Blog #9

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9oIvsk7cvw

        ^^ Everyone, go take a look at this YouTube video. First, I must say that I picked this video because I absolutely love Meryl Streep and Ellen...This video is just so goofy and fun. But on the dialects aspect, it is so funny how people view other accents. Yes, maybe a lot of people from those certain countries speak with a tone like that or say some of those phrases. But does everyone? No. Just as we watched in that "American Tongues" video in class the other day, we watched those people from Boston all with different accents and ways of saying things. People just assume that all those people have that rough accent.
        It really does amaze me, though, how even though not everyone speaks the same accent in a certain place, people are able to guess where the accent is from in seconds. Back to the YouTube video, they both had the ability to listen to the accents and just know where it came from! How did we get so good at this? How is it so easy for us since not everyone from certain places speak the same? I just think it is absolutely amazing how society has become so aware of where certain dialects are from just by hearing a sentence. Being aware of the different types of speaking can give us a whole lot of knowledge and background of exactly where the roots of that person came from. What a cool and unique thing!

Blog #8

How do we acquire language? Is it embedded into our DNA as humans from the time we are born? Or maybe we entirely learn from the people around us?

http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/linguistics/learn.jsp

  

     ^^ Visiting this website supports my view in the debate of how humans acquire language. I personally believe, yes, maybe language is somewhat embedded into our DNA, but I more firmly believe that language comes with experience. Growing up with speaking parents obviously teaches children to do the same. Speaking and communicating with others comes with watching your family members and friends throughout the years, and acquiring the same grammar and rules. Plus, language comes with continuous practice.
           The best explanation as to why I think language predominantly comes from experience is from learning about the "Wild Boy" that we saw in one of the movies from class. This boy had lived the majority of his life naked in the forest. He had no communication or contact with any other humans and had to survive in the forest by himself until one day he came crawling out onto human land. He obviously did not know how to speak. Why was this the case? He had never personally experienced or heard the language. He had no examples from any family; he had no guide. Never was language apart of his life.
           As people tried to work with him and help him develop his language, they could only do so much. He could say simple words and understand them, but was never able to put full sentences together. How is it that somebody who supposedly has language "embedded" into their DNA not able to learn and speak language like anybody else? It was because he never had a hands-on experience learning from other humans just like the rest of us had.

Blog 7

http://ehis.ebscohost.com.libproxy.gc.maricopa.edu/ehost/detail?sid=093cbb17-49ce-4e67-a1e1-eccfec40c4fb%40sessionmgr11&vid=6&hid=15&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=aph&AN=77388548


"One language dies every 14 days. By the next century nearly half of the roughly 7,000 languages spoken on Earth will likely disappear, as communities abandon native tongues in favor of English, Mandarin, or Spanish."


      This article titled "Vanishing Voices" really puts into perspective how languages are wearing out. The above quote is a perfect example! Nearly half of the languages spoken on Earth will be gone, as well as every last meaning of every last word gone with that language in order to assimilate with the more popular dialect. Languages spoken by very few people are mainly spoken by older folks who lived with that language in their culture. As people diminish, other people within that group need other people to communicate with; for that reason, people turn to other (more popular) languages to merge into. This gives us a taste of how languages are drastically dying.
      The author of this article mentioned how you would think that out of the 7 billion people on the earth, that the give or take 7,000 languages spoken with it would be spread out evenly to give each language 1 billion people so that they can flourish and live on. That is not the case, for "seventy-eight percent of the world's population speaks the 85 largest languages, while the 3,500 smallest languages share a mere 8.25 million speakers."
      In my eyes, it is really sad to automatically have a good guess that almost half of languages, all with a unique background and culture, will come to a close. Imagine if English was dying down. (Obviously it is not since it is one of the most spoken languages in the world). But imagine that every last word ever spoken would be put to rest as each person in your community passes away. Every favorite word, and memory along with that word, is gone forever. What a sad thing to think that older people with the languages of Tuvan, Aka, and Seri will most likely not see their grandchildren speak their native language.
      What good came from this article is that people with dying languages mostly wanted to see their children and/or relatives succeed. For that reason, they wanted their children to live on with a better chance in receiving a better education and more opportunity. Only knowing their small-spoken language doesn't give that much opportunity for advancing. A lot of these parents were encouraging in promoting a language that will help their child live a great life full of new and exciting possibilities! Now that is certainly a beautiful thing!

Blog #6

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/srodnes/RVID/kenny-smith-language-evolution

       The video from this website is a very basic concept. The way we have learned language basically is from the people around us. As new generations go on, some language is changed and modified as new generations evolve. Language changes with the economy and people around us.
       This video doesn't mention anything about language and the internet. Though as I was watching this, I thought about how language can be so much more easily altered when the internet is added into the mix. If you have, say 500 friends on Facebook (considering that some may be out of state), you are being exposed to 500 different ways to express language through different phrases, words, languages, etc. If you are living in Arizona and a friend lives out of state in New York, you may hear them say a phrase you have never heard of. You go online to see what it means. You like the phrase, and start using it. Maybe you post the new word/phrase as one of your Facebook statuses and then your 500 friends are exposed to it. Maybe a ripple effect occurs and all of a sudden this new phrase from a different state is now popular in Arizona. I feel like with the new uses of internet and social media, people are able to see different ways to express language from different areas. It seems easier now a days to open your eyes to different cultures and languages because it is so accessible. YouTube videos give us this advantage. Punch in any language or subject of your liking through this site and bam! There it is! The same goes for Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, etc. Social media spreads different languages and phrases through Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, and so many other sites. What an easy way to see other languages and diverse ways to communicate through the internet.

Blog #5

http://ehis.ebscohost.com.libproxy.gc.maricopa.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=45828758-0ccb-491d-9743-0fe447568c5d%40sessionmgr114&vid=8&hid=102

^^ I do not expect you to go to this link and read this entire article because it is a long one for sure. I basically read the synopsis of this article titled "Signs of Their Times". This article goes over deaf community and how they are perceived to the hearing world. This goes on to say that deaf people have been treated as dumb and with disrespect for countless years. Until 25 years ago, deaf people were considered handicapped and hearing people were trying to find "the cure" for their "disability". I think we can all say that obviously being deaf is nothing more than the absence of hearing and using an alternate method to communicate with others. Yes, deaf community and culture do differ from hearing culture. Yes, life as a deaf man/woman is harder because they have to intermingle with these foreign people that they don't know how to communicate with. And yes, communication and overall way of life is different. But we are all people! Why is it that for so long people didn't understand that deaf people are just like everybody else?! I feel that technology was not advanced enough for people to even know their children couldn't hear. Maybe people put them into the "mentally retarded" category because the child couldn't respond to sound. Or maybe people correlated lack of communication with loss in the brain. I don't know. But overall, my opinion on deaf society is that people should not try to force hearing on these people. They were born a certain way for a reason. Yes, dominant society is hearing, but there are many parts of the world who have a different way of living. I don't see being deaf as any sort of loss, but rather a new opportunity to show us hearing people how beautiful language can be.

Blog #4

^^ I thought that this little drawing this was sort of funny, but very true. This doesn't have to do with one-on-one speaking to individuals; but has to do with the evolution of communication through technological methods. Look at the first picture. In the beginning, people could only transmit information through person to person. (Obviously this can still be done). But as the pictures go on, more and more ways make it more effective to get the message across. You can write things to people, which in turn lead to mailing the information, which eventually led to calling, which finally ended up with computers. Computers can be linked to e-mail, Facebook, internet, BLOGS, Skype, etc. This picture is considerably old because they left out cell phones and the means of texting and getting almost all computer information onto that tiny little smart phone to communicate. It is absolutely insane looking at the way technology has changed society. In my opinion, I feel it has hindered communication skills among people. It is so easy to get on your phone when you are in an awkward situation and tune the people around you out. If someone is uncomfortable, VROOM! Get on that smart phone and show the people around you that you are needed somewhere else and do belong with a certain group. Yes, phones are a great way of communicating and reaching people in necessary situations who are far away. But I personally feel that people are too involved in people who are away from them, rather than the people who are with them at that very moment. People need to learn to have the strength to live without texting somebody for an hour's college class.

Blog #3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLdg9FMp7f8

^^First of all, I must say that I do not watch American Idol, but one night when I was extremely bored I threw it on the TV. I came across something very interesting. Everybody needs to watch this video because I honestly have not seen anything like it. The man in this video has a very bad stuttering problem, in which he mentioned that it turns into the point that he sometimes is unable to talk. Yet as you continue to watch it, he sings beautifully with no stuttering problems at all. How can this be!? Someone who has day-to-day struggles with communicating in normal speech has no problem at all singing his heart out without any stuttering delays. It is like he becomes two different people. I feel that maybe all of this has to do with the brain, in that singing and speaking is two different parts. Maybe the part of the brain that allows us to speak was somehow injured for him; or maybe it is psychological and all in his head. I am considering doing my final project on the correlation between stuttering and singing because this, in my opinion, is just mind-blowing.

Blog #2

“For last year's words belong to last year's language 
And next year's words await another voice.” 

― T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets

I found this quote at the site http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/language. I could not find it more interesting and true. Once I got to thinking about it, language and the way we communicate with one another changes all the time. Every year, there is new slang or as the quote says, "another voice" ready to emerge. Phrases such as, "that is so bomb" are not nearly used as much as they were a couple years ago. Instead, people then replaced it with "that's so tight" or "that's so sick." Even those phrases continually diminish and get used less often. Next year, we could all be saying, "that's so noob!" Who knows? Each year, we hear new phrases and words of language being used so often that we all end up saying it in some form subconsciously. As times change with new styles, music, and interests, the language around us evolves with it.

Blog 1

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/15/AR2009101501373.html

I chose this above link because it talks about how some teachers are starting to use Sign Language in their classrooms to manage activities. Obviously, I am interested in American Sign Language, and this article grabbed my attention. It relates to me because every year I go into my mom's second grade classroom and teach her students basic signs. Just like the article mentions, it is an effective approach, for it doesn't disrupt class. Students can use signs or letter signs for different uses. For example, if they need to sharpen their pencil or use the restroom, they can use the sign designed by the teacher during a lecture. In that way, the teacher can nod yes or no and the students can continue to learn without having the entire focus be on that one student while disrupting classroom learning. I think if most teachers in younger classrooms, maybe kindergarten-5th grades, used this technique, managing a classroom would be way easier!! Not only would this make classrooms more controlled, but more students may even be compelled to learn more about Sign Language and its role in the world.

Intro

Hey everyone!

My name is Rebecca Dezember. I am a second year student here at GCC, and I am so unbelievably excited to be attending Phoenix College next semester to pursue American Sign Language interpreting. I have been learning Sign Language since Freshman year of high school, so yes, I have been signing for a long time and it is definitely my passion in life! Also, I have been doing sports my entire life. I played volleyball since the 5th grade, and I played tennis since freshman year of high school. Last year, I actually played tennis on the GCC Tennis team, but elected not to play this year for the reason of focusing on my future career. I wouldn't consider myself a runner, but this past weekend I ran my first half marathon nonstop, so I guess I can add that to my sports accomplishments! I am also an active church go'er and believer. There is nothing more important in life than worshiping God and all He has given me. I am blessed with two wonderful older brothers and a special mom and dad. My favorite guy in the world is my boyfriend and best friend, Adrian, and he is just as amazing as can be. More than anything, I have supporting and special friends in my life that mean so much! I am taking this English 213 class because, for one, I need it to complete this ASL certificate to certify that I am officially bilingual. Secondly, I love learning about communication and English. Overall, this is me. See you all in class!