It comes to the greeting phrases. My speaker wants to see me implement the words used into our Ola Weather Talk. On the way to the next lesson, I will try and construct answers to the weather talk to share. Also, encourage users to make a list of words their speaker does not know. Encourage users to let their speaker in on what is happening.

Cultural Effective- When the speaker was not able to isolate the word in question, he would give me the word used in two or three phrases. These phrases were usually culutrally idioms, 80% of these I had never heard before. There were three words my speaker could not think of vocabulary for (Rug, zero, and Pie Crust). After the session, he approached his wife to ask for these words. With this four cool things happened all at once:

1. She tried to think of the answered, and involuntarily switched into talking french. 
2. Both her and the speaker began to tell me stories of french memories. 
3. They brought me to a painting and began to describe the cultural significance, their experience with it, and locational history associated with the piece. 
4. Both began to form lists on who they knew who spoke french, and they could ask for help finding these words for me. 

I am going to say that this is Jan Vansina's theory in action! This makes a strong case for linguistic memory designing cognitive architecture.  I still don't know how to say pie crust, but this linguistic gap is ok. Culturally, trying to think of these missing words brought so much into their minds that spilled out. Much of what they told me I could have never  elicited. Most exciting is the ripple effect this will create as three to four french speakers who they will ask these words to will hopefully share similar oral memory experiences.

Cultural Ineffective- Daylight.Savings.Time. My speaker goes to sleep at 8pm each night. I arrive for lesson at 6pm for an hour of conversation. Daylight savings time made it so our lesson was not as dynamic as it could have been. He was groggy. Also ineffective was the monotony of the Swadesh list. I could tell he was uninterested in material with so little "use."

Cultural Provisional Improvements-  watch personal clocks, and not federal ones

Tomorrow- Ask if they found the words they were missing, and get my weather talk together. I also need to compile the words I do have together to start a consonant/vowel list.

Further Comments- The speaker seemed proud of what he was doing. He told me that he told his friends what he was doing, and that they thought it was a very good thing. At another point he mentioned that maybe he will start giving french lessons to other people. The process of me learning from him seems to be showing him that his language skill is valuable