Holiday Homework

What’s better than a school day but not as great as the summer holiday? A normal Holiday! Granted its only two days … plus a weekend if there is one thing I have learned from #teenagegirlposts it is that School and Happiness are two antithetical terms, ipso facto no school should equal joy. However should someone feel differently, Mr. Michael in his quest to assuage the gaping hole left in the lives of these students as result of these two days void of intellectual stimulus has given us the gift of a blog post to allow us to cope through this tough time.

The WOW word of this week’s blog post, coming to you from the first letter of ‘b’ is ‘bereft,’ a word I have known for sometime I felt it fitting for me too introduce these WOW words in a chronological order corresponding to the alphabet. The reason for this is obviously the fact that the thought of arbitrarily mentioning words without a conceivable pattern bereft (to be deprived of) me of my solace. 

The subject of this blog post will be too discuss the three readings we were assigned over this short break from school. Sold as ‘short’ readings by Mr. Michael, some of us felt relieved as the length of these readings are around two to three pages while others were simply aghast at the fact they had homework. However I will mention that we do have three readings so when observed from an alternative perspective it could be fair to say we have one really long reading. At this moment I am still undecided on whether or not I have been shortchanged. Alas, I digress as I have already rambled on for 273 words, 273 words I will never get back.

The first article, written by Jeffrey Kluger examines how the brain speaks two languages in addition to the cognitive perks that come along with this nifty skill. “Learning to speak was the most remarkable thing you ever did. It wasn’t just the 50,000 words you had to master to become fluent or the fact for the first six years of you life you learned three new words per day,” (1-3) Kluger expands on the extra work bilingual speakers undertook to learn two languages. Exploring its many benefits Kluger draws attention to the famed Stroop Test in which participants are forced to read colors represented in non-correlating inks, results from this showed bilingual speakers to react much faster in addition to an array of other observations of which, include the fact “multilingual kids exhibit social empathy soon than children who grow up speaking one language,” (8-11). Aside from the fact this article made me feel like the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz due to my monolingual disorder which symptoms include slowness and apathy it opened my eyes, enlightening my perspective and broadening my horizons. Kluger does also delve into the disadvantages that come with being bilingual giving the example of studies that showcased the rate of learning to be slower for multilingual students when placed in comparison with monolingual students.  However this being said the article did impact me as I too now feel like learning a second language, that way more people can get to know the awesome person I am!

The second article written by Joan O’C Hamilton and longer than the aforementioned article deals with the research of Stanford employed, Lera Boroditsky. Based on the theme of this unit one can assume that the article was about language, but this article in particular dealt with the structural differences between languages expressing the impact it has on cognitive processes. Hamiltion gives various examples of Boroditsky’s research; in which she examines and contrasts English, Spanish, Mandarin and Russian etc. One of the key examples that stood out to me was Boroditsky’s research of languages, which tend to assign an agent to an action, “ ‘In English,’ she says … ‘if I knock this cup off the table, even accidentally you would likely say, ‘She Broke the Cup’ ‘ However in Japanese or Spanish intent matters.” (2-4). This distinct difference between languages can have a profound impact on the way we view and even perceive life, Boroditsky states that in Spanish, the way the language is structured, speakers are likely to remember the person e.g. who deliberately popped a balloon but not the person who unintentionally did it.   Additionally in Russian, Boroditsky draws light to the fact that there is no generalized word to describe the color blue but instead various words pertaining to each unique shade. This had the real life application of giving Russians an increased “psychologically active perceptual boundary,” (21). In relation to what we have been studying in class, it can be determined that code switching can be an effective mean for conveying thoughts or ideas with greater clarity/specificity. Each language is cogently diverse, presenting qualities opposite to various English structures. This also affirms the fact that between languages there are idiomatic words/phrases that simply cannot be translated which are all prove of the uniqueness presented by each language.

The third and final article, published by The Guardian examines the intelligence to accent quotient of British people each of different dialects. An esoteric article, primarily due to the fact some may not know what a Yorkshire Accent is and let alone be able to compare it to a Birmingham Accent, the article does deal with the relatable stigmatization that comes from ones physical appearance. In this case it was found that people with a Birmingham accent are generally perceived to be less intelligent than those with the much more posh Yorkshire accent, “"Surveys have shown that a lot of people associate Birmingham with criminal activity, and they associate criminal activity with low intelligence." In relation to what relevance this harbors with what we have been studying in class, it pertains to our study of identities. Specifically one’s Master Identity, which comprises of appearance both physical and otherwise (i.e. ethnicity, accent etc.) this article is meant to inform on the stereotypes attributed to people as a result of their accent in aiming to dissuade others from forming such preconceptions.

Now isn’t that food for thought!