Emergence of the languages and Convergence of the different cultures

 

Bulgarian brothers St Cyril and St Methodius - the Creators of the Bulgarian Alphabet in 880, used today in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Slovakia, Czech Republic and Russia.

 

 

 

 

Listen to the Anthem of Saints Cyril and Methodius in Bulgarian, /click on the link below/ 

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLZw_lhs5OU&feature=related 

 

The memory of Saints Cyril and Methodius Revolutionary Act is alive and it is celebrated every year:

 

• In Bulgaria, the revolutionary act is celebrated on May 24 and is known as the "Bulgarian Education and Culture, and Slavonic Literature Day" (Bulgarian: Ден на българската просвета и култура и на славянската писменост), a national holiday which celebrates Bulgarian culture and literature as well as the alphabet. It is also known as "Alphabet, Culture, and Education Day" (Bulgarian: Ден на азбуката, културата и просвещението).

• In the Republic of Macedonia, it is celebrated on May 24 and is known as the "Saints Cyril and Methodius, Slavonic Enlighteners' Day" (Macedonian: Св. Кирил и Методиј, Ден на словенските просветители), a national holiday. The government of the Republic of Macedonia took the decision for the statute of national holiday in October 2006 and Parliament of the Republic of Macedonia passed a corresponding law in the beginning of 2007.^[13] Before that date it was celebrated only in the schools. It is also known as the day of the "Solun Brothers" (Macedonian: Солунските браќа).

• In the Czech Republic it is celebrated on July 5 as "Slavic Missionaries Cyril and Methodius Day" (Czech: Den slovanských věrozvěstů Cyrila a Metoděje).

 

• In Russia, it is celebrated on May 24 and is known as the "Slavonic Literature and Culture Day" (Russian: День славянской письменности и культуры), celebrating Slavonic culture and literature as well as the alphabet. Its celebration is ecclesiastical (May 11 on the Church's Julian calendar), and it is not a public holiday in Russia.

 

 

 

Week 1 - August 25 

 

Blog #1 - Finding composition in the Field

Blog #2 - going "second order"

Blog #3 - thinking of linking

Blog #4 - Select a creative commons license

1. Link Pile - What is emergence? 

2. Crafts of Research - ch 1

3. Weston - ch 1

4. McCloud - ch 1  

 

 

August 25

Blog #1 Finding Composition in the Field

 

 

Probably for regular people it will be easy to find a friend for an interview, not for the teachers ... all I see during the week are other teachers. I ended up interviewing two of my colleagues: Mr. M., an ESE and economics teacher, a former army officer and Mr. F., a science teacher with a "non- traditional background." Mr. F. came from the corporative world and took a three year program in which he transitioned into teacher.

Recording or videotaping in my school has to be pre-approved by the principal, who refers to the school board opinion and takes their time making decision. By the time I hear from them, my assignment deadline will be over. Therefore, I am only transcribing their answers.

 

Mr. M.

What is a composition for you?

- Something that expresses my ideas and helps me to communicate with others.

How do you prepare for it?

- I use the spiders' web to prepare. I like to draw circles and to see the connections and it helps me think.

What kind of writing do you mostly mail?

- I write e-mails, letters, cards, lesson plans, applications, statements and cards.

How do you prepare your first draft?

- I always type directly on the computer. My e-mails are always funny because I think a lot faster than I type. I miss words, and afterward, if I don't read it, it sounds funny. I don't write with a pen, I use the computer all the time. The only thing I write by hand are thank you cards and I am very good at that.

 

 

Mr. F.

What is a composition for you?

- It is a piece of writing that has a beginning, a middle and an end.

What is the process of your composition?

- It is a brainstorming process for me. I pick a lot of ideas from my brain; some ideas are "scary" and I usually take some notes. I am an old fashioned man, I don’t put sticky notes around me. I keep everything on a list.

How do you approach your first draft?

-I always put the information on the computer, then I give it to my wife: “the little German woman” is my editor. When she reviews it, then I re-read the information and I make the needed corrections.

What type of writing do you mostly do?

-I write letters, requests, applications for grants, e-mails, a lot of assignments for my pedagogical classes of the transition to teaching program.

How does your wife feel about being your editor?

-She enjoys correcting my mistakes, but I also correct her misakes. When I receive an e-mail from her with a wrong misspell word, I highlight it and send it back. That makes her: Urrrr….

Any other types of writing?

-I used to write a lot of settlements, but not anymore. I write thank you cards and notes to my wife also.

 

 

August 25

Blog #2 "Second order"

 

composition

hc_dict()

Collins Essential English Dictionary 2nd Edition 2006 © HarperCollins Publishers 2004, 2006

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Composition

 

 

 

“the act of creating something by thinking” is another definition of composition from the link provided above. When I was interviewing my colleagues about their way of composition I saw how different they approach it and common at the same time. Of course, we have to remember that those are teachers that stick pretty much to the formality of the writing process and less creativity due to the work routine, but still they were starting from “scratch “ – their web with circles and list of notes. Each one was very willing to share in his “Little time” the insight of his thoughts and how he gathered his ideas. Mr. M. think of him as a creative person, even writing his own haikus and displaying them around the school, his ideas come from brainstorming and research; while Mr. F. / a person with a great sense of humor, who never takes anything seriously, especially himself/ dig into his brain with the “scary thoughts” and pick up the ones that are less scary…

 

August 25

Blog # 3 “thinking of linking”

 

 

 

Blog 1 – Composition: My Husband’s Perspective

 

Carola: What is your definition of composition?

Husband: Writing a narrative or paper that has three parts: a beginning, middle and end.

Carola: How do you incorporate composition in to your life?

Husband: In my job [he is an Investigator contacted with the Federal government] I don’t really think of what I do as composition. I write reports all day long. I think that composition should state a purpose, explain and support that purpose and end with some form of conclusion.

Carola: So, your reports don’t have this structure?

Husband: Not really, someone else provides me with the purpose of why I am conducting the investigation and someone else determines the conclusion from my report. I am involved in the supporting step of the process.

Carola: So, it sounds like you are a piece of your definition of composition…you formulate the body of an interconnected report?

Husband: Yeah, I guess

I found it interesting that he dismissed the idea that his job involves his definition of composition. I feel that he conducts the main step in the process. He may not complete the entire “beginning, middle and end” of the report, but the “middle,” the support, the evidence, the explanation, is essential in composition.

 

 

Blog 1: finding composition in the field: "each step is really the product"

I conversed with Kelly Baron, a New College student majoring in Art / Psychology, about painting.

 JN: What do you like about painting?

KB: I guess it comes from creating something, having the ability to create something, being open to using these tools that can be arranged in a certain way to create something that came from yourself. So in a way, you're bringing something outside of yourself and putting it into a format. And you can do that with paint. The feeling of actually painting... using oil paints, for example, and watching how the brushes spread the paint is part of the process. Each step is really the product. It's being done as you do it.

JN: I like what you're saying.

KB: The feeling of the brush stroke is invigorating. Trying to see how the colors combine is exciting.

JN: What was your first painting that you can remember working on?

KB: I don't really remember painting so much as using oil pastels when I was about 5, 6, 7, something around there - and going to museums in Washington DC and trying to emulate what I saw using oil pastels. I did that a lot. I think that's always been my favorite thing to do.

 

I linked Carola’s and Jesse interviews because they are approaching the research very seriously, interviewing two adults that see meaning in every step of producing “the composition”. One of them of course is more formal and practical, dissecting it into 3 different parts, the other says that even each step is “a product”. One writes reports, the other paints, but both put and effort and thought to make the final product : the composition.

 

August 25

Blog # 4, Select a creative common license / Some stolen thoughts and questions/

 

I have never thought of protecting my intellectual property. What property? I wouldn’t like somebody using my poetry, because I consider it very personal, but any other form of composition: what right do I have to license it? It usually combines ideas read or heard somewhere, or even if they are mine, they are product of research or knowledge. That means it is modified collaborative work. Why I should be the one to license it?

I have a teaching certificate that means that I am licensed to teach ESOL and English because I met certain state requirements, but what will be the requirements for my composition? Especially when you allowed people to modify it, where are the boundaries of my input and the other person?

And even if you license your publications and writings, how do you protect the exchange of ideas, how can you prove which idea came first?

What about the oral presentations and discussions?

 

August 25

Link Pile – What is Emergence?

 

 

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/emergence

 

Noun	1.	emergence - the gradual beginning or coming forth; "figurines presage the emergence of sculpture in Greece" outgrowth, growth beginning - the event consisting of the start of something; "the beginning of the war" rise - a growth in strength or number or importance
	2.	emergence - the becoming visible; "not a day's difference between the emergence of the andrenas and the opening of the willow catkins" egress, issue beginning - the event consisting of the start of something; "the beginning of the war" eruption - the emergence of a tooth as it breaks through the gum dissilience - the emergence of seeds as seed pods burst open when they are ripe
	3.	emergence - the act of emerging emersion appearance - the act of appearing in public view; "the rookie made a brief appearance in the first period"; "it was Bernhardt's last appearance in America"
	4.	emergence - the act of coming (or going) out; becoming apparent egression, egress human action, human activity, act, deed - something that people do or cause to happen surfacing - emerging to the surface and becoming apparent emission, emanation - the act of emitting; causing to flow forth     The emergence for me has a prioritized connotation of language emergence, probably of my early language involvement with the second language acquisition and later on focusing to transmit it. To me is mostly a beginning, new appearance, something new coming on the horizon like from nowhere or like a blend of something existing but with a new frame or shape.     http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:181tCjVacMcJ:psyling.psy.cmu.edu/papers/emergentism/emerge.pdf+language+emergence&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us     This article is about language emergence by Brian M. Whinney where he is very extensively focuse on some basic types as: -       Evolutionary emergence which is the slowest -       Epigenetic emergence – this involves the translation of DNA -       Developmental emergence  rely a lot on the connectivism -       Online emergence, obviously is the fastest -       Diachronic emergence is focused on the language changes that emerge from the interaction of the other three levels – evolutionary, development and online.     http://gallaudetblog.wordpress.com/2009/07/08/what-ive-learned-at-gallaudet-language-emergence/     “What I’ve learned at Gallaudet: Language Emergence – By Casey         “Could a person with no linguistic background create a language complete with complex grammar and syntax? We had a starting place. We adopted a grammar similar to ASL and English. We used many of the same classifiers as is in ASL. If we did not already have that lexicon (limited and defined constraints for handshapesand movements, etc. that were acceptable within our community) to begin with, could we have still gestured with each other to the point of creating a language? “

The Glagolitic and Cyrillic alphabets, based primarily on the Greek uncial writing of the 9th century^{[citation needed]}, are the oldest known Slavicalphabet and were created by the two brothers and their students, in order to translate the Bible and other texts into the Slavic languages.^[5]The early Glagolitic alphabet was then used in Great Moravia between 863 (with the arrival of Cyril and Methodius) and 885 (with the expulsion of their students) for government and religious documents and books, and at the Great Moravian Academy (Veľkomoravské učilište) founded by Cyril, where followers of Cyril and Methodius were educated, by Methodius himself among others. The alphabet has been traditionally attributed to Cyril. That fact has been confirmed explicitly by the papal letter Industriae tuae (880) approving the use of Old Church Slavonic, which says that the alphabet was "invented by Constantine the Philosopher". The term invention need not exclude the possibility of the brothers having made use of earlier letters, but implies only that before that time the Slavic languages had no distinct script of their own.

The early Cyrillic alphabet was a simplification of the Glagolitic alphabet which more closely resembled the Greek alphabet. It has been attributed to Saint Clement of Ohrid, a disciple of Saints Cyril and Methodius.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Cyril_and_Methodius

 

 

 

http://www.macedoniainfo.com/cyrill_and_methodius.htm

 

-       Pictures Of St Cyril and Methodius and BG translation of the website

 

 

 

August 25

Weston – chapter 1 and the Appendix

 

 

Weston

Chapter 1 and Appendix

After reading both chapter one and the appendix I feel that I am more aware of what needs to be done to make a solid argument. Stating your conclusion and backing it up is one good way. I feel that I always have trouble finding my conclusion or how I want to end a paper. I think that maybe trying to come up with a conclusion first and then building on it may help me to create a better argument. Another problem I have is defining terms. I feel like I give very vague definitions some times and the book really showed how to give clear and concise definitions. One example is to be specific. Being specific in your definition lets the reader really know what you are trying to say.

N8's Space  N8's Space

I found out that I have the same problem defining terms. Supporting and argument was clearly part of the debate, but having an argument was always with a negative load. Weston makes it very clear that clarification of the terms may solve the problem sometimes, not of course when there is a serious issue.

 

 

 

 

Week 2 - September 1

1. Blog towards Narrative

2. Blog towards Definition

3. Find a connection - What is life?

4. Mixmaster Blog 

 

 

 

 

September 1

Blog # 1 – Narrative

 

A lingua franca (from Italian, literally meaning Frankish language, see etymology under Sabir and Italian below) is a language systematically used to communicate between persons not sharing a mother tongue, in particular when it is a third language, distinct from both persons' mother tongues.^[1]

 

 

We made a survey what is a composition and it appeared that any written text with the beginning, middle and end could cover under the definitions or any text with the purpose of communication could be also, as husband to wife’s notes or even to do lists. Another point is the language as a mean to convey the information and to serve this purpose.

People have been trying to invent such tool as a universal language. They came up with Esperanto. There are some benefits of its existence, and it strives to complete the purpose but it is impossible to create a language that is not bias and to keep it alive, when there are no real people that carry it as a national feature and sing lullabies to their kids. They claim that they are some 1000 people that have been spoken only in that language since their birth, which is like your parents talking to you only in Latin…Both languages are death, so where is the difference?

I realize the inconvenience of learning all the languages in the world is an impossible mission but what make the language a live organism is the history of the people who has spoken it for all those centuries. Any language is the reflection of life; English language is exposed now to the technology era and has to accommodate all these text message abbreviations somehow in the formal dictionaries or at least the most common of them.

Attach is a link for the Esperanto language.

 

http://en.wikipedia.orhttp://en.wikipedia

  

Main article: Criticism of Esperanto

Esperanto was conceived as a language of international communication, more precisely as a universal second language.^[61] Since publication, there has been debate over whether it is possible for Esperanto to attain this position, and whether it would be an improvement for international communication if it did; Esperanto proponents have also been criticized for diverting public funds to encourage its study over more useful national languages.^[62]

Since Esperanto is a planned language, there have been many criticisms of minor points.^[63]

 

 

September 1

Blog #2 Definition

 Travis May page:

http://convergentemergence.pbworks.com/Blog+2-+Definition

Having just read, or scanned, the prompt for this blog I can't say in the least what the blog is supposed to be about. When I read it though, I was reminded of something Alan Watts once said, "and with what words will you define the words that define the words?"

Words, and language, are really amazing things.  Words are at the same time utterly arbitrary, circular (see Watts quote), and stupendously awesome.  We all know that words are not the things that they represent.  To borrow another idea from Watts, the word water cannot quench our thirst, and a menu cannot satisfy our hunger.  The only thing that matters in defining words is that we all agree what a word's definition is.  To effectively communicate ideas it is imperative that when I use a word, you know what I mean by it.  If you say to me, "I'm trying to get rid of my ego," do you mean that you feel you are arrogant and you are trying to be more humble?  Or, do you mean that you realize that your social identity is just a made-up story that you are trying to break your attachment to?  A story made-up of words that are as much you as the word water is the actual substance we identify with that word?  If we go on the assumption that we are understanding a word in exactly the same way, we are going to wind up with a lot of misunderstandings and ill-informed conclusions.  I think the purpose of definition has to be to narrow down exactly what we mean by a word and to make sure that the people involved in the discussion of any idea are on the same page as to what is meant by a given word.  This involves often asking, "what exactly do you mean when you say..."

There is a tremendous power in the words that is how the magic spells are built on. People in the past have used the words more frugally and avoided idle conversations / as they had time for that…/

But with the development of the communications, the meaning of the words grew bigger and bigger, they acquire sometimes more than 20 meanings, this of course arises the issue of misunderstanding, even in the one and the same language between native speakers, not even to mention when it is by one of the participants as a second language…Then the understanding of the definition is twisted to the definition in the native language and sometimes to the incorrect literal translation…The confusions could be numerous, but creating an artificial international language is obviously doomed to failure…/as Esperanto/

ThesaurusLegend:  Synonyms Related Words Antonyms

Noun

1.

intellectual property - intangible property that is the result of creativity (such as patents or trademarks or copyrights) belongings, property, holding - something owned; any tangible or intangible possession that is owned by someone; "that hat is my property"; "he is a man of property";

Based on WordNet 3.0, Farlex clipart collection. © 2003-2008 Princeton University, Farlex Inc.

“Free riding “ is defined by Mark Lemley in his article about the use and abuse of the intellectual property. Defending any kind of property has been an issue through the mankind history: Defending the food, the hut, the land the family, the children, the work, the creativity or the ideas. Out of all these property the intellectual has been the hardest to prove since the evidence is very rarely material, the exchange of ideas, or the flow of the imagination are not a single artifact but a long and spontaneous process that most of the time is not predictable. That is why we do not know what and which part to protect before it is discovered.

And after the invention has been made it takes its own path, like a newly born child on a journey. The invention is excited and wants to see the world and show off how wonderful it is, but not all the people it meets are benevolent towards it. Then the author has to take care of protecting it. The boundaries of the ideas are pretty blur, since no idea has occur to only one person.

To me, it is not that much of a protection than to the etiquette of using such kind of property: what can you do with it and what you can without the permission of the owner.  

 

 

September 1

3.” What is life?” by Lynn Margulis and Dorian Sagan

Life is the eternal enigma and an open ended question. Every generation of scientist and philosophers are trying to find  the answer. Thomas Mann define it in “The Magic Mountain” – “like rainbow”, “like flame”.  Isac Newton – the priest of mechanism – dissects life as collection of physical laws, while animism finds spirits in any object or living body. Greek Synergist /working together/ theory believes that life, love and behavior appear to be a complex phenomena. As for Charles Darwin, it is a slow process of “evolutionary innovations”. Life is a motion, it repairs, reproduces and outdoes itself; it is a constant change and when it applies to the species, it leads to evolution.

So what is finally life? “It is a controlled, artistic chaos” or may be just a collision of power…The Big Bang…

As powerful as life could be, each live being is very fragile and vulnerable. W. Burloughs in “Electronic Revolution” states that any small country could “make a virus for which there is no cure”. It will take only a small laboratory and good biochemists. He thinks even a virus that causes death could be created as well. Richard Connel’s short story “The most dangerous game” also debates about the meaning of life in a different prospective. His major character – general Zaroff is a passionate hunter that enjoys the safari but his boredom of chasing wild animals has been renewed by chasing …people. To him these people’s lives are no different than the ones of the animals. On the other side he treasures his one. Is there are a controversy? According to him: no. What is the price of life? What is worth living? What is worth to die?.....All open ended questions…as the life cycle…

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Most_Dangerous_Game

 

 

 

Week 3 – September 8

1.       Mixmastreblog

2.       Blood in the Gutter – McCloud – ch 3

3.       Prose Activation Station

4.       Unit 1 – Portfolio

a/ Coversheet

b/ draft version

c/ feedback

d/ polished version

e/ remixes

f/ reflection

 

1.       Mix master blog

On Sept 1^st, in our class, Dr. Conner drew an irregular shape on the board with 8 sides and corners and asked us to describe it. Most of the students did it from mathematic prospective, but since Math wasn’t my strongest subject I tried to avoid indulging in it as much as possible, even if this would mean to take the longer path.

 So I am looking at this eight point irregular octagon ….Hmmm. If I was Pythagoras I would probably discover a new formula to find out its surface, but right now it looks like a …boot…and there are so many different types of boots: World I boots, WWII boots, Nazi boots, Peter pan’s boots, Pinocchio’s boots, my son’s boots… but my dream “boot”  is Italy …

The edges of the boot on the board are a little bit sharp, but so is any cultural transition and convergence…

What came up in class?  Dr Conner drew, wrote, whatever you want to call it, a “J” shape, form on the board.  My immediate recall was a reminder of a Christmas stocking, and how I should probably begin looking for stocking gifts for my children.  It may sound like an easy task, but believe me it is not.  The stocking involves much thought, no candy, no junky toys that break the minute they are opened and something fun and exciting!  I often regret why I ever started this tradition, however, the kids really enjoy the stocking as much as their gifts.Sue's place

I wish the shape of a “J” to be connected with Christmas only, but I didn’t celebrate Christmas for my entire childhood, under the socialism all the religious holiday have been forbidden, so they invented Santa Frost instead, we decorated the Christmas tree, but the gifts were put under it during the night of the New Year, and there were no stockings or chocolate chips cookies and milk left for Santa Claus… I started to celebrate Christmas when my daughter was born, when I was 23. Some political regime was keeping the tradition away from the people for 45 years but eventually everything came back to its place converging the old custom with the newly invented.

Frost, a mythical character rooted in ancient fairy tales, was promoted by the former Communist regime to serve as a Slavic and secular bringer of gifts and New Year's cheer to Soviet children. Unlike his - to many Russian eyes - effete Western counterpart, Frost is untainted by political correctness. He smokes, swills vodka continuously, and is always seen on the arm of his nubile young female companion, Snegurichka (Snow Maiden). Now some politicians and business leaders are trying to revive the old legend to defend traditional Russian values - and contemporary commercial interests - against Western hegemony symbolised by Santa.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russias-grandfather-frost-fights-the-invading-santas-627602.html

http://www.russia-ic.com/culture_art/traditions/642/

1.      “Blood in the Gutter” – McCloud – Chapter 3

I am not a cartoon or comics fan, watching them for more than ten minutes: drive me crazy and anxious, listening to the special sound effects and trying to follow the speed of the changes of state is just exhausting. Evidently I am a product of a different time but I am really trying to change this for the sake of my 12 year old son. He is watching them very carefully and actually is learning and remembers what is happening, because for me they seemed meaningless, but I am keeping my mind open. He remembers especially the jokes and makes me their target.

Reading McCloud changed entirely my point of view to the Comic books, even being a visuals learner I didn’t really notice that the most important is happening between the panels. Obviously my mind had been doing the work when I read them before but never realized that the most important part of the story plot is hidden and we are co-authors with our imagination. An entire novelty for me was the comparative charts between the Western and the Eastern type of comics, though it wasn’t a surprise that the Americans’ ones have more often action to action transition and the Japanese, they still have action to action, but also higher frequency of moment to moment and especially aspect to aspect that is entirely missing in the Americans comics.  Like any art, the comics also represent the life in the countries and although they are an international art, each country is transmitting its peculiarities. The life in both countries is equally dynamic, but the influence of the old culture and tradition is so strong that converges the custom even with such technological art : as creating comics.

 

3. Prose Activation Station  - week 3

N8's Space

A Day in the Life of a Server...

 

 

"Hey, how are you...." Tea, I'll have a tea and she'll have a Coke. Ok I will be right back with that for you. Now what I wanted to say after I was interupted was I am doing fine thanks for asking, my name is Nate and I'll be talking care of you tonight. For those of you have never worked in a restauraunt I dare you to give it a try at some point in your life. Working in a restauraunt gives everyone a whole new perspective. Now don't get me wrong there are days that I love my job, but there are always those people now matter what that ruin your day!

 

As a server I feel like people look at me like their servant sometimes. In a way I kind of am but I would prefer not to be treated like dirt.

 

The movie Waiting is pulled right out of the industry and I love it. Now this is what my days are usually like, a day in the life of a server.

 

7:45 I find myself repeatedly hitting the snooze button yet another time before I crawl out of bed.

Nate, I like your writing very much, it is brief, no extra elaborations, straight to the topic, "Hemingway style". I  like how you show the life repetation by repeating the scheme of his work and daily routine , too. I lke the statement that "there are days that I love my job" that really made me smile, because I feel the same way, though it should be the opposite. I guess we should like our jobs most of the time, and "those days " should be an exception...Oh, well.

 

Somebody said that: " work is the best entertainment" / if you like it thogh/. If we really calculate the number of the hours that we spend at work, I believe it should be the highest number of whatever else we do, even a bigger number than the sleep hours...so we better be entertained at our work place...life is too short to be boring

 

 

 

 

 

Narrative  - Another peaceful day

 

5:50 AM– Alarm’s on. Another lovely twelve hour working day! Get washed, get dressed, and get pretty …just for cheer. Make lunch, cut salad, grab an apple, take the coffee mug, and run to sign in before 6:45 AM. After couple minutes of drowsy driving I had to jump on the brakes: a guy with a motorcycle surpassed me, lost control of the high speed bike and roll over in front of my car! That was a real wake-up! And in front of my panicked eyes he stood up, walked to the side walk and sat down. His motorcycle continued his way with full speed in front of the K-circle plaza and trashed into the ditch. Wow! I wasn’t sure if I was still asleep or this is an action movie, but I was definitely not seeing this happening in front of me! Arrival of the police and the Fire Rescue made it real; they questioned the drivers, the neighbors and took care of the motorcyclist. He had some bruises but seemed all right.

I arrived late at school and started to race with the time while trying to teach, grade, sign passes, talk to guidance counselors and e-mail parents. Lunch was refreshed by few male teachers’ jokes. I wished that the females could take it as easy as the “stronger gender”. But NO! We are trying to improve the students’ learning, reply to any written correspondence, any other request, save the state’s money by working double and be happy that we have a job and no furloughs…take charge of each family’s member problems, find out the solution of the world’s pollution and better economic plan against globalization!

After the first mandatory part of my day, I have to attend voluntarily three hour training on how to improve my classroom management in case of behavior misconduct. Isn’t it wonderful to be an educator nowadays! There are so many people and institutions that try to assist you in every possible way: giving you free advice all the time, inform you about the innovations, including you in district wide trainings! It’s not because they think that you don’t know what you are doing after those many years, but because they care about you being a well informed and up dated classroom manager.

The instructor of the training looked fresh and was smiling, no wonder, he wasn’t coming from a high school classroom…He asked us the top three misbehaviors that annoy every teacher in class. It took us awhile…wasn’t easy to pick only three. Anyway, we completed the task successfully in small groups and reported the answers. And he decided to act as Dr. Phil’s substitute by asking: “When this happens, what do you do and how does this work for you?” “Very funny!” - tbs.

He sounded professional, and gave us the impression that there is a magical solution for each situation, we just have to look it up in the textbook provided. That filled us with hope and confidence that we are returning to the classroom on the next day so well educated and changed that anything could be resolved with our new tools…

It’s so much fun to be the “weaker gender” and “carry the world upon your shoulders”…

I have never liked the TV reality shows because I felt that I am peeping through somebody’s window to interfere his privacy…though this somebody had signed a million dollars contract just to allow people to peep…I guess with this rebellious act I decided to deprive those “VIP” people of my attention and time so I can save my sanity for the real happenings in my life. And when I think, I actually have a big audience of my reality show: my kids, my students, my colleagues, my friends. And they all are my true fans that keep supporting and cheering me. They are the perfect audience but this still does not make me…a winner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Freesound

 

1. http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=34866

 

2. http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=21684

 

3. http://www.freesound.org/samplesViewSingle.php?id=79539

 

 

Emergence of languages:

Origin of language

 

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=jFncndn3PGcC&oi=fnd&pg=PA213&dq=%22MacWhinney%22+%22The+emergence+of+language%22+&ots=4KBHeTqPw-&sig=BGmmNw8YEiFKAZvC-JGk5GFNJHw#v=onepage&q=&f=false 

 

Emily Bronte /1818 - 1848/

 

"Wuthering Heights'

Ch 4

 

Emily Bronte /1818 – 1848/

“Wuthering Heights”

 

I am captured by the strength of the characters: Catherine and Heathcliff, their passions which are inspiring in the beginning and devastating and self distracting at the end. I admire the Bronte sisters as the voices of rebellious and independent women in the first half of the 19^th century.

That book is an amazing narrative to me, created by a woman, who never married, hardly left her village in  Yorkshire- this is to me the power of the brain, spirit and imagination – a blend of the great writer.

For the Victorian audience was not acceptable such book to be written by a female and for many years Emily has been hidden under a male pseudonym.

Nature dominates through the book, its extreme vigor and simplicity meets and shakes the reader to the core, spin you in those moors and cliffs, leave you overwhelmed by feelings and passions that nobody would expect in this rural and quiet environment where barely any events occur.

The plot is unique and the story is told with the typical British style, too formal for the informal and insignificant events, you can almost hear the accent. The language is a true poetry in the shape of a prose. It is a hymn of love, exceeding the genre of sentimental novel and saving its glory untouched generation after generation.

 

 

 

Read the Original Text: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Read more: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/Wuthering-Heights-Summary-Analysis-and-Original-Text-by-Chapter-Chapter-4.id-164,pageNum-49.html#ixzz0SXRNbcRh

 

 

 

October 13,2009

 

First draft of thoughts on my final project

 

The emergence of language  and cultural convergence

 

I haven’t been writing recently on the wiki, because I buried myself in the library researching on the topic. It was hard to stay focused because one search brings to another and I caught myself reading and reading without collecting the basic for my topic.  I ended up with some articles that are focused on:

 

The gestural theory of Language origins,

Mothers’ and Infants’ Spontaneous Vocal, Verbal, and Action Imitation during the second year

Prelinguistic  Communication in Toddlers with and without hearing loss

Language outcomes for internationally adopted children

Emergentism, Connectivism, and Language learning,

The hegemony of English as a global language

Technology and Multicultural education; The question of Convergence

Culture and Language teaching through Media

Suarez-Orozco, M.M.& Qin-Hilliard, D.B(2004) “Globalization” – Culture and education in the new millennium

 

The way I arranged my readings so far is to investigate the origins and the theories of the language, track the models that toddlers are using, and then evolve in the convergence of the languages, traditions and cultures in the new technology era, reaching the peaks of globalization.

Do we like it?

Is that our ultimate goal for the modern society?

Do we want to be different or do we want to have more in common?

Do we have to keep speaking different languages or do we have to surrender to the hegemony of English?

Do we have to merge into the global culture completely or do we stick to our identity more?

 

 

 

 

 

M E M O R A N D U M

To:	Dr. Conner
From:	Valentina Tsoneva
Date:	October 20,  2009
Subject:	Idea for final project

 

 

Summary: I plan to research the emergence of the languages, theories of language origins, prelingusitic communications in toddlers, spontaneous infants’ vocal and verbal imitations, the mechanism of language learning, hegemony of English as a global language, globalization of the languages and culture, modern technology as a mean of convergence.

Form: I will conduct a library research via the net and through books. I will produce a research paper in a traditional format, accompanied by a power point presentation to cover the basic concepts and finding in my project.

 

Audience: Anyone interested in languages, education, culture and globalization; the instructor and the wiki students.

Materials needed:  PC computer, Internet web sources, library books, power point program, “The Craft of Research” – Booth, W., Colomb, G, Williams, J.; Academic Writing for Graduate Students – Swales, J & Feak, C.

 Deadlines and Procedures:

October 13,2009 – Submit the mission statement of my overall project idea

October 20, 2009 – Submit Memorandum Proposal and Calendar

October 27, 2009 – Submit an outline of the project

November 3, 2009 – Continue the research and share reflections on the wiki

November 10, 2009 - Continue the research and share reflections on the wiki

November 17, 2009 – Submit the reference list

November 24 , 2009 – Submit the rough draft to wiki, open to revision, editing or advice

December 1, 2009 – submit my final draft to wiki and my power point

Outcomes: I will hope to learn more about the emergence of the human languages as a way of communication, symbol of emergence but leading to convergence. The initial stimulus to talk or to make a sigh, to attract attention or to express ourselves merges right away into convergence process because it targets another person or group and that conveys the hidden message of unity and bond. The next step is the appearance of different cultures, their independent existence for centuries and mixing them today as a part of one big global world of technology.

 

 

 

October 20, 2009

 

 

Travis your inspirational video is very profound and very thoughtful. Good job!

You have  stimulated my search for other inspirational videos and I found one with Bush that I would like to share and hear some  elaborate comments in class...Just click and get Inspired...

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2aGl7qBPrfc 

 

create a second “scope” of the wiki

 

 

 

 

 

 

“One subclass of emergent novelty that has been discussed as a separate phenomenon in the

literature is ‘emergent behaviour’, which is a property of the system that is only exhibited

in certain environments. An example of emergent behaviour is the interaction between a

lock and a key13. The key is said to have an emergent behaviour, since it opens any door

containing a complementary lock, and this is not present in the microstate description of

the key in isolation. This property is only present in the macrostate when the spatial

scope of the system is expanded to include both the lock and the key.” Ryan,A.2006

Another example of emergent behavior is the interaction between the mother and the infant. The interactive behavior of the toddlers usually includes paying attention, contingency and similarity. As a result emergent behavior includes verbal, vocal and action or object related actions. In the area of the speech emergence the imitation ends with conventional words or phrases or meaningful vocalizations; the infants produced other sounds and non-language related noises as well.

 

 

 

 

 

October 27, 2009

 

I liked reading Kelly’s thoughts about our wiki class. When we started nobody knew where our collaborate efforts and ideas will drift us.  We found tons of examples of emergence and convergence to the extent of getting lost in the volume of information and the variety of ideas.

To me the words are very powerful and that is why the languages hold some kind of magical attraction. I have been exposed to a very rich environment of languages and though I have preferences based on the vocal rhythm and musical sound, all of them are unique.

I started with English Language as an elective after school and I remember the magical attraction of the totally incomprehensible and weird sounds and the promise from the old dressed up teacher that pretty soon will understand what he was saying. My friend and I accepted the challenge. I remember doing the homework before class, sitting on a bench in the park, stumbling over the words that meant nothing but sound so good when the teacher was reading them. We have no clue why you write one letter but read entirely different sounds, but our young memories were learning it by heart when we get to the point in the middle of the school year when we couldn’t keep it up. There was too much to learn by heart and it didn’t make too much sense, so we quit.

My second start was in 7^th grade when choosing a second language was mandatory and there was no option of quitting. The teacher was a young lady wearing checkered English suits, smiling and mysterious. She laid upon us the spell of the unknown language but also lit up the curiosity to learn it. I remember that she asked her to write the vocabulary words 30 times each and I never protested, if this was the key to the mastery. When I got accepted at the English High school and we have to master 50 spelling words every day we were asked to write them 70 times each. And this was not a problem, but sometimes your memory is tired and even after writing it a whole page the word still doesn’t mean anything to you – it is just a group of sounds…so what? I was 14 years old and I don’t know why but I remember mistaken “scissors” on a spelling test, then on another writing quiz, so I ended up writing pages with it – at least 300 times.

In the beginning stage of learning English I remember that the pronunciation was the hardest because there are sounds as in this, thanks, bag , the long vowels that do not exist in Bulgarian. And the next step: the spelling: absolutely no rules!!!All my teachers will confirm that, or even if there are some, the exceptions are so many from the rule that they make the rule useless.

 

 

 

 

A/ Why the English language is hard to learn? Follow the link and have some laughs. Share some thoughts as well on the language mastery. http://www.indianchild.com/english_funny.htm

 

 

 

 

What is the most difficult part when you have studied English or other Language?

-       The vocabulary, the pronunciation, the usage of the words or comprehension?

 

 

ISN'T ENGLISH A FUNNY LANGUAGE ?

There is no egg in eggplant or ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in  pineapple...

Is cheese the plural of choose?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?

If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?

In what language do people recite at a play, and play at a recital?

Ship by truck, and send cargo by ship?

Have noses that run and feet that smell?

Park on driveways and drive on parkways?                                                                                                                                         

Sweetmeats are candies, while sweetbreads, which  aren't sweet, are meat.

We take English for granted.  But if we  explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly,  boxing rings are square, and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

And why is it that writers write, but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce, and hammers don't ham?                                                                                                                                                           

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth beeth?

One goose, 2 geese. So, one moose, 2 meese?

One index, two indices?

How can the weather be hot as hell one day and cold as hell another?

When a house burns up, it burns  down.                                                                                            

You fill in a form by filling it out, and an alarm clock goes off by going on.

When the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

And why, when I wind up my  watch, I start it, but when I wind up this essay, I end it?

.English muffins were not invented in England or French fries in France.                                                                                                                                                 

How can 'slim chance and a fat chance' be the same, while  ' wise man and a wise guy' are opposites?

                                                                                                                         

Now i know why i failed in english. 

 It's not my fault but the silly language doesn't quite know whether it's coming or going

 

Submitted By Pena Kunde

 

 More language fun: Animated Tongue Twisters

 

 

http://www.indianchild.com/animated_tongue_twisters.htm 

 

 

B/My project will target the language emergence but it will talk about globalization as convergence. I am sure you have stumbled in some globalization questions and issues and I will appreciate any input or ideas.  

 

 

Convergence

Globalization???

 

 

 

“What happens when the movement of people, goods, or ideas among countries or regions accelerates”. The new millennium is defined by globalization in every possible field and sphere, starting from health issues, viruses, free trade, population growth and migration, poverty and social justice and of course the cultural and educational transformations.

Julia Kristeva(1991) “globalization makes us all into dislocated immigrants, just as it makes us all feel a bit like “strangers to ourselves”.

The new technology generates images and life style that is very powerful and tempting to the youth all over the world: watch the same movies, listen to the same pop music, visit the same Internet sites, play the same video games, desire the same “cool” brand cloths. Media technologies are leading inevitably to more homogeneous world culture. Even the most prominent diversities are starting to fade and blend. In the new millennium the humans have to search and find their new identity, different from the previous generation. 

 

I have been learning, using and later on teaching English language nonstop since I was 14, which makes it about 28 years and I am glad because usage of any second language opens your mind for a new culture, new people, new places, new information, broadens your horizon and nurture your curiosity about the world.

 

 

 

 

 

November  17 , 2009

 

 

LESLIE DILL – “ I HEARD A VOICE” – SHARED THOUGHTS

 

Leslie Dill – A captivating waterfall of words and images! “Words are power” and we definitely feel lost in the labyrinth of her power between “Rise”, “Rush’, “Shimmer” , “Dress of Wardens” and a lot more sculptures and visuals. The biblical “In the beginning were the words” applies strongly to her art. Dill named Emily Dickinson as her “giant mentor”, the influence of her poetry, other poetry, meeting a new person, seeing a movie; anything could inspire her imagination and provoke her artistry. She said that each line or phrase could stimulate not only one but ten images and there comes the uniqueness of her art when she finds powerful ways to convey her emotions and materialize them in different shapes and sizes.

 

“We are animals of language”- she grew up under the magic power of words and realizing their importance. Her mother was a drama teacher and her father was an English teacher. He taught her that words have meanings, and meanings …and meanings…

Leslie Dill sees her art as a reflection of the language power; she feels the need to include words, letters or phrases in her sculptures and other images. Her sculptures even breathe through words, like “The dress of inwardness” .

 

When you look at the red banners of “Rise”, they really look like “God’s tongue” and all the sliding words along them glistening through the sheer fabric. Right before one starts to feel sorry and compassionate of the little female’s figure at the end of the banners, in her crumpled gown; then all of a sudden you feel how hot and powerful she is because the words are erupting from her, you feel her verbal might and that make you start to back off in order to be able to perceive the colossal size of her “tongue on fire”…

 

Leslie Dill’s art touches people’s mind and provoke their imagination, challenging our prejudice, exposing the human feelings and nature in all those unique shapes; she reveals that there are no boundaries or limitations of the materials, co-existence of the verbal and visual is explosively strong; each one is powerful but combined together with the talent and passion they are shocking and overwhelming.

 

December 1st, 2009

 

 

Final Project attached: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Valentina Tsoneva

Dr. H. Conner

ENC 6319 – 691

Dec. 1, 2009

 

 

Language Emergence and Cultural Convergence

Research Paper

           

            There is tremendous power in the words on which the magic spells have relied on throughout the centuries.  People have used words very frugally in the past because hard physical labor was their daily routine, and so they had little time for idle conversations.  But as life became more sophisticated and with the advent of technical inventions that improved everyday life, people’s need for communication increased, and words acquired more and new meanings.  There are numerous theories of the origin of the language: mimic, gestural, evolutionary, etc., and there are hundreds of existing languages.  Some languages use a letter alphabet, while others are pictographic, ideographic, or use signs. Before the time of the Great Explorations, the countries developed rather independently linguistically and culturally, but after journeys to Exotic Orient and the New World became regular, the languages and the traditions started to influence each other and to interact.

            In the contemporary world, the phenomena of globalization, spread via technology, internet and media, is unifying the world population more and more, especially the youth.  Where is it going?  How much different will we remain, and how much more alike will we grow?  These are questions which will be answered in the future.

Emergence

            David Armstrong discusses one of many ideas about the language emergence: “The Gestural Theory of Language Origins.”  Research about the nature of the first human languages started shortly after the publications of Darwin’s Origin of Species in 1859.  There was considerable speculation about the gestural origin of language, leading even to prohibit instructions for deaf students at school in favor of oral instructions alone.  Finally, in the mid 1950s, “there was growing movement to recognize the signed languages of deaf people as bona fide human languages” (p. 293).  Darwin’s followers had initialized a series of experiments with chimpanzees, assuming that they “might be capable of using a sort of grammar” (p. 294).  But the “generativist school of linguists has tended to see a greater gulf between humans and apes (that is primarily discontinuity in evolutionary terms)” (p.294). Myulebust summarizes those observations in 1957, maintaining that the manual language used by deaf people is ideographic, and that it has more picture images than symbols; “ideographic language systems, in comparison with verbal systems lack precision, subtlety and flexibility. It is likely that man cannot achieve his ultimate potential through an ideographic language…the manual sign language must be viewed as inferior to the verbal as a language” (p.241-42).

            Linguists at that time started to realize that knowing the meaning of the sign did not enable them to predict what the visual representation of it would be. As the experiments with apes progressed, the scientists started to question whether or not they constructed “an ape’s vice versa” properly (a problem that we face whenever we attempt to translate one human language into another) (p.299). Following the research, it became obvious that humans and apes share “an extremely rich and flexible social life that is mediated by gestures and vocalization,” and that it is possible to discover commonalities between modern people and apes. The prevailing opinion of the archeologists was that the “apes have not changed as much as humans since the divergence of the African apes,” and also, their behavior seemed to be quite plausible evidence about the gestural origin of the languages.

            Finally, Armstrong’s opinion is referring to the cognitivists point of view: signs are considered elementary semantic and syntactic units. The usual way of building the language structure is linear: the production of sounds (phonology), the sounds put together make words (morphology), the words form various phrase structure (syntax) and these phrase structures express meaning via symbols (semantics).  In appearance, the signs and gestures strongly resemble the mimicry and other bodily movements that accompany our speech.  In sign language for deaf people, the movements with the hands are accompanied by facial expressions that modify and enrich the meanings of the words.  Armstrong summarizes the findings of the research article: “evidence of the emergence of visible languages, whether written or signed, supports the idea that the first linguistic units are iconic representations of objects and events…and that these initially iconic gestures are then analyzed and recombined” (p.309). The author considers that the sign languages of deaf people are equivalent to the spoken languages in so many ways, but especially in their function and purpose.

            Elise Masur and Jennifer Rodemark observed a case study about “The Mothers’ and Infants’ spontaneous Vocal, Verbal, and Action Imitation During the Second Year.”  The two authors monitored twenty infants and their mothers during play time and bath interactions in their home environment. The infants were 10, 13, 17 and 21 months old. The observations of the imitations took time during the babies’ second year because it is at that time that strong demands for communication and social interaction appear.  Infants’ imitations are the first steps of their social, cognitive and language development.  The participants were ten boys and ten girls, all of them healthy and with native English speaking parents. The bath interactions included a set of toys identical for all the babies, such as boats, a barge, two ducks, a washcloth etc., and a set for playtime, such as stacking boxes, a stuffed animal, a small blanket, a ball etc. (p.394).

            Imitation activities have been classified into four major categories: verbal (simple words or phrases, meaningful vocalization), vocal (language related vowels and non-language related noises), action without objects (body language, such as head shaking, hand waving, clapping), and object related actions (movements involving an object). Verbal matching between the mothers and the infants showed stability and consistency. The infants demonstrated greater stability than the mothers during the play time for the action reproduction. A conclusion of the study case was that “mothers who imitated more of their children’s words and conventional vocalizations had children who repeated more of their mothers’ words and phrases as well” (p.397).

            Anat Zaidman-Zait & Esther Dromi researched: “Analogous and Distinctive Patterns of Prelinguistic Communication in Toddlers with and Without Hearing Loss”. The participants in the study were 28 toddlers with hearing loss and 92 toddlers with normal hearing.  The purpose of the observation was to compare the pre-linguistic abilities of the two groups during the second year of life, just before the emergence of the productive singular-word stage. This study relied on previous linguistic research which discovered that “[I]n the vocal domain toddlers produce canonical babbling and long sequences of jargon babble that sound like adult speech” (Dromi, 2002).  More findings of earlier explorations prove that the two groups “used the same range of communicative functions but differed significantly in the quantity and proportional usage of these functions” (p.1171).  The authors noticed that children with deafness used directives more often than any other functions, while the hearing children used more responses and statements. The two monitored groups of children performed differently, not only regarding the “communicative functions,” but also with regard to modality.  The hearing group of toddlers used speech “significantly more than any other modality, whereas the kids with the hearing loss continue to use the speech, gestures and vocalization to the same extent” (p.1172).

            The gap between the two groups of children of their pre-linguistic performance started to increase as they grew and approach their second year of life. The study revealed also that the best communication was between the hearing mothers and hearing toddlers, and also between the deaf mothers and deaf children.  There weren’t any obstacles with their perception, and they communicated on the same level. Any mismatch between the parent and the child created difficulties and barriers in their mutual understanding.  In the latter case, the toddlers were performing below the others due to the lack of good connection with the person from whom they were trying to learn. This unique study case once again emphasizes the most important purpose of language: to facilitate and establish communication, and the only way to develop and improve it is to have equal perception from both participating sides.

            Sharon Glennen describes and analyzes another case study of “Predicting Language Outcomes for Internationally Adopted Children.” The author observed 27 children between 11 and 23 months of age adopted from Eastern Europe during their first year in their new adoptive homes. The purpose of monitoring the toddlers was to assess them and to try to predict their language outcomes so they could best be assisted during their second year. Recent parent survey indicated that 35-50% of the internationally adopted children received speech support before 36 months of age.  One major reason for that is because they come from orphanages with shortage in funding and staff “resulting in poor medical, social and development care” (p.531).  And the outcome is that those children grow up speech impaired and with language emergence delay in their native countries. This is undisputable evidence that the social and active language environment are of high importance for “optimal child development” (p.532). The data shows that the most adopted children in the last 10 years in the USA are from Russia and China, and a lot of them made quick progress in their preschool years, but some of them do not. Another prominent obstacle is the inability for those children to be tested accurately in the period when their native language is becoming passive, and the new one is vaguely emerging. Any assessments based on the standard American English are not applicable, and they need to be assessed using some local norms, which also create complications to measure their future progress because the norms are so various.

            Nick Ellis reviews a variety of approaches for language acquisition in his research article: “Emergentism, Connectivism and Language Learning”. The author concludes that language acquisition theories are changing but there is a distinct trend towards interdisciplinary collaborations, because language cannot be understood completely without a complex method. Emergentists scientists (Larsen-Freeman, 1997) consider language as a “dynamic, complex, non-linear system where the timing of events can have dramatic influence on the developmental course and outcomes”(Elman, 1996).  For Emergenists, language is like “the majority of complex systems which exists in nature and which empirically exhibit hierarchical structure” (Simon, 1962). The followers of that theory believed that the languages have emerged as the vehicles of transportation: they are universal and the same all over the world.

            Connectivists express the opinion that language acquisition will occur “when simple learning mechanisms are exposed to complex language evidence” (p.638).  And the process of learning will happen when “implicit knowledge of language may be stored in connections among simple processing units organized in networks” (p.639). The bottom line of this research article that strives to generalize the two theories of language acquisition and the schemes of its emergence is that neither part of the knowledge could be investigated separately. “Ultimately, everything humans know is organized and related to other knowledge in some meaningful way, and everything they perceive is affected by their perceptual apparatus and perceptual history” (p.632).

Convergence

            Yan Guo and Gulbaharh Beckett explore in their research “The Hegemony of English as a Global Language: Reclaiming Local Knowledge and Culture in China”.

English is spoken as the first language of about 400 million people in Great Britain, the United States, Australia, Canada, etc., and a over a billion speak it as their second language. English “has become the dominant global language of communication, business, aviation, entertainment, diplomacy and internet” (Becket, p.12). A huge number of professionals who want to invest in their development, career improvement or promotion have to put in extra time and effort to master this dominant language as a precondition for employment. The authors argue that “increasing dominance of the English language is contributing to neocolonialism and racism through linguisticism by empowering the already powerful and leaving the disadvantaged and powerless further behind” (Beckett, 2007). The two professors consider and discuss how the English language is “forcing an unfamiliar pedagogical and social culture on to its learners…linguistically and politically putting them in danger of losing their first languages and identities, and contributing to devaluation of the local knowledge and cultures” (p.12).

The authors admit that the spreading of the English language and culture in China started a hundred years ago, and the effect today is that there are young people who are more literate in the foreign language that their native language, and more familiar with the Anglican culture that their native traditions and history.  The trend of people mastering the new language has created an even bigger gap between the rich and poor in the country because not everyone could afford to pay for foreign language tutors. The acquisition of the English language has become a must for good employment, social status and financial stability. The educational system became more open to the foreign language and culture, and started to neglect the native language courses, and as a result, the students developed an attitude of superiority with their acquisition of the English culture and language over their own. The only solution for the authors is in changing the language teaching policies through: “reclamation of local languages and knowledge through critical multiculturalism and multilingualism” (p.18).

            Suzanne Damarin analyzes “Technology and Multicultural Education: The Question of Convergence”. The author infers that contemporary educators are facing two major changes in the society:  the first is the increasing student population and its growing multicultural diversity, and the second is the rapid technology growth that needs to be incorporated into the education in order to prepare the students for the real world. The purpose of the research is to analyze if the two trends could collaborate and converge into each other since they are growing simultaneously, or should each develop parallel and independently?  Most scholars and observers have found that most of the technology inventions have been created to suit the lifestyle and the needs of the “privileged White Men” (p.12).  “These findings indicate that women, members of  the working class, and African-Americans would design and apply advanced technologies differently were they given the opportunity”(p.12).  There are numerous studies that explore the effectiveness of computer-based tutorial instructions, and they conclude that they are “boring and difficult to manage” (p.13).  When decisions have to be made about the minority students, they have to be prioritized starting with their basic needs, because it is not possible to teach technology literacy when they lack food, clothing, or safe shelter. Many technologists believed that “computers were and are freedom” (p.14).  For the last two decades schools have been equipped with computers to facilitate teachers’ instructions, and to bring resources to the classrooms in order to improve the learning process.  The author’s findings about the two major issues (i.e. the growing diversity in the student population and the increasing technology) causes her to infer that they could converge, the obstacles could be overcome, and the two trends could collaborate together for the benefits of the students.

Dr. Tanriverdi provides a deep input of the “Culture and Language Teaching Through Media”. He criticizes the typical instructional approach to teaching ESL students without focusing on the existing prejudices and cultural biases of the targeted culture. The authors observed that LEP students typically have a negative attitude toward the new language and culture. Their observations showed that the LEP students often “polarized” their attitude by using “us” and “them,” where one appears to be better and higher and the other one is a sign for shame and disgrace. Students are usually exposed to the shallow surface of the new culture, which consists of the so-called “four Fs”: “food, fairs, folklore and statistical facts.”  And all the significant and deep understanding is left out and remains untouched or taught incorrectly, such as: ”values, ideals, conceptions and communicative norms” (p.44). The author suggests that this important side of aculturalization could be achieved by including the recourses of the media in the classroom: the use of TV, computers, radio, newspapers, and magazines. Dr.Tanriverdi proposes that the activities with mass media ”should be integrated into ESOL curriculum to avoid prejudices to enhance students’ critical thinking and language skills and cultural biases and to have better understanding of the new culture” (p.41).

Paul D. Numrich describes and analyzes the cultural and religious adaptations in two immigrant Theravada Buddhist temples in his book: “Old Wisdom in the New World”.

The two temples that the author is describing are located in Chicago and Los Angeles. His observations are very detailed and carefully documented regarding the architecture, the management, the service and the recruitment process. He provides comparisons of the entire process of the Asian conservative tradition with the new changes demanded by the new immigrant environment. In the last chapter, “Americanization,” he compares the language “…though both temples remain clearly ‘Asian’ than ‘American’” in daily activities and general programming emphases. The transition from Old World vernacular languages to English, a barometer of Americanization, proceeds slowly at both Wat Dhammaram and Dharma Vijaya.  With the notable exception of the latter’s newsletter, both temples still rely heavily on the immigrant tongue. However, a substantial majority of adult immigrant survey respondents preferred the use of both the immigrant tongue and English in religious services (87%), children’s classes (73%), and their temple newsletter (79%), indicating their willingness to make the language transition (p. 141).  There is another phenomenon that the author talks about, the so-called: “parallel congregation.” “We can expect to find parallel congregations at many of the immigrant Buddhist temples of America. The key, in my mind, is the presence in such temples of clergy both willing to and capable of proffering an attractive and fulfilling practice of Buddhism to the non-ethnic spiritual seekers visiting those temples.” (p. 146). The author observed that the presence of these visitors changed the way of the meditation is held at the temples and also relates to “Buddhist modernism in Asia.” That brings us to the conclusion that in the new millennium, even the most ancient traditions and rituals are exposed to changes due to the changes in people’s needs, emotions and spiritual state.

“Globalization, Culture and Education in the New Millennium” is a collective book, edited by Suarez-Orozco, M & Qin-Hilliard, D.   “What happens when the movement of people, goods, or ideas among countries or regions accelerates?”   The new millennium is defined by globalization in every possible field and sphere, starting from health issues, viruses, free trade, population growth and migration, poverty and social justice, and of course, the cultural and educational transformations. Julia Kristeva (1991) said: “globalization makes us all into dislocated immigrants, just as it makes us all feel a bit like ‘strangers to ourselves.’” The new technology generates images and lifestyles that are very powerful and tempting to youth all over the world: they watch the same movies, listen to the same pop music, visit the same Internet sites, play the same video games, desire the same “cool” brand-name clothes.  Media technologies are leading inevitably to a more homogeneous world culture. Even the most prominent diversities are starting to fade and blend.  In the new millennium, people have to search and find their new identity.  This is different from previous generations, and that might be frightening to some of us.  But the process of language and cultural adjustments and transformations can be enchanting.

I have always been fascinated by the sound and meaning of words, the creation and the development of languages. They are our main means of communication and the bridge between human beings. Without verbal and written expressions, we could still communicate with our facial expressions and sign languages, but those means do not expose the full potential of our mind and spirit. As a foreign learner of English, I have always been attracted to the exploration of the differences and similarities in languages, and especially to learn the history of their origins.  From my observations, I have noticed that language development is nothing but a mirror of human history, a reflection of its growth. And now the world is entering the new era of Global Technology that affects the languages, the traditions and the values, making us more alike, yet giving us one more reason to celebrate our differences.

 

 

 

 

 

 

References:

 

 

Armstrong, D.(2008). The Gestural Theory of Language Origins [Electronic version].

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Damarin,S.(1998).Technology and Multicultural Education: The Question of         Convergence. Theory into Practice, 37, 11-19.

Ellis, N. (1998). Emergentism, Connectionism and Language Learning [Electronic            version]. Language Learning. 4, 631- 664.

Glennen, S.(2007). Predicting Language Outcomes for Internationally Adopted Children            [Electronic version]. Journal of Speech, 50, 529-548.

Guo, Y. & Gulbaharh, B. (2007). The Hegemony of English as a Global Language:             Reclaiming Local knowledge and Culture in China. Convergence, XL, 10-20

Masur, E. & Rodemaker, J. (1999). Mothers’ and Infants’ Spontaneous Vocal, Verbal and             Action Imitation During the Second year [Electronic version]. Merill-Palmer             Quarterly, 45, 392-412.

Numrich, P. (1996). Old Wisdom in the New World. Americanization in Two Immigrant Theravada Buddhist Temples. The University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville.

Suarez-Orozco, M. & Qin-Hilliard, D. (2004). Globalization. Culture and Education in the New Millennium. The University of California Press, London.

Tanriverdi, B. (2008). Culture and Language Teaching Through Media. ESL Teaching, 28, 41-61

Zaidman-Zait, A. & Dromi, E. (2007). Analogus and Distinctive Patterns of Prelingustic Communication in Toddlers With and Without Hearing Loss [Electronic version]. Journals of Speech, 50, 1166-1180.