Narrative Techniques Practice

Narrative Techniques Practice

Practice 1:

The extract of “The Gods My Be Crazy” is written in a third-person point of view because we can appreciate how the narrator is not referring to an story that is happening to him neither the reader of the story is the narrator so that leave us with the idea that the narrator is an outsider of it, this can be seen when he says things like “Humans avoid” or “they lived” with this the narrator is leaving him as an outsider of the story,the things he is telling. With this type of point of view it generates in the reader a sensation of confidence, because the narrator tells what he is observing and it should not have any feeling or “incompleteness” of the situation, is (in a way) more objective. For the other part, the narration of this text is the indirect narration, because the narrator is not talking to us directly (direct narration) neither is telling the story in first person (frame narration) and it can be appreciate how a story is being tell (a characteristic of this type of narration). The effect that this technique makes in the reader is that, as well as the idea of objectiveness, what is being tell is a mere description of things, it has no space for subjective and not true ideas. In the other technique we have the type of speech in this case there are not dialogues of characters and there are not specific ones so that leave us with the free indirect speech, the narrator is just describing things. The effect that free indirect speech makes is a one of (again) objectiveness, he is not rewriting thoughts he is just “writing” (saying exactly what they thought) thoughts. Finally, the tense in which this text is written is present, he is telling exactly what is happening, “They live”, with this type of tense is (as all the others) generating the idea of objectiveness. In summary all the techniques presented in the text are pointed to make the felling that the tell is reliable.

Practice 3 With Angelo Menchise:

Today, as every other day in the city, there were scenes of crime around the city. There must be, there need to be a protector for the people, there has to be a guardian for the humans and there is not other being more qualified than us, the so called “humans best friends”, dogs - Doge said to his fellow dog comrades.

We must not trust their safety their own, they are the ones that damage themselves, they are the ones that can not help each other, they are the ones that are destroying their own raze. That’s why we, comrades, shall go tonight and save the world, save the humans from their own destruction. - As long as the speech went each dog claim Doge with barks.

After the speech, one of the bravest and most respect dogs, Rocco came on front of the leader and others, then he said - Dear friends, as you know I’m in charge of our operations tonight and I’ll assign the roles that each of you will do, but I would like to remind you why we decide to fight against crime and why Doge is our leader. I’m sure I talk for all of us when I say that we love our owners, they are our lives, they are our reason for living, they are our reason for fighting. I don’t have to remember you the pain Doge passed when his owner died because of one of the godawful humans, I don’t have to remember you how he, even with all the pain it conveys that, stood up and help all of us. He did not succumb in front of that and decide to fight against it. And so we wanted to, and so we want and so we will! He decided to be strong, to don´t give up, and to fight back!!.

All the dogs that were in the meeting in the cold street of Detroit were very excited and motivated to fight. Then Rocco and Doge started dividing the dogs on groups. The function of this groups where to patrol certain parts of the city, that they previously marked during the day.

Doge wanted to deal with one of the godawful humans alone, he desired to avenge his owner, he couldn’t protect her when she got attacked. That is the reason he was alone or so he thought. Secretly Rocco asked his best friend Buster to follow Doge, because (not only Rocco) all of the comrades were worried about him, they believed that he could do something stupid in order to fulfill his role as avenger of his owner.

Suddenly there was a scream of a woman, Doge went as fast as he could go into the direction of the scream. When he got to the place, he saw a woman crying on the floor and a man running with a handbag. This was a big shock for him. - What should I do? Help the woman or chase the bad guy? I don’t know. - he thought.  His instinct was telling him to go and chase the guy and he decided to ran into the man, but in the last second he saw his owner touching the woman arm, that broke his heart (a tear was spilled) and he started running into the woman while thinking - There was no point in avenge her, there was nothing to avenge because that would only create a vicious circle, chaos bring chaos, so killing the man will only make suffering to others and that will create the same thing over and over - When Doge started comforting the woman Buster ran past them and shouted- I’ll catch him. Thanks to Buster help and Doge decision the man was captured and Doge learnt a lesson for life, as well as obtaining a new owner.

In other sector of the city, one of the bigger groups composed by nine dogs was in charge of the crimes that involve big groups of humans, the ones that are dedicated to make big disasters. The nine dogs were: Two puppies, Tris and Bella, that were new in the group, where there in order to learn how the others acted in this kind of situation, and the other were adult dogs, Tobias, Emma, Oliver, Abby, Jake, Koneko and Cassie. Even though they were in charge of big groups they witnessed the robbery of a car, made by a single man. The puppies were away of the action so they couldn’t be damaged. The others ran into the theft and when he saw that he did something the dogs were not expecting, he went directly into the puppies direction. The group panic and started running with all their might. For their relief the theft notice the puppies and made an attempt to avoid them, making the car overturned. With this the thief was captured.

Another group, was composed by the strongest dogs of the herd, Rocco and Oscar. They were always anxious for dealing with big guys. While they were walking through the center of the city they saw one Mini Market, named “Rule 34”, that had a lot of commotion, so they went to appreciate what was happening, it was an assault. They entered through the back door and jumped into the paying desk to surprise the two thieves. They were strong enough and aggressive to drive them away the store...

Suddenly you feel a ticklish sensation on your hand and wake up. You see to your left your fellow dog Doge... Wait a second? - You think of what you dream. What was it? It was too real to be true, it didn't appear to be a dream. The words “not a dream” flow through your head. Was it a dream? Was it real? You'll never know.

Poem Analysis

I'm going to analyse the poem “Come down, O maid” made by Lord Alfred Tennyson, he was British  and Poet Laureate. He wrote during Queen Victoria's reign. Lord Tennyson was called the poet of the ear, because the sounds are very important in his poems. The main themes of his works are in the lines of war and love.

This poem, “Come down, O maid”, it's about two persons, a woman (that's called maid)  and a shepherd. The speaker appear as a “third character”, he is observing how the shepherd is calling the maid to come down the mountain, where she is, after that the speaker start telling her to go down and find love with the shepherd.

In terms of structure the poem has one stanza that can be divided in three parts, the first one when the shepherd sang to the maid (first two verses), the second when the speaker is telling the maid to come down to find the shepherd (verse 3 to 27) and the last one when the identity of the speaker is revealed, this one being a shepherd pipe (from verse 27 to the end of the poem).

Other important characteristic of the structure is that it presents ten syllables in each verse, but it has no rhyme pattern. This is very significant, because this depicts the situation that the speaker is showing. For one part the maid is the lack of the rhyming patter, she is with out love in a risky place, the mountain,(as I'm going to explain it more in detail later), she's not in a calm, she is in a “chaos” and not in peaceful state. While the shepherd is in a valley, in a calm place, so he is in a “constant” and “structure” place, representing the ten syllables per verse.

The structure of the poem presents and represent the tone and theme of the poem. For one part, the tone is a romantic one, the speaker is calling the maid in order to make her go to the valley and find peace and love with the shepherd (the peace/”chaos”). For the other part, the theme is “The calling to the maid to find love”, this is completely related with the way the tone of the speaker and the way he conveys the idea of peace and “chaos”, because they are displayed trough nature and the way each place is shown  adds to this over all idea of calling the maid to find love in this peaceful place.

As I said, nature is present throughout all the poem, is a very important element of it and is essential to understand how the theme is presented, as well there are some poetic devices that need to be taken account, as I'm going to explain ahead.

As a starting place, the two first verses of this poem are said by the shepherd. It starts with the word “COME” in capital letters, this is a way of emphasizing the calling that the shepherd (and later in the poem, the speaker) are doing to the maid in order to make her go down the place where she is, a mountain. As well, the shepherd questions the maid about what are the pleasures of the heights, in the third verse speaker does the same thing questioning about “splendour of the hills” and he says “in height and cold”, in this part is where nature starts to appear and have importance, because they start questioning the place where she is and saying that it's not a peaceful warm place it's on it contrast a cold place. The construction of the safe versus risky and having love versus not having love ideas starts in this part of the poem.

Then in verse 6 says the following “to sit a star upon the sparkling spire”, in this verse are present the following devices onomatopoeia, euphony and alliteration, in other words the use of sounds is used (one of the most remarkable characteristics of Lord Tennyson). In this verse the use of the vocal “s” is repeated (alliteration) in order to get a smooth and pleasant sound (euphony), as well the repetition of the “s” sound resembles of the sound that sparkling does(in sparkling wine, for example. This being onomatopoeia).

In the next two verses (7 and 8) the phrase “come, for Love is of the valley” is repeated twice, this part portrays the idea that the valley has Love, it belongs to him (giving to it the characteristics of possession, in other words personification). Also in this case Love has the “L” in capital letter, so “he” is treated like a person, but not any person Love is the shepherd. In this part is where is very powerful the calling that the speaker those to the maid to find love, he is calling her to come for Love, for him. This is reinforced in the end of the eight and all verse nine, where it says “come thou down. And find him; by the happy threshold,he,” in this verse the speaker is calling her to come down and find Love (the shepherd) and adding the previous idea if she does not come down to the valley she will not find love, because it belongs to the valley.

Later, on the final part of the verse 12 and verses 13 to 15, there are two important ideas. The first one is that he doesn't “cares to walk. With Death and Morning on the silver horns,” the meaning of this is that since the shepherd is in a safe place like the valley, he has not problem of walking with Death because he is not in a dangerous place, on the contrary the mountain where the maid is the opposite of the valley, this is also saying that Love is safe, since “love is of the valley” and the shepherd is love. The second idea is in relationship with the fist one, in verses 14 and 15 the following appears “Nor wilt thou snare him in the white ravine, Nor find him dropt upon the firths of ice,”, with this it's said that every dangerous thing that can break the peace or love of the shepherd is not going to affect him, so in the overall the peace is going to continue.

The verses 17 to 19 are very important, because the speaker tell her a way to go down the mountain by saying that she has to follow a torrent. There are two important figures that are essential to understanding the meaning of the poem. The first one is the following “To roll the torrent out of dusky doors:”, the speaker is telling the maid that she has to go out of dusky doors, this is de vivid representation of the mountain being a risky and not safe place, because “dusk” presents the idea of the “colour black” and the connotation that this colour has is a bad one, it represents the bad things and situations. For the other part the second important part is the use of onomatopoeia in “But follow; let the torrent dance thee down.”, the alliteration of the letter “t” and “d” simulates the sound that the torrent does, with this creating the idea of the water flowing, it's not still it's moving.

The next part I want to remark are the verses 27 and 28 when the speaker revels himself (“and I thy shepherd pipe”), this is a big revelation for various things. The first one, the hole poem is told by the personification of the shepherd pipe. For the second part, this tell us that the poem is tell in first person, so the poem is told from the subjectiveness and perspective of one character (he is not saying only what is happening, he is mixing what he thinks and see). That lead to the next idea, the speaker is the shepherd pipe, in other words he is going to tell the things in order to convince the maid and make her go to the valley. And finally, he is “thy shepherd pipe”, in other words he is the shepherd pipe of the maid. That is not a literal thing since the speaker said “come”, but what this mean is that since he is the shepherd pipe and the shepherd wants to be with the maid, he also belongs to her so if she wants to hear him she has to come down.

The last thing I want to explain are verses 28 and 29 an onomatopoeia and euphony are presented with the letter “s” (“...sweet is every sound,. Sweeter thy voice, but every sound is sweet;”), with this the sound of the pipe is made in order to make a relax and calm felling, this making allusion of the safety that the shepherd and the valley has.


In conclusion, this poem made by Lord Alfred Tennyson is presenting the idea of love being a peaceful thing, this being represented by the shepherd and the valley, while  being with out love is depict by the place where the maid is, the mountain. Also, in this poem, Lord Tennyson  shows one of the most characteristic features of his poetry, the use of sound, in this case for the representation of the peacefulness that the valley and the shepherd represent.

WRITING ACTIVITY: LETTER OF COMPLAINT

Dear Mr. Higa,

I'm writing this letter because I want to express my complains about your video “Guys vs. Girls: Relationships” and what could you do to improve both women and men in your video (I'm going to focus on women thou, but it can be applied to men as well). For this purpose, first, I'm going to explain my complains and afterwards what would I change and why.

As a starting point I have to admit that, since you are a comical producer, this video fulfil its purpose, it is fun. But that is not enough to qualify your product as a good representation of women (and men) or to say that since it's a comical video it's not made to represent reality. Both ideas are not enough because every person can see those videos, as a consequence of that you can make people, who are not aware of the real way that women (and men) act and behave in those real situations, believe that that is the way women (and men) behave.

For the reasons shown above I want to express my dissatisfaction with your video. It is not possible that a famous media creator in YouTube with 14,614,723 subscribers (by the 18 of June, 2015) show stereotypes with out a problem. We have to remember that YouTube is a place where anyone with an internet connection can access your videos, because of that we, as users or content creators, have to be aware and conscious of not showing and presenting stereotypes and wrong ideas.

I believe that we, being part of a globalize society, need and have to improve the generalize vision of society in any aspects (for example, cultural, religious, gender, among other), we are not having relationships between persons of our own country, cultural and religious background. We are having relationships with all the world, theglobalization make us the need to forget stereotypes, it make us the need of knowing the truth, the real way things are.

With that said I want to express my solution to the problem. The solution that I think is the correct one is to show the stereotype version and the real version, the title would be something like “Guys vs. Girls: Relationships Believe vs. Reality”. I believe that is the correct way to present this theme because the problem in your video was to only show the stereotype idea of how women and men act in a relationship, with showing the real way of acting we eliminate the problem and make awareness and consciousness of the stereotype and wrong believes, and if we are aware and conscious of the problem we can change it to be accurate as possible.

Finally, I would like to thank you for leaving a piece of your time into reading this letter and I would like to ask you if you can change the way you are presenting stereotype, I think is a very important task all of us have to do. Nevertheless, I hope you continue working in your videos since they are very funny.

Yours sincerely,

Sebastián Bustos

Written Task - Exam

Women and Men. Two Worlds. Two Ways of Speaking

I'm sure in your daily life you can appreciate the differences between men and women in all aspects physical, psychological, ways of speaking, etc... . I'll like to focus on the speaking (and writing) aspect, for that I'll need to focus on the psychological aspect on (relating it with stereotypes) to explain some ideas, as you'll see later.

As a starting point I'll tell you the common topics men and women tend to talk and have a good lexis in. For one part, men focus on sports, work, sex, politics, among others. For the other, women focus on family, emotions, clothes, between others. This topics are related to the way we speak for two reasons, as I'll explain ahead.

The firs motive (as I said above) is related to the lexis we use, because if you usually talk about a topic and are interest in it you are going to learn and acquire specific language about it; and, as a consequence, speak with it.

The second reason is that the words you use and know related to certain topics are going to shape the way you speak, how you express. Let me explain.

According to the topics I mention before, women tend to talk about emotion, so they know specific words about them and can easily express them. While men can't express easily how they fell, they don't have a good lexis, so there way of speaking is going to be disant of emotional aspects.

What I just said is my opinion, you are in all the right to say “That is not right, your whole idea of those topics is based on stereotypes”. Sadly I have to tell you that you are wrong, but you mention the point I wanted to get to, stereotypes. With that topic presented I want to ask the next question:

“Is the way we speak related to gender stereotypes?”

I'll give you sometime to think about it. Before answering that question I want to explain, “in a factual way”, why I said that you are wrong.

The reason why I said it is because at brain structure man and women have differences. Men have more neuronal connections in each hemisphere while women have them between hemisphere. That makes that men focus more in a rational way while women in an emotional one.

Now, focusing on the question (this answer, also, can explain why I said wrong), is true that stereotypes shape the way we speak, they influence us in a big way, as I'm going to explain.

For understanding how stereotype affect the way we speak, we have to see how they influence our actions, how they shape gender.

I believe that it's very complicated to explain how stereotypes are made and pass upon people with out getting to a vicious circle or to another topic, like Stereotypes and Mass Media (I wrote about this last week click HERE for more information), that's why I'm going to define two stereotypes about women and men, and with those I'm going to explain how those beliefs are shaped on us.

The stereotypes:

Men: They are tough and independent.

Women: They are weak and dependant.

I want to be clear, I don't believe in those ideas and (in my opinion) they are changing. With that said let's begin.

First I'll focus on the tough and weak aspect, this ones are the ones that shape the emotional topic for men and women (you'll have to remember what I wrote at the start of this post).

Those aspects and how they affect us are specially seen in the phrase “Crying is for girls”, this is usually said when a boy is crying, implying that since he is a male he has to be strong and to do that he doesn’t have to show his feelings because that is what girls do. Also, from what I've seen , there is some sort of disgust when you talk a little boy about a girl (and maybe vice versa) with this the phrase become more powerful and, in consequence, he doesn’t want to show his feelings and with that the way we talk and act is form by this stereotype.

Now I'll focus on the other aspect, independent and dependant (This stereotypes, in my opinion, are more “old fashion” than the first two). This aspects are related wit the roles that men and women do in relationships.

For one part, men are encourage to study and work. For the other part, women are inculcated in domestic things. This ideas are justified with the reason that women have to raise children while the man has to work, because of this type of relationship men are, more, independent while women aren't.

Even thought this is a old fashion idea you can still appreciate (in a way) this independent – dependant relationship. You can see it when in some cases the woman has a degree but she doesn’t work or the man wins more money (I wrote about inequality a year ago, you should look it to understand my point. Click HERE).

The stereotype mention above modify our way of speaking in relation of the topics that women and man should know, talk and words that each gender can use. For example, men can talk about politics and women can't or is not appropriate for women to say sewer words but for a man is acceptable.

In conclusion, in this post, I tried to explain that we are influenced in a big way, in all sense, by stereotypes (for example, the way we speak). That's way I want YOU to reflex for a minute, I want you to think how you can change the way you act and speak in order to be yourself and help others be themselves, to help eliminate those stereotypes.

Be free. Be yourself.

See you in the next post.

Remember to follow me on Twitter and YouTube, in my channel I do video blogs about the topics I write and more.

Media content analysis after homework activity

What stereotypes about girls and women did you find?

I found the stereotypes that are about how women act in a relationship, the idea that they care more than man or that they are more sentimental, between others.

What stereotypes about girls and women were dispelled?

They didn't dispel any stereotypes about girls and women, they only showed straight forward ones.

Were the stereotypes positive overall, negative overall or a combination?

I think, at least for me, that they were a combination of negative and positive things. For one part, negative because they showed that they are too sentimental and care in an almost exaggerated way in relationships,both, in a ridiculous way. For the other part, positive because I find kind of cute that they are sentimental and care about there relationship.

Were you surprised by your findings? Why or why not?

I wasn't surprised by my findings, because (since it's a stereotype) I knew how they would show and represent women and girls, with that in mind I knew that they would present those stereotypes in a mocking way, so in overall I was conscious of what I was going to find.

Do you have any general thoughts or conclusions about how women and girls are portrayed in the media?

Yes, my thought about how women and girls are portrayed in the media is that they are shown in two ways. The first one as weak, sentimental and look-caring individuals and the second one as depending of men and housewife (this one being a more old and sexist stereotype than the first one).

What do you think is the impact of these messages on individuals (especially girls and women) and society at large?

I think that the impact of these messages in individuals are various. For one part, girls and women start believing the things that the media shows, with that they start getting a wrong and unconscious idea of themselves and what they are supposed to do (of course there are exception, but this is speaking in a general, and maybe kind of old, vision of stereotypes). For the other part, the society it's the same idea but in this part since it also involve men its more about the role and acting of women, it shape the way we (as persons) see women (again, there can be exceptions).

Do you think producers of media have a responsibility to portray women and girls in ways that defy stereotypes? Explain.

Yes, I do think that producers of media have a responsibility to portray women and girls in ways that defy stereotypes, because I think that we, society, have the right and obligation of knowing how we are for real (I also believe in the correct representation of men) and that is because we live with each other, we really need to know how the other really is to interact in a correct way. And other reason is that the stereotypes affect how girls and women see themselves as persons, they can start believing things that are not true or acting how they don't want to act.

Go back to the semantic web and the overall categories of stereotypes. Do your findings reflect those stereotypes? Are there additional portrayals?

My findings reflect one of those stereotypes “Relationships: overly concerned with romantic relationships” , this one being the main point and idea of the whole video I choose. There are not any additional portrayals of women presented in the video.

What did you learn by doing this activity?

I didn't learn anything new about stereotypes, all the ideas of stereotypes of girls and women that where shown I knew them. What I did, instead of learning, was more like an improvement and focusing of ideas about the bad things of the portrayals of this stereotypes.

How can people (as the consumers of the media) avoid being manipulated by the media and not internalize the messages being conveyed about girls and women?

I think that there are two ways to avoid being manipulated by the media and not internalize the messages. The first one is to avoid the media in general (almost in possible). The second way is to be critical, you don't have to believe everything that the media tell you and you have to know that they are trying to make you feel/believe/etc. something. Also, you have to act first like a person, knowing that each human being is different.

Song Lyrics And Stereotypes

Give Me All Your Love from the game The World Ends With You

Give Me All Your love:

Give me all your love... 

Watch me with your scary eyes 
Please me with your silly touch. Come on 
Keep your eyes on me always 
I break it down 
I'm not the same 

Feel Me when you come inside 
Touch me when you want me anytime 
Keep your eyes on me always 
Don't wake me up 'till the morning light 

"Get up on your feet, move your body, bring me the passion" 
Give me your nasty hands. Come on now. I'm getting over you 
"Get up on your feet, move your body, bring me the passion" 
Give me your nasty hands. It's you. You can set me free 

Give me all your love 
Give me all your love 
Don't give it to someone else 
Give me all your love 
Give me all your love 
Don't share it with someone else 

"I'm sending all my love, all my love for you" 
All I want is your love and soul 
"I'm sending all my love, all my love for you" 
All I want is your love and soul 

Give me all your love... 

Treat me right as I do for you 
Drive me crazy all night long 
Keep your eyes on me always 
Take me up to the heaven 

"Get up on your feet, move your body, bring me the passion" 
Give me your nasty hands. Come on now. I'm getting over you 
"Get up on your feet, move your body, bring me the passion" 
Give me your nasty hands. It's you. You can set me free 

Give me all your love 
Give me all your love 
Don't give it to someone else 
Give me all your love 
Give me all your love 
Don't share it with someone else 

I'm sending you all my love. 
I want your love. I want your love and soul.

Analysis

This song is presenting the stereotype of women being dependent of men, as well the sexualization of women, portraying with this the stereotype with the idea that women are to serve men (in bed and house) while men has to work (sustain the house/family). As follows I'm going to explain in which parts we can see this happening.

In the title of the text, the first line and all the time they repeat "Give me all your love" is the part where it's presented both the stereotype and the sexualization. For knowing this we need to know the meaning of Give and the real meaning of "love".

First, the meaning of give that we can get for this sentences are (from oxford dictionary):

1. To express how greatly one wants something
2. Allow some one to experience something

As the first meaning we can see how she (the singer) wants "all the love" from the man, with this we get to the sense of need of the mans "love".

As the second meaning we can appreciate the dependence of the man in contrast of the woman, she needs to ask the man to give her his "love" and the man decides if he give it or not.

As why I'm saying "love" is because, informally speaking, when one says "making love" is referring to having a sexual intercourse. With that said the real meaning of love in the song is to have a sexual intercourse.

When the song says "...with your scary eyes" it's presenting in another way the power that he has over her. He is so powerful that she is felling fearing because of him.

For the other part when the song says "Please me with your silly touch", it's alluding to the power that the man has over the woman; as well the sexualization. She needs her to have pleasure and depends of him. An important thing is the meaning of "Silly": Not having serious purpose or value, with this is presented the null/less value he has over her, while she needs him for pleasure.

The song continues and the stereotypes and justification as well, but since this is a short work I think the evidence shown is enough to understand the stereotypes and ideas present in the song.

Writing Task - Blog

The Internet Good or Bad?

Whenever we talk about the internet slang there are always hot debates about if it brings good language to us or bad language, normally the teens versus the old fashion parents and linguist, but who cares about linguist anyway?

I do like getting philosophical, so I'm going to get a little bit, it is necessary.

When we talk about if it “brings good language” or “bad language”, what are we talking about? Because for someone that idea could be that is good if we adapt the language to the necessities of our time and for a linguist could be that the language have to follow the norm of the dictionary. For me, its going to be a little bit in both senses, in other words as long as it follows the necessary to be understandable (the correct or understandable use of syntax) and it adapts to our time it's going to be a benefit to the language.

Now, with that clear I'm going to show the language (obviously the slang one, not the norm language) used in the internet.

There are lot of words, letters and (even) numbers that have been “translated” to the internet slang. But what is this "internet slang"?

The internet slang is, obviously, the language used in the internet and in the social media that involves internet and writing; it's logical to ignore the speaking part of the language out of this slang, because if you talk (orally) by the internet it's only a mean to get to the other person (such as Skype or phone calls, etc...). So, the internet slang, is (in a very basically way, I think) the abbreviation of words; almost omitting all the vowels or using the initial letters of the word.

There are many words in the internet slang, such as:

- R (Are), U (You), N (And)...

- 2 (To or Too), 4 (for)

-Srsly (Seriously)

 

-OMG (Oh My God)

-LOL (Laugh Out Loud)

- Yolo (You Only Live Once)

- Etc..

Something that we can't deny is the power of the internet, that power can be seen in various ways, but since this entry is about language I'll focus on the language. From the seven words and letters that are above (I think that is logical to exclude the numbers in this), four of them have been accepted in the dictionary as words.

But, the hole point of this is, are this words and changes a benefit to the language or not?

Even though I said a “definition” to “brings good language” and to “bad language” it's difficult to decide when its a benefit or not. So I'm going to break down the definition.

First we have the idea of the syntax of the word(The word has the necessary to be understandable, the correct or understandable use of the syntax). This idea is a complex one, because it's more a thing of habit.

I could appreciate that (and I think you had the same experience) in my first years of internet I read things like “gg”, “gl”, “wp”, “g2g”, etc... and I didn't know what the hell they meant, but then I asked or search in the web the meaning (urban dictionary always help, it's a little informal but it helps). But if we see the commons thing, syntactically speaking, I think there's only one aspect that remarks in this words and that is that they follow the order of the complete word. Such as you can see above, Yolo and Srsly(among other words) they "follow" the syntax of the originally word. For one part Yolo has the letter of each word from You Only Live Once. For another, Srsly is the contraction of the word Seriously, omitting the vowels.

As a summary, we can say that the internet slang doesn’t bring a bad language in a syntax way, it "follows" the original one and, also, it's more of a thing of habit;reading and writing it.

So, now that we have that we can get a question that is completely related with the next part of the definition. Why does the internet slang exist? Or better said, Why is it the way it is? (Contraction and omission of vowels).

If you want to know: why is that question related to the definition? We need to now how is our time and global life style, we can't talk about our time with out knowing about it. So, for the sake of not getting boring I'll do this fast... Basically our time is a “fast one”, we don't have time to waste, we are “pressured” by time, you know like “fast food”, “instant noodles”, we also can see this in the news, if there is something important they are there, everything that is important in that day it's going to be in the news, normally instantly and so on. We live in a “hurry up” world, a “fast pace” world. That is our time.

The relation between the internet slang and our time is that is a fast way of writing. I think all of us have heard (or said) that “teens type so fast”, I think in almost all cases if we compare a teen with an adult the teen will type faster, he is more used to it. So, the society has made us “faster” we need to do all things faster, there is no time to lose. That's why I think this type of slang appeared in the internet, being the fastest mean of communication, and that's because the world made us that way, our time modified the way we use the language in the internet.

As a closing idea, I think that is absolutely correct (according to the definition) that we say that the internet, and all the things that involves it (like social media), brings a good language, or a good modification to our language, it adapts completely to our time... or we adapt it to our time?

Rationale:


I wrote about the modification that have occurred in the written language because of the internet media. I chose that topic because it is related to the unit we are studying in class: Language and Mass Media, but my principal reason for this is because I wanted to analyse how internet has changed our written language. I always hear that the internet and social media bring us bad things so I wanted to “prove” the opposite.

My target audience is common internet users. I wrote this text as a blog, because I think that it's a good way to approach them; since they are an active part of this media. In the text we can see it in:

“I could appreciate that (and I think you had the same experience) in my first years of internet I read things like “gg”... ”

When I mention the reader as you and common internet words, it is clearly making the point that this work was made to users that have lived that experience.

I used a neutral language (the most complex words are “Syntax” and “Slang”) because one the major purposes of this text is that the reader can show or explain to someone that the internet brings a good language to us. This can be well seen when I explain about the contraction of the words: “For one part Yolo has the letter of each word from You Only Live Once. For another, Srsly is the contraction of the word Seriously, omitting the vowels.” I put the original words that are part of the “internet word” in black, so it can be more understandable. Also this part is not explain in a complex way, it is very plain and simple, so anyone can understand it.