Discuss 2+ and Spot check p. 102

 Why is culture important for communication?

- Culture is important for communication because it can affect the way the other person receives your message. If you take the text “butterflies” as an example you will see that the lack of cultural understanding made the two parts misunderstand each other.  

 Why is the command of English in itself no longer enough for accurate communication?

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- By knowing a language, you are not automatically aware of the culture in the country but since our generation has been more influenced by the cultural society we have learned more about different cultures than the generations before us. 

 Into what three parts can communication be divided? 

 - The three parts communication can be divided into sender, receiver, and messenger.

 What is ethnocentrism?

- Ethnocentrism is when you judge other cultures by the values and standards of your own culture. Ethnocentric individuals insult other groups close to their own culture, especially different language, behaviour, customs and religion. 

   What is cultural relativism?

- Cultural relativism is that you are aware of the different cultures, but it doesn’t give you the right to think that your culture is better than another culture.  Every culture has equal right, and cultural relativism means to treat everyone similarly

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Discuss 2+ page 103
Use the following terms to explain the main ideas in this article: culture, communication, message-sender-reciever, cultural relativism, ethnocentrism 


Culture - is a collective system of values, belief, attitudes, often religion and behaviour by a group of people. A culture often has it own form of art, music, food, traditions etc.

Communication - the interaction between two or more individuals. A conversation where mutual understanding occurs, concerning any topic.

message-sender-reciever - A model that displays how communication forms, and the three                                         stages in a conversation.

cultural relativism - The belief that every culture is equal and respectiong differences between groups. 

ethnocentrism - The belief that your own culture is superior to every other culture.

- Eivor

Working with statistics

Today we had English all day at school. The day contained an oral presentation and some useful statistic work in pairs, which I will post below.

1. Look at the UK diagram on page 110. What are the two largest groups? what are the two smallest groups.  Did anything surprise you about the order of size of ethnic groups in the United Kingdom?
   

The two largest group on the diagram was the white ethnic group having a percent of 87.5 and the indian ethnic group on 2.7%. The two smallest groups was the ethnic group called other black on the diagram and they had a percent of 0.2 and other asian having a percent of 0.7.  I wasn't really surprised by the diagram because this was expected from UK. I have always known that they don't have a large number of immigrants and ethnic groups compared to how big the ethnic white group population is.  The only weird thing with this diagram is that the last column is referred to as other black, what does this mean? They have already mentioned black african and black caribbean

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2. Look at the USA diagram on page 110. What are the two largest groups? what are the two smallest groups ? did anything surprise you about the order of size of ancestry groups in the USA?

The largest group on the chart was the German and African American ancestries. The German consisted of 50.2 millions and the African American was 38 millions. The two smallest groups was Swedish who consisted of 4.3 millions and Scotish-irish who consisted of 3.5 millions. The only thing that surprised me by the chart was the amount of German Ancestries. Personally I thought that the American column would be bigger, because it’s a very central country.           

First Chapter of Small Island

I've decided to read Small Island by Andrea Levy. The reason is simply because both the author and book caught my eye. The fact that she writes books that she wishes to read herself, made me interested. The plot had an unfamiliar topic to me, and I thought I should know more about the type of culture clash that Small Island presents. The book

The book starts with a brief prologue, and after that the story takes place in London 1948, post war, with flashbacks that takes the reader back to the war. We get to know Hortense who is a classy and educated Jamaican woman. She arrives to England to meet her husband, Gilbert. They have an arranged marriage in order to get Hortense safely to England. Hortense arrives to London and can't find her shabby husband anywhere on the dock. She manages to find Gilbert's current state of living by herself and is not pleased with what she sees. In front of her is a lodging and grim house towering up to the sky. A blonde, english woman named Queenie meets Hortense in the door ...

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The setting in the first chapter is quite vivid. The way the author describes the streets, feelings and people already makes me want to continue this book. Hortense's disgust over the filth in London explains how bad the conditions were, and opens Hortense more up as a person. England was far away from the golden city of her dreams. At first I was confused with why a woman met Hortense in the door of her husband's house, but this is all covered later in the book.

Comparing English Languages

The standard English language is a west Germanic and global lingua franca. A lingua franca briefly means that the language is expected to be understood worldwide. The standard English English is mostly written, but there are heaps of spoken varieties of the language. English is one language who contains a variety of different ways to speak it. 

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Scottish English

The main formal Scottish is called standard Scottish English, SSE. It can be characterized with some distinct differences in pronunciation and how it´s written. The Scottish dialect can be divided from English by many factors, but the main factor is phonology. The language has less vowels than most English languages. In Scotland they also speak Highland English which is influenced by Gaelic. 

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Scottisms are expressions or idioms that are typical for Scottish. These are more usual to appear spoken than written. Scotts can for example say: “She was a bit pit oot when I told her” which means “She was a bit upset when I told her” or "That's outwith my remit" meaning "It's not part of my job to do that". These are grammatically correct in the SSE language. 

If your click the video below, you can enjoy some Scottish and learn more about the different ways of grammar and pronunciation. 

Ugandan English 

Ugandan english or ”Uglish” (pronounced you-glish)is the dialect of English spoken in Uganda.

Have you ever heard this sentence: ” stop cowardsing and go see that girl. Don´t just beep her again, bench her.”? this may make no sense to an English English speaker, but if you’re from Uganda you will be able to understand this perfectly fine. Translated to British English the frase means ”Stop being a coward and go see that girl, don't just call her again, stop by her”. Ugandan english may sound like typos to many people but it's common expressions in Uganda. An Ugandan form of English with influences from local dialects has formed several new words with their own unique meaning. 

Some will resemble  obvious English words like: dirten, meaning to make something dirty; cowardising, to behave like a coward. Other words come from the youth culture and are picked up around colleges. Words like to beep -meaning to call someone and hang up simultaneously. Or Benching, which is a word that evolved from slang, meaning to stop by someone you have a romantic interest in. 

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Video source here

Thoughts On Three Authors...

Our goal in this curriculum now is to focus on literature and choose a book and read it. Before we do this we are going to do some quick research on three authors and decide who we find the most interesting. The authors are Amy Tan, Moshin Hamid and Andrea Levy, who are all prize-winning and talented writers that uses different techniques and tools.

Amy Tan

Amy Tan is an American author with Chinese background, who are known to write about mother-daughter bonds. Tan has won several prizes for her work and she has conducted a very important message through her work. Her book The Joy Luck Club was written in 1989 was a best seller. The plot concern four Chinese families and consists of sixteen different stories about the families, with two parts that focuses on the mothers and two parts concerning the daughters.

Moshin Hamid

Moshin Hamid is a Pakistani British novelist who has written three best-sellers and is known worldwide. His work work have been translated into several languages and he has won many important prizes. The style of writing he usually goes for is slightly different than other British writers. His style of writing is called Dramatic Monologue. His book The Reluctant fundamentalist is one of my choices to read. The book has an interesting point of view, where the main person sits at a café and tells a retrospective story.

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- If you're not a huge reader, I recommend you to klick HERE to see the movie!

Andrea Levy

Andrea Levy is an English author with Jamaican background who didn't start her writing until she was in her mid-thirties. She wrote novels that she wished to read as a young woman. At that time there was no books about african people in Britain. Levy succeeded with conveying a strong message through her work. She managed to show the world how the Jamaican people, like herself, had been treated. She describes her father's generation who returned to Britain after fighting in the Second world war and explores their adjustments and problems they received from this life. The cultural difference and culture clash comes trough in this novel, gives an interesting touch to the book.

Andrea Levy is presented with the
 "Best of the best" prize (2004)
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- Want to find out more about the book? Click HERE to get a summary!

Small Island by Andrea Levy - a Review

Over a period of time, I´ve read the both famous and award-winning Small Island. It has been a quite challenging yet fun read. I´ve gained an understanding for the topic and learned more about analyzing and different tools that authors use to create a visual image. 

The plot is concerning two small islands; Jamaica and England. In the story we get to know four main characters named Queenie, Hortense, Gilbert and Bernard. The plot in the novel changes between different main characters, so the reader receives an angle on each perspective and story. Hortense has high standards and refuses to be taken care of by her husband. She and her husband, Gilbert, have an arranged marriage, to get Hortense safely from Jamaica to England. In England Hortense is hard to please, she frowns by the filth and complains a lot. Gilbert is a humoristic man who likes to view the glass as half full. In England they meet Queenie whom is their landlady. Queenie has a lot of courage and is married to Bernard who simply is a banker with no heart whatsoever. All of the characters have multiple encounters and the story develops form there. 

 

Image from the filmated version of Small Island (link)

I found the book interesting. Andrea Levy has written a book that contains several different stories that in the end connect together as one. Personally, I enjoy such stories. The variety of angles and tools used give the book a modern touch while it’s a story concerning the old times post war. It has been quite challenging, however fun, and the author makes sure to challenge the reader in different ways and tries to highlight different points of views on the plot. Besides, from switching between points of view, the book also takes place in different years such as “before” and “after”, which creates a bigger story and covers more of the person’s lives. A lot of different techniques have been used in this book and a lot of language tools, and it all comes together as one colorful read. The author uses tools like slang, metaphors and something to emphasize the contrast between the societies. The title of this book is a metaphor itself, so it gives you an idea of what to expect from this book. I enjoyed the read and the movie, even though this is a genre I never tend to reach for. It had a unique way to catch the reader’s attention – and keep it!

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On the other hand, I found this book a bit difficult and this is caused by language. The author has characterized the people with Jamaican English, which makes it hard to understand for me as reader. It shows how the people speak and gives reader an image on how other people understand and react to them. The change between main persons can be confusing if you don´t pay attention, but if you read closely you will find the swap amusing, like I did.

Reading this book makes you aware of how things were before. The racism, the bad times after the war, the poverty and so on. This is exactly what the author, who´s Jamaican herself, tries to convey through her book. There are many cases in the book where people are being discriminated and mocked because of their heritage. Small Island gave me an understanding and respect for the people who went through or who are going through this.

- Eivor