Australian English differs from other varieties of
English in vocabulary accent, pronunciation, register, grammar and spelling.
They love to find their own words and expressions. Sadly, Australian slang is
dying out among young people, and it is not really present or relevant in city
life, but here are some typical slang words.
What is the history of the English language
after WWII?
After WWII,
England was totally bombed. USA helped them and became a global superpower.
This is the reason that English is the number one world language today.
What is meant by ESL, EFL, ESP?
ESL is
English people learn in addition to their mother tongue so they can take part
in the life of the country in which they live. Spanish-speaking Mexican
Americans for instance.
EFL is
English learned by people who have no daily contact with the language. They
start from scratch and learn it as a foreign language.
ESP is to
give people some specific English skills in, for example, trades, business or
other professions.
Do you think that international English
enriches the cultures of the world, or does it drain them of their uniqueness?
I think
English helps other cultures and languages by allowing them to communicate and
spread their culture to different countries. They learn to respect other
cultures and they can develop an understanding for people different from
themselves.
Explain the terms inner - outer - expanding
circle.
The inner
circle: Countries where native English speakers live.
The outer
circle: Countries in which English is spoken as a second language.
The expanding
circle: The many countries in which English is spoken as a foreign language.
Why is it necessary to have standard forms of
English?
It is
important and necessary to have standard forms of English because today the
non-native English speakers is a majority. They make their own version of
English. For example, for them it might be “right” to say “she look sad” instead
of “she looks sad” which the right way to say it is. If we keep doing this, the
proper English dies. It just fades away, because there are so many other
versions exceeding it.
Which forms of English does David Crystal
believe we will have in the future?
David
Crystal believes that we will have three different forms of English in the
future:
One they
speak locally as their dialect
One variety
for education and business
One
standard international English for communicating with foreigners
English has become important in six different
fields - which?
International
education. Pupils from all over the world are taking exchange
years abroad where they meet people from other countries and use English to communicate. English textbooks is essential in different studies
in higher education.
International
business and trade. Shipping, production of goods,
movement of goods, services, employees. All of these use English as their
communication language.
International
diplomacy. Both for nations and large international organizations like the United Nations or The Red Cross.
Art
and entertainment. British and American TV programs,
movies and popular music have been exported all over the world. Authors, song
writers, movie makers and performers, have chosen English as their means of dissemination.
Science
and technology. Researches from all around the world meet in
conferences to exchange their ideas and findings in English.
Digital
communications. Net surfing, social networks, online gaming,
virtual worlds and much more.
I have found two different newspapers which writes about the same news. I am going to compare them and see if I can find any similarities and differences. Both of these articles writes about that NASA have discovered a planet remarkably similar to our own Earth, located 1400 light years away, in the constellation Cygnus. Kepler, as they call it, is positioned about as far from it's parent star as Earth is from the sun, completing and orbit in 385 days, compared to Earth's 365 day orbit. At that distance, surface temperatures would be suitable for liquid water.
Both of these articles include facts about the planet and the headlines absolutely suits the content. They use sources like astronomers, scientist and NASA, there is no random people talking about things they don't know anything about. The authors write in objective terms and expresses nothing subjectively. The content is quite similar in these articles. They convey facts and contains quotes spoken by scientists and people from NASA. Good quality and complementary content. I will say there is used some loaded language, Words that engages and creates interest to the readers keeps coming up, such as "huge, large and massive"
It was easy to find similarities between these news, but I had some struggle finding differences. They had very similar structure and content. However, one thing I noticed, was that the news from CNN mentioned what the plan was further. How they would proceed to do more reaserch on this planet. It also had more pictures and a video showing what they think Kepler looks like. That way CNN shows more expertise and thorough work.
My name is Mark Zuckerberg and I am 31 years old. I was born in West Palm Beach in Florida in 1984. I am a chief executive of corporation and I studied computer-programming games at Harvard University. During my studies I developed various Internet solutions. Later in life, I took the initiative to create the famous networking site, Facebook. Facebook was founded Februray 4th, 2004 in Massachusetts. At one point in life, I was considered the world's youngest billionare. The movie "The Social Netwok" provides a portrait of me after working with the development of Facebook.
1) When I have
had conversations with non-Norwegians in the past, I haven’t exactly cared
about either vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation. I just wanted to get my
message across and have them understand my point. If I couldn’t find a word or an
expression I used to find synonyms or try to talk around the subject. It is
only now that I have begun caring about vocabulary, grammar and
pronunciation. Whenever I am speaking
with non-Norwegians today, I see it as practise, and try to say things
correctly and have fluency in my sentences. If I have to choose the most important of them
(vocabulary, grammar or pronunciation), I think I have to say vocabulary. It is
more important than pronunciation and grammar because you can make others understand
you without a perfect pronunciation or correctly endings. As long as you know
the words, most of the ones you are talking to will understand. Norwegians understand foreigners with
accent, so why shouldn't they understand us?
2) Vocabulary: “Inner
Sircle” and “Outer Sircle” are contributions we have.
Standars: Today we
have two different standar forms of english: American and British.
Other “Englishes”: Countries
where English has been a second language for a long time, it occur other Englishes
like Spanglish, Englog, Hinglish and Singlish.
The future of English: Professor David Crystal believes
that in the future there will be three forms of English: local dialect, education
business, and communicating with foreigners.
Media has great power worldwide with
followers from all around the world. Everybody have access to see what media
puts out. Media should therefore be honest, fair and accurate, but it is not
always easy to distinguish genuine and fake. At least not when Photoshop,
special effects and editing exists. Here are some questions you can ask
yourself to detect bias in Media.
Who are the
sources?
Media has a tendency to rely on Official Sources like
the government, corporate and establishment think tank. You must be aware of
the political perspectives of the sources used in a story.
Is there a
lack of diversity?
How is the gender diversity and the race diversity
distributed? How many producers, editors, co-workers, chiefs and decision
makers are women, gay, lesbian or people of colour?
Are there
double standards?
Does media hold a standard for a group of people and
another standard for another group? Young people of colour are often to be seen
as super dangerous if they commit a crime, but if a white adult commits a crime
people think it is tragic and that he was led astray.
Do the
headlines and stories match?
Usually a journalist does not write the headlines.
Sometimes the headlines and the stories does not match.
What are the
unchallenged assumptions?
From whose
point of view is the news reported?
Do
stereotypes skew coverage?
Is the
language loaded?
Is there a
lack of context?
Are stories and
important issues featured prominently?
The Journalists use different methods to find out if a
source is real or fake. Twitter, Google Maps/Google Earth, Spokeo, Human
Sources, The Weathercast and YouTube are just some of them. Some cases are more
difficult and need more research than others. For instance, if they find a video
of a tornado that sucks up a cow, they can look at past weather forecaster to
see if the tornado were present. Other techniques is to use Google Earth to see
if the place the film was recorded really exists, they can also find the owner
of the video on Spokeo, and ask if the recording is real. They just have to be
creative and use social media.
