Notes On The English Language

Australia is celebrated for its multiculturalism and acceptance of ethnic minorities, however, according to linguist Ben crustal ‘Australia…recaptured by a pervasive monolingual mindset which sees monolingualism as the norm and multilingualism as the exception even as a problem or deficit.’ Although ethnolects are viewed negatively by the mainstream society, its usage is both beneficial to ethnic minorities and has been adopted as the Lingua Franca in some situations. As a result of the majority’s consensus on the dislike of ethnolects, minorities are pressured to adopt Standard Australian English (SAE) in formal and public domains; limiting the usage of ethnolects. These observations are reflected in a recent interview with X; a forty-year-old

Do you ever think about the way you speak and why? Well, Paul Robert does an excellent job explaining why people use the dialect they use in Speech Communities. He discusses that people change their use of language throughout their lives to conform to either society or to what kind of person they want to be, or to just conform to who they need to be at a particular moment, in which I agree. People’s choice of language, including myself, are affected by many of their surroundings, such as where they live and grow up at, their peers, and a person’s work place.

The film “American Tongues” documents a variety of English accents that are present across the United States and highlights a lot of the opinions people have about accents and people who speak these accents. A large majority of the people who express opinions about other peoples’ accents tend to express negative views, as they see their own accent as the superior one. The film focuses on showing the array of accents found in the U.S., but also how a lot of people who speak these “inferior” accents work to learn “Standard American English” to increase their chances of getting jobs and communicating in more official domains. Although the film was made in 1988, it expresses views still present in today’s society towards different accents, as people tend to continue judging others based not only on what they say, but also how they say it.

As long as I can remember my accent has always played a role in my life. There have been moments of uncertainty, discouragement, annoyance, and lastly pride. Throughout each emotional stage I’ve learn acceptance and responsibility of what defines me as a women who happens to be Latina. In Tanya Barrientos “Se Habla Español” she defines what resonates within me “Without having to offer apologies or show remorse. If it will help, I will go first. Aqui estoy. Spanish-challenged and pura Latina (45). She beautifully states the acceptance that too many find difficulty fitting in. Especially in a world that will defined you not only by your looks but as well as the way you speak.

I learned many new things from English 1102 class. It was not much fun but I learned some interesting things. For my research, I needed a topic that interests me. I first started to search topics from the chemistry field. I could not find any interesting topics then I came across an article that talks about how robots will take our jobs and every one would be jobless. After reading that article, I was really convinced that robots were bad for human society and people should be focusing on improving other fields such as medicine than wasting time and money in inventing a robot, which is one type of luxury and that, will take our jobs. So I chose this topic for my research. For further discussions, I started searching for some more article about robots not good for human society and I found that there was not much about the negative impact of robots in human society other than taking human jobs. So I was stuck but then I found an article that supports the robots. It was a good article and it explains how robots are useful in human society. The Article says that robots will create new jobs and benefit employers, government and disable people. I also found in one article saying that if robots will do our jobs humans can focus on bigger problems like finding cures for diseases, finding solution to prevent natural disasters and many more. Therefore, I decided to support the robot’s positive impact rather than supporting

When Gatsby first met Daisy, he was merely a poor boy with dreams much bigger than his wallet. Daisy was everything he could have possibly dreamed of: rich, beautiful and powerful. As his love for her grew, so did his ambition to give her whatever he could. When Gatsby acquired a lot of money by a chance encounter with a sailor, his first thought was of his heart. He had left it with Daisy. But, as seen in the book, love that is given yet not returned is poisonous. Although Daisy loved Gatsby, she was too obsessed with the American Dream to ever truly give him her heart. No matter how much Gatsby tried, part of Daisy would always belong to Tom and to

The reason people may be obliged to change their accent is to feel like they fit in and not stand out, so that people from

In Gloria Anzaldúa article “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she shows us how different worlds so close can be so different. Anzaldúa shows that people have restricted freedom in society by the social norms set in them. Anzaldúa pressed her awareness and distraught on how people treat her depending on the type of language she uses. She also explains some of her emotions towards the way people are like with speaking and listening to accents. The article is how Anzaldúa explains how culture and accent shapes a person’s identity by being controlled and oppressed to fit into the social norms, which is how she creates cracks using language and code switching.

There are many indicators of identity by which we are made known individually, socially and culturally; the best of these would be language and how it has shown great flexibility in accommodating the needs of people. Through language people have been able to establish their identities and cultivate friendships with others who share the same common ground. By looking at accents such as Broad Australian English, slang and phonological features as they apply to Australian varieties, we can see how it has forged solidarity and assisted in creating an identity on an individual and national scale.

The things learned during the class, English 203, has not only helped the ability to write better, but also the ability to expand the research on each paper I have written. From the very beginning of this semester, I was taught to write an abstract, which I have never done before, but the basis of an abstract is to look at the big picture and take all the important points of a paper. Also, the papers that was written throughout the semester was not all based around one topic. The topics varied from sciences to engineering feats, while also coming up with our own business proposal where we learned how to format and make it a clean presentation of the idea, and finally we had to research Spartacus, and how it relates to history whether it is historically accurate or not. Taking English 203 has furthered my ability to write papers learning different techniques and ideas making myself a better writer.

Everyone has a different interpretation of the word, “invention”. However the word is simply defined as; a new device, method of process developed from study and experimentation. An invention is just a mental fabrication; it’s a falsehood (Dictionary.com 2013).1 Although in the essays, “Why I write” by Joan Didion, “Life in a new Language” by Eva Hoffman, and “Basmati Rice: An Essay about Words” by Audrey Thomas, each author has their own view on the English language, how they each began inventing their own writing styles, and also their reasons for why they chose to become writers. These are the three things that make their definitions of invention very particular and their own.

Think of things that morph over time. What comes to mind? People may think about a music artist’s change from YouTube videos recorded on iPhones to sold-out concerts. Or, they may think about the changes an athlete makes from childhood to becoming a professional athlete. However, did you think about how much a language changes over a couple of years? Every year words are added to and taken from the dictionary. Words are formed and forgotten. Language changes because of a person’s vocabulary and location, but what happens to a language, like the English language, that is spread across the whole world?

From the reading of chapter 3 there were many different topics that were discussed. The main topics were socialization, norms, and roles. But the topics that I found most interesting to me were language acquisition, societal differences in roles and culture, and culture shock.

Other forms of the English language are developed from speech communities with an intention, for efficiency and to show inclusion, and to exclude others. It also helps to convey a specific identity of the speaker, with the use of syntactic and phonological differences from Standard English. These modifications form non-standard dialects, transferring the speaker’s cultural background and language to provide a better perception and reflection of identity. The falling intonation accompanied with interrogatives in the Asian ethnolect, such as ‘Gravy?’, is the opposite of the rising intonation used for the same purpose by Australians, and can quickly cause conflict between the two communities due to the missing benchmark in language. Pronoun deletion in ‘No like’ (‘I don’t like it’) is a feature of many ethnolects (Greek, Aboriginal English), and is differing from the Standard, yet still helps to get the message across. Ethnolects develop from Standard English, and helps to express a user’s identity through their language use and in-group solidarity within the speech community.

1.Introduction 2.English in East Midlands 1.Vowels 2.Consonants 3.Word Stress 4.Sentence rhythm and intonation 3.Conclusion 4.List of references