Author Archives: rknapton

Blog Post 3

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This course has actually won the title of being my favorite class this term!  I think the most interesting topic we discussed was the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis.  My favorite part of linguistics involves psychology and I find it extremely engaging to think about the way humans are influenced by language.  I’ve especially appreciated the pace and discussions that took place in this course.  The constant feedback that was given by everyone was very helpful when questioning how others felt about what we learned.  I believe this class has changed the way I look at linguistics.  I know that I’ve always believed that language is a crucial factor in the way humans think, but now, I have actually learned about studies that can support this hypothesis!  I’m very excited to continue to learn about East Asian culture because of this course and am pleased to report that EALL has been influential in the way I now think about linguistics.

East Asian Writing

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When thinking of places around Eugene that incorperate Asian language into their businesses, I thought of this Asian market.  This photo was taken at the Eugene Asian Market on East 11th Avenue, located very close to where I live on campus.  The characters that are printed on the sign read “Eugene Asian Market,” or a phonetic translation, “Yàzhōu lóng.”  I have not seen these characters together ever in this order, but I have seen the first and third characters before while living in Taiwan.

I have seen the first character (亞, yà) at a popular Asian breakfast chain in Taiwan called Laya Burger.  The third character (龍, lóng) is the second character to the compound word for dinosaur and can individually mean dragon.  In this context, I believe these characters each represent that the store is Asian and located in Eugene.  Because Chinese uses radicals and other visual clues to indicate meaning, unknown characters can sometimes be inferred using a method like this.

Hello, Class!

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大家好！

My name is Rooke (林如琦).  I’m a freshman at the University of Oregon planning to major in Chinese.  I started learning this language my junior year of high school when I traveled to Taiwan as a foreign exchange student.  Living with host families and making friends through school and Chinese class, I started to explore more of what the country had to offer.  I toured the city nearly

One of my host families and I on the top of a mountain.

everyday, finding new places to eat and shop.  After returning home for my senior year of high school, I decided that I wanted to continue to study Chinese and language.  I am excited to be taking the EALL209 class and I already really enjoy what we’re starting to learn.  Some of my goals for the near future include developing my Chinese fluency and further exploring Asian culture so that I am able to talk and relate more with my Taiwanese family and friends.  I would love to revisit this part of the world after learning so much more about it!