Sunday, February 26, 2012

HOLIDAY HOMEWORD


  1. The second article celebrates language diversity by praising it and even promoting it as a good thing for the development of linguistics and language itself. The Second article claims that English belongs to everyone who speaks it, and all of these people should be encouraged into contributing to the development of the language. The first article has more of a neutral standpoint on the issue as it brings forward the points of views of people who are opposed to the development of English, to linguists who encourage this phenomenon. 
  2. As mentioned above, the first article expresses both points of views when it comes to the language blending, development and etc. However, the second articles almost completely concentrates on praising this phenomenon and encourages it even more, while citing its benefits for the development of the language and the society.
  3. Most of the people who code-switch do it without realising it, and sometimes this action may have negative consequences. For example, if someone came up to me and started speaking "Arabizi", I wouldn't understand a thing and just find some excuse and walk away. Furthermore, one might disrespect a person if he starts code-switching, or it may just not be an appropriate situation to code-switch, like during a presentation.
  4. Linguists are particularly interested in modern language change because they can use the information in order to better their understanding of how our language came to evolve and possible predict the future course of the revolution of language. These predictions would allow the linguists to carefully plan things out and avoid any possible pitfalls where the language starts to turn into complete slang.
  5. In some countries, there tend to be more immigrants than the ethic population and uncontrolled mixing and assimilation of language/culture may result in a complete destruction of the native language/culture. therefore, there are some conservatives who are opposed to such rapid developments of language.
  6. I think that educators must teach the mother tongue in its pure form at least at the beginning, in order to build a strong foundation amongst the young people. Afterwards, it doesn't really matter whether the new Englishes are taught at high schools or through alternative means, because it will be hard to affect the strong base knowledge of the language that the human being has. I think this is the best way to go as it preserves both the traditional language and leaves room for development.

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