A language without limits

The text is about the variations of english now days, refering to Chinglish, Arazibi, Hinglish among others.Talks about how english is changing and creating new "types" of english "That's a dierct consequence of international scope, the fact that English has travelled so far around the world and mixed with so many other cultures", making English have more than 700.000 words.

This varieties identify gruops of people, they are a bridge in between two worlds, two cultures, "some people feel threatened because the standar isn't adhered to cross the board... there are lots of purists out here". The english we speak today will be diffreent from the one we wll speak in the future, "it is disliked by some native English speakers", they are embarrased of this variations, "they think it is a sign of incompetence when it is really a sign of resiliency and creativity".

I believe English will keep changing, and other cultures and combinations of languages will appear, not just talking about English, the world is so connected now days that more variations will "born" and will get a place in communities of speakers attached to them, the world and the people is changing... and also language.

Ebonic Language

Ebonic is a term that was originally intended to refer to the language of all people descended from enslaved Black Africans, particularly in West Africa, the Caribbean, and North America. Since the 1996 controversy over its use by the Oakland School Board, the term Ebonics has primarily been used to refer to African American Vernacular English, a dialect distinctively different from Standard American English.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3osr-1P5FfI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=EU32VUdZjm0

This videos show how ebonic English is used and also a funny example of a reaction of someone who doesn't wants to use the word black (as he would usually do) in front of one and trying to be politically correct, though with no results.

Online communities

1. What is the issue with identity on the Internet? 
You never know who is on the other side of the computer, its usual that people meet online persons and have a virtual society or friendship, you dont know nothing about that other person, or if he has evil means... or not.


2. Can you be anyone you want on the Internet?
Yes, of course you can, you just need creativity and a good memory to create your own story on internet and make someone believe you are not who you really are.


3. Can you be indentified by your use of language?
No, it's not hard the way you write, just practice, and I think it's imposible to identify someone by that.

Internet video activity

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIOClX1jPE&feature=player_embedded

1. What's the role of Social Media?

2. What's the role of people?

3. What's the role of fans?

4. What's the benefit of Social Media to people and/or organizations?

4. What online community do know you it's based on this system?

5. Is Social Media the same as a Social Network?

1.- To create oportunities

2.- rating, commenting and creating a network

3.- make more popular

4.- easier to express yourself and to beknown, for good or bad.

5.- 9gag , jaidefinichon, youtube.

6.- No, what you share in a social network is part of social media.

Language and community

Language and Community
Communities are created by people to produce knowledge, authority, and language. This Communities create different types of language by using slang and colloquialisms. When you are part of a community, you get used to speak in a certain way, but what happens if you belong to many different communities?
At class I started to think of how many communities I beling and without thinking much I listed:

• chilean community
• athletism
• mackayan
• my family

And I thought. Do I talk in different ways in every  community?

Well, in my own case I dont really change my way of speaking, sometimes more formal and less colloquial, though not much.

according to our course companion, the definition of community is:

"A group of people that share the same customs, interests, laws or traditions, and language" Course Companion

Winter Holidays

Holidays!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Finally a rest, though not for me, I'm going the two weeks of holidays to train athletism to Santiago, so, better luck next time.
Hope I can hang out with some friends though most of the time I'll be out.
Nothing else to say, those are my vacations, though I'm totally not going to study or even open a book. :)

British week and trip to New Zealand

This week at my School we are celebrating the British week. The English department is incharge of all the activities, and as we are at one week from vacations we can assist, not as other years. The teachers did a great job with the activities and organization, and they tried to do as many typical stuff as they could, the most amazing one was the cheese roll race! Though it wasn't as the real one, of course, but there was a race with obstacles in which you had to carry the cheese. There were also activities about Sr. William Shakespeare in the movie Anonymous, Trips to Valparaíso, to the roots of the School and many other entertaining things to do. I participate in the public speaking, which was a speech based in the quote "The End justifies the Means", focused on any topic you want, I didnt get a price, just a diploma (keep trying and thank you for participating), though I practiced my English and I think the next year I'll assist again.

Also this week 9 of my classmates went into a trip to New Zealand, by our School indeed, they are staying three weeks and they are being hosted by students of another School there in NZ. I hope they bring a gift. Good Luck!

Spanglish, Indglish... OMG

People differ in the manner in which they speak (not slang or jargon) their native tongue, although usually not markedly within a small area. The differences among groups of speakers in the same speech community can be considerable. These variations of language constitute its dialects. All languages are constantly changing, people doesn't speak the same as 100 years ago, maybe even just 50 years.

The use of written language, had led to the development of standar language in most of the major speech communities, that is an official dialect of a language that is theoretically mantained unchanged.

Just in U.S.A. there are many communities of speakers, as we've seen in class, there are variations of  the original American English, and some of the most known are Spanglish (English influenced by Spanish) and Inglish (English influenced by Indian).

Text analysis

Toward the week we've been learning how to analyse texts so we can identify the language in the cultural context.
 What you need to take into consideration is:
Theme
Topic
Main Idea
Author's purpose
Genre
Register
Source
Audience
Vocabulary
Tone


If you are able to identify all this aspects it should be easier to understand the text.

Oral presentation

Oral Presentation

This week we had a presentation foccused on Language and Knowledge, we had to include Legal language, Scientific Language or Sport Language. My group choose Scientific Language so we did a skecth of Dr. House serie, of course I was doctor House.

Personally we didn't had much time to preapre the play though we did a good work improvising!

JARGON!

I've allready explained what jargon is, now at class we saw different types of jargon, which are:

sports language: As it says the name, is refered to the specific words used in sports, used usually by coaches to the students, athletes or players.

scientific language: This type of jargon is very technical, you need to dominate the topic very good, its usually used in medicine, as you have may noticed when you go to the doctor that he says a list of things that are totally out of our vocabullary.

legal language: Is the jargon used by lawyers and alikes. It is precise and very detailed, without thoughts or fealings, so there's only one point of view of what you're talking about and no ambiguities.

Video activity. Man who speaks 11 languages.

I really couldn't believe what this guy was doing, it's really amazing that a person gets to talk eleven languages and, in my opinion, very good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TZLJmv-5k88
 Questions:

1. How many languages does Alex speak?

2. Does context help in the process of acquiring a new language?

3. Are there any languages that have similiar pronunciation?

4. Which of the languages spoken by Alex seem more colloquial?

5. Is class a more important factor in language variation than geography?

4. Do you think, the ability of learning a language is innate or learned?

5. According to you, are some languages more or less difficult  to learn than others? Talk about your own experience.

1.- 11, and he says he wants to speak more.
2.- Yes, it's easier to learn a language if you are sorrounded by it than in a class.
3.- Yes, Alex says Greek's pronunciations is very similar to Spanish's pronunciations, and Dutch with Afrikaans.
4.- I believe his spanish accent sounds like a typical turist trying to get directions, so that one.
5.- Well, I think both are important, if you learn a language it changes in small details in between classes, as we saw, there is slang and jargon, and according to the class you'll know a different type of language, and geography is also important, as I've allready said, it's easier to learn a language if you are connected to it.

Jargon and Slang

Slang is the modification and way to speak in an informal conversation of a specific group of people, it's usually used by people with low culture and education, usually gangs and youngsters use this kind of speech.

And Jargon is pretty close to slang though it's of a specific group of people that uses a type of language that it's just known by their group, though it's not informal, it's used usually on works, as medics, lawyers, chefs...

Debate at class: ebooks vs. books

This week we had a debate in which the teams had to debate the position on being against ebooks and for paper books or the other way around.
My team was against normal books and personally i think we won! :)
In the 20th century new devices of technology had appeared, and even same technology has been developing in a fast way. Now days the newest technology is given by small devices with many functions, as Ipods, Iphones, Ipads, Kindles and others. The debate consisted in prooving if the ebooks were good enough to replace paper books, or why not.
In my debate the team that supported paper books gave arguments related with fealings attached to the books, fans and problems with technology, though we had tools to rebottle all wat they could say and proove they were wrong and even going away from the theme.
In my own opinion books will never dissapear, though people is going to start using more ebooks rather than the others as its (in time) cheaper, uses less space and u can carry all your books in just one device, or any device.