Title: Language of value – evaluation in the language

Lesson plan elaborated by: Katarzyna Maciejak

Topic:

Language of value – evaluation in the language.

Target group:

1st‑grade students of a high school.

Core curriculum

I. Literary and cultural education.

2. Receipt of cultural texts. Student:

1) processes and hierarchizes information from texts, such as journalistic, popular science and scientific;

3) recognises the specificity of journalistic texts (article, column, reportage), rhetoric (speech, laudation, homily), popular science and scientific (dissertation); it distinguishes between message and commentary among press texts; recognizes linguistic means and their functions used in texts; reads information and explicit and hidden messages; distinguishes between correct and avoidant answers;

II. Language education.

2. Differentiation of language. Student:

6) defines the properties of language as a carrier and relay of cultural content; ZR

7) recognise the valuing vocabulary; distinguishes neutral vocabulary from the vocabulary with an emotional color, official from colloquial.

8) defines the role of language as a tool of valuation in literary texts; ZR

3. Language communication and language culture. Pupil:

2) defines the intention of speech as an act of two meanings: literal and implied (presupposition); ZR

3) recognises and defines text functions (informative, poetic, meta‑linguistic, expressive, impressionistic - including persuasive);

4) defines the role of language in building the image of the world. ZR

7) applies the principles of ethics of speech; evaluates language statements using criteria, e.g. truth - false, correct – incorrect;

IV. Self‑study. Student:

3) uses scientific or popular science literature;

8) uses general Polish dictionaries and specialist dictionaries (eg etymological, phraseological, abbreviations, dialect), also in the on‑line version;

9) uses multimedia sources of information and makes their critical evaluation.

The general aim of education

Students practice the search in the texts of linguistic means for valuing.

Learning outcomes

Student:

• discusses the chosen typology of values;

• talks about values valued nowadays and about his system of values;

• recognises the valuation expressed explicitly and indirectly;

• looks for valuations in the texts;

• differentiates genres of expression that carry positive or negative valuation.

Learning methods / techniques

• giving: talk;

• practical: practical exercises;

• programmed: using a computer, using an e‑manual.

Forms of work

• individual activity;

• activity in pairs;

• collective activity.

Lesson plan overview (Process)

Introduction

1. The teacher determines the purpose of the classes and gives the students criteria of success.

2. The teacher asks students how language helps us to judge the world. He asks students for examples of valuing statements. He asks what meaning is given to people by naming traits, categorizing and judging (in this way the mind organizes reality). It draws students' attention to the proximity of issues related to old‑fashioned (a simplified vision of the world).

Realization

1. Determining definitions of terms: axiology and connotations . Students work with a dictionary of foreign words and create their own definitions of words.

2. The participants of the classes perform interactive exercise No. 1 - they place on the pyramid values that are important to them. The teacher emphasizes that students may have already done this task at earlier stages of education, but their value system could change as they grew up and acquired new experiences.

3. Work in pairs. Students write words about positive and negative connotations and words valuing with them, e.g.

• mother: caring, love, goodness, patience;

• professor: wisdom, intelligence, seriousness.

4. Students get acquainted with the infographics presenting one of the typologies of values, and then they talk about it in pairs, they also try to indicate examples of anti‑valence and determine whether such an opposition is always obvious (interactive task No. 2).

5. The teacher begins a conversation about values which - according to students – are valued today.

6. The teacher emphasises that the same concepts are assessed differently by different people, also introduces the name of the banner word (proposed by Walery Pisarek, meaning words important for some groups).

7. Students look for texts (for example, articles on the Internet), in which two opposing views on various phenomena clash, and note the words about it.

8. Reading of the text by Ryszard Tokarski and execution of the book no. 5 (finding examples of metaphors and connotations).

9. Students perform interactive task No. 6 - they divide the given speech genres into two groups: communication behaviors, which are accompanied by positive evaluation, and behaviors, which are accompanied by negative evaluation.

Summary

The teacher gives students short surveys with self‑evaluation.

Then he summarizes the classes, asking students to prepare a list of questions that can be asked on the card after the lesson.

Homework

Choose from any advertisement a few words (or longer sentences), through which the sender wants to create a positive image of the product offered (or the commercial institution he represents). Make a note in the notebook.

The following terms and recordings will be used during this lesson

Terms

Texts and recordings

Language of value – evaluation in the language

What associations in different contexts cause such words as: home, mother, light, night?

Find in dictionaries as many as possible phrases (metaphors, idiomatic expressions) associated with these words. Can any information on judgements and values be obtained based on these contexts?

We use language to describe the world and the properties of various things we see, use or encounter. Usually we are able to specify their value by means of simple adjectives: good – bad, positive – negative, satisfying – unsatisfyng. Consequently, we assign particular evaluations to particular phenomena (terms). They show our attitude thereto and substantiate our choices (approval or criticism of sth or sb). We evaluate the features of various actual phenomena (or even abstract terms), and in social and public life, we every day meet with different standards of behaviour. The science dealing with value is axiology. It originates from philosophy and ethics, and applies to art, religion, culture and social life - i.e. various areas of humanistic thought. In this part, we will learn how we assess ourselves and the world that surrounds us using language.

However, we more often evaluate things using words associated by us with “good or bad” occurrences, in the definitions of which the information on their assessments is missing. For example, the primary meaning of noun mother is “a woman who gave birth to a child”, but more frequently the meaning of this word resulting from the text (context) is much more important. The term mother is linked to such words as: love, care, protection, kindness. The word does not evaluate directly, but it causes positive associations and invokes the names of other values.

• The meanings of some words appearing in the context are referred to as connotations (or indirect meanings, not straightforward meanings). They appear very often in the vocabulary we use to express judgements.

• The words used to express associations concerning (positive or negative) assessments are referred to as words evaluating indirectly (not straightforward/connotatively).

It should be said that one term is not always evaluated by people the same. What is more, the attitudes of different people to many things are different, and they perceive various circumstances differently. In other words, they get attached to some values, simultaneously rejecting others (they disagree with them). The evaluation can often be derived from the word context, not its meaning.