Quote #1 Sketch note
2. Choose 2 items from the list of QUOTES and LINKING QUESTIONS.
The sketchnote
“Man is the animal that speaks. Understanding language is thus the key to understanding man” – Thomas Szasz
I do not agree with this. I think that actions speak louder than words. Body language is a very big part of communication. This quote is sort of naive in saying understanding language is the key to understanding man. Being a human being and having empathy allows us to look at people of any race or any langue speaking person and have a general idea of how they feel. We do not need to understand their language in order to feel what they feel and to understand them. If you have ever listened to foreign music, it can still touch you and make you feel emotions. Also electronic music does not have words, but if still has all of this emotion. This is a lot like people and body language. People are still able to understand each other without words. This is why silence can be so powerful, and why you can be there for someone in ned without having to say anything. You can just be there with them.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/subliminal/201205/how-we-communicate-through-body-language
In this article the most interesting thing it says is “Nonverbal communication forms a social language that is in many ways richer and more fundamental than our words.”
This talks all about how body language and all the psychological factors that go along with it. This makes you think about how we perceive people and what they are saying vs how they say it/what they are doing when they say it.
CHOOSE SIX (6) of the 20 proposed Blog Questions and answer them thoughtfully.
What are some examples of words that have entered the English language as a result of the computer revolution?
Selfie. This word has officially entered the English dictionary which I am not sure how I feel. I think this is cool how it became a word though, it shows that our language is fluid. It is weird to think about where the actual word came from. Self from selfie is understandable but what is the second word that has been mashed into it? Is taking selfies even a new thing? Selfie is a very complex word/thing to do because it seems to have both a positive and negative connotation. There are almost thee types of selfies. The serious selfies that can be seen as “douchy” or “slutty” then there are the selfies that are essentially those ons but not serious and making fun of “douchy” selfies. Then there are the cool selfies like at the oscars when Ellen took selfies, or taking a selfie in front of something cool like a waterfall or something.
Derp seems to have entered through the use of memes. I may be at a predisposition for talking about the word derp because my group of friends uses derp a lot more than the normal person, but we really like the word derp. Derp is a very cool word to use because it can be used in many many parts of speech. You can derp, something can be derpy, something can derp, a face can be derp, you can be derping. Derp is endless in weird things that it can describe. I think that internet memes have played a role to bring derp into speech.
Bae. This word is some fresh new swag off the streets. Bae is a new word that people are throwing around for the place of baby. I even think that it is used a lot more than baby would be used. I feel like this is like how heart emojis are used way more than somebody would actually say I love you.
Emojis are a whole new can of beans. Emojis are very new in the terms of language and are used only on electronic devices. Emojis are used by a lot of people now. Originally they were used mainly by girls, but now it seems that guys like to use them a lot too. Guys seem to use them for sexual innuendo to make text funny. Emojis are a great way to help out a text by making it more serious or lightening the mood. You can add a happy emoji after a not so nice/wanted to hear text, or you can add a happy emoji to a happy text that makes it more emotional.
2.15. Take 2 advertising slogans of your choice – such as “Just Do It” by Nike- explain why you think they are effective (or not)
1. “I’m Loving it” This is McDonalds slogan and it is there purely to make people eat there. They use the word love to bring people in. The slogan works so well with the type of food they have because so many people “love” Mc D’s fries. Most of us “love” the food they have, but we still know it is bad for us. This is one of the ploys they use to sell more Mc D’s. The food is so cheap and it still takes so good this could only be described as “love” and their slogan uses love in it.
2. Apple – “ Think Different” I personally love this slogan. It really defines so much of what the company is. It is interesting because this slogan is not even proper grammar. It uses an adjective instead of an adverb. It should be think differently. Steve Jobs did not care that it was not correct and insisted on think different. This goes along with what Stephen Fry was saying. It does not change the clarity of the slogan and Jobs liked Think Different a lot better. I really like their slogan because it is how they act as a company. They do not let norms play a role in how they develop things. One of the greatest things about Jobs was the fact that he wanted to create the product that people wanted, instead of asking what the people want, he showed them. The iPhone is an example of this. The iPhone showed America that they wanted iPhones.
Birds fly and planes fly. Since fish swim, why don’t we say that submarines also swim? What do submarines do?
This is really interesting since planes do also fly. It may be possible that since subs are also like boats and can function as boats that subs drive. I would say that you drive a sub and you also drive a boat. Since you can be on the surface of the water I guess drive just became the term for subs. A plane can also drive on the ground but we call that taxi. I feel like if the aviation industry started saying that planes drive that would sound normal too. I think the sub industry just never referred to subs as swimming so it just sounds weird but would be normal if subs “swam” since they were created.
http://www.musingsfromsussex.com/2012/01/10/blog-submarines-flying-context-and-talent-acquisition/
This article mentions how planes fly, but subs don’t swim. It also says that subs do swim in russian. I feel like this is just how it began.
4. A lot of advertisers describe products as “natural”, because there are connotations that “natural” or “organic” is good. Can you give examples when “natural/ organic” is bad?
I think in medicine there would be many times where natural is not the right answer. There are so many home remedies and traditional cures for disease , but there are some circumstances where you really need unnatural things like antibiotics or with cancer. Although there are a lot of odd cancer treatments out there that are I guess natural.
I would not put natural oil into my car. The thing is that oil is natural but the whole natural movement probably does not consider oil natural even though it is from this earth. Oil is still refined though. I feel like if there was a natural oil for cars it would mess it up not after long.
I would not want some natural things in my food.
Many natural food colors come from things like beetles that make a great red food coloring. Some natural things seem like they can be very disturbing. I know I would not want to eat devils food cake dyed with beetle juice.
5.In 1947 the U.S. Department of War was renamed the Department of Defense. Do you think this makes a difference? Explain.
Yes I think this makes a huge difference. War and Defense have very different connotations as well as denotations. They are different words and they mean totally different things. War has a much more negative connotation. People really do not like the word war. Even if you have never been affect directly by war, people still do not like war. On the other hand people do like defense. Americans really wanted to be defended and know that they are safe. Defense is part of war, but only half of war. There is Offense in war, and I think this is what many people have problems with, so the name was changed to take out the half out of the department name that people do not like. Defense have an entirely different denotation as well, it is really just a part of war, and its the part of war that Americans seem to be much more ok with.
The new name reassured Americans and made them feel less badly about war.
6.13. What kind of texts do you think are easy to translate from one language to another and what kinds are more difficult? Can you provide an example from your study of L’Etranger by Camus?
I think the easiest text to translate are directions and things with explicit directions. Many times you see instructions with multiple language on them. They all see to be about the same length and if they are directions for a product they must convey the same message. I think the hardest thing to do is to convey meaning instead of words. It is easy to translate explicit words, but novels that have underlying messages are much harder. Things like figurative language cannot just be translated. This makes translating poems very difficult. We are reading a collection of Naruda poems in English. The preface encourages the reader to read the original poem in spanish even if you cannot read or speck spanish. This is because part of the poem is the music of it and that cannot be translate as well as the message/meaning. The fact that they leave in the original shows hoe hard it is to translate it. Another example is in L’entrager. Different translations use even different words for Maman. The one we read kept the french word and referred to the mom by Maman. Other translations call her mom and Mother. Both mom and mother have a different connotation. A mother seems much more distant and more of a description of a person or formal ,whereas mom sees much warmer and closer. Our french teacher said that she thinks of Maman as more of mommy even. This just goes to show how hard it is to translate one word, yet somehow the entire text has to be. Translators try to translate the message and not the words, but some single words like mom are very important to the meaning and it is somewhat impossible to come to a conclusion of how to exactly translate them.
5.
Stephen Fry Kinetic Typography
I find it a bit hypocritical how much Stephen is hating on the people of hate on people for languages. He literally uses the words “I hate it” at some point during the video. He seems to be very passionate about how wrong the other people are who appear to be “guardian of language” but does he stop to think if they have the same passion towards things that he has towards them. That being said I do feel that he does make some good points. I have always though that language is not as important as some people make it out to be. In fact The IB 0understands this. For the essays Language which is like usage and mechanics is one of like 5 criterion. The rest is all about actual development of though that is required by you. I love this because I would always get penalized for bad grammar in essays, but the IB makes this easier.
Stephen Fry: Fry’s Planet World
I think it is really interesting how he brought up that fact that we can learn how to be a monkey, but they will never be able to learn how to speak. He thinks that this is the single human most thing that we do. I was talking earlier about how body language seems to be a better communicator, but this makes me think about what body language would tell us if we could not talk. Animals all have different poses all the time like dogs, but are they able to communicate through them. No, because they have never been abel to talk about them.
Also he brought up that we know more about the universe than we do of the brain, which does seem crazy.
Stephen Fry talking about swearing.
He brings up a great point. I wonder if we use words that have a sexual denotation like people uses other words. Its a new popular thing for girls to cal each other bitches. They almost do this to give the word a positive connotation, despite its true meaning. This happens with a lot of words. Could we be using the same principals of changing connotation for sexual words. If so I do not know the answer. Are we trying to make torture see less bad, so if we are ever tortured, we do not think it is as scary? Or is it because we see torture in movies and we want to escape those thoughts so we give torture a more positive connotation?
Twittttter
“the absence of limitation is the enemy of art” How does the 140 word limit affect how we use twitter. The new era of technology has created new lingo for texting and such. This has all been to save time for texting. Emojis are a great example, along side lol. Did the limitation of texting affect how we communicate today. Emojis seem to be the craze of texting and have really changed how we communicate. Was it the limitation that created this.
Twititure is a funny idea, but I do think our language is evolving and twitter and technology can take responsibility for it which is a good thing.
flydude_nick 