Northeastern College

Santiago City, Philippines

Graduate School
Comprehensive Examination
Master of Arts in Education Major in Language and Literature

Name:_Lourdes S. Ramirez______________________________ Score:__________________

Course:MALL________________________________________Date:___________________

I. Language

A. Discuss Grices Conversational Maxims

1. Maxims of Quantity- the right amount of information

Make your contribution as informative as is required (for the current purposes of the
exchange).
Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

2. Maxims of Quality- giving an honest information

Do not say what you believe to be false.
Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

3. Maxims of Relation- the right kind of information

Make your contribution relevant to the topic or conversation.

4. Maxims of Manner direct and easy to understand

Avoid obscurity of expression.
Avoid ambiguity.
Be brief (avoid unnecessary prolixity).
Be orderly.

B. Explain the following Theories of Language

1. Behaviorist Theory by BF Skinner - As one of the pioneers of behaviorism, he

accounted for language development by means of environmental influence.
Skinner argued that children learn language based on behaviorist reinforcement
principles by associating words with meanings. Correct utterances are
positively reinforced when the child realizes the communicative value of words
and phrases. For example, when the child says milk and the mother will smile
and give her some as a result, the child will find this outcome rewarding,
enhancing the child's language development

2. Innateness Theory by Noam Chomsky - According to Chomsky, humans are

born with a set of language learning tools referred to as the LAD. The LAD is
an abstract part of the human mind which houses the ability for humans to
acquire and produce language. Chomsky expressed that children are able to
derive rules of a language through hypothesis testing because they are equipped
with a LAD. The LAD then transforms these rules into basic grammar. Hence,
according to Chomsky, the LAD explains why children seem to have the innate
ability to acquire a language and accounts for why no explicit teaching is
required for a child to acquire a language.

3. Cognitive Theory by Jean Piaget - Piaget [4] studies on child development and
education have been very influential in the world, today. His cognitive theory
of language learning, states that learning starts with adaptation. One can
achieve that adaptation through assimilation and accommodation.
 Assimilation is the way that a person takes in information and makes sense of
it. This can include changing the information to make it fit. Accommodation
and assimilation go hand in hand. When one accommodates, he or she is using
assimilation to change his or her thought patterns.

Piaget also showed that classification was also important to learning language.
Certain words and sounds needed to be grouped together to better understand
and use them in speech.

II. Literature

A. Discuss the following Literary and Sociocultural Criticism Theories

1. Formalism- Formalism is a school of literary criticism and literary theory

having mainly to do with structural purposes of a particular text. It is the study
of a text without taking into account any outside influence. Formalism rejects
(or sometimes simply "brackets," i.e., ignores for the purpose of analysis)
notions of culture or societal influence, authorship, and content, and instead
focuses on modes, genres, discourse, and forms. The aim is to produce "a
science of literature that would be both independent and factual," which is
sometimes designated by the term poetics.

2. Feminism- Feminist literary criticism is literary criticism informed by feminist

theory, or, more broadly, by the politics of feminism. It uses feminist principles
and ideology to critique the language of literature. This school of thought seeks
to analyze and describe the ways in which literature portrays the narrative of
male domination by exploring the economic, social, political, and psychological
forces embedded within literature. This way of thinking and criticizing works
can be said to have changed the way literary texts are viewed and studied, as
well as changing the canon of what is taught

3. Realism - Realism is about recreating life in literature. Realism arose as an

opposing idea to Idealism and Nominalism. Idealism is the approach to
literature of writing about everything in its ideal from. Nominalism believes
that ideas are only names and have no practical application. Realism focused
on the truthful treatment of the common, average, everyday life. Realism
focuses on the immediate, the here and now, the specific actions and their
verifiable consequences. Realism seeks a one-to-one relationship between
representation and the subject. This form is also known as mimesis. Realists are
concerned with the effect of the work on their reader and the reader's life, a
pragmatic view. Pragmatism requires the reading of a work to have some
verifiable outcome for the reader that will lead to a better life for the reader.
This lends an ethical tendency to Realism while focusing on common actions
and minor catastrophes of middle class society.

4. Idealism - Idealism is a term with several related meanings. It comes via idea
from the Greek idein meaning "to see". The term entered the English language
by 1743. In ordinary use, as when speaking of Woodrow Wilson's political
idealism, it generally suggests the priority of ideals, principles, values, and
goals over concrete realities. Idealists are understood to represent the world as
it might or should be, unlike pragmatists, who focus on the world as it presently
is. In the arts, similarly, idealism affirms imagination and attempts to realize a
mental conception of beauty, a standard of perfection, juxtaposed to aesthetic
naturalism and realism.

B. Conceptualize a Teaching Strategy in Literature. Discuss it

Cooperative learning is also a very effective instructional strategy that works well
in literature-based instruction (Slavin, 1987). Students learn to read, write, and
 think by having meaningful engagements with more experienced individuals
(Wells, 1990). Many times these individuals may be their peers.

Note:
The proctor will give bond papers for your answer sheets. Thank you and Good Luck.

Prepared by:

MAYLANE L. MATEO ERICKSON T. EUGENIO

Professor Professor