Scriptural Message

•I will incline my ear to a proverb;

I will express my riddle on the
harp.
Psalm 49:4
Fr. Al’s Message
“The word of God contains infinite
light, infinite wisdom, and fullness
of knowledge.”

(To Live is Christ, page 22)

 Learning Competencies

•Distinguish features of colloquial

language (fillers, contractions, etc.)
and slang
goin’, doin’, bein’
•Have you ever heard the terms above?
•How do you call these terms?
•When do we use those terms?

•Use the terms in a dialogue with your

seatmate.
FYI
Dialogue, including colloquialisms
• feels more authentic when pulled
from real life
• used to situate the writing more
decisively in a specific time
period and/or place
 FYI
•Writers are cautioned away from over-
using dialect, such as dropping “g”
at the end of a continuous verb to
create a Southern twang, such as
goin’, doin’, bein’ etc.
•Authors may also use colloquialisms
unconsciously for a time and place
they know from their own experience.
What are colloquial
expressions?
Colloquialism
•comes from the Latin colloquium,
which means a “conference” or
“conversation”
•refers to the usage of informal or
everyday language in literature
•generally geographic in nature; often
belongs to a regional or local
dialect
•can be words, phrases, or aphorisms
Colloquialism
•Native speakers of a language
understand and use colloquialisms
without realizing it, while non-
native speakers may them hard to
translate.
•“characteristics of or appropriate to
ordinary or familiar conversation
rather than formal speech or writing”
 •Examples of
colloquialism from
common speech
A. Words
1. Regional differences
Example:
Some regions of the United States
refer to a carbonated beverage as
“soda”, “pop”, “soft drink”, and
“Coke”
A. Words
American English British English

truck lorry

soccer football

parakeet budgie
 A. Words
2. Contractions:
“ain’t” and “gonna”
-examples of colloquialism
-not used widely throughout English-
speaking populations
3. Profanity:
“bloody”
-simple adjective in American English,
but is a curse word in British English
 B. Phrases

1. old as the hills

2. penny-pincher
3. she’ll be right
4. pass the buck
5. eat my dust
B. Phrases
wanna – want to
gonna – going to
y’all – you all
look blue – look sad
 C. Aphorisms:
• I wasn’t born yesterday.
• There’s more than one way
to skin a cat.
• Put your money where your
mouth is.
• You’re driving me up the
wall.
• The rich get richer and
the poor get poorer.
• Colloquial expressions
-may give us deep insights
into the writer’s society
in literature
-tell us about how people
really talk in their real
life
Colloquial expressions
-impart a sense of realism to a
piece of literature which
attracts readers
-add variety to the characters
which makes them more
interesting and memorable
What is slang?
Slang
-“very informal usage in vocabulary
and idiom that is characteristically
more metaphorical, playful,
elliptical, vivid and ephemeral than
ordinary language.”
(Random House Unabridged Dictionary)
-more informal than colloquialism
Slang
Example:
Stinks – for “is bad”
Buzz off – for “go away”
Salad dodger – an obese person
Steps:
1. The class is divided into ten groups.
2. The teacher brings the paper bag
filled with paper slips with the slang and
colloquial expressions.
3. Ask each student to pick a slip of
paper from the bag. Give the entire class
15 seconds to create a short dialogue
between two or more students using slang
or colloquial expressions.
4. Each group, one at a time performs its
dialogue in front of the class.
Steps:
5. Give a point to every group that
uses the expression correctly. Give a
bonus point to the most creative group.
6. Different students must perform each
round in order to give everyone in the
group a chance to speak.
7. Once the game is over, add up the
total scores for each group and declare
a winner.