Webs of Significance

Webs inside cover

Webs Contents

Part I. Language 1

Part I. Language 2

Part II. Culture & Enculturation 1

Part II. Culture & Enculturation 2

Part II. Culture & Enculturation 3

Part II. Culture & Enculturation 4

Part III. What are the forces that shape culture?

Part III. What are the forces that shape culture? 2

Part III. What are the forces that shape culture? 3

Part IV. PNG yesterday, today and tomorrow

Appendix I Reading 1. Aristotle: Metaphysics

Appendix I Reading 2. Human Paradox

Appendix I Reading 3. On dialectics

Appendix I Reading 4. Of Human Understanding

Appendix I Reading 5. On generalization

Appendix II Reading 1. Of Human Nature

Appendix II Reading 2. Nora Vagi Brash: Which Way, Big Man?

Appendix II Reading 3. Otto Nekitel: Voices

Appendix III Reading 1. Diamond: Guns, Germs, & Steel

Appendix III Reading 2. Society - the Foundry of Human Minds

Appendix III Reading 3. The Crusades

Appendix III Reading 4. Economic Delusion

Appendix IV. Debate time!

Webs of Significance: Cover page 

The SMS Serendipity in PNG (Student texting lingo): Olga Temple

 INTRODUCTION

This is the first attempt by the Linguistics Strand, School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS), University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG), to document the impact of mobile phone technology on language use amongst UPNG students and, by extension, to describe the flowering of this new mode of communication amongst the broader youth community and PNG society as a whole.

A brief discussion of some basic technical concepts, followed by an outline of the historical evolution of SMS world-wide (and in PNG, in particular), introduces the ‘Tok’ harvested in 2009 from UPNG Waigani and Taurama campuses by a research team of senior UPNG sociolinguistics students under my supervision.

This volume of research findings into the ongoing language change in Papua New Guinea, apart from listing a glossary of most popular ‘currency of thought exchange,’ also provides a comparative analysis of UPNG student lingo with texting vocabularies in the English-speaking world and beyond.

Click HERE to download the complete text.

Tok Ples & Social Netwoking: PNG 2010

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tok-Ples-Texting-Social-Networking/dp/998094529X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1338292069&sr=1-1

Genesutra

This is the book I published in May 2011 for my students at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG).

Genesutra stands for ‘Generalizing Sutra.’ It is a digest of the Introduction to Linguistics course that I have taught at the UPNG since 2007. ‘Brevity is the soul of wit’; hence, my choice of the sutra form.

Through the wide-angle lens of dialectics, Genesutra captures Language, alive with Generalization. It is Generalization (the ‘Rational Mechanism of Language’) that helps us understand the superficial complexities of syntax; the lens of dialectics x-rays linguistic structures, revealing universal principles of human understanding at the core of their diversity.

Click HERE to download the cover page

Inside Cover

Foreword

Sutra 1. On Human Cognition

Sutra 2. Language - Complex Whole

Sutra 3. Word-Meaning - the Smallest Unit of Language

Sutra 4. The Whole Is More than the Sum of Its Parts

Sutra 5. Generalization - the Rational Mechanism of Language

Sutra 6. The Limitations of Arbitrariness

Sutra 7. Morphology: Words & Pieces of Words

Sutra 8. Allomorphy & Morphological Types

Sutra 9. The Atoms of Language - Speech Sounds

Sutra 10. Phonology - the Sounds of Language

The Gist of Genesutra

Appendix I. A Brief Survey of the History of Linguistics

Appendix II. The Basics

Appendix III. G-nalysis

Appendix IV. Fun Stuff

Appendix V. Past Exams 1

Appendix V. Past Exams 2