hello! 'linguaphilos' (friends of language').
This is a space for open discussion on language(s)-related issues. Language is part of our everyday lives. We can't go a day without it. This humam-unique complex communication tool may be used for many purposes: express feelings, ideas, manipulate, convince, lead, deceive, teach, etc, etc.
I would like for all the people friends of this blog site to post thoughts about this. Try to make it everyday life-relevant.
SOme ideas:
-little words or expressions may tell you A LOT about a person's personality & worldview. Give me examples of those.
-give me some examples of language being used for negative purposes: deceive, distort, offend..
-I am also interested in miscommunication incidents and the possible causes of those.
-invention of new words, expressions
-opinions, attitudes, ideas about dialects, others' languages (Spanish, French, Arabic, Nahuatl..)
-exples of 'correct' or 'incorrect' English (or any other language). What does that show?
-ambiguous words, expressions
-anything that you would like to post that is language-related and interesting
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You have definately opened a can of worms with your questions. Seeing certain expressions as sub-standard or lower class is a debate I am interested in. Does use of slang show connection with culture or lack of education?
ReplyDeleteGive me some examples of slang? WE might need to analyze the slangs themselves. Definitely, I believe that some words or expressions characterize people with little education. Now, the question is, does that make them linguistically inferior? In other words, is 'ain't', for example, an expression that is inferior as a negation tool? Is 'don't' a better word? Does 'don't' communicate more and better than 'ain't'? Linguistically, in reality, both (don't & ain't) are equally 'good'. In reality,it seems that people that use 'ain't' have little education, and therefore, the expression is despised, based on pure social-educaitonal grounds, not on linguistic ones.
ReplyDeleteI found the follwing site helpful in configuring my PC to write in Spanish: http://spanish.about.com/od/writtenspanish/a/typingaccents.htm
ReplyDelete