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English language
Confusion over the term “media”
...Re-capping a typical day; I am rudely awoken by a shrieking radio commercial demanding I take advantage of the manager’s craaazy insane bargain prices. My vulnerable semi consciousness already affected by crude advertising before hand and eye are coordinated to slam the snooze button. The Saturday Age greets me in a less intrusive, although still attention-grabbing manner. The bold headlines demand consideration, striking photos tantalize the imagination and advertisements entice by sophistication, among other ploys. T.V Hits hums in the background while I sift through the paper, now too expansive to be rolled into one single cylinder. Just a regular Saturday morning and the media inundation I am embraced with is taken for granted before even stepping out of the comfort of my pyjamas. How is this bombardment of media affecting my everyday life?..
How does language influence the human brain?
...Wernicke’s aphasia represents a problem with speech processing. The spoken word is a sound stimulus which enters our ear and in transferred as an electrical signal through our nerves until it reaches the primary auditory cortex in the temporal lobe. This area is close to Wernicke’s area which contains the “word analyser”. The word analyser contains the sound patterns of words that is essential in converting speech into words. If Wernicke’s are is damaged the sounds cannot be identified as speech and comprehended.
Broca’s area is in the frontal lobe and contains the motor cortex. Speech is a motor process requiring sophisticated control over muscles of the throat, lips and mouth. Broca’s area contains the motor plans for words. When Broca’s is damaged the plans cannot be activated even though the motor cortex is intact...
Gender Issues in Languages
...The chapter “Language and Gender” that I have read explains how language can be used to discriminate against individuals and groups on the basis of their sex. This chapter also provides some helpful information, which certainly will help us teachers to recognise and avoid discriminatory practices.
Using non-discriminatory language does not involve the conscious learning of a new language in order to communicate; this is due to the fact that people continually learn new words, expressions and constructions. Language is dynamic and reflects changes in society and contributes to such changes. Using non-discriminatory language is, of course, a part of this dynamic process.
Broadly speaking, in most cases, using non-discriminatory language means avoiding certain expressions and selecting others that already exist in the language. Sometimes it may involve combining existing words into a new compound word. Only in exceptional cases a completely new word or expression has to be “created”...
General analysis of changes in languages is too vague to be able to identify them
...Geography is a key factor in language change for instance Proto-Indo-European branched off into different language groups as the population spread out from its base somewhere in central Asia and settled in different parts of the world. The further individuals and even populations travel from the source of a language, the more likely it is for a new language to develop that, in time, will differ greatly from its origins. Study of the Romance languages shows this clearly; Italian is the language spoken nearest to the roots of its parent language, Latin, and therefore all aspects of the language remains the most similar to it. Geographical isolation can be an important factor in limiting changes in language as is the case in Iceland and Lithuania.
The incorporation of inherited and borrowed words into a language can be put down to the proximity of neighbouring countries and the inevitable contact they have with one another resulting in mutual influence on their lexicons. When mathematical advances were made in the Arabic speaking world, words for crucial terms such as algebra (al-jabr) simply didn’t exist in the Spanish lexicon, so the term was simply borrowed...
Standard English Language and its Dialect Form
...This paper is going to analyse changes that the dialect English language versus standard language. It will look into the orthographical differences in both cases with the specific examples.
The dialect form of certain words changes to- the RP pronunciation of ‘girl’ or ‘bird’ – so that ‘stairs’ sounds more like the Standard English pronunciation of ‘stirs’.
Child, line 4 – stairs standard:
dialect:
A similar feature is seen here:
Adult, line 1 – here standard:
dialect:
Here, the space in the mouth used to pronounce the monophthong differs from the Standard English use. In Standard English, where ‘stairs’ requires the mouth to be opened wide and the sound created mid-central (see diagram), the dialect speakers transfer the sound to the high-central...
