Wednesday, March 6, 2013

“Pot Legal” SLIPs:

Phonology

“mariguana” — this might be the way the writer spells the “wahna” sound.

Morphology

“children’s” — the word ending is incorrect
“this people” — rather than "these people"

Syntax

“Therefore Gray you who…”

Semantics

“Jim Gray a republican who wants to…” — not a complete sentence, but when speaking, according to Krauthammer, it is often the case that we speak in fragments and that fragments flow together for a listener.

Pragmatics

If the essay is supposed to be a persuasive argument it needs to be clearer about what the argument is. Is it about Jim Gray or legalizing marijuana?

“Weird Friday” SLIPs:

Phonology

“…got my blank it…” — The writer is writing out the word “blanket” the way it sounds to him as he speaks the word.

Morphology

“So then we sat down an ate breakfast.” — “an” should be “and” but the “d” is dropped because the writer doesn’t pronounce the “d” when talking.

Syntax/Semantics

“…then like at 10pm we left to the airport and got our things register to the thing…” — We would not normally write the word “like” although it is as ubiquitous as the word “um” in spoken speech. We might also be more specific in written language. Rather than saying “register to the thing” we would describe the process of checking in.

Pragmatics

The entire essay is a running monolog about the experiences of the day but there is not a lot of actual information being transmitted, particularly to address the title of the essay and inform the reader as to why the day was weird for the writer.

1 comment:

  1. yes, 'weird friday,' as an audience member, left me hanging. A great example of leading one's audience to expect something, then not delivering on the goods! I don't think this is a bad thing per se, although it would have been nice to see the purpose of the narrative, rather than bits and pieces of a small story.

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