...Cultural Linguistic Autobiography Linguistic and Ethnic Background: As a bilingual facilitator and instructional coach for a primarily EL school, I’ve always wondered how much my personal cultural and linguistic background has affected my capacity to fulfill the needs of English language learners. My family and I are Mexican American with family background from Spain. I was born in Mexico and migrated to the United States at the age of 10. I grew up in a very close and proud family where Spanish was the primary language. Spanish was used in my home by my parents and English by siblings. I was never exposed to other languages until I migrated to the United States. Throughout my life I’ve been exposed to Spanish, English, French (high school) and Italian (college). I believe that my personal experience in acquiring a second language has made me realize and understand the needs of English language learners. K-12 Schools in the United States I consider myself very fortunate to have had the opportunity to attend school in Mexico from K-4th and the remaining of 4th -12th in the United States. I have to admit that my first years in the US school system were challenging but certainly rewarding. I migrated to the United States in the mid 1980’s. At that time, being an English learner was not well accepted by society. Our education system was not equipped with the proper resources. I struggled with acquiring the language properly. My parents were very concern about our education...
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...switching is a perfect example of the meaning of the word/s itself. Switching languages can mean a variety of things. As the articles I annotate below indicate, language switching can occur without notice, between dialects of a language, between different languages, and so on. Due to its broadness, it is important to focus on a topic of interest when researching code switching. I decided to focus on the advantages and benefits that Code Switching provides. The articles I reviewed give reasons why code switching happens, and some articles present many explanations. However, the main reasons as put forth by Arnfast and Jorgensen (2003), imitate the three main reasons that code switchers give for using their skill. These reasons are: to fill in linguistic gaps for words, acquisition or maintenance of social power, and social acceptance. After much research and by reading several studies of these approaches, I came to the conclusion that code switching is used rarely for one purpose. It is also doubtful that the users are completely aware of all the reasons that they switch code. Through my research, I interviewed four of my fellow teacher co-workers, as well as two of the professors at Northeastern Illinois University. During my interview, I asked them a series of questions regarding their experiences with students who are able to code switch. These questions were: What do you know what Code Switching means? Given the brief explanation,...
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...The Personal is Still the Political “Anything you can do I can do better; I can do anything better than you” (Berlin). These iconic lyrics were part of a cheerful duet in a 1940’s Broadway musical making jest that a woman could compete against a man in various tasks such as singing and archery. Little did society know that women truly believed that this was the case, and it was an idea worth fighting for. Over the course of the twentieth-century, women have fought and protested for equality among men in a male-dominate society. Women have rallied under one of the best known slogans of the movement the “personal is political”, the concept that the personal (private) life should be addressed equally with the public (political) life that had yet to integrate women into its realm. “the personal is political refers to the private life or “realm” of women having anything to do with marriage, children or household roles and the public realm of men having anything to do with business, politics, art, or sports. Renowed poet and writer Gloria Anzaldua has her own interpretation of what the “personal is political” means and what she was challenging specifically when she argued using her own experiences such as the loss of culture through the loss of language, and sexism in language as a starting point. “The personal is political” played a very significant role in helping shape the women’s rights movement from its roots all the way to its end in the 1960’s with the advent of the Civil...
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...Microsoft | The Power Relationship between Teachers and Learners in a TESOL context | [Type the document subtitle] | Student 9/6/2013 | Contents Introduction 2 Literature 3 Theories 3 Identity Formation of a Teacher 3 Language and Identity 4 Poststructuralist Perspectives on Identity 5 Positioning 7 Pronunciation factor of learners 7 Culturally relevant pedagogy 9 Conclusion 10 Works Cited 11 Introduction With rise in economic globalisation and information technology, the need for a common language became a necessity for all. It wasn’t possible to trade and have subsidiaries in foreign countries without being able to converse. Now, world has become a global village and IT has further reduced the regional barriers, that is why English came up as a common language to communicate. English became a global language and it became the necessity for every country to be equipped with English performance (Khamkhien, 2010). It has been seen that with the rise of globalization of English language teaching, the total of Non Native English Speaking (NNES) in the US who are graduated in the TESOL teaching programs have increased at a massive rate (Brain, 2004). From the last decade a considerable growth has been observed in the research of NNES and their experiences in school and society. Experts gave their views related to non-native English speaking and its advantages and drawbacks in TESOL, NNESs attitude and their behaviour in classroom, challenges...
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...Study of Nida’s (formal and dynamic equivalence) and Newmark’s (semantic and communicative translation) translating theories on two short stories Shabnam Shakernia Abstract M.A. in Translation Studies, Working as a Translator E-mail: shabnam_shakernia@yahoo.com This study aimed to investigate the use of Nida’s formal and dynamic equivalence and Newmark’s Semantic and communicative translation on two short stories. The present study aimed to investigate which of these approaches are the main focuses of the translators in the translations of the two short stories. In order to systematically conduct the study, two short stories with their corresponding Persian translations were analyzed. The findings obtained from the analysis show that the readability of the translation especially in short stories is more important than preserving the original wording. Moreover, the findings manifest that these translations are also tried to have naturalness. Keywords: Formal and dynamic equivalence, Semantic and communicative translations, Stories, Translators, Naturalness INTRODUCTION This paper tends to introduce Nida’s formal and dynamic equivalence and Newmark’s semantic and communicative translation. Nida and Newmark are two outstanding western theories in the field of translation. Both of them have rich experience in translation and they have written many articles and theoretical works on translation. Nida’s approaches in translation...
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...all Italian ladder faculty or, with approval of the Graduate Director, of ladder faculty and visiting faculty. The reading list must be submitted for approval to all members of the M.A. exam committee at least one month prior to the exam. The individualized list will follow these guidelines: • It must include between 15 and 25 texts, depending on length and complexity, chosen from the comprehensive list. Students can substitute texts not on that list with individual approval. • The chosen texts must be distributed among at least seven centuries and present a balance of genres. • The list must be organized into three general categories on the following model: A literary genre (e.g., the lyric, the novel, epic, comedy, tragedy, autobiography, etc.) A critical problem or interpretive question (e.g., realism and representation, symbol, myth, allegory, point of view, irony, parody, romanticism,...
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...ENGLISH ESSAYS Free Exclusive and Advanced Collection of English Essays. HOME ESSAYS LIST COLLEGE ESSAYS LIST LETTERS APPLICATIONS STORIES TENSES IN URDU IDIOMS MECHANICAL TECHNOLOGY POEMS SELECT LANGUAGE SEARCH Select Language ▼ Search MY FIRST DAY AT COLLEGE MY FIRST DAY AT COLLEGE OR MY FIRST IMPRESSION OF THE COLLEGE Points: Introduction – My first day at college – New atmosphere – Conclusion. My first day at college is an important event of my life. To me it is an unforgettable day. During my school days. I had a glimpse of college life from my elder brothers and sisters. I was most curiously awaiting the day when I would start my college life. I thought that the college life would offer me a free life; here restrictions would be few and threat of teachers would be little. At last the longed for day came in. I was admitted to the Government College of my city. I entered the college premises with new hopes and aspirations. I was glad to see that the college presented a new sight. It was quite different from what I had seen in and around our school. I came across many unknown faces. SELECT ESSAY TOPICS College Essays (182) Grammar (2) High Level Essays (36) Pakistan (26) Poems (2) I had some very strange experiences on the first day of my college life. I was baffled to see students playing indoor and outdoor games and enjoying radio programmes during class-hours. There is no restriction of uniform. I observed that the students are free in their movements...
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...Being placed in new situations can be challenging for anyone. Depending on how new the situation is, change may require difficult habituation and the overcoming of hardships. “All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming.” (Keller, 1960) The autobiography The Story of my Life by Helen Keller and the novel The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri reflect this quotation. The life experiences of non-fiction character, Helen Keller, greatly reflect those of fictional character, Ashima Ganguli. Both of these women and their families are faced with the similar challenges of adaptation, overcoming adversity and forming a positive sense of identity throughout their lives. These challenges are overcome using literature and the consistent,...
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...ELEMENT OF PAKISTANI CULTURE The society and culture of Pakistan comprises numerous diverse cultures and ethnic groups: the Punjabis, Kashmiris, Sindhis in east, Muhajirs, Makrani in the south; Baloch and Pashtun in the west; and the ancient Dardic, Wakhi, and Burushocommunities in the north. These Pakistani cultures have been greatly influenced by many of the surrounding countries' cultures.The past few decades have seen emergence of a middle class in cities such asKarachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Hyderabad, Quetta, Faisalabad, Sukkur, Peshawar,Sialkot, Abbottabad, and Multan. Rural areas of Pakistan are regarded as more conservative, and are dominated by regional tribal customs dating back hundreds if not thousands of years. Literature Pakistani literature originates from when Pakistan gained its nationhood as a sovereign state in 1947. The common and shared tradition of Urdu literature and English literature of South Asia was inherited by the new state. Over a period of time, a body of literature unique to Pakistan has emerged in nearly all major Pakistani languages, including Urdu, English, Punjabi, Pashto,Seraiki, Balochi, and Sindhi. Poetry Poetry is a highly respected art and profession in Pakistan. The enthusiasm for poetry exists at a regional level as well, with nearly all of Pakistan's provincial languages continuing the legacy. The independence of the country in 1947 and establishment of Urdu as the national language, poetry is written in that language as well...
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...to Tame a Wild Tongue Gloria Anzaldua was born in 1942 in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. At age eleven. she began working in the fields as a migrant worker and then on her family's land after the death of her father. Working her way through school, she eventually became a schoolteacher and then an academic, speaking and writing about feminis t, lesbian, and Chicana issues and about autobiography. She is best known for This Bridge CalJed My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color ( 1981), which she edited with Cherrie Moraga, and BorderlandsfLa Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987). Anzaldua died in 2004. "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" is from BorderlandsfLa Frontera. In it, Anzaldua is concerned with many kinds of borders - between nations, cultures, classes, genders, languages. When she writes, "So, if you want to really hurt me, talk badly about my language" (par. 27), Anzaldua is arguing for the ways in which identity is intertwined with the way we speak and for the ways in which people can be made to feel ashamed of their own tongues. Keeping hers wild - ignoring the closing of linguistic borders - is Anzaldua's way of asserting her identity. "We're going to have to control your tongue," the dentist says, pulling out all the metal from my mouth. Silver bits plop and tinkle into the basin. My mouth is a motherlode.· The dentist is cleaning out my roots. I get a whiff of the stench when I gasp. "I can't cap that tooth yet, you're still draining," he says. "We're going to have...
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...Comprehension in Translation If we ask people who know English whether they understand the following sentence “This car is very powerful” they all say they do. Their comprehension is based on two elements. One is their knowledge of the words and grammar of the English language. But this is not enough. In different contexts and in different situations the word “powerful” may mean different things: “ a powerful car “ in the advertisement is not the same as “ a powerful method” for solving a problem , or “a powerful man” in felling trees, though the three “powerfuls” do not have smth in common. Similarly, the word “car” can mean not only an automobile , but also according to Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language it means “ a streetcar; an elevator cage; a part of the balloon which carries people and equipment” . “Understanding” the above sentence means that those hearing or reading it can imagine automobile, probably big, that can run very fast. This is where the second element of comprehension comes in: besides knowledge of the language comprehension implies knowledge of the outside world, called extralinguistic knowledge or encyclopedic knowledge or background knowledge. Comprehension varies from non-comprehension to full comprehension. Total non-comprehension of verbal statements is extremely rare, since the situation and/or content almost always say smth about its meaning. The problem of full comprehension is rather more difficult to deal...
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...Linguistics and the Human Sciences LHS (print) issn 1742–2906 LHS (online) issn 1743–1662 Article A linguistic analysis of Spanglish: relating language to identity Jason Rothman and Amy Beth Rell Abstract According to the 2000 census, 35.3 million Hispanics live in the United States. This number comprises 12.5% of the overall population rendering the Latino community the largest minority in the United States. The Mexican community is not only the largest Hispanic group but also the fastest growing: from 1990 to 2000, the Mexican population grew 52.9% increasing from 13.5 million to 20.6 million (U.S. Department of Commerce News, 2001). The influx of Mexican immigrants coupled with the expansion of their community within the United States has created an unparalleled situation of language contact. Language is synonymous with identity (cf. Granger, 2004, and works cited within). To the extent that this is true, Spanish is synonymous with being Mexican and by extension, Chicano. With the advent of amnesty programs such as Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which naturalized millions of Mexican migrants, what was once a temporal migratory population has become increasingly permanent (Durand et al., 1999). In an effort to conserve Mexican traditions and identity, the struggle to preserve the mother tongue while at the same time acculturate to mainstream Americana has resulted in a variant of Spanglish that has received little attention. This paper will examine the...
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...linguistics lɪŋgwɪstɪks/ noun 1. 1. the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of grammar, syntax, and phonetics. Specific branches of linguistics include sociolinguistics, dialectology, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, comparative linguistics, and structural linguistics. Discourse[edit] A discourse is a way of speaking that emerges within a certain social setting and is based on a certain subject matter. A particular discourse becomes a language variety when it is used in this way for a particular purpose, and is referred to as a register.[25] There may be certain lexical additions (new words) that are brought into play because of the expertise of the community of people within a certain domain of specialisation. Registers and discourses therefore differentiate themselves through the use of vocabulary, and at times through the use of style too. People in the medical fraternity, for example, may use some medical terminology in their communication that is specialised to the field of medicine. This is often referred to as being part of the "medical discourse", and so on. Dialect[edit] A dialect is a variety of language that is characteristic of a particular group among the language speakers.[26] The group of people who are the speakers of a dialect are usually bound to each other by social identity. This is what differentiates a dialect from a register or adiscourse, where in the latter case, cultural identity does not always...
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...Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction ‘Jonathan Culler has always been about the best person around at explaining literary theory without oversimplifying it or treating it with polemical bias. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction is an exemplary work in this genre.’ J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine ‘An impressive and engaging feat of condensation . . . the avoidance of the usual plod through schools and approaches allows the reader to get straight to the heart of the crucial issue for many students, which is: why are they studying literary theory in the first place? . . . an engaging and lively book.’ Patricia Waugh, University of Durham Jonathan Culler LITERARY THEORY A Very Short Introduction 1 Great Clarendon Street, Oxford o x2 6 d p Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide in Oxford New York Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá Buenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Chennai Dar es Salaam Delhi Florence Hong Kong Istanbul Karachi Kuala Lumpur Madrid Melbourne Mexico City Mumbai Nairobi Paris São Paulo Shanghai Singapore Taipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw with associated companies in Berlin Ibadan Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries Published in the United States by Oxford University Press Inc., New York © Jonathan Culler 1997 The moral rights...
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...Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction ‘Jonathan Culler has always been about the best person around at explaining literary theory without oversimplifying it or treating it with polemical bias. Literary Theory: A Very Short Introduction is an exemplary work in this genre.’ J. Hillis Miller, University of California, Irvine ‘An impressive and engaging feat of condensation . . . the avoidance of the usual plod through schools and approaches allows the reader to get straight to the heart of the crucial issue for many students, which is: why are they studying literary theory in the first place? . . . an engaging and lively book.’ Patricia Waugh, University of Durham Very Short Introductions are for anyone wanting a stimulating and accessible way in to a new subject. They are written by experts, and have been published in 15 languages worldwide. Very Short Introductions available from Oxford Paperbacks: ANCIENT PHILOSOPHY Julia Annas THE ANGLO-SAXON AGE John Blair ARCHAEOLOGY Paul Bahn ARISTOTLE Jonathan Barnes Augustine Henry Chadwick THE BIBLE John Riches Buddha Michael Carrithers BUDDHISM Damien Keown CLASSICS Mary Beard and John Henderson Continental Philosophy Simon Critchley Darwin Jonathan Howard DESCARTES Tom Sorell EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY BRITAIN Paul Langford The European Union John Pinder Freud Anthony Storr Galileo Stillman Drake Gandhi Bhikhu Parekh HEIDEGGER Michael Inwood HINDUISM Kim Knott HISTORY John H. Arnold HUME A. J...
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