Letter to the Editor

To Editor,

Firstly, I would like to state that I do not agree with the statement "textspeak is eroding hard- learned skills in such basic areas as spelling and grammar". Why? Because studies have shown that 'txtspk' in fact is expanding children's dictionaries as it exposes them to a variety of forms of the English language, therefore they are able to witnesses the different ways English can be used and this is in fact beneficial to them. In total, over 3 billion have mobile phones (that's almost half of the Earth's population!)- so how can we expect everyone to get rid of their phones, to 'protect' themselves from txtspk as it 'erodes' their language skills- we can't, because this is false. People in general tend to look up to people who are higher than them in the social hierarchy (e.g. royalty), therefore if you try to tell someone that only 'uneducated' people use txtspk, they will disagree with you. But why? Because Queen Victoria did txt spking and that will definitely be a point of argument that they may use.
I believe that this article uses a large amount of hyperbole, because I am quite sure that children are NOT 'in danger of growing up with limited vocabularies', this is not life-threatening.
Texting is something that is essential is people's lives, it is there as a form of communication and for passing information to others and I know that many of us like to cut down on things that could be time-consuming, so that's why txtspk was created- it's not there to determine how educated we are.
Yes, there are people out there who do not form a line between the way they write in class and the way they text, but these people can not be generalised to all of us.  Also, txtspk is not a whole new language, it is simple the removal of vowels and unnecessary letters from ENGLISH words.


If texting is THAT bad, then why was it created in the first place?

Yours Truly,
Reem Abusin
Street 274
Dubai
12/10

 Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2587824/Twtr-Its-not-majorly-...her-condemns-text-speak-eroding-schoolchildrens-language-skills.html

Interview between J Cole and Billboard 

Hello J Cole, it's great to have you here with us today. We wanted to ask you a few questions about your latest album Forest Hills Drive. So, what is the meaning behind the album title?

Aye, what's up! I'm glad to be here, myself. Well, like y'know for dis title, I di'n't think much bout it cause it just came to me. I just wanted to like write smo'ing that was personal to me, like y'know sorta like a diary, but music diary, ya feel me? Well dis title is actually the name of me, my mamma, bro and pap address when we was growing up. Actually, the same year that I was writin the album, I bought out old house, because it holds our memories and all, y'know.


Oh really, that's amazing! So is the album's like the story of you growing up?

Yeah man, dis album is me tryna tell ma story to all them peeps who be going through the same thing, cause I know that all my homies from NC still ain't get out, like if you aks me where all my brodas at right now, I'll tell you that they at NC because I was the only one to get out- see this was an advantage because we got the dough when them other niggas di'nt. We was the only ones that got out, all them others trapped. Once you leave you ain't never going back. But I wrote dis one for all them homies, to show 'em that eventually one day they gonna be out just like me, nobody gonna stay in NC forever. If you got a dream then you gon achieve that dream, long as you put in that work.

What made you re-buy your childhood house, if it was so bad?

Man, I di'nt buy this house for them dollas (laughing). I bought it hopin that a new fam can live in it fo cheap and hopefully they follow them footsteps in life like me, y'know maybe it was the house that got me the good luck hahahah.

You recently realised a video called G.O.M.D and there was a lot of confusion about the meaning behind it, can you please explain once and for all what the actually meaning behind it is?

Yeah, so many people thought that dis video was about racism- it ain't not completely. It's more to show dat we all need unity and togetherness y'know because we [the black community] know all about oppression. But today, there be different levels of racism within our race. I'll explain, you only be 'in the block' if you got a story, y'know like a drug story or some gangsta story, like people only f*ck with you if you a "real nigga" and if you say som'ing like “What’s up fellas!” - they be looking at you like you some low standard nigga, where in reality we all low standard (laughing)

That'll be it for today. Thank you very much Jermaine for being here

Peace!

"Language shapes our identity, but doesn't define who we are"

First off, I am going to start off by saying that language is a form of communication- its a complex system of vocal signs (made up of patterns, rules and connecting elements), which humans communicate through, however it is not the only way of communication, but it plays a huge role in that. Moreover, our identity is who we are, not what we speak. The language we speak may help shape our identity, but it may or may not define who we are. 

Many people could argue that we need language to be able to get through our lives, because many believe that we are brought into this world as linguists- from the moment of birth. An article published on TIME.com (Understanding how the brain speaks 2 languages) stated that when humans are born, they produce a babble made up of hundreds of phonemes from hundreds of languages; this will lead their parents to react to phonemes from their native tongues and later on the baby will use and repeat the selected phonemes. This supports the idea that language shapes our identity, as it helps others identify as a certain nationality. As I said in my previous blog, our 'native' language relates to the country we originate from, not who our parents are or who we may turn out to be in the future, thus this reinforces the idea of language shaping our identity, without defining who we are.

On the other hand, some people may believe that our native language is not extremely beneficial, if it's the only language we speak. This is because, studies have proven that bilingualism and multilingualism could lead to intelligence. There is also scientific evidence supporting the theory stating that bilingual brains are "better functioning". It has been proven that they cope better with diseases such as: alzeihemers;  However, there are disadvantages, as well as advantages, of bilingual and multilingual brains. Some studies have found that bilingual children has a smaller vocabulary than monolingual children- this could be because their of their parents' mixing of words, which leads the children to confusion. This may lead some individuals to think that the number of languages we are able to speak define us as either more capable or less capable, in terms of the strength of our brain.

Personally, I both agree and disagree with the statement, above the page. Firstly, language HELPS shape our identity, however it does not have the ability to shape it on it's own. Also, I believe that language CAN define who we are, because in some cases, it can label our brains as either 'more capable' or 'less capable', while the language we speak doesn't have the authority to label us, without any solid evidence. Overall, the above statement has a large amount of for/against arguments. This is because, our identity may change, depending on the moment and the situation, therefore many people don't have a set identity.