Gender and Language

I find it far more easy to express my opinions with women than I do with men. Women are more understanding and less judgmental. That is the perfect atmosphere with which to share one's feelings. Women exhibit a lot of emotion when they speak. They use varied intonations and a ton of facial expressions! I've noticed that I tend to have no emotion on my face when I speak. I think that's a defense mechanism that I use to protect myself from the critical comments of others. I learned that technique in middle school to avoid being picked on. In general, men keep their emotions to themselves and don't allow others to know how they're feeling.

African American English

Da udda day, I was walkin down da street and thinkin bout my old fren Jackson. We use-a be such good frens, and den one day, outta nowhere, he says he don't want ta be my fren no more. It was sad. I felt real bad bout it for a lon time. Den, as I turn the corner, I saw him. He ax me, "How you doin?" I says, "I'm okay. How you doin?" He says, "Okay." I toll him I'm the new manajah of my sto. He says, "Gratulations." He says he been workin real hard addis job and he was sorry dat he hadn't talked ta me in a whiles. He says I look good, and dat we shoo get together sooner ratha dan late-ah. We shook hands and says goo'bye.

That was harder than I thought it would be! I think that AAE speakers should be encouraged to learn proper English. Part of the reason is that you can't succeed in the business world if you don't know how to use proper English. The fact of the matter is that people do discriminate against individuals who don't speak properly! If worse comes to worse, I think that the government should allocate some funds to help AAE speakers get caught up.

Class Discourse Analysis

I believe the reason class participation has gone down is because of our busy schedules. It's not easy juggling school, work, family, friends, etc! I have struggled myself. Sometimes it is just hard to motivate yourself! The course content is good. I think we are just tired of school.

Critical Discourse Analysis

You can't always take something at its face value. You sometimes have to analyze what is really being said. The KKK is a good example. They are trying to say that their organization is one of love when, in fact, they are an organization of hatred. They may love themselves, but they do not love their neighbor! To quote an inspired book, "...by their works ye shall know them; for if their works be good, then they are good also."

Last Blog

As I have grown older, I have come to appreciate language. It's amazing that you can fully express yourself with the combination of a few words! Words would be powerless if they didn't have implied meanings attached to them! This semester I have learned that America has many distinct dialects and cultures. I think it is very interesting how some people communicate with one another.

about the class

The biggest thing I learned was that having our language change and morph and having others come into the United States that don't speak our language shouldn't be looked down upon but embraced. It was very interesting to look at New Orleans and see how they take pride in being bilingual with French and others in America take pride in that as well, but when it comes to people who are Spanish speaking the pride quickly dwindles. That's a shame and we need to embrace biculturalism and language is a huge part of that. I really enjoyed this class and loved all the discussions we had.