Friday, March 20, 2020

Theyre Out essays

They're Out essays Have you ever experienced a moment when destiny seemed to be shining up on you? You might have been having an ordinary night out with friends where everything just seemed to click. The food was great. The company was incredible. You had this feeling in the pit of your stomach that this must be it. Maybe you even questioned if it was too good to be true. Then the next weekend, the same group of friends gets together, goes to the same places, does the same activities, but somehow the night falls flat. No matter how hard you try to regain the original excitement you just arent able to accomplish it. I think everyone can relate. Each of us has had moments in our lives where at a particular moment in time, we felt it couldnt get any better, or the moment could not become any more real. For Clifford Geertz, in his essay entitled, Deep Play; Notes on a Balinese Cockfight, there are some defining moments during his time studying Bali that I think he would say he felt he had exper ienced an authentic moment. I would go so far as to say that Walker Percy, in his essay The Loss of the Creature, would agree. But this isnt how Geertzs experience begins. Geertz begins his essay by describing the almost woeful emotions of being the outsider in Bali. The Balinese (if we are to believe Geertz) are a people that treat outsiders or foreigners as if they dont really exist. In fact, Geertz begins the first paragraph of his essay by stating that he and his wife were seen as intruders. He continues, telling us that they were nonpersons, specters, invisible. I got the mental image of trying to have a conversation with someone and all the while the individual looks right past you. It is from Geertzs own admission that I would contend that what Percy would call having an authentic it experience, is something that Geertz lacks, at ...

Wednesday, March 4, 2020

Globish Language Definition and Examples

Globish Language Definition and Examples Globish is a simplified version of Anglo-American English used as a worldwide  lingua franca. (See Panglish.)  The trademarked term Globish, a blend of the words  global  and  English, was coined by French businessman Jean-Paul Nerrià ¨re in the mid-1990s. In his 2004 book Parlez Globish, Nerrià ¨re included a Globish vocabulary of 1,500 words. Globish is not quite a pidgin, says linguist  Harriet Joseph Ottenheimer. Globish appears to be English without idioms, making it easier for non-Anglophones to understand and to communicate with one another (The Anthropology of Language, 2008). Examples and Observations [Globish] is not a language, it is a tool. . . . A language is the vehicle of a culture. Globish doesnt want to be that at all. It is a means of communication.(Jean-Paul Nerrià ¨re, quoted by Mary Blume in If You Cant Master English, Try Globish. The New York Times, April 22, 2005) How to Learn Globish in a WeekGlobish [is]  the newest and most widely spoken language in the world. Globish is not like  Esperanto or Volapuk; this is not a formally constructed language, but rather an organic patois, constantly adapting, emerging solely from practical usage, and spoken in some form or other by about 88 per cent of mankind. . . .Starting from scratch, anyone in the world should be able to learn Globish in about one week. [Jean-Paul] Nerrià ¨res website [globish.com] . . . recommends that students use plenty of gesticulation when words fail, and listen to popular songs to aid pronunciation . . ..Incorrect English can be extraordinarily rich, and non-standard forms of the language are developing outside the West in ways that are as lively and diverse as Chaucerian or Dickensian English.(Ben MacIntyre, The Last Word: Tales From the Tip of the Mother Tongue. Bloomsbury, 2011)   Examples of Globish[Globish] dispenses with idioms, literary language and complex grammar. . . . [Nerrià ¨res] books are about turning complicated English into useful English. For example, chat becomes speak casually to each other in Globish; and kitchen is the room in which you cook your food. Siblings, rather clumsily, are the other children of my parents. But pizza is still pizza, as it has an international currency, like taxi and police.(J. P. Davidson, Planet Word. Penguin, 2011) Is Globish the Future of English?Globish is a cultural and media phenomenon, one whose infrastructure is economic. Boom or bust, it is a story of Follow the money. Globish remains based on trade, advertising and the global market. Traders in Singapore inevitably communicate in local languages at home; internationally they default to Globish. . . .Much gloomy American thinking about the future of its language and culture revolves around the assumption that it will inevitably become challenged by Mandarin Chinese or Spanish or even Arabic. What if the real threatactually, no more than a challengeis closer to home, and lies with this Globish supranational lingua franca, one that all Americans can identify with?(Robert McCrum, Globish: How the English Language Became the Worlds Language. W.W. Norton, 2010) The Language of EuropeWhat language does Europe speak? France has lost its battle for French. Europeans now overwhelmingly opt for English. The Eurovision song contest, won this month by an Austrian cross-dresser, is mostly English-speaking, even if the votes are translated into French. The European Union conducts ever more business in English. Interpreters sometimes feel they are speaking to themselves. Last year Germany’s president, Joachim Gauck, argued for an English-speaking Europe: national languages would be cherished for spirituality and poetry alongside a workable English for all of life’s situations and all age groups.Some detect a European form of global English (globish): a  patois  with English physiognomy, cross-dressed with continental cadences and syntax, a train of EU institutional jargon and sequins of linguistic false friends (mostly French). . . .Philippe Van Parijs, a professor at Louvain University, argues that European-level democracy does not require a homogenous culture, or  ethnos; a common political community, or  demos, needs only a lingua franca. . . .  The answer to Europe’s democratic deficit, says Mr Van Parijs, is to accelerate the process so that English is not just the language of an elite but also the means for poorer Europeans to be heard. An approximate version of English, with a limited vocabulary of just a few hundred words, would suffice.(Charlemagne, The Globish-Speaking Union. The Economist, May 24, 2014)