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Language Focus - Reductions

Course video 18 of 59

In this unit you will learn about the differences between traditional and social media, and learn the language necessary to compare them.

Welcome to English for Media Literacy, a course created by the University of Pennsylvania, and funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Office of English Language Programs. To enroll in this course for free, click on “Enroll now” and then select "Full Course. No certificate." This course is designed for non-native English speakers who are interested in learning more about U.S. media literacy. In this course, you will explore different types of mass media, such as newspapers, magazines, television, and social media. This course will also give you the opportunity to develop a broader understanding of the role media plays in our lives, while building your vocabulary and giving you the language skills needed to analyze what you read and watch. The first unit in this course will provide an introduction to media literacy and give you an opportunity to evaluate your own media literacy level. In unit 2, you will learn how to identify facts versus opinions in the media. The next unit in the course will focus on the differences between social media and traditional media, while unit 4 will look at how gender and identity are covered in the media. In the final unit of the course, you will demonstrate your increased media literacy by through a culminating final project on social media. Development of this course was funded by the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Office of English Language Programs. Unless otherwise noted, all course materials are available for re-use, repurposing and free distribution under a Creative Commons 4.0 Attribution license.

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您将学习的技能

Grammar, Media Analysis, English Language, Media Literacy

教学方

Lauren Fiori
Advising Specialist
Ian Nichols
Language Specialist

脚本

Hello.

In this video,

we're going to learn about an important listening topic called reductions.

Native English speakers use reductions all the time.

So if your listening to the radio or

watching YouTube videos, you'll need to understand reductions.

First, we'll talk about how reductions are formed.

And then we'll see some common examples.

The word reduction has different meanings when we use it for different subjects.

In this video, when we talk about listening for reductions, we mean

words that are formed by combining other words and leaving out some of the sounds.

You've probably already heard native speakers use words like going to or

should have or didja.

These are new vocabulary words, they're reductions.

going to comes from the word going to,

should have comes from should have and didja comes from did you

Let's look at how these and other reductions are formed.

All reductions are simply faster and

easier ways to say a frequently used word or phrase.

One way to do this is by leaving out some of the middle sounds of a phrase

We can take a phrase that people use a lot, such as give me, and

omit one of the middle sounds.

The result is gimme, as in gimme the salt.

Gimme is faster and easier to say than give me.

Other common reductions that leave out some middle sounds include lemme,

let me, want to, want to, and going to, which we already mentioned.

We can use them in sentences like, lemme carry that box for you.

I want to help.

Or I'm going to bring this inside.

Another way to make reductions is by leaving out

one of the N sounds of a phrase.

There's a whole group of very common reductions

that are formed by leaving out the V sound in have.

could have, should have, would have, musta, and mighta.

These come from the phrases could have, should have, would have,

must have and might have.

We would use them in a sentence such as, I should have brought an umbrella.

Two more common reductions are formed by leaving out

a sound at the end of a phrase, kind of and lotta.

They are formed from the phrases kind of and a lot of.

So you could say, I'm kind of hungry or I'm not, I ate lotta chips earlier.

You might notice that reductions are very similar to other words like can't or

she's or I've.

These words are contractions.

A contraction is a word formed by combining other words and

leaving out some letters.

The missing letters are replaced with an apostrophe,

which is a small mark at the top of the line.

Although both contractions and

reductions are formed by combining words, there's an important difference.

You will see contractions in informal writing such as emails.

For instance, the contraction I've in I've been travelling.

Reductions are almost always spoken though and not ran.

You may see reduction only in the most informal situations

such as a text message.

So, in a text message you might see the reduction want to.

I want to get lunch.

But in an email, you would probably see, I want to get lunch.

So to summarize, reductions are spoken words that are formed by

combining other words and leaving out some of the sounds.

We looked at some of the most common reductions and

saw how either a middle sound or an n sound was left out.

Reductions are very common in spoken English, but

you might not see them in most writing.

Contractions are similar to reductions but

they are often used in writing such as emails in addition to spoken English.

Next we're going to play a game to practice with reduced forms

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