Language and Communities

Do you think that the media young children are exposed to affects their self-esteem or self-perception? Explain.
Why might Disney be a relevant example when it comes to looking at language, identity, communities and power?
Watch the video below - what is your reaction? What is your reaction? Does it lead you to change any of your previously-held beliefs?

 Racism still plague many of us today and I'm ashamed to say that I fall into the habit from time to time as well. Not only racism but xenophobia, division among the classes are also some of these problems and sometimes I wonder why we do such awful acts. The thing that I recall the most in relation with racism was ironically humour, in which the usage of stereotypes on certain groups were nothing out of the norm in my everyday conversation with my family. We would stereotype these groups based on their occupation, their facial features and nonetheless, the colour of their skin. These were often said for the purpose of humour but this slowly degraded my sense of morality as I often reflect in shock after doing something like that nowadays.

 Television is an article in most households nowadays and isn't much of a scarcity for children hence I would say that many children are exposed to at least some sort of media but specifically, television. Television, if I have to put it, would have to be the devil's advocate in engulfing on communal stereotypes as they are firstly, easy to understand and break down by many layers os society and as my point in the paragraph above states, could not only be humorous but even exciting, engaging, inspiring-for the sole purpose of entertainment.

I'm not saying that entertainment is bad and what people WANT is essentially bad for them but the best way I can put the situation in an analogy is that you give an intense exposure of broccoli to children until they get used to it or even, grow to like it.

The exposure of stereotyping in television media is strong, and we can see it already for example as Halloween draws close, girls would tend to dress as princesses or something feminine as that, would be a norm and if you dress as something UGLY as thematically set by Halloween standards, some would think it's wrong. Here is a video to illustrate the example (viewers' discretion advised):

Even as exaggerated as this video clip might portray, it does elicit a certain height of truth of the effects of media today have on youth today. Without seeing some links as the one below, I would be afraid that I would maintain similar ideals of confining to media-set stereotypes as well:

"Photographer Mother Shoots Daughter as Great Historical Women"

In the context of Disney, I'm afraid that's where ideas of wanting to be a princess (the ultimate sign of a damsel in distress), pretty and desirable sprouted from works such as Cinderella, Snow White and etc. It wasn't only until recently that they promoted works such as Princess and the Frog which promoted diversity and women empowerment. That, alongside Mulan, are the only works of Disney that I can with one hand that had elements of women empowerment but even neither escaped from romance and all the la-dee-da that makes the idea of women constantly related to aspects of love, revolting.

 The video, hurts me as I watched the response of the children when they were asked "Which of these dolls look like you?". I saw a look that almost tells of a sudden revelation that all these negative factors that they associate with, were them and they simply feel confused as to their inferiority and I had share such experiences as well when I visited someplace of a caucasian-majority and the treatment I got from many, if not cold, were rather unfriendly and then it struck me after being oblivious for so long that, I'm a stereotype as well.

This is a rather pessimistic view maybe, that I see such a grim view of the world today but the more I experience the more I see about the media-shaped society and culture of today in the negative light. Of course, there are many benefits that comes along with media  but we need to assert a different mindset- a mindset that opens itself and see itself as part of the world as opposed to the world of only theirs as we will constantly be codependent with society and we ALL play a part in making the world more open to different perspectives, everyday.

I would like to end my reflection with a quote from Gandhi, which says:

"whatever you do in life will be insignificant. but it is very important that you do it anyway." 

FOA reflection

Reflection on FOA

Knowledge and Understanding of the texts and subject matter

-I felt that my understanding of my topic was superficial as I did not intrigue my audience with more than what was outlined on each slide of my powerpoint presentation. If I had more knowledge and ideas of my text, I would be able to go on much deeper to explain my points.

Understanding of how language is used

- As I presented on the topic of Manglish, I understood the colloquial "Manglish" however this did not go well with my idea of presenting in an Ellen Degeneres/talk show host style as I do not identify the speech style of a talk show host thoroughly and could not present it in that essence. I assume that my ideas were not fitting and was probably not focused as I felt that I had clumsily gone through one-third later into my presentation as I lost character while speaking.

However, I felt that my attempt on this idea was original and creative as recreating a specific style of a well-known talk show host would require familiarity with the style and simply a sense of spontaneity which always appear to be the basis of Ellen Degeneres' fun and friendly appeal.

Organisation

-My organisation of this oral presentation was rather simple as I followed a simple structure of background and main content. I also make sure my slides could relate to the next to ensure a continuous flow of thought.

Language

-I felt that I had good command in my English as I used a variety of lexicon and technical terms to explain the characteristics of  "Manglish". Explaining these terms such a grammar, phonology, rhetoric and sarcasm allow me to understand them better as I teach as well.

My control in this area was something I was happy with as I was also able to capture Ellen's southern drawl and embody her sense of spontaneity in the beginning.

Reflection on Attitudes to Sexuality

Key Question: 

To what extent has there always been a sexual double standard, and how is that double standard encoded in texts?

In the excerpt from "The Scarlet Letter", what surprised me was how the females ("midwives') were so harsh in judging Hester Prynne almost as though they are sexist when viewing Hester Prynne's chastity. "This woman has brought shame upon us all. " in the text show how they think the act of one single woman contaminate the so called 'good image' of the women's circle. However, why is the idea of Hester being unchaste a bigger source of worry rather than the speculation of how she became so? Why is it that they do not worry about whether or not she had been violated or raped hence being seen as a victim instead of a mere symbol of disgraced dignity as the embroidery "A" on her bodice show?

This is then continued with the Op-Ed article which states how society is still "perversely censorious of woman's sex life" showing how people still view the chastity of a woman in such light, whereby their sexual status is almost a complete representation of their dignity in the public eye.

We see women getting humiliated and scorned, even being driven to death because they get taunted for their sexual behavior such as Amanda Knox?

How does this compare to the case of Ariel Castro, a male who later killed himself after bring found guilty of 937 counts of rape, kidnapping and aggravated murder who kept 3 females for almost a decade as sex slaves to satisfy his dissipated lust?

What I see is that men get away with higher degrees of promiscuity whereas women get shunned just because the are no longer ‘virgins’ but society has mixed the issue of sexual righteousness with aggression as well where on this end, we unfairly and often stereotype males as aggressors instead of women.

 In the “Gender and Speech Styles” booklet, it also mentions how language is not an innate skill, and as mentioned by Dale Spender, language is a socially constructed system rather than natural phenomenon hence language can be utilized by powerful groups to encode meanings.

For example, the creation of lexical asymmetry place "talking like a man"> "talking like a woman", as cultures-often practiced by large powerful groups such as a society, still maintain a traditional stereotype over gender status in language. This then leads to my next point that was also highlighted in the booklet that women and men are two different cultures, and that they have different aims in conversing e.g. men for power, women for solidarity, intimacy.

Society also stereotypes gender with sexual implication. Women are expected to be nice which is sexualized to mean as chaste but when reversed onto men, "nice boys" "nice boys”- is an unusual collocation( juxtaposition) which then shows then the norm for men is 'not nice' and when sexualized, will presumably be unchaste and foul-mouthed.

In a modern context, the contemporary view is that both genders can have different identities in different contexts. Rather than a single notion for femininity or masculinity, there are so many femininities and masculinities and can be seen as a pluralist framework instead hence these characteristics simply become a set of gender-free adjectives, that are can apply to both men and women on an individual level as awareness towards individualism rises but this is also limited to the constrain of their situation.

What type of a reader am I?

 Strategies that I currently use for reading:

I am a reader who likes to take it slow rather than skimming through texts. I can read about 4 non-fictional text pages in half an hour as I analyze and annotate as I read to ensure that I fully understand the text before moving on.

I make use of my different coloured highligters to highlight different points such as one regarding to females, one for males, and one for a general opinion/theory.

As soon as I come across a word I don't know, I like to find out its definition in a dictionary. I find that writing notes help as well, as I do it in History. Writing notes help to slow down my reading process and to reduce the information to something concise and understandable to me.

For a non-fictional text, I do a lot of annotations as it helps me analyze the text better. I would also prepare a big glass/bottle of water. Sometimes, eating sweets help as well because I tend to need to snack when I begin to lose my concentration.

I recognize that my environment plays a very important role as I get distracted very easily. I have to be in a quiet, conducive place, preferably with nobody around and is a comfortable lounge area. Lighting is also very important as when it is dim, I lose concentration easily. Strangely, when I read from my phone when all lights are out, I find that to be very good as I assume the light from the phone and nowhere else makes me concentrate on the text on my phone.

I also try to make connections in my reading from texts to texts or even texts to real life to help them to relate better hence understanding better.

Strategies that I would like to try over the next few weeks:

I would like to pay attention to punctuations in long sentences to help me break down sentences into easier sizes for comprehension.

Over the next week, I will try this strategy in particular:

I will pay more attention to punctuation and get most of my reading done during prep time (7:00-8:30 p.m.) as it is the most quiet time.

Introduction to Language as a WOK

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3. Use the last slide to write at least 2 generalisations about language - you can write more if you want to flex your conceptual thinking muscles!

A generalisation is a statement that is true across time and context. It is stated in the present as it should always be true, not just in one situation or at a particular time. If I choose the concepts LANGUAGE and LEARNING, I can produce the following generalisation: "Language allows us to discuss, explore and reflect on our learning." As you can see, this is true across all time and in all contexts. (Even if people don't do it, they still could if they chose to.)

After our discussion on "what is language?" on Monday,  I pondered on my things. However, not before I thought on my own definition of "language" itself. I started out almost black and white with just a:

"Language is a mean of communicating through speech and writing"

Later on, I improvised and wrote:

"Language is a mean of communication through ubiquity commonality."

What made me change my idea? Well simply because there was so much debating going on that all these influx of ideas and debate from my peers simply made it clear- language is not JUST that.

Our discussions developed from language being ALL forms of communication as language also include body language and sign language hence we chucked that idea. We further refined language to as a mean of communication only by humans that is expressed through verbal and written form as humans do not only communicate like animals for survival means, but we also develop artistic expressions through speech and writing.

We assume that at the moment, animals have yet to develop these creative expressions through language as we humans do hence language is still limited to humans at the moment.

Generalizations

1. The more languages you speak, the more people you can communicate with.
2. Language limits the way you think.

Interactions in Gender - Investigations (Zimmerman and West)

Zimmerman and West

1975

Men interrupt more frequently than women.  In 11 mixed-sex, two-party conversations, men were responsible for 96% of interruptions, whereas women were responsible for just 4%.

For the investigation on interactions in Gender, I worked with Jerry on the Zimmerman and West (1975) theory, where it states that men interrupt more frequently than women.

In our investigation, we found our results to be partially similar to the theory's result, whereby the male participants interrupted 61% (theory=96%) of the time while the female participants only interrupted 39%(theory=4%) of the time. Factors that could influence the difference in the ratio gap between the theory and our own investigation could be the number, depth of knowledge, personality and relationship of the participants.

In the Zimmerman experiment, there were 11 participants whereas we had an equal number of both genders- 2 boys and 2 girls, as opposed to 11 where it probably would not have been an equal ratio.

Moreover, the depth of knowledge of each participant can also be a strong factor. We assume that their depth of knowledge correlates with the confidence to speak out but this may not be the case, leading to our next factor of personalities.

Jerry and I discussed about how some participants may either be extroverted, introverted or even both, which may affect their preference on being vocal in a discussion or not. Personality is a very big idea to be reduced into a mere tangible idea as we noticed the two most talkative participants were as we identify, an extrovert(male) and an introvert(female) respectively based on our personal relationships with them.

We also think that the chemistry among the participants may also be an important factor. Let's say, if the 2 females and 2 males were siblings, they would be more comfortable with brisk interruptions from each other as they know the other party wouldn't mind but if the participants were all strangers to each other, they would be more reserved and hesitant in interrupting as this may be seen as rude and offensive.

Among all the factors that we have observed, the one that is most relatable to our topic of language and gender is personality. Our finding of the extroverted male and introverted female being the most vocal participants was really mind boggling as it made me wonder if both genders with a similar personality would also react the same e.g. the reaction of an extroverted male and female participant in a discussion-will it be equal? This brings me back to the gender-specific cultural implications we have today in language as what limits either gender in terms of language? I am probably wandering way off topic at this moment but so far, our exploration in language and gender has definitely been an eye opening metamorphosis as we slowly learn more about the society we live in.