Tweaking Our Speaking - Technology and Language

In this blog post, I decided to take on a perspective other than my own. I thought that the mum of a student would be an interesting perspective opposing (in some cases) my opinion. Hope you enjoy!

Text speak destroying our kids’ reputations? You’re absolutely right! I don’t have to be some language professor who wasted her years away studying the evolution of the English language to know that technology and mobile phones are deteriorating everything that we were taught as kids and what I want my son to be taught!

Instead, his school has ME spending $800 on a screen and some wires which pretends to tell him what the school won’t teach him. I don’t know about everyone else, but if I was their kids’ parent, I would sure as heck want a proper education like we got when we were kids, where teachers teach us to spell rather than have us type on a screen which automatically corrects us beyond our care.

Our school system needs changes, I can tell you that much. In my time, we were sent home with a 3 page written essay and math worksheets due the next day. Now they are told to go home and play some stupid game and make a ‘Mine Art’ or whatever they call it. You know what my son said to me the other day? He said “WTF”. WTF?! Teachers can’t even control what our kids do on these little devices that they’re letting them use willy-nilly. The internet is a big world, and I’m not ready for my child to be exposed to the expanses of it.

We need more people like you, Ms Clark, to stand up for our children’s education before we are left with illiterates running our beautiful country and our world. Earth is going to go into a huge downhill spiral of deterioration if we don’t act now about our kids’ learning. I, like many other loving mothers, rely on my son’s school to provide the learning he needs to succeed on this harsh planet. Please continue with your enlightening articles on such an important topic.

Thanx,

Linda McNiven.

Singterview with Bliss n Eso

Foss: This is Oliver Foss of Vogue Magazine and I am here with the esteemed Jonathan ‘Bliss’ Notley and Max ‘Eso’ Mackinnon, but all of you must know them as the iconic Australian hip-hop band Bliss n Eso. Welcome guys.

Eso: Thanks for having us mate.

Bliss: Great to be here Oliver.

Foss: Well I know you lads have a lot going on at the moment, so let’s just get started. Would you guys mind starting by just introducing yourselves and how the amazing Bliss n Eso came to be?

Bliss: Well I’m Bliss.

Eso: And I’m Eso, and yo we’re just two guys who do what we love. We met in high school along with our man Tarik and we really just been chilling and making tunes ever since.

Foss: And Bliss, what would you say you achieve through your music?

Bliss: Yo man, where do I begin? We love to write our music on whatever bothers us. War, inequality, the importance of our origins, Australian culture and community, government, politics, religion, global warming. Anything really. But I think the predominant message that we try to send to our audience is that it doesn’t matter where you come from; it doesn’t matter where you grew up; it doesn’t matter what others try to tell you, you can make it. We air this because we want others to make it like us. Neither of us come from the best background, but we have both achieved success, and the reality is that anyone can make it in today’s world. We no longer live in a society where you follow the footsteps of others but you can make your own prints, and we want people to know that.

Foss: Anything to add on the matter, Eso?

Eso: Well as Jono said, it’s about opportunity. At the end of the day, “Everyday’s another chance to ignite” for those who have heard Addicted. There are always gonna be downfalls and struggles in your life, but you gotta bounce back, and that’s how you, or we succeed. Our music inspires music, or more generally, stepping out of the comfort zone. No one wants the next Tupac, the next Messi, the next Zuckerberg or the next Robin Williams to be stuck in dead-end jobs where their talents are wasted because others told them they couldn’t make it.

Foss: I couldn’t agree more. So you’d say that the prominent theme of your songs is not giving up and doing what makes you happy?

Bliss: Bloody oath. That’s the big picture. Ya know, “tryna’ reach new heights like a bird in a spaceship”. That kinda thing.

Eso: Haha, “Tryna’ see how far, on planet earth we can take this”.

Foss: Couldn’t say it better myself. And is there a certain kind of person that you wrote all these inspirational songs for?

Bliss: Man there ain’t a certain kind of person that doesn’t need to reach new heights. As hard as life gets, we want everyone to get the best they can. That’s what everything comes down to in our songs: the idea that we can all do it.

Eso: Exactly. I must say though, that I reckon hip hop is a ripper way of getting this message across, especially considering our use of language. Being popular with the younger generation who have their entire lives ahead of them, we want to provide inspiration and self-belief to those who need it both. We talk about some massive issues in our songs, and one of them is school. Rather than schools creating lab rats, they need to be creating individuals, you get me?

Foss: Mhmm.

Eso: Where schools point students to typical accounting and engineering jobs, we want them to know just because you aren’t the best in school, you can achieve whatever you’re willing to. Make sense?

Foss: Yeah, I understand. You said that your language is popular to a younger audience. Why would you say this is?

Eso: Well, you know. Kids are unexplainably attracted to swearing and slang. We don’t overcomplicate our vocab so that everyone, no matter their age or academics, can understand what we’re trying to tell them. The more people that can understand and easily relate to our songs, the more people can take in the meaning and be inspired.

Foss: Well that’ll just about ‘rap’ it up haha. It was great having both of you here and look forward to seeing you soon.

Bliss: Thanks for having us Oliver.

Eso: Great being here. Thanks mate.

Foss: This has been Oliver Foss of Vogue Magazine with the aussie hip hop band Bliss n Eso. Thanks for watching.

Bliss n Eso is one of my favourite musical groups/artists and I feel a deep connection with several of their songs. Here is my favourite of them: House of Dreams. Look forward to further creative posts.

Understanding 怎么样 den cerveau spricht двух idiomas - Understanding How the Brain Speaks Two Languages

I found parts of Jeffrey Kluger’s article about multilingualism quite questionable in that the majority of the information provided is, as the author described, “based primarily on his [Sean Lynch] own observations”. He believes that young children face difficulties with learning two languages simultaneously, but has long-term benefits including cognitive health, improved decision-making and problem solving.

I have never had the joy of realizing that what I perceive in one language is different to what I perceive in another. I cannot tell you how much I wish I could. The tests conducted within this article strongly support the fact that bilingualism or multilingualism is good for us; not only our health, but how we perform and think. This demonstrates a clear correspondence with what we have previously discussed.

I hope that one day I get the chance to learn the majority of another language. I would love to be bueno en español. Even without the cognitive advantages, the ability to effectively communicate with more people increases our purpose as social beings.

You Say Cup, I Say Mug

“There is nothing in human endeavor to which language is not connected.” This compelling article talked about the effect that language has on your thinking and perception of the world around us, and used fantastic examples in time, intent and space to do so.

We have talked about how our language influences the way in which we perceive poems or other literature, but this reading extended that to the belief that it actually affects the way in which we perceive everything. People of different languages describe activities and daily aspects differently, meaning that their perception of these activities also differs.

My favourite example was Justin Timberlake’s wardrobe incident, as how we describe the issue determines the extremity of Timberlake’s punishment despite everyone viewing the exact same incident, illustrating the influence that language has.

I found myself concerned with the scenario depicting Indonesian perception of time, as the author claimed that viewers of the photos saw "no difference between the photos." Although Indonesians have little description of time, surely they can recognise differences in these images. The information provided seems dubitable.

This article has furthered my knowledge on language, and I look forward to ameliorating this understanding.

Language is no Smart Chart

Our accents are a denotative feature of our identity, but never should any stereotypes be made, especially those regarding one’s intelligence, based on the accent that we possess.

This belief, which I strongly agree with, is one evoked within the article “Yorkshire named top twang as Brummie brogue comes bottom” written by David Batty. Talking about a study which displayed stereotypes towards those with the particular Birmingham accent compared to other English accents and even silence, as people believed models with this accent were less intelligent than those without.

This issue is one we have previously discussed in class, especially within Amy Tan’s story in which her mother was perceived as less intelligent due to inability to speak English to a high degree. Throughout this I think we all agreed that never should these assumptions be made based on completely unrelated aspects of someone’s identity, such as accent or second language communication, but rather on their ideas and thoughts.

This article enlightened me in that I never considered that assumptions including level of intelligence can be constructed based on something as miniscule as the pronunciation of certain words. I think it will assist my journey as I strive to understand the effect that language has on our identities and others’ perceptions of us.

Mother Tongue Unsung - StereoTYPICAL

Throughout the course of history, stereotypes have been as prevalent as fat people in the United States. Point proven. In all seriousness, stereotypes can be detrimental to society, often associated with racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. Being Australian, I am the subject of a significant amount of stereotypes (all in the nature of banter of course), as many of us are in an international school, which I never ‘copped’ (an Aussie term meaning receive) back home. From this example among many, it is a fair conclusion that wherever there is diversity there will be stereotypes.

In Mother Tongue, Amy Tan writes about her experience with English as someone of Chinese origin, alluding to issues such as the importance of one’s native language, school career steering and most saliently (in my opinion), stereotypes of non-native speakers.

Amy’s mother, a second language English speaker, is a pivotal demonstration of these stereotypes in her struggle against native speakers. The fact that others “did not give her good service” due to her linguistic differences exposes one of the many stereotypical obstacles within society. It is their right that anyone, regardless of their English abilities, must be provided an equivalent amount of service. This is clearly lacking in this woman’s story.

In a situation as extreme as finding out the condition of her brain tumor, you can imagine the concern when the hospital refused to provide her diagnosis without justification, until, OF COURSE, the fluent English speaker turns up. We have spoken about relational activities, in which you change how you speak to different people or in different situations, however depriving someone of vital information because they don’t speak English is NOT one of these. It is discrimination. Despite the mum’s belief that she spoke “very good English”, she still was not treated with decency due to others’ stereotypes.

I find it insane that anyone views someone with broken English or difficulty in English to be any lesser than them. As a one-language speaker, I have the highest respect for anyone who can speak two, three or even more different languages, and swap between them at an instinct. I find it hard enough to get a 7 on a Phase 1 Arabic class let alone speak two languages in complexity. If you are one of those people, kudos my friend.

What makes it worse is that in this story, as a little girl, even Amy “believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say”. This reflects the illustration passed through society: English is the superior language due to the superpowers which primarily speak it; if you do not speak English, you are automatically inferior. The ignorance and arrogance within many English-speaking countries – such as that shown when we travel and expect foreigners to speak our language – has a serious effect on the rest of the world (especially foreigners living in these countries) and must be addressed.

This was a bit of a more serious blog than my others. I hope that it was still compelling and not as boring as Belgians (keep in mind I found this stereotype online #nohate). See you when you’re older.

Good English and a Bad Blog Post

So, here I am rapidly typing away in my physics lesson because I just looked at Managebac and discovered that I had to do a blog post in response to our reading last night and all I’ve done is a small paragraph answering half a question.

Good English and Bad was eyebrow-pluckingly boring, if that even is English. That being said, it was a little bit interesting knowing the roots of our language and how it really is a bunch of gibberish that a few people have made up and others have just followed.

The questions for us are: Given all the anomalies in the English Language, what is the author saying suggesting about standards of usage? How does his discussion make you feel about your own lapses in grammar?

Within this essay, the author is suggesting that our standards of usage of English are developed because those before us say that the language should be communicated a certain way and others follow, eventually creating rules. He also conveys his disagreement with the implementation of Latin grammar and influence.

Since I have grown up learning English and only English, these rules have never had a negative effect on me. As nice as it would be for verbs to be the same whether they are past, present, future or plural, I have never known anything else and as a result I have naturally adopted it. I make mistakes every now and then, but it has never really bothered me.

I don’t look forward to reading more essays like this, but I do look forward to the knowledge and understanding I attain from them. Time to get this post up before I get detention.