H3LL0 3V3RY0N3!
Okay so I can’t do L33T speak so well. Still the point is that the internet is one avenue through which language is rapidly evolving. Dr Deng explained the ways in which males and females differ in their use of language online, and I thought that was really interesting. The internet is maybe a place where people are freer to express themselves outside of sociocultural norms – it’s its own world, isn’t it? Hence the labeling of a ‘virtual world’. I would think that in this virtual world, maybe the issues of language and gender (as highlighted in the previous class) becomes less apparent, since the possibility for anonymity and thus gender-bending is much higher. There may not be such a need to maintain politeness or conform to the expectations of gender online. Maybe it is in the virtual world that we really have a homogenous culture that is reflected in language.
I think one of the best things about the internet is that the language is always changing and accommodating to new lexical entries. For this, I think the best place to see it is http://urbandictionary.com … All kinds of new words are invented and people use them on a daily basis when online. Very interesting!!
Final Thoughts…
Class has been really fun and the topics are very interesting. I think my favourite topic was last weeks on Gendered Language just because it’s something that’s so imbibed in us we take it for granted and just use language without realizing that it could potentially be problematic. It’s good to know that stuff we’ve learnt can actually be applied/observed in real life, instead of it all just being pure theory. So the best part is that I can actually apply the stuff learnt to life, and it won’t go to waste.
Looking forward to all the presentations!
Friday, March 26, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Cross-Gender Interaction
So this week’s topic was really interesting: Cross-Gender Interaction. In class we discussed about the reasons why English could be considered a ‘sexist’ language, and then focused on some of the general features that females/males would use in their language, and finally, some reasons why females/males would even speak differently in the first place. During class a couple of things popped into my head that I thought I’d share here:
1) Nouns and Gender in German
I took LAG1201 in year 1, and suffice to say, it was confusing! I think part of the confusion is because, unlike French where nouns have 2 gender categories, German has 3: Masculine, Feminine and Neuter. It’s crazy. So the definite article for masculine nouns would be der, die for feminine nouns and das for neuter nouns. On first glance I’d probably think that German has attempted to mitigate the issue of a sexist language, but then it’s quite weird: children are called das Kinder while girls are called das Mädchen (both neuter) and they have 2 different words, das Auto (neuter) and der Wagen (masculine), for cars. Also, like what Dr. Deng said in class about French, in German, the computer/PC is masculine in its gender, so it’d be der Computer or der Personal-Computer.
I don’t really know what to make of it, or even how some nouns land into some categories…it all seems quite arbitrary.
2) Topic Development
So we learnt that women prefer more personal topics while men prefer more impersonal topics… I think this is true but only to a certain extent. I think men do talk about personal issues – I guess at some point they must want to share their feelings/problems, right? (: -but perhaps this is also mediated by their use of more aggressive language when they talk about such personal issues. For example, they might probably scold a lot of profanities when talking about problems, so that it creates a kind of distance between themselves and the problem, making it seem more impersonal. I’m just hypothesizing here based on what I’ve learnt and heard; do not want to stereotype!
3) Messages vs. Meta-Messages
So Dr. Deng said men focus on the literal message, while women focus more on the meta-message, a kind of inference from the literal message. It’s so funny because just before class, my friend was relating to me a story:
For convenience, we’ll call my friend A and her friend B.
B went to Thailand and bought A a bag. However, when B got home, his mother saw the bag and asked if she could have it, so B said “okay”.
B then told A that he didn’t have a present for her because his mother took it.
A then said, “Didn’t you get your mother anything?”
B replied, “She said I didn’t have to get her anything, so I didn’t, and then she decided she wanted your bag.”
To this, A said, “You shouldn’t ever believe a woman when they tell you they don’t want anything!”
Hope you enjoyed the story! Have a good weekend!
1) Nouns and Gender in German
I took LAG1201 in year 1, and suffice to say, it was confusing! I think part of the confusion is because, unlike French where nouns have 2 gender categories, German has 3: Masculine, Feminine and Neuter. It’s crazy. So the definite article for masculine nouns would be der, die for feminine nouns and das for neuter nouns. On first glance I’d probably think that German has attempted to mitigate the issue of a sexist language, but then it’s quite weird: children are called das Kinder while girls are called das Mädchen (both neuter) and they have 2 different words, das Auto (neuter) and der Wagen (masculine), for cars. Also, like what Dr. Deng said in class about French, in German, the computer/PC is masculine in its gender, so it’d be der Computer or der Personal-Computer.
I don’t really know what to make of it, or even how some nouns land into some categories…it all seems quite arbitrary.
2) Topic Development
So we learnt that women prefer more personal topics while men prefer more impersonal topics… I think this is true but only to a certain extent. I think men do talk about personal issues – I guess at some point they must want to share their feelings/problems, right? (: -but perhaps this is also mediated by their use of more aggressive language when they talk about such personal issues. For example, they might probably scold a lot of profanities when talking about problems, so that it creates a kind of distance between themselves and the problem, making it seem more impersonal. I’m just hypothesizing here based on what I’ve learnt and heard; do not want to stereotype!
3) Messages vs. Meta-Messages
So Dr. Deng said men focus on the literal message, while women focus more on the meta-message, a kind of inference from the literal message. It’s so funny because just before class, my friend was relating to me a story:
For convenience, we’ll call my friend A and her friend B.
B went to Thailand and bought A a bag. However, when B got home, his mother saw the bag and asked if she could have it, so B said “okay”.
B then told A that he didn’t have a present for her because his mother took it.
A then said, “Didn’t you get your mother anything?”
B replied, “She said I didn’t have to get her anything, so I didn’t, and then she decided she wanted your bag.”
To this, A said, “You shouldn’t ever believe a woman when they tell you they don’t want anything!”
Hope you enjoyed the story! Have a good weekend!
Friday, March 12, 2010
Face & Politeness
Something I realized today was that yes, maybe in verbal contexts it is easy to convey politeness and utilize (however unconsciously) the maxims that Leech talks about. However, when we look at non-verbal aspects of communications, such as via MSN, SMS, e-mails, letters etc, the whole concept of politeness and face management seems to be a lot harder to analyze.
I realized this because of the group activity we did in class – the one where we analyzed a string of SMSes. My group didn’t think much of the message “Do you want the answer twice?? :))” and we just assumed it was on record-baldly, until someone pointed out that there was a smiley face there. Then we all realized how easy it was to overlook something like that because it seems so trivial and yet the inclusion of the smiley face showed positive politeness.
Given that we all communicate much more via non-verbal modes (especially since most students have unlimited SMS schemes so it’s easier and cheaper to type than to call), it’s quite interesting how we use these non-linguistic cues strategically, as a means of overcoming the shortfalls of our mode of communication.
I realize that I do use a lot of smiley faces and emoticons in my messages, particularly if I am making a request. I guess the use of these figures help to mitigate the effects of negative politeness – in a way if I said:
“Sorry to bother you, but could you loan me your CD?”
I suppose I could say better with:
“Sorry to bother you, but could you loan me your CD? (:“
I guess there are also other ways people overcome this issue, such as using “haha” or “lol”, so that the request doesn’t seem so formal or like you’re asking for too much. I wonder if this sort of strategy is a kind of a universal norm, because I’ve never really sms’d/online chat with people from other countries and cultures… This is more of an observation of what I see myself and my friends doing.
I suppose we might learn more of this soon when we focus on computer mediated communication…
I realized this because of the group activity we did in class – the one where we analyzed a string of SMSes. My group didn’t think much of the message “Do you want the answer twice?? :))” and we just assumed it was on record-baldly, until someone pointed out that there was a smiley face there. Then we all realized how easy it was to overlook something like that because it seems so trivial and yet the inclusion of the smiley face showed positive politeness.
Given that we all communicate much more via non-verbal modes (especially since most students have unlimited SMS schemes so it’s easier and cheaper to type than to call), it’s quite interesting how we use these non-linguistic cues strategically, as a means of overcoming the shortfalls of our mode of communication.
I realize that I do use a lot of smiley faces and emoticons in my messages, particularly if I am making a request. I guess the use of these figures help to mitigate the effects of negative politeness – in a way if I said:
“Sorry to bother you, but could you loan me your CD?”
I suppose I could say better with:
“Sorry to bother you, but could you loan me your CD? (:“
I guess there are also other ways people overcome this issue, such as using “haha” or “lol”, so that the request doesn’t seem so formal or like you’re asking for too much. I wonder if this sort of strategy is a kind of a universal norm, because I’ve never really sms’d/online chat with people from other countries and cultures… This is more of an observation of what I see myself and my friends doing.
I suppose we might learn more of this soon when we focus on computer mediated communication…
Friday, March 5, 2010
Components & Representation
This week we learnt basic concepts for intercultural communication - Hofstede's dimensions of cultural variability. I think through the exercises, I learnt that while Singapore is by and large a collectivst in culture, we are quite individualistic in some aspects. I think this kind of goes hand-in-hand with the whole idea of meritocracy, where our individual efforts are supposed to pay off (kind of like, you reap what you sow). So maybe we are collectivist in terms of our values (such as, for example, our shared values, one of which is "Nation before society and society before self" and "Family as the basic unit of society") but in terms of economic/academic advancement, we are quite individualist. Maybe that's also why we need to have these 'values' in place, so we don't wind up being too individualist in terms of our culture.
The video at the end reminded me of the need to understand other cultures that we may potentially interact with - kind of like doing some background reading/homework before we go to another country. I thought I'd just share my experience here:
When I went to Spain 3 years ago, I was quite surprised because the shops there were always closed in the mid-afternoon for their siesta, and they always had public holidays. Every religious day was a public holiday, and if their football team won (for example, when I was in Madrid, Real Madrid won La Liga) then it'd be another public holiday. They really have all sorts of holidays. I think compared to them, Singapore has about half the number of public holidays. A lot of the people on tour remarked that they were so lazy etc etc, because even if we had a public holiday here, you'd never find all the shops closed anyway - in fact, in Singapore, it'd probably be better if your shop were open on a public holiday so you could capitalize on sales from all the people who are on leave. Anyway, after I read about Hofstede's 'Masculinity vs. Femininity', and saw how low Spain was ranked on the 'Masculinity' scale, it all quite made sense. I think the people there see life as being easygoing and carefree - it's not that they don't have any ambition or assertivenes, but rather, I think these aren't as important to them as living a good and stress-free life. So it's not that they're lazy or anything, they just abide by different norms.
I guess it's always good to read up and learn about the culture that you're going into, because it's not really very nice to judge another's culture based on YOUR own culture.
The video at the end reminded me of the need to understand other cultures that we may potentially interact with - kind of like doing some background reading/homework before we go to another country. I thought I'd just share my experience here:
When I went to Spain 3 years ago, I was quite surprised because the shops there were always closed in the mid-afternoon for their siesta, and they always had public holidays. Every religious day was a public holiday, and if their football team won (for example, when I was in Madrid, Real Madrid won La Liga) then it'd be another public holiday. They really have all sorts of holidays. I think compared to them, Singapore has about half the number of public holidays. A lot of the people on tour remarked that they were so lazy etc etc, because even if we had a public holiday here, you'd never find all the shops closed anyway - in fact, in Singapore, it'd probably be better if your shop were open on a public holiday so you could capitalize on sales from all the people who are on leave. Anyway, after I read about Hofstede's 'Masculinity vs. Femininity', and saw how low Spain was ranked on the 'Masculinity' scale, it all quite made sense. I think the people there see life as being easygoing and carefree - it's not that they don't have any ambition or assertivenes, but rather, I think these aren't as important to them as living a good and stress-free life. So it's not that they're lazy or anything, they just abide by different norms.
I guess it's always good to read up and learn about the culture that you're going into, because it's not really very nice to judge another's culture based on YOUR own culture.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Written Discourse
In class this week, we focused on 'written discourse'. It was quite fun because we got to analyze writings and how they relate to individual cultures.
Kaplan’s ‘framework’ (I guess that’s what it’s called?) certainly has its merits, and it was so super interesting to realize that there *are* actually trends between the way a person writes and the culture one is from. One really cool thing to learn was that English is written in a linear fashion, which, if I’m not wrong, is what we were all taught to do since primary school – we must always have a topic statement, subdivisions, examples and illustrations and have to close off the paragraph neatly. I think if I wrote in the manner that the semitic framework proposed (with the parallel constructions), I’d probably fail my English and wouldn’t be in NUS right now. The most useful thing to have gained from Kaplan’s study is that it probably allows me to better understand what another culture requires (i.e. their expectations) in terms of writing. For example, I probably wouldn’t be able to write the say that I can write in the exact manner that a German speaker would, but from the framework, I could probably guess what is the style of the written discourse they would be looking out for. So I guess knowing what kind of culture the other party resides in can help me in my writing and also probably minimize any sort of cultural misunderstandings.
This is just a question that I had in my mind: Does the increasing hybridization of culture (especially due to globalization, transnationalism, diaspora etc) mean that Kaplan’s ‘framework’ will slowly hold less sway in academia? His study is situated in 1972, and it’s been roughly 30 years already, and I do think the world has changed much and, as Dr. Deng mentioned, to view written discourse in such an ethnocentric manner is quite dangerous. I mean, what would the paragraph development of a Mandarin speaker, writing in French, look like?
Kaplan’s ‘framework’ (I guess that’s what it’s called?) certainly has its merits, and it was so super interesting to realize that there *are* actually trends between the way a person writes and the culture one is from. One really cool thing to learn was that English is written in a linear fashion, which, if I’m not wrong, is what we were all taught to do since primary school – we must always have a topic statement, subdivisions, examples and illustrations and have to close off the paragraph neatly. I think if I wrote in the manner that the semitic framework proposed (with the parallel constructions), I’d probably fail my English and wouldn’t be in NUS right now. The most useful thing to have gained from Kaplan’s study is that it probably allows me to better understand what another culture requires (i.e. their expectations) in terms of writing. For example, I probably wouldn’t be able to write the say that I can write in the exact manner that a German speaker would, but from the framework, I could probably guess what is the style of the written discourse they would be looking out for. So I guess knowing what kind of culture the other party resides in can help me in my writing and also probably minimize any sort of cultural misunderstandings.
This is just a question that I had in my mind: Does the increasing hybridization of culture (especially due to globalization, transnationalism, diaspora etc) mean that Kaplan’s ‘framework’ will slowly hold less sway in academia? His study is situated in 1972, and it’s been roughly 30 years already, and I do think the world has changed much and, as Dr. Deng mentioned, to view written discourse in such an ethnocentric manner is quite dangerous. I mean, what would the paragraph development of a Mandarin speaker, writing in French, look like?
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