Communicative English Skill Development

	2017

[A Short Course on “Communicative English Skill Development”
Course Instructor Amit Kumar Acharjee MA, MBA, CIMA ( Mgt Level)

  Translator & Ex-English Teacher

Course Outline:  Communicative English  Skill Development

Module-01	Theory & Practice of Orthography & Etymology
Module-02	Theory & Practice of  Phonetics & Phonology
Module-03	International Phonetic System
Module-04	Word Origin & Derivative
Module-05	Synonym, Antonym & Homonym
Module-06	Connotation  & Denotation
Module-07	Determiners
Module-08	Modifiers
Module-09	Intensifier
Module-10	Phrases- The Basics
Module-11	Cohesion: Linking Words & Phrases
Module-12	Connectives & Conjunctions
Module-13	Basic Structures of Sentences
Module-14	Framing Sentences with Grammar Focus
Module-15	Communicative English & Modes of Communication

MODULE-01: F ORTHOGRAPHY & ETYMOLOGY

Orthography

An  orthography is a set of rules about how to write a language. It is largely concerned with matters of spelling, and in particular the relationship between phonemes and graphemes in a language. Hyphenation, capitalization, word breaks, emphasis, and punctuation. & a set of symbols are dealt with in orthography.

Units and notation

Orthographic units, such as letters of an alphabet, are technically called graphemes. These are a type of abstraction, analogous to the phonemes of spoken languages; different physical forms of written symbols are considered to represent the same grapheme if the differences between them are not significant for meaning.

Types

The writing systems on which orthographies are based can be divided into a number of types, depending on what type of unit each symbol serves to represent. The principal types are logographic (with symbols representing words or morphemes), syllabic (with symbols representing syllables), and alphabetic (with symbols roughly representing phonemes).

Topics to be covered

1.       Spelling  Rules

2.       Hyphenation

3.       Capitalization

4.       Word breaks

5.       Emphasis

6.     Punctuation

Etymology

Etymology is the study of the history of words, their origins, and how their form and meaning have changed over time. Word roots have been found that can be traced all the way back to the origin of the Indo-European language family. English derives from Anglo-Saxon, a West Germanic variety, although its current vocabulary includes words from many languages. When the Normans conquered England in 1066, they brought their Norman language with them. During the Anglo-Norman period, the ruling class spoke Anglo-Norman, while the peasants spoke the vernacular English of the time. This led to many paired words of French and English origin. For example, beef is related, through borrowing, to modern French bœuf, veal to veau, pork to porc, and poultry to poulet. All these words, French and English, refer to the meat rather than to the animal. Words that refer to farm animals, on the other hand, tend to be cognates of words in other Germanic languages. For example, swine/Schwein, cow/Kuh, calf/Kalb, and sheep/Schaf.

Assimilation of foreign words

English has proved accommodating to words from many languages. Scientific terminology, for example, relies heavily on words of Latin and Greek origin, but there are a great many non-scientific examples. Spanish has contributed many words, particularly in the southwestern United States. Examples include buckaroo, alligator, rodeo, savvy, and states' names such as Colorado and Florida. Albino, palaver, lingo, verandah, and coconut from Portuguese; diva and prima donna from Italian.
Smorgasbord, slalom, and ombudsman are from Swedish, Norwegian and Danish; sauna from Finnish; adobe, alcohol, algebra, algorithm, apricot, assassin, caliber, cotton, hazard, jacket, jar, julep, mosque, Muslim, orange, safari, sofa, and zero from Arabic (often via other languages); behemoth, hallelujah, Satan, jubilee, and rabbi from Hebrew; taiga, steppe, bolshevik, and sputnik from Russian; brahman, guru, karma, and pundit from Sanskrit; honcho, sushi, and tsunami from Japanese; dim sum, gung ho, kowtow, kumquat, ketchup, and typhoon from Cantonese.
Kampong and amok are from Malay; and boondocks from the Tagalog word for hills or mountains, bundok. Surprisingly few loanwords, however, come from other languages native to the British Isles. Those that exist include coracle, cromlech and (probably) flannel, gull and penguin from Welsh; galore and whisky from Scottish Gaelic; phoney, trousers, and Tory from Irish; and eerie and canny from Scots Many Canadian English and American English words  are loanwords from Indigenous American languages, such as barbecue, bayou, chili, chipmunk, hooch, hurricane, husky, mesquite, opossum, pecan, squash, toboggan, and tomato.
The Sanskrit linguists and grammarians of ancient India were the first to make a comprehensive analysis of linguistics and etymology. The study of Sanskrit etymology has provided Western scholars with the basis of historical linguistics and modern etymology. The earliest of attested etymologies can be found in Vedic literature in the philosophical explanations of the Brahmanas, Aranyakas, and Upanishads.

MODULE-02:  THEORY & PRACTICE OF  PHONETICS & PHONOLOGY

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs (phones): their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory perception, and neurophysiological status. Phonology, on the other hand, is concerned with the abstract, grammatical characterization of systems of sounds or signs.
These areas are inter-connected through the common mechanism of sound, such as wavelength (pitch), amplitude, and harmonics.
In phonetics and linguistics, the word phone may refer to any speech sound or gesture considered as a physical event without regard to its place in the phonology of a language. In contrast, a phoneme is a set of phones or a set of sound features that are thought of as the same element within the phonology of a particular language. Phones are generally either vowels or consonants.
A phonetic transcription (based on phones) is enclosed within square brackets ([ ]), rather than the slashes (/ /) of a phonemic transcription (based on phonemes). Phones (and often phonemes also) are commonly represented using symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA).
For example, the English word spin consists of four phones, [s], [p], [ɪ] and [n], and thus has the phonetic representation [spɪn]. The word pin has three phones; in this case the initial sound is aspirated, and so can be represented as [pʰ]; the word's phonetic representation will then be [pʰɪn]. (Precisely which features are shown in a phonetic representation will depend on whether a narrow or broad transcription is being used, and to which features the writer wishes to draw attention in the context.)
When phones are considered to be realizations of the same phoneme, they are called allophones of that phoneme (more information on the methods of making such assignments can be found under Phoneme). In English, for example, [p] and [pʰ] are considered allophones of a single phoneme, written as /p/. The phonemic transcriptions of the above two words will consequently be /spɪn/ and /pɪn/, aspiration no longer being shown, since it is not distinctive.
A phoneme /ˈfoʊniːm/ is all the phones that share the same signifier for a particular language's phonology. If the exchange of one phone in a word gives a new word with a different meaning, then each phone share different phonemes. The difference in meaning between the English words kill and kiss is a result of the exchange of the phoneme /l/ for the phoneme /s/. Two words that differ in meaning through a contrast of a single phoneme form a minimal pair.

Phonology is the study of how sounds and gestures pattern in and across languages, relating such concerns with other levels and aspects of language. Phonetics deals with the articulatory and acoustic properties of speech sounds, how they are produced, and how they are perceived. phoneticians may concern themselves with the physical properties of meaningful sound contrasts or the social meaning encoded in the speech signal (socio-phonetics) (e.g. gender, sexuality, 

The Postman

    The Postman

A person delivering letters and parcels is a postman.  He is a low-paid government employee. He is a familiar figure because he is often seen in the villages and towns.  He has a uniform. He puts on a Khaki uniform. Sometimes, he carries an umbrella to protect himself from the sun and the rain. He rides on a bicycle  because it helps him to perform his duties easily.  A postman bears a bag over his shoulder.  Letters, parcels and other things are safely carried in it.  Every day he opens the mail bag, sorts letters, parcels and money orders. Then he goes from door to door to deliver the postal articles to the right person. He works regularly in foul or fair weather.  People eagerly wait for the arrival of the postman because he brings to them messages of great happiness or sorrow.  His negligence of duties may cause great harm to people. So, he is an important person.

Tree Plantation

    Tree Plantation

Trees are very useful to life. They give us oxygen.  We can not live without oxygen. Air is an essential element of the environment. Air constitutes different elements like oxygen, hydrogen, carbon di-oxide etc.  For our healthier & happier life,  we need clean air.  Then first necessity of trees arises from clean air which should ideally  contain clean oxygen. We inhale oxygen to live. Trees are the only natural resources from which we can get oxygen.  So, tree plantation is a must for human existence. Besides, every country should have 25% forest in proportion to its land area. Not only that, we get food from trees.  We also get shade from trees. Trees give us many more things. We can get medicine , wood & what not from trees. So, we should plant trees.