Blog Post #4 "Mother tongue"

G'day 

Home language.

  

Home language is exposed to individuals at a young age. It is shown through your parents, who have been exposed by their parents and so on. I believe that a home language distinguishes who you are, it gives you a beginning to your identity, for example, if you are exposed to a strong, loud, forceful background you will carry this identity with you through out your lifestyle. Although home language is carried with you through your life, you usually don’t use it on a public basis. The reason is because everybody experiences a different home language, with so many cultures, many acceptable and unacceptable coincide. In particular China, it is common to greet someone with a quite tone and to not use physical means of greeting, however, in southern parts of America people greet you in a loud tone and straight after try to shake your hand.  As well as coinciding cultures, in today’s society judgment is a large aspect to acceptance and treatment.

Mothers tongue written by Amy tan is a short story show casing how her home language created problems for her and in particular, her mother. As Amy was a first generation Chinese American a lot of the cultures were new to her, and her mother and adapting to judgment was tough for her, often feeling sympathy to her mother.

I feel that one idea, which was present and had an impact on home language, was judgment and even embarrassment. Amy suggests that her mother uses “broken” or “fractured” English, however consistently states that these titles bother her. This shows a specific tone Amy is using, which is a sympathetic tone. A quote, which shows her sympathy, is 

“ The fact people didn’t take her seriously, did not give her good service”

Here Amy uses past experiences of how her mother’s home language has limited their lifestyle. This quote suggests that because of her limited language she is isolated and judged to the point where simple tasks like service are forgotten. 

A stronger example of judgment is involved with Amy talking during the phone calls instead of her mother. Even tasks, which are serious and should be taken seriously, are not, since her husband and son have died from cancer Mrs. Tan wanted to check her brain for any cases. Surprisingly the hospital had lost the documents and she would need to come in next week to redo the tests, someone in her point of mind would be extremely anxious and a hospital loosing a document this important is unethical. To showcase how judgment affects her situation Amy’s mother used Amy’s English skills to speak with the doctor. “ Finally when the doctor called me, who spoke perfect English- Io and behold- we had assurance the CAT scan would be found” Here Amy shows how the judgment of voice can have impact as since she used clear English she gained an advantage, which was assurance that the documents would be found. 

Overall I believe Mothers Tongue is a perfect example of how “Home language” may not be accepted in society. Although this is not a cultural example it shows how judgment is a large aspect to acceptance and treatment in today's society. This is also a particular situation where “home language” is adapted to be accepted, as stated previously home language distinguishes who you are, gives you an identity. In Amy’s case she is introduced into a new society where her home language has to be adapted for acceptance.   

Blog Post #3

G’day

In most of our society, a name isn’t just something we call someone to get their attention, it has stronger meaning when looking into the heritage/ history behind it. In the more present day names have adapted from modern shows, for example, Sansa, Jon, and Arya all coming from a television show (Game of thrones), these names contribute to almost 2,000 names in the U.K alone in 2016.

The meaning of Andrew to me isn’t really special; before I knew the meaning I didn’t really care what people called me. I personally believed it was a common boring name; this was all before I knew the meaning. Often people called me by my last name “Dando” or “Dandini”, which I liked due to its relevance to Brazilian footballers, maybe one day when you see “Dandini scored the best goal ever and wins million dollar contract” on the front page of every newspaper, you can be like “I knew him”

Personally, my name has two meaning. Andrew Originates from Ancient Greece, meaning “Manly” Masculine”,  funnily enough, I carry both with me as characteristics. Although it has Greek decent my name was adapted from Russia. “Andreas” was my origin name but as I have an English heritage and family it was adopted to “Andrew”. This was mainly done to pronounce it easier as the correct saying of “Andreas” has an emphasis on the “r”, thankfully my parents didn’t ruin my life.

However this is not the main reason it was chosen, my grandfather was also named Andreas. He was from my Ukrainian side. He was an active smoker and sadly died when my mother was young. So in honor of him, I was given his name (slightly adapted). Overall I really don’t mind what you call me, as long as it has relevance to me.

Blog Post #2

G'day,
I come from two different communities one being Ukraine and the other would be England, both countries have different lifestyles and cultural differences. Although my connection with England is much stronger, I prefer to introduce myself as a Ukrainian as it is slightly more uncommon and a conversation starter.  While having conversation many untrue statements come into context for example.
“Is that in Russia? ”
“Do you speak Russian? ”
“Isn’t it radioactive there? ”

Is it in Russia?
Although this is a reasonable misunderstanding, it still happens a lot. Ukraine joined the U.S.S.R (Union of Soviet Socialist republics) in 1922 under believe its people would benefit from its rapid industrial growth. After 49 years Ukraine decided they did not want to follow the communist way. This I believe is the major reason Ukraine is so often related to Russia, because we were once part of it.

Do you speak Russian?
A large part of cultural misunderstanding come from a language aspect mainly because people feel specific languages are not needed to be learned as English is a “universal language” (depending on your continent), Almost 40% of the world have it as their mother tongue. Russian and Ukrainian are two different languages but share a lot of similarities, the alphabet and grammar structure being one, despite this being the case are languages are believed to be as close as American and English, but only 20% of the words are the same.

Is it in Radioactive?
A debatable Miss conception to do with a failure in a power plant, Although It is somewhat true it is slightly insensitive. Now you are able to enter into town where the disaster happened as well as almost no cases of radiation have been reported in the country.

I believe understanding these cultural markers will distance the independence of Ukraine from the U.S.S.R. This is important due to recent heated movements in Ukraine which Russia have been reportedly been involved in. As well as Ukrainian people take pride in their independence and individuality.   

English Blog post 1

To whom it concerns

The names Andrew Dando but I go by many names, “Andy”, “Dando”, “Dandini” and “the coolest guy in Raha”, ok not everyone calls me by the last one but I would like to think so.  I am in a family of 4, all being boys, sadly I was the youngest. I am an active person, sports and school being my priorities. One of my most fond obsessions is taking part in an invite-only sports association. What we do is run in a box chasing a ball or as the normal day Ed would call it “football”.  I am devoted to football, I support the greatest team in the English league, and they are incomparable to any other, the one and only “Manchester united”.  I believe I am a connoisseur of football, although it may not sound handy it wins a lot of arguments.  One of my strongest strength is my humour; I consider it my greatest strength from my many, I feel I make people laugh often.  This year my main goal is to strengthen my analysis skills with poetry; I feel my vocabulary skills were weak but have increased within this year.

What role does language have in your life?

I believe Language has a big role in my daily lifestyle. I believe it is able to define you as a person. Personally, I use language to shows my intellectual and humour sides. Language has taken a more important role in my lifestyle, as in the future I had no care for it.  As I youngster I was not affectionate towards language or languages. I felt Arabic and French were not useful and thought I was fluent in English so did not care about it, this was a young and unwise Andrew. But as my age grew so did my ability in the language, throughout my last two years I have begun to read books and they have more than 50 pages.

Why do you think it is important to study languages?

Studying is important on its own but language more specifically has a greater role. A study showed that if your English skills were high, your average score in school would increase, as well as if a new language is studied you are able to communicate in multiple ways. I also Believe if someone were to study a language, they are able to get a better insight on different cultures. I imagine that learning one's culture with a different language is challenging, so to ease you learning their own language would give a better awareness. Overall I feel language is an important attribute to acquire because it benefits you in various ways, Like me, most people practice to improve so I believe it is important to study it.

Have you ever felt excluded due to language barriers? 

With over 6000 languages in our society, almost everyone has faced a challenge with communication, Websites and apps have been created to overcome these barriers, which we face with the most popular being “Google translate”. I come from a Ukraine side where English is rarely taught which means the majority of my family does not speak it fluently. I feel I have been excluded in language constantly when I travel to my home country. Ways I connect with them are mainly hand signals and simple discussion.

 https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bNTEgqC_MIU/hqdefault.jpg   

I consider this image to best suit me because it shows my two sides. First, we see the person, Its bill gates a successful billionaire, Although I am yet to reach that kind of salary or any salary to be fair, I aspire to reach his success . Secondly his pose, this pose meaning is a fun exciting side of me.