John Stewart's "Let's Leave it There"

During this fake newscast, Stewart criticizes many aspects of the television network, CNN. First of all, he points out that CNN is not doing a good job of fact-checking. For example, instead of checking the reliability of statistics such as "between 100 and 200 billion dollars," and "a 500 billion dollar cut," CNN is investigating the reliability of Saturday Night Live Skits. Obviously, most people know that SNL exaggerates things and does not stick to the truth, making it unnecessary to actually research the skit to see if it's true. What CNN should be focusing on, rather, are the statistics that are just thrown out into the news broadcasts without any proof that they are true. Another feature that Stewart criticized was the use of logical fallacies. For instance, one of the reporters uses a slippery slope when he talks about how the health care reform will lead to socialized medicine and ultimately to a country in a terrible situation. This clearly is not true and should not be used in a newscast. One more practice he criticizes is when the reporters say something like, "OK, we're out of time, let's leave it there." Just as the debate starts to get heated and controversial, it seems as though CNN makes it end right away by saying something along those lines. Stewart hates this practice, since the issue is never brought back up again and a conclusion is never reached. Lastly, Stewart criticizes the way CNN thinks of the term "balance." During debates, CNN simply has one person from each political party bicker at each other, interrupt each other, and dismiss each other's views. There is no sense of order in the arguments, and information is often stilted to fit each person's argument.

In academic discourse, these concerns would be addressed by following a few rules. One way to make the problems better would be to actually do research on the facts, presenting them while also reporting where the information came from. This way, the viewer knows that the statistics are not made up and are true. As for the use of fallacies, these would be avoided with academic discourse by thoroughly thinking about the argument at hand and not coming to an irrational conclusion just to try to make a point. In order to solve the problem of the "balanced" debates and the issue of "let's leave it there," academic discourse would instead fully address the problem and not stop discussing it until both sides of the argument are completely addressed. In addition, academic discourse would have a different goal in mind during the debate. Rather than focusing on "winning" the debate and persuading people to lean toward one side, people engaging in academic discourse would have a goal of informing the public about everything there is to know about the topic so they can have a deep understanding of the issue.

Example of Logical Fallacy #2

In this advertisement for Windows and PCs, the logical fallacy of the bandwagon is being used. The advertisement commits this fallacy by showing that all types of people around the world use PCs, not Macs, and that viewer should too. The ad doesn't give much information about Windows or PCs; rather, it just shows the viewer that everyone else uses PCs so why not join them and buy a PC too?

Example of a Logical Fallacy

In this advertisement the logical fallacy of non sequitur is used. The advertisement commits this fallacy by showing two children doing a sort of dance with their eyebrows, which has absolutely nothing to do with the final product at the end -- the Cadbury chocolate bar. The eyebrow dance does not have a direct relationship with the chocolate bar being advertised; it "does not follow", hence non sequitur.

Advantages of Non-Standard Dialects

The advantage of keeping access to non-standard dialects is that we can preserve the cultural and linguistic differences that are part of all the non-standard dialects. Since every dialect group comes from a different socioeconomic background, each group has its own way of life that probably has many cultural and linguistic differences from the standard dialect. If we were to wipe out all of the non-standard ones, then we would lose knowledge about all of the differences that make each dialect unique. In addition, we would most likely lose the history as to how and why each dialect broke away from the standard dialect and formed its own variety. Despite these arguments to keep access open to non-standard dialects, however, it is much more advisable to encourage the use of the standard dialect and dissuade people from using the non-standard dialects. In today's American society, there are a number of regional dialects. The problem with this is that many people associate negative stereotypes with several of the dialects -- Boston accents suggest arrogance, Southern accents suggest laziness, etc. By encouraging people to switch over to Standard American English, we would help lessen dialectal stereotypes that are very common among people in this country. Dialects of minorities also suffer immensely in America. When people speak with a foreign accent, many people automatically assume that they are less intelligent since they don't have a complete grasp on the English language. Because of this, people who don't speak with a perfect English accent are not given equal opportunities in various aspects of life such as at work, at the store, on the phone, etc. If we were to succeed in making people with foreign accents learn how to speak Standard American English, we would have a much more equal society.

My Fair Lady Review

The movie "My Fair Lady" was a very interesting film, incorporating the social and linguistic implications of switching languages (or in this case dialects) that we have discussed in our linguistics class. At the start of the movie, a young flower girl named Eliza encounters a linguist named Mr. Higgins, who concentrates in the study of phonetics. Since Eliza's Cockney English speech is full of a non-standard English accent and a vocabulary with several slang phrases, Mr. Higgins characterizes her speech as dreadful and as an insult to the English language. He says that despite her speech habits, however, he could transform her into a lady who can speak with a proper English accent, worthy enough of going to an Embassy Ball. After agreeing to give Eliza lessons, Mr. Higgins uses several linguistic strategies to try to change her accent. He makes her repeat vowels for hours at a time, trying to force her to come out with the right sounds. He then has her repeat phrases like "The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain," in order to try to free her from her Cockney accent. When that still didn't make her improve, he puts marbles in her mouth and makes her try to enunciate sentences. After several days of these laborious methods, Eliza finally breaks through and speaks with a proper accent. At the Embassy Ball, Eliza succeeds in fooling people into believing that she is a true English woman instead of a Cockney flower girl. In one sense, Mr. Higgins did indeed succeed in transforming her into a proficient English speaker. Mr. Higgins did not succeed, however, in transforming her into a clone of a woman who grew up in an upper class English society. Eliza still has bonds to her former flower girl friends and the rest of the people from her Cockney society, and no amount of linguistic conversion can break those bonds. In addition, just because she learned the "better" dialect doesn't mean that she forgot her native one. At the horse race, for example, she initially does a good job in concealing her Cockney identity during conversations, but as she kept talking she added in more and more Cockney slang with which she grew up. At the end of the movie, she is still a Cockney flower girl at heart, even though she knows how to speak proper English. When she goes to Mr. Higgins in the final scene, she resorts back to her native dialect and shows that deep down, she still really is a Cockney girl; no matter how much standard English Eliza could learn, she could never truly replace her Cockney roots.