Language and Literature Blog post #7

Audience and Purpose:

The following text is an autobiography written by Mary Seacole describing her time as a nurse from
Britain, and looking back upon the hardships and adversities some of the people had to face during the rapid spread of the yellow fever in the year 1853. The text doesn't attempt to argue a particular point; however it does offer the readers a first-hand view into what it would feel like to live in Jamaica at that time, the consistent use of anecdotes throughout the text provides sufficient information about the main idea, and therefore; the text is an informative piece, set out to inform the people of all the different aspects and sufferings the people faced in Jamaica.

Content and Theme:

The text mainly focuses on Seacole's experiences in Jamaica during the 19th century where Jamaica was struck with the yellow fever, Seacole was sent to Jamaica in order to provide immediate assistance to the Jamaicans. The anecdotes are filled with her traumatic experiences as she watched countless people die and get amputated to stop the spread of the disease. Seacole mentions the connections between herself and the Jamaicans and describes them as a mother-child connection. She was immensely affected by watching people suffer from the yellow fever and it taught her to face the concept of death with a smile rather than a frown,

Tone and Mood:

The text portrays a depressing and dark tone that runs throughout the whole text as it deals with the suffering and deaths of many people. Seacole begins using words like dreadful, suffering, harrowing, enemy, and vain to emphasize that the situation was a dull and depressing one.

Style and Structure: 

The text was written from the perspective of an author as it is an autobiography. Telling a story about herself, the text uses the voice of the author which is mot commonly seen through the use of pronouns "I". It hooks the reader through it's vivid descriptions of the suffering of the people, which results in emotion being displayed by the reader. The text does not have a particular structure but it mainly consists of collections of correlating anecdotes. 

Language and Literature Blog #6 (Written Task 1)

Written Task 1

Nader Al Ramahi

223 Huningtale Blvd.

Nashville, Tennessee

June 19, 2014

John Rose 

Dear Editor,

My name is John Rose, and I’m an International Baccalaureate DP English teacher. Throughout this letter, I wish to be able to administer some intimate insight and perspective on my behalf to a recent editorial that arose onto PR daily the other day about the “4 ways texting is killing our communication skills.” I would like to provide you with my contradicting mindset with the utmost respect and intimacy while exhibiting reverence towards you and your coherent point of view.

First of all I fully disagree with your first proclamation “Texting reduces the need for in-depth conversations.” Mainly because I feel that you wrote about the topic from one implausible issue which was “Have you ever texted people as a form of avoidance, A few abbreviated words keep people from meaningful dialogue and face-to-face communication.” Which as a statement is completely illegitimate because people don’t include abbreviations only because they intend to avoid a particular person, but instead they implement abbreviations in their texts when they are in a hurry and want to transfer a message to another person as quickly as possible or they would like to remain equivalent texting at the same pace of speech, meaning that a person abbreviates so they would be able to write just as swiftly as they would if they were to speak, you also didn’t incorporate any other clear possible reasons to why text speak could conceivably be a negative impact to “people’s need for in-depth conversation.”

Your 2^nd statement “texting dumbs down spelling and grammar” in my opinion is a very imprecise and general allegation that unrightfully places the blame on texting without the relevant research conducted and referenced in your article. You also came up with a hasty conclusion by stating that because we use shortcuts in spelling, punctuation, and emoticons these factors “are giving way to generations of lazy and sloppy communicators.” I would like of you to think of this issue in a way in which the students or teenagers aren’t trying to avoid spelling a word incorrectly or in an illiterate manner but instead they know that a certain part of a word contains vowels; therefore they would not spell out the vowels. For example a student might want to write to his/her friend: “I really enjoyed the movie today, and because they know that the word really is spelt really they would cut the vowels out of the word in order to keep up with the same pace of speech as I stated in the previous paragraph. The message I’m trying to convey to you is that if the students did not know how to spell the word in the first place they would not know how to abbreviate it and the reason they would like to abbreviate the word in the first place is due to the fact that these teenagers want to maintain and equilibrium between the pace of writing and the pace of speech.

As for the third statement “Texting distracts us from being fully present.” I fully agree with you because I also believe that texting most frequently causes us to place our focus primarily on our phones which results in teens being absent-minded and not fully aware of what’s encircling them at a particular moment; however I don’t see how that would affect our language in any negative way and how that “would kill our communication skills” I see this point as an entirely irrelevant section of the article unless you have an ambiguous interpretation that you didn’t elaborate on well enough.

Finally the 4^th statement “Texting invites ambiguity” because Nokia smartphones only allowed for 160 characters to be included in a single text message and generally that would not assist in getting your message along well enough and would cause disruption in the ways people might think, but nowadays smartphones allow for unlimited character counts such as IPhones and Samsung Galaxy smartphones which help in promoting more comprehensible messages to abolish ambiguity between individuals who use text messaging to communicate.

In conclusion, I believe that all of your statements lack meticulous reasoning and insufficient research backing up your proclamations and allegations towards the negative impacts of texting and how “texting is killing our communication skills.” I hope that throughout this letter I would have modified and adjusted your mindset towards texting as well as its alleged and putative accusations which I believe are highly inaccurate due to the biased majority of adults who dislike text speak because they believe that it affects people’s language in a negative way since that is the most logical take towards this contentious and antagonistic topic.

Language and Literature Blog Post #5

John Mcwhorter's Theory: 

Mcwhorter claims that texting is a form of writing which helps modern-day humans "write how they speak"

1)  Mcwhorter includes two texting constructions, "Lol" and "Slash", constructions such as these tend to display emotions which can only be conveyed through the use of body language; therefore texting can be classified as non-formal type of writing which can display emotions during the use of everyday/casual speech.

2) Speech is a result of written language, for example people in the previous generation used to write exactly how they would speak, and we 21st century humans have evolved to write the same way we speak

David Crystal's Theory:

Crystal assures readers that texting does not lead to lower literacy levels and worse spelling among 

teenagers and young adults.

1) The use of abbreviations in texting does not necessarily signify that a particular person is stupid, but instead it shows that this person knows what he/she are talking about and wants to pass the message along faster than if he/she were not to use abbreviations

2) Removing vowels in certain words during texting most often does not change the meaning of the word and it only makes for a faster way to send out your message to people.

Similarities: 

1)Both linguists view the development of the English language as a natural and non-negative cause, 

2)They also agree that the influence of technology on language creates a new dialect and genre which.

Differences:

Mcwhorter's theory argues that texting is "a form of writing how we speak in our everyday lives"

Crystal tends to view this as "text speak" which means the use of short words/acronyms in order to make send our message in a quicker and more efficient way.

Language and Literature Blog #4

http://apihtawikosisan.com/hall-of-shame/an-open-letter-to-non-natives-in-headdresses/

Nader Al Ramahi

51 Street

Khalifa City A 

Abu Dhabi

U.A.E

Phone:0504169389

Nader.ramahi@gmail.com

Dear Editor,

I wish to provide some insight and perspective on my behalf to a recent editorial that appeared on your blog the other day. I would like to start by saying thank you for this informative, well explained, and open minded article.

Since i am from the Middle East it is understandably nearly impossible to achieve this kind of cultural awareness unless you intend to research about them and inform yourself of such things, i remember once in 6th grade when we had a Halloween party that took place in my school and i was dressed up as a Red Indian wearing the Native-American Headdress, and it was just today in which i was informed that it was a huge disrespect to wear the headdress without rightfully earning it. As you've stated in your article about how it's not the end of the world to admit something that you did not know about i would like to take the honor of apologizing to all the Native-Americans and claim that i did not have any knowledge on this offensive cultural misconception.

I encourage you to keep up your work on grooming your culture, and i hope it will grow strong and healthy once more, because cultural diversity is unutterably important for our planet and also for the sake of our relationships between communities across the world. Finally the method which you chose to convey your message to the readers was very professional and open-minded as you chose to write in a very polite and distinct manner, I also liked that you mentioned that the majority of the world does not know about the meaning of the headdress and therefore; "it is ok for people to make mistakes" as none of us are perfect humans. This portrays your open-mindedness towards this topic although it can be a huge violation and offense to your culture you took it very well.

I look forward to reading more of your articles in the upcoming future.

Yours faithfully,
Nader Al Ramahi