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.

Second Environmental Discussion

Overall, the way the three students gave their presentations concerning the environment were much better than the way that Sethi gave her presentation. Rather than focusing on the negative aspects of the local environment, these students gave compelling stories about the progress they have made in promoting a greener life. Rachel, a graduate from Berkeley, was the first person to present her story. Although it seemed to drag on for a while, sometimes repeating information, Rachel did a great job in showing how just a small campus organization can substantially benefit the environment and society. In a matter of years, she helped students raise over 15 million dollars to fund campus greening. Now, just out of college, she already has a stable job going around to schools across the country to promote green education. Her story gave a great example of how we can do something to help the environment, and it really showed that a few people can definitely make a big difference. The next student, Billy, also gave an impressive story, this one relating to climate change. Billy, a Yale student, founded the Energy Action Coalition, an organization which has quickly become the world's largest youth advocacy group. Through his discussion of how he formed it and what the organization does, we got an idea of another way to help out the environment. Like Rachel, he focused on a very positive experience that showed that we can make change happen by simply devoting ourselves to something we love. Lastly, a Stanford student named Erica shared her experience of growing up as a Mexican immigrant in a very unhealthy environmental situation. With hard work and dedication, however, Erica was able to substantially aid her local community through an abundance of volunteer work. Although she seemed to concentrate a little too much on the racial issues in society, she still got her point out that all it takes to help the environment is a dedicated group of people. Like the other two presenters, Erica gave a very encouraging, uplifting story that made much more of an impact on my views toward saving the environment compared to Sethi's rather negative, critical presentation.

Analysis of Turkey's Apology

As discussed in the previous post, Turkey did make some sort of an apology for its actions during we what call the Armenian Genocide. The apology, however, was not made by the government or any significant Turkish people; instead it was made by 200 average Turks as an online petition to show the Armenians that they regret what happened. Within a few days of being live on the Internet, thousands of people had “signed” the petition. Nevertheless, the effect of the apology was rather negative. Since the apology came from regular Turkish citizens rather than the government, it did not represent the country’s apology as a whole – it just showed a few people in the country who were sorry for what Turkey did in the past. Secondly, the thousands of people who signed their names amounted to only a small percentage of the Turkish population (around 7 million), which certainly did not portray the entire nation. In addition, the apology was not very strong since the writers referred to the genocide as “The Great Catastrophe.” Failing to acknowledge one’s wrongs it the first step in creating a genuine apology, and by avoiding the word “genocide,” Armenians can’t really view the apology as completely sincere and regretful. What most Armenians want, therefore, is a more formal apology with the word “genocide” in it given by the current president as it would represent the whole Turkish population. This way, Armenians would have an easier time accepting the fact the Turks are sorry for their past actions, and they would have an easier time moving back toward a harmonious state with Turks.

Turkey's Apology for the Armenian Genocide

Between 1915 and 1918, the Ottoman Empire led what is now known as the Armenian Genocide. During this time, the Turkish government led the killings of approximately 1.5 million Armenians for no reason other than the want of a completely Turkish society. The Turks forcefully removed most of the Armenian population from Turkey and Armenia to Syria, where they left them in the desert to die of hunger and thirst. For those Armenians who were not deported, they were subjected to torture, abduction, and mass executions, thereby wiping out the vast majority of Armenians.

It wasn’t until last year that Turkey issued some form of an apology for this atrocious event in history. About 200 Turks set up an internet website with a petition that said, "My conscience does not accept the insensitivity showed to and the denial of the Great Catastrophe that the Ottoman Armenians were subjected to in 1915. I reject this injustice and for my share, I empathize with the feelings and pain of my Armenian brothers. I apologize to them." Within a few days of the posting, over 10,000 Turks had signed this “apology.”

Some say that this apology was sufficient, that it did its job by showing the Armenians that they were sorry for the past. Many Armenians, however, view this apology as a pathetic attempt to make the Armenians stop complaining about the genocide. A major aspect of the apology that the Armenians don’t like is that the Turks don’t even admit to it being a genocide, rather they refer to it as the “Great Catastrophe.” Most Turks have been in denial of a genocide ever happening, and to not even refer to the event as a genocide in the apology really upset the Armenian population. In addition, Armenians were mad that the apology was in Internet form; many of them would have preferred a formal, oral speech given by the current president since it would have represented the entire Turkish population.

Click on this link to watch a video about some attitudes toward the apology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYqvPXNHLQ4

Simran Sethi's Presentation

I wasn’t very impressed with Sethi’s presentation on Tuesday. I felt that she only focused on the negative things about LA’s environment and that she didn’t offer many solutions to the problems. Her speech didn’t affect me at all or influence me to pursue any environment-saving endeavors; it just made me annoyed with the way she approached the topic. The aspects that I liked most about the presentation were the two videos she showed us. Although they still focused on problems without many insightful solutions, at least we got to actually see the problems instead of just hear her talk about them. By seeing all the families living right next to the polluted oil refineries, Sethi was able to show how detrimental the environment is to many people in LA. If she were to give this presentation again, I would suggest to her that she should devote more of her speech to discussing solutions to the problems. Even though we know there isn’t a concrete list of specific actions we should take to help the environment, she should at least give her own opinion as to what methods she thinks work the best.

The Dying Manchu Language

In the Manchu village of Sanjiazi, China, there is a population of a little over 1,000 people. Three-fourths of the people in this village identify themselves as part of the Manchu culture; however, only 18 people in the entire village are able to speak Manchu fluently. During the 17th century all the villagers could speak Manchu, but due to the drastic increase in the predominance of the Mandarin Chinese language and culture, the majority of the villagers abandoned their native language and started to learn Mandarin. By learning Mandarin, it was easier to get jobs, communicate with other people from outside the village, and understand what was going on politically and economically in the country. Throughout the generations, therefore, the number of people who learned Manchu kept getting smaller and smaller because of the language’s relative unimportance in society. To try to preserve the language, the Manchu people set up an elementary school that teaches the language. Only 76 people go to this school, however, which is obviously not enough people in order to save the language. Soon, the entire Manchu language will be lost, as well as the culture since the most of the Manchus have forgone their native customs and taken up Mandarin ones in order to fit in to Chinese society. There are no longer any Manchu-style homes in the village, less people own or wear ethnically Manchu dresses, and Manchu rituals are not practiced as often as they used to be. Sadly, it is inevitable that the Manchu culture be lost to history, ceasing to exist in the near future.

When to Save a Language

When deciding whether to save a language or to let it die, there are many factors to consider. First of all, there must be a significant number of speakers of the language – at least 20,000 or so. If there are not many speakers, then it would be very difficult to preserve the language and have it passed down to future generations. Another important condition is the presence of a written form of the language. If the language has a written form, it is a good indicator that the language is worth trying to save. If there is no written form, however, there is much less incentive to attempt to save it. Without a written form, there are no books, poems, dictionaries, documents, etc., that give a complete picture of the culture of the language group. In order to fully understand a language and its culture, linguists really need the language to be written down so they can immerse themselves in the culture and thereby figure out the best techniques to save the language. One more condition that is essential to deciding whether or not to save a language is the attitude toward it by its speakers. If the speakers really want to preserve the language, then there’s a good chance that they will focus on learning/maintaining their language throughout future generations. If the speakers feel it is just better to give in to the more dominant languages of society and forget about their own language, an attempt to save it would be futile since the natives would have no motivation to keep it alive.

Critical Thinking in Linguistics 115

Our Social Issues class incorporates the idea of critical thinking by making us ponder about how languages develop over time. By the professor giving us several examples of diglossic societies, mutually intelligible languages, and regional dialects, we the students can use this information to form our own hypotheses about how other languages have developed over the centuries. Since all this lecture information is relatively new to most of us, we can't rely on past information or experiences to think of ideas about other languages' histories. Instead, we have to "think outside the box" and come up with our own reasons as to why other languages have converged, diverged, or died out completely. This also brings in the idea of the accommodation of the uncertainty. Since we are not experts in the linguistics field, we cannot say for sure why and how languages have developed or faded away. We have to formulate our own guesses (although they may not be certain) and try to back up our ideas with the examples given to us in class.

The Pope and Germany Pre-WWII

In Daniel Jonah Goldhagan’s article, “A German Lesson: the Fallacy of One True Path,” Goldhagan makes an analogy between the pope’s way of thinking and the state of Germany before WWII. He makes this comparison so he can draw a parallel between the pope’s and Nazi Germany’s narrow-mindedness in regards to having one group of people dominate over all other groups. Before the war, Hitler’s idea was to elevate the Aryans to the highest and most superior race on earth. In order to do this, he and the Nazis had to exterminate all other races that stood in their way, no matter what the cost. Likewise, the pope regards Catholicism as the best religion in the world, and he “denigrates other religions as not being true religions or paths to salvation.” In addition, the pope’s mindset and the state of Germany pre-war are connected since both worked hand in hand in developing a very anti-Semitic society. Contrary to popular belief, the catholic church “supported the Nazis’ and fascists’ anti-Semitic race laws. … With regard to Jews, the church was not a fundamental antidote to the problem, but part of it.” It seems that the pope and the Nazis have more in common than most people think!