South Carolina State Capital, Columbia, SC
Tillman Hall at Clemson University
Forbidden City, Beijing, China

Presentation Topics

  1. February 8. Consider Classical Greece story below. Prepare a five minute with no slides talk on something intellectual value going on in China during the time 6th Century BCE to 1st Century BCE

Comments on Greeks

I will list six important figures of the Classical and Hellanistic Periods.

  1. Socrates is perhaps best known for the Socratic Method. The Socratic Method uses a series of questions to help a person or group to determine their underlying beliefs and the extent of their knowledge.
  2. Plato is known for his own work in evaluating knowledge and for capturing the thoughts of Socrates via the Dialogues. The Dialogues capture the basis of Western ideas of law, education, personal relations, etc. Plato was Socrates' student.
  3. One of Plato's students was Aristotle. From Aristotle, we get the Western ideas of logic and science as well as forming the foundation of Western philosophy.
  4. Eratosthenes was the third Librarian of Alexandria and the founder of the science of geography. He also made contributions to mathematics and the other sciences.
  5. Euclid is the father of the axiomatic method through his Elements. Euclid is known for many mathematical mathematical contributions.
  6. Archimedes was a Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer, inventor, and astronomer. He is regarded as one of the leading scientists in classical antiquity.

Course Information

American Students Who Want To Help ....

Please come. We want to make our guests welcome in the United States and South Carolina. Remember that good ol' Southern hospitality.

A Personal Journey

Elena Frolova, an undergraduate in one of my classes, came to New York City from St. Petersburg, Russia knowing no English. She has kindly written out how she went about learning the language and culture.

I am not sure what kind of advice to give you. I did not have any particular strategies. I just love people and love to communicate. There were few things that were to my advantage. Maybe that will help.

Purpose

The purpose of this "gathering" (it is not a course) is to give non-American students an opportunity to explore English as spoken in the Southeastern United States and to become familiar with U.S. culture.

Outcomes

  1. You will have many opportunities to practice verbal and written English. The verbal portion is aimed at your being a participant in lectures. The written portion is aimed at your being able to understand and write technical English.
  2. You should know the difference between "y'all" and "all y'all".
  3. Know what the "Recent Unpleasentness with the North" is.
  4. You will form friendships with other Clemson students.

Prerequisites

  1. Experience with English. This should be taken care of by passing the TOEFL for admission.
  2. The initial group is assumed to be in a technical major.

Various Possible Exercises

Humor

One way to test your understanding of a language and associated culture is to consider the jokes in use. For example, the comedian Steven Wright is famous for one line observations about people and life. Exercise: Choose one of his jokes and explain why it is funny.

Similarly, each discipline has its own set of so-called "in jokes", jokes that only make sense to people who work in a particular area. Try one of these by explaining the computer science jokes.

And jokes don't have to be written out. Some of the funniest are no-caption cartoons.

Culture

Choose a cultural site in your home country and prepare a five minute talk about it. You don't need a Powerpoint presentation, just some online pictures.

While we all recognize that the United States is very young relative to China, the basis of the Western culture (Ancient Egypt) dates from 3150 BCE. The Xia Dynasty in China dates from 2100 BCE. The Vedic culture in India dates from the same time as China. Mesopotamia (Middle East) also dates with Egypt. Most of Western culture is based on the so-called "Classical Era" of Greece, from the 5th through the 4th Centuries BCE; Hellenistic Greece dates from the 4th Century BCE to the 2nd Century BCE. Prepare a short talk outlining what was going on in China during the Classical or Hellanistic Period in Greece. What is the evidence that ideas were passed between the two cultures? back and forth through India?

English as a Subject

An interesting book on the history of language and its relationship to computing is James Gleick's The Information. It is very interesting, tying African Drum Language to information theory.

Like all languages, English is made up of syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. Syntax is relatively easy because it is patterns. Semantics is the meaning of individual words - like a dictionary. Pragmatics is the difficult part: pragmatics is the way in which the language is actually used. We will talk about the pragmatics of English as used in computer science.

Reading academic English can be very difficult. Academic authors are often judged on the a writing style that is not easily read by the non-professional. How do you unravel this style? One requirement is an extensive vocabulary. The "easiest" way to obtain an extensive vocabulary is through critical reading. The second issue is "unwinding" the complicated sentences: this is an exercise in grammar. We will practice both.

Once you have mastered the grammar, then you need to expand your vocabulary. One way to do this is to subscribe to Word A Day. A much more efficient way to learn is through reading good examples of English writing. Delancey Place is a good way to read well-written English, pick up vocabulary, and read about culture. Don't forget, when you find a word you don't know, look it up. This is easy online: just Google the word.

The Structure of English

There are 8 parts of speech in English: verbs, nouns, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. Unfortunately, it's not that simple. This is why reading academic papers is so hard: the sentence structure is very complex.

English has a time honored graphic method for displaying the relationships of various parts of a sentence, and I'll bet the same tricks work for Chinese. Here is a good example site. Here are some funny quotes to diagram.

Presentations

A Goldmine of Advice