WOMAN WARRIOR

The most meaningful takeaway to me has been from Woman Warrior. The text is of a young Chinese girl who faces the challenge to speak English when starting school in America. The extract from the novel shows the clear relationship between the concept of language and power. In this reading, we come to see that language is power. As the young girl first joins the American school, she is shy and develops insecurity due to the language and culture barrier. To start off with culture plays quite a significant role, in the Chinese culture it is frowned upon for a female to speak boldly and assertively. Yet on the other hand in the American culture, they believe in the individuals’ rights and freedom of speech. This caused a clash for the young girl as she knew that in order for her to be accepted and have power she must alter some of her cultural ways leading to hybridity in a way where she balance both the American and Chinese culture in her future.

The girl continuously refers to the Americans as “ghosts” in a manner that they should be feared or not trusted. Yet she refers to the black student in her class as Black Ghosts, she admired them due to the fact that they laughed the loudest and talked to her as if she was as talkative as them. This sort of linguistic approach towards the Chinese girl made her feel less of an outsider and making her feel bad every time she didn't speak. Also the young girl refers to them as the Negro students/ black ghosts show that her intention is innocent and in no way trying to discriminate them.

When the girls would attend the Chinese school they wouldn't have the same problem of silence, they would be loud and yell all together yet when asked by the new teacher to speak aloud, her voice would waver and stutter like when they are in the American school. 

The young girl knows that language is the power which will create her personal identity and as she grows up she sees silence and the lack of speech and language represents weakness which led to her hatred for the “silent girl” and  fears that the girl's public image implies her own unpopularity. One day when the girls are alone, she decides to confront the silent girl and tries to make her talk, resulting her to use violence however the girl still refuses to speak. At the end the young Chinese girl ends up crying along with the silent girl, realizing that she is trying to deal with similar fears. Her inability to make the silent girl speak, forces her to come to terms with her own fears associated with language and personal identity and could have made her realize the fact that the girl wont retreat and speak, that she has power and isn’t letting culture and the language of a more dominant class and society get to her, though she would be viewed as being part of a subaltern society.

Linguistic Imperialism

Linguistic Imperialism in Education 

Linguistic imperialism is the concept that a dominant language is being passed through and transferred to other people. In this case, English is now the second most spoken language for first speakers and is the most widely spoken language in the world with up to at least 1.8 billion people speaking it and is the most widely taught foreign language. Therefore we can see how English takes an important dominant role in the world from things like pop culture, education to economic power which are all aspects of the dominant culture that are passed alongside the language.

This puts some communities who don’t speak English at all in a disadvantage and has an impact on them and thereby prohibits them from fully contributing to the rest of the world. This is where education comes in. A majority of people want to be able to get into a very high standard and adequate university in the world and be able to receive the optimum and ideal education yet nowadays to be accepted into such prestige higher education, you require the full and foremost fluency in the English language which is to proven through a test if English isn't a first language for people and the top of universities are found in English speaking countries and universities do reject students who don’t show the required English needed to enter the university. English is seen as the undisputed global language. Countries across the globe feel the need to empower their citizens through education by using the English language. Books and journals and all worldwide education tools are in English but that in fact is a self-accomplishing prognostication that helps continue develop the dominance of the English language.

English can be seen as a barrier, when it cuts off certain communities from fulfilling their dreams and pursuing their educational desires. Nowadays to take all these literary English exams to get into universities, students require paying fees; therefore again prohibiting poorer communities from being able to gain a higher education even if their levels are incredible. Naturally parents want to be able to send off their kids to get a good education and therefore a good job which again naturally requires higher education to be studied at western universities that require English exams.
When we live by this idea that English is a main requirement to get into those universities, we’re limiting our focus and cutting off potential geniuses or scientist, lawyers or doctors who could have had a major impact on the world because what they know in their own language is knowledge that the world could require in the future.

Although the idea of having English as such a dominant role playing language in the world seems like an ideal concept but what we don’t realize that it slowly causes less languages to exist and lets people mainly focus on their English which has a major impact on communities. This is evidence of linguistic imperialism in the Anglophone world but the impacts that go along with it are greater than people would know or expect them to be and can have an increasing impact in the world to come. 

Paper 1 Text 2

This Text 2 extract is a very informative article; it starts off by clearly stating numerical facts in a small introductory paragraph keeping it short, bold and simple to attract the audiences’ attention. It has good qualities of an article and is well structured and organized into different subheadings, keeping the readers informed at all times and up to pace. Throughout the whole article there is constant use of logos through the appliance of statistics and data.

The article was written by Oxfam, an international confederation grounded from 17 organizations working in about 94 countries worldwide to find solutions to poverty and what it considers as injustice around the world. The purpose for this article was to inform and educate and to a subtle extend persuasive. It aims this article at people who are interested in topic such destitution and the lack to help the needy in a poorer state. The way the aim to inform is by their continuous display of figures of lives of people which to some extent is using pathos because it plays with ones emotions which links with their way of persuading, therefore making people feel guilty and having the need to donate and help those who are in need of it.

All in all this text is about the food crises in Sahel, the situation there and what Oxfam is doing to help in this situation. It keeps its information detailed and to the point focusing on its main message of the crisis happening in Sahel. They’re trying to convey a clear message and idea about what is happening and what they are doing to help through their persuasive techniques.

The tone of the article starts of quite serious through the title: “Food Crisis in Sahel” the use of the word crisis makes it sound like a serious topic therefore attracting readers quicker. It further continues with a quote: “The humanitarian response must tackle the underlying causes of crisis like this to prevent them recurring.” The tone continuous to sound serious using words such as “tackle” and “prevent” making people realize how important and serious the issue is. Their persistent use of high figures and statistics also increases the serious tone making people realize how serious it is. This leads to a quite worrying and sad/depressing mood. As the article continues to talk about how Oxfam helps its sets a more encouraging tone saying: “Oxfam is gearing up its work to address immediately the needs of the most vulnerable people. We’re working to help communities increase their resilience to the coming crisis; we are getting ready to provide food assistance.”  Their use of words such as “immediately” and “working to help” sets a reassuring mood.

Logos is a very commonly used technique throughout the article, their steady use of data/ statistics as it is a very applicable and convenient way to grab the attention of audiences’  because they rely on numbers and always see them as the truth. This is a very effective method of technique as well as their use of pathos as they interact with the audience and inform them of the humanitarian response that is needed to approach such a crisis. The statistical information presented about the people who will most likely not be able to eat which has an emotion appeal and making an appeal to the audience's sympathies and imagination. An appeal to pathos causes an audience not just to respond through emotion but to identify with the writer's point of view and be able to feel similar to the way the author would. As well as logos and pathos, there is of course the use of ethos, through the character of the author and the credibility and trustworthiness of the organization Oxfam; they are able to persuade the audience much more and in a very efficient manner because they are more likely to believe such a credible organization which is known due to its helpfulness.

The article is very flowing and starts off with a single image of the people of Sahel. It then continues with the title of the article, below it a quote, in a bigger font to grab the attention of the audience. From then on the article is buildup of short paragraphs, being straight to the point and keeping serious and simple for the readers to keep reading. The article contains subheadings to pinpoint certain aspects especially the on what “What Oxfam is doing” as it is the author of this article. On top of the image you can see that the article of “Food Crisis in Sahel” is put under the heading of emergencies once again implying how serious the situation is.

GENERATION LIKE

What are possible consequences of people structuring their identity around commercial products and initiatives? 

Nowadays young teens are so focused to portray their identity as "the one", to busy focusing on how to dress, impress and show off and not seeing the impact this has on them. They alter their lifestyle to suit themselves to be able to have the time to follow, re-tweet and get as many likes as possible. They're brainwashed to thinking that these products will help them in different sort of ways and help them achieve what they want and most importantly to them, receive the recognition they desire. 
As Douglas Rushkoff mentioned in the video, "They're living their lives in a marketplace" these teens spend all their time promoting products and movies, fame for other people when this isn't their job. They become so physically and emotionally attached to it, that after a while they don't realize it themselves, it becomes a natural habit.
Thanks to social media, teens are able to directly interact with their culture - celebrities, movies, brands -- in ways they would never have imagined but that's to some extent empowerment yet marketers still hold the upper hand. Young teens go through a quest to find their identity which has now migrated to the web .

All of that has consequences on these people who are just focusing their identity around commercial products. These teens start to become opposed with this idea and slowly start to lose touch with what actually matters, things such as family, education, socializing with people in person and another long term bigger effect would be that our society would alter to this transformation and it would become the new norm. People would adjust to this not realizing the effects that build up due to this. 

You better blur those lines Robin!

Robin Thicke's biggest song of the year Blurred Lines sure did make a massive hit when it came out last year but not so much now.

The song promotes a horrible attitude towards sex and consent which is why it has been an alarming issue for many women who view it as 'rapey'. The music video portrays a widespread sexism and especially the sexualisation and objectification of women which has a growing impact on women's day to day lives. These types of messages depict women as highly sexualised passive sex objects.

One might first listen to the song and find it quite catchy and not pay much attention to how the phrases have been put or intended but when looking closer to the lyrics of the song. He says:

" OK now he was close, tried to domesticate you

But you're an animal, baby it's in your nature

Just let me liberate you

You don't need no paper, that man is not your maker"

Implying that the woman should just leave her boyfriend for him and that it's in her "nature"

The video itself shows three naked women prancing around three fully dressed men. Robin Thicke absolutely degrades women in this video. Most women these days are required to wear close to nothing whereas men can stay fully clothed and still earn more attention than the women. Social media and celebrities have managed to devalue the feminine sex and convince a lot of the female population that they're worthless if they don't live up to the expectations of society.

This targets the male group yet uses the female group which are clearly not presented in the most appropriate way to do so.

This reveals a lot to us about our society and how we as a society have altered our perspective of women and their position in our society. They are viewed as nothing more than objects, inferior to men.

All in all this shows us how society has changed its perspective vision of what is now seen as appropriate and what can actually be accepted. As females in society continue to accept such a profane behavior and attitude from celebrities, it slowly becomes the norm for females to be viewed in such a manner, without this being viewed as disrespectful or of any offense to women therefore lessening the outrage that showed be happening and that women should be protesting. 

Written Task 2

1. How could the text be read and interpreted differently by two different readers?

The text that I chose to focus on was the Fairy soap ad that features two young children of different races. The white kid stands in an etiquette posture wearing a clean blue dress, socks and shoes and standing by him is an black African American child who is wearing nothing but a side torn dress that she tugs on while bowing her head down in embarrassment and evidently unlike the white child her hairline is receded and unkempt. All of these features of the children are of course purposely inputted. 

This ad was published during a historically important time that affects how this ad would be viewed by different readers at that time.

It was during the time where the black race was segregated and slavery and considered to be inferior to the white race. 

This ad was targeted at the white Americans yet also to the black Americans. Although the ad degrades the black race it still manages to send them a powerful message. White American females are particularly targeted as a main audience in this ad. The caption below says: Why doesn't your mama wash you with fairy soap?" Women would view this and think that because they aren't applying fairy soap on their own white children, they're are equivalent to being as unhygienic as an African American. In some what ways it portrays a fear technique on these women trying to convincingly make them believe that they can't let their high class be brought down to a level of an African American. That being said, not only does this target the white women as stated before but also aims to remind the black race where their place in society is. They devalue their race and portray them as nothing more than dirty, unintelligent beings who don't play a single role in society expect for being forced to slave themselves to the white race. 

The white race readers reading such a text at that time would ofcourse not view it as offensive but rather as the truth being shown to the people and through the credibility of, what used to be a multimillion firm at that time, they manage to convince people not to stoop to the level of the African Americans by using fairy soap. Yet in contrary, if this text was to be viewed by an African American at that time, they would think of nothing but how offensive this ad is and how much it disrespects them and the way the look. 

English literature& Language 

FOA reflection 

My Further Oral Activity analysed how the black race was exploited in advertisements. Although many people would say that racism no longer plays a role in society, I portrayed by disagreeing argument by showing two different advertisements, one from a much older time and one that was much more recent and analysed how racism still holds a role yet more discreetly then it did before. 

The criteria were based on 4 different criterions which were Knowledge and understanding, organisation, language and understanding how language is used. The problem with both my advertisements were the fact that they both lacked language. The first one only contained one line of writing because the picture itself was so powerful so therefore there wasn't too much on the language. The second ad as well as the first focused mainly on the image and seeing as it was a more modern ad it was harder to find one with open racist language because that's not something seen nowadays in society so the image discreetly tries to portray the racism. The organisation of the presentation was good, I talked in order of what I wanted to say with a bit of looking into my transcript but otherwise it was fairly well. 

My overall feeling to the presentation is alright, I feel like I could have done more and said more yet it was very time consuming to find images that fit my expectations to present to the class and I was also very nervous throughout the presentation which of course had an impact on my speech because I could have included much more which I had written on my transcript and elaborated on it much more than I had. So therefore I was quite successful yet I could have been more.

I choose this topic because I found it very interesting and I liked how I could talk about how this issue is still seen nowadays in advertisements and now only in the past. I was able to touch on the audience and purpose and intent meaning of both the ads and the tone and mood, style and the content of the ads, ethos and I had some pathos that I wasn't able to fully elaborate on during my presentation.

I've learned many new things about language and advertising and how society chooses to portray certain aspects through advertisements. In my particular topic, I have gained new knowledge that I didn't know beforehand. Yet not only through my topic but also through this Further Oral Activity how language is portrayed and the different techniques used and how to identify them when looking at a text and how this can change the meaning of a given advert. 

For future FOAs I will spend more time trying to memorise the speech to keep it following and not be as nervous to make it all formal and presentable and also find ones that suit the criteria more, so they'd include more text to be analysed but overall as this being my first time presenting a Further Oral Activity I am quite happy.