My Letter to the Editor of "Twtr? It's Majorly Bad!"

To the editor of 'Twtr? Its Majorly Bad!:

          After reading the ideas expressed in this article against the influence of text type in the English language, I decided to write a letter expressing my opinion towards the article.

           I believe that the article has a bias perspective and negative attitude towards the use of Text type and the form of slang used by the younger generations with descriptions like text type "Erodes pupil's language skills". Although 81% of teenagers use the internet, more adults use the internet with an increasing amount of 87% in 2016. This means that adults are the victims whom are most likely going to have, in the authors opinion an "affect" on their language skills since their are more of them using the internet rather than teenagers.

          The article continues to argue that youngsters are "in danger of growing up with limited vocabularies" because of how much time they spend on social media sites however, 96% of students with internet access report using social networking technologies use these tools to discuss educational topics. As a student, the internet is one of the most important key to success as it plays a vital role in delivering and accessing a variety of reliable educational sources. This means that not all of us waste our time on the internet but rather educate our selves and take the advantage of accessing online educational sources. Compared to previous generations, I believe that the internet does not limit our vocabulary but rather expands our knowledge of a language that is evolving in a whole new way of writing. Having a balancing act between the "formal" way of English and  the "slang" text type way is in my opinion a linguistic miracle as recent studies proved that being "Bi-dialect" allows the individual to learn new words easily and are better listeners compared to a monolinguial.

           Furthermore the article mentions how teachers realise the students who tend to use text type like "ur" and "gr8" are often the ones who achieve the lowest SAT marks but in my opinion, the emergent complexity of a language gradually evolves a whole new way of writing. This allows students to embrace the difference between speech and writing therefore expanding their linguistic structure and way of dialect. 

           I understand that Text type and the use of slang has a lack of concern with rules but, this does not mean that a solution is teaching English the "traditional way" in order to maintain the proper English. So now the evolvement of a language is a crime? With all honesty, different dialects of English expands ones knowledge on the language. As the Irish play-write George Bernard Shaw once said: "Progress is impossible without change" therefore the the English language will not progress unless changes occur like the evolvement of Text type.

          Clearly the article shows a thorough understanding of the negative impact of text type on the “formal” English language with varied and reliable sources to back up arguments given. However I highly recommend that you offer insights of the positive impacts that text types has on the language because the article is too bias therefore, I truly urge that you deeply look into the topic. By doing so, you will be able to write in a receptive manner as you would accept other ideas easily and would not be one-sided.


Best Regards,

Hala Ariqat

Fictional Interview: Did you just pull a Beyonce on me?

During the award winning Interview Show "What's cookin this week?", the famous television host Hala Ariqat got a chance to interview world-wide singer Beyonce. I was thrilled as a Journalist to experience such an interview as Hala was able to thoroughly discuss Beyonce's impact of music on her community after her album "Lemonade" dropped this Friday.




Hala Ariqat: Welcome back from our short break on "Whats cooking this week"! I'm sure you are all curious about checking under your seats to see if you won those tickets to the Beyonce concert, but I just have to discuss all this hype on Beyonce's album Lemonade itself. Alright please be honest with me, were any of you even expecting Beyonce to drop her album?

Audience: (Shakes their head with surprise)

Ariqat: Wow... Well I guess only Beyonce can pull a Beyonce. I think we should just ask her. Ladies and Gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for.. Please give an applause and a warm welcome to Queen B herself!

Audience: (cheering and applauding)

Hala Ariqat: Good morning Beyonce, it is great to have you here on my show today!

Beyonce: Good morning to you too Hala! Thank you, it is my pleasure to be here. Honestly I love starting my day with enthusiasm and I feel like interviews are the best way to begin my day.

Hala Ariqat: Wow, I am really glad to here that! You know, I always tell my family and friends how you've always been such great inspiration to me. Not just personality wise but also, with your music. I feel you really empower younger generation of girls, especially after your new album drop with your strong and passionate lyrics.

Beyonce: To be honest, I always tell myself that we are not taught to know what we want to be in life, it is just something natural. As a young girl, I always knew that I wanted to become a famous singer but not any famous singer. I always wanted to be different and have that strong impact on my audience. So my goal is to always work hard to be a women of worth and empower younger generations through my music.

Hala Ariqat: I can totally agree with your statement! Now tell me Beyonce, in your recent hit "Flawless" you quote a definition stated by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adicie where he says: "Feminist: the person who believes in the social, political and economic equality of the sexes"...

Beyonce: Oh yes absolutely!

Hala Ariqat: Compared to early hits during 2007 like "Upgrade U" and "Single Ladies", I feel like you now have a different drive and message you want reach to your audience which is empowerment, why do you feel the need to incorporate this to your song?

Beyonce: Well I need to take the advantage of being able to reach to many younger generations, especially girls so I decided to shift from writing music only about love and relationships, but also embrace topics like empowering women. I made this shift because I think important women's issues sphere of politics , education and social equality are usually over shadowed.

Hala Ariqat: What I love about the song is how the most popular lyric from that song which is "I woke up like this" that lit up literally all of social media and became a lyric printed on items like hats and I-phone cases.

Beyonce: Gotta love my Beehive fanbase!

Hala Ariqat: Definitely! Now as Beyonce, how do you feel being a voice for younger girls looking up to you as you earn you title of a modern day feminist? Do you feel like its a lot of pressure?

Beyonce: I'm going to be totally honest with you, it is pressure knowing the amount of press-talk and news articles being published about you and your work however.. this does not stop me for sending my message out their to younger generations. Empowerment. Specifically, the advocacy of women's rights.

Hala Ariqat: What you're saying about empowerment, I feel like this is evident through your album Lemonade specially the song "Formation".

Beyonce: Yes I honestly worked hard for the finished outcome of the music video "Formation" and I feel like I'm getting great feedback already which is what I am proud of.

Hala Ariqat: You surely embrace aspects of your culture like "Baby hair with afros" and "Jackson five nostrils" as well as cultural remarks like having hot sauce in your bag. Being "A texas Bamma" as you mention in your song,  in your opinion, what makes this hit so important to the empowerment of black culture?

Beyonce: Well, with the song "Formation" I am expressing a deeper perspective of empowerment specifically, empowering of black culture. The video as you probably watched is set in Louisiana which is a famous slave port. I chose to set it there to express freedom and resistance towards the horrible crimes committed in history. You can see scenes of black women making a circle and taking pride of their natural hair.

Hala Ariqat: Something that also caught my attention was the image of little boy in front of the cop. What was the purpose of this visual?

Beyonce: Speaking frankly, I wanted to highlight the next cut which is the phrase "Stop shooting us". I mean the purpose of this whole video is all about embracing our culture that empowers us to have a black visionary, a "formation" of a black future with power and equality.

Hala Ariqat: With that being said, did you hear how dropping a surprise project is known as "pulling a Beyonce" after half a million copies of the album "Lemonade" was sold in the first day with 1.2 million tweets in 12 hours?

Beyonce: (Laughs) Wowww! I actually never heard of that statement.

Hala Ariqat: Well you do now and if I may ask, what was your overall intended impact of your R&B music in your community?

Beyonce: I always strive to express my message through music in terms of political, social or racial equality of women in order to empower ones cultural identity and feel confident with who they are. You know, I always thank my Beehive fanbase for always being there for me because as an artist, I feel like you need that boost to get you going and success to me, is their true love and support. I really cannot thank them enough.

Hala: It is great to here you are truly appreciative of your ride-or-die beehive fanbase as they perceive you as their role model. Honestly speaking, do you having any role models you look up to that inspire you?

Beyonce: To be honest Hala, my mama is my number one inspiration because I believe she's the one that always motivates me to follow my dreams and work hard. I'm truly blessed to have her in my life.

Hala: I'm so happy to here that she supports your dedication to work. Do you think there will be any upcoming projects?

Beyonce: You never know, I might pull a Beyonce anytime soon!

Hala: Cant wait for that! Well, thank you so much for taking your time to attend this interview. It was great to here your intended purpose of your style of music as well as opinions on your fanbase. I truly appreciate it Beyonce.

Beyonce: No, thank you Hala for having me on your show I've always been a fan of "What's cookin this week" and I am glad we had a wonderful time discussing my album drop.

Hala: Can everyone give a big round of applause to Queen B!

Audience: (Applauses)

Hala: Stay tuned so we find out who's the next winner of the Beyonce tickets. I'm Hala Ariqat and you're watching Whats cooking this week.




Published by Journalist: Katy William

4/27/2016

Analytical Consolidation of Language and Identity: Does language define who we are?

Prompt:

Language shapes our identity, but doesn’t define who we are.

As humans we are born to curiously discover and explore our surroundings with the use of language as we develop our identity. Language plays a vital role in this case as we are able to express our emotions through words, make sense of abstract ideas, learn to communicate and satisfy our necessities as we create rules and conserve our culture. Merriam-Webster defines Language as “A system of words or signs that people use to express thoughts and feelings to each other”. Realizing its role in fabricating our mental lives allows us to understand how language shapes our identity and defines who we are.  Unlike the definition of identity however that is known for being: “The qualities, beliefs etc., that make a particular person or group different from others.” (Merriam-Webster, 2008). This means that one holds onto there master identity that comprises of stable features of people that exists prior such as ethnicity, nationality, social class, gender and age. Though, the way you perceive your self to others or in a specific situation varies therefore identity can be categorized in four different ways including-

1-    Master Identity: Relatively stable and unchanging.

2-    Interactional identity:  Identities refer to roles that people take on in a communicative context with specific other people. IE: A mother, cousin, friend, boss etc.

3-    Personal Identity: Personal identities are expected to be relative stable and unique IE: I like cats.

4-    Relational Identity: Refers to the kind of relationship that a person enacts with for example: In a specific situation or with a particular conversational partner.

With out a doubt, identity is a developmental process that one evolves through in there lifetime. Of course language enables us to express our emotion, satisfy our needs and make sense of abstract ideas. Language shapes our developing identity as it provides us empowerment to establish a sense of identity in the way we picture and distinguish ourselves.

Identities and varying cultures enables the evolvement of the English language into a variety of different pronunciations and accents. The history of the English language really began with the coming of three Germanic tribes whom conquered Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes include the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes replaced the Runic alphabet by the Latin alphabet from the 7th century, and after the 9th century the runes were used mainly in manuscripts and were mainly of interest to antiquarians. This impacted the way one communicated another that influences the way one another perceives each other because an indivuals way of speaking reflects their identity. With over 100 English dialects and 6000 languages around the world, elements of a specific language are not stable but rather developing through time. This allows us to appreciate the fact that there is no “Standard English” in a society because the geographical or social separation of countries causes shared languages they speak differentiates from one another.

The language spoken by someone plays a vital role in defining the way they communicate therefore influencing his or her master identity. Tan expresses this perception in the story “Mother Tongue” as she describes the struggle she had expressing herself through language. This is evident when she explains how her “Mothers English almost had an effect on limiting my possibilities in life as well”.  Because her mother spoke broken English, she was forced to learn how to speak broken English that is not a common language in reality. This affects her sense of identity in the way people would picture and distinguish her as she became weaker in English. However this made her spend a great deal of my time thinking about the power of language — the way it can “Evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth.” allowing her to embrace how language shapes her developing identity. Similarly to the text “Names/Nombres” by Julia Alvarez, the text discusses the struggle of conforming to a language. This means that Alvarez focuses on how her classmates were able to tell her ethnicity that is part of her identity by the way she pronounced certain words. Although both texts provide readers insight to the power of language, they also express how language shapes our developing identity as it provides us empowerment to establish a sense of identity in the way we picture and distinguish ourselves.

An extremely significant change of ones identity occurs because of the language that shapes who they are. This is evident in the text ‘Me talk pretty one day’ where the author expresses how he wants to “create some sort of identity for myself” which he struggles to by learning to develop his speaking in French. This portrays how he moves to another country (France) in order to challenge himself and learn another language other than his mother tongue. This is obviously something that requires skill a and patience as he explains being Bilingual is that “its everybody into the language pool, sink or swim.”The technique that varying people decide to communicate with reflects on there evolvement as they are able to grow and establish their development identity.

A language is a powerful tool that gives us the chance to shape and develop ourselves, or allows us to forget about our identity. The mother tongue language you speak is a part of your culture, and your culture is what defines a person the most. Your culture is apart of your identity allowing language to define who you are and shape your identity. Realizing its role in fabricating our mental lives allows us to understand how language shapes our identity and defines who we are. With out a doubt, identity is a developmental process that one evolves through in there lifetime. Of course language enables us to express our emotion, satisfy our needs and make sense of abstract ideas. Language shapes our developing identity as it provides us empowerment to establish a sense of identity in the way we picture and distinguish ourselves.