"A group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common: Rhode Island's Japanese community; the scientific community." Oxford Dictionary
"The people with common interests living in a particular area" Merrian-Webster
"A group of people that share the same customs, interests, laws or traditions, and language" Course Companion
Communities are created by people to produce knowledge, authority, and language. In each community you may have certain types of language, for example, probably when you talk to your parents or to your school teacher it will be a very different way to communicate compared when you are talking to a friend.
What is Politically Correct Language?
Politically Correct Language is the language, ideas, policies, used to minimize social and institutional offense that may be gender, racial, cultural, etc.
Before the holidays we have the British Week in our school, in this week we have many activities such as:
TRIP TO VALPARAÍSO Visit the place where The Mackay School was originally located 150 years ago; take a guided tour through the cemetery where Peter Mackay is buried; walk through the winding streets of Valparaiso, and enjoy a delicious snack with your classmates and teachers! Take your camera and get ready to have an experience you will never forget!
PUBLIC SPEAKING COMPETITION
Behold the best speeches by Mackay students on this year’s motion:
“The End Justifies the Means”
Who will become part of our Public Speaking HALL OF FAME?!
MIDDLE SCHOOL OPEN DAY
6th Grade: International Food Festival in English Speaking Countries
7th Grade: Victorian Theatre: Charles Dickens’ Classic Tales
LITERARY FAIR Get bedazzled and enlightened by attending the various workshops directed by teachers, where you will have the opportunity to discuss and enrich your knowledge on English literature! This time, we will be joined by students from St. Margaret’s who will share with us their thoughts on the subject.
HIDDEN BRITISH TRADITIONS The Mackay School’s OWN VERSION of … THE MACKAY STEEPLE !
CRICKET Ever wondered how to play this very British game? On Friday, you will have the chance to learn with an expert and play an actual cricket game using real equipment and rules in front of your friends and teachers!
As written on another post, we can identify the Jargon and Argot with this definition.
Jargon: Is the vocabulary peculiar to a particular profession or group. Argot: Is a specialized vocabulary particular to a class or group, especially one devised for private communication.
Types of Jargon: Scientific Language: Language used in medicine or health care, it is very technical and may have some abbreviations. Legal Language: Its a very detailed and precise, used by people who have some sort of relation with legal processes, such as a lawyer. Sports Language: Language used in sports to name the positions, explain the plays, etc.
List of items that you need to analyze a text: Theme: An idea that recurs in or pervades a work of art or literature.
Topic: Reflects the overall idea of the text.
Main Idea: Reflects the specific idea of the text.
Source: Where it comes from.
Target Audience: Readers for this text.
Author's Purpose:
-Inform: When an author gives facts or true information.
-Persuade: When an author writes to try to get you to do something.
-Entertain: When an author writes stories that are fiction.
Genre: A category of artistic, musical, or literary composition characterized by a particular style, form, or content. -Fiction Genres: Drama, Poetry, Fantasy, Humor, Fable, Science Fiction, etc -Non-Fiction Genres: Essays, Biography, Speech, Autobiography.
Tone: The attitude of the writer.
Register: The way the text is written, Formal, or Informal.
Jargon: It is the vocabulary peculiar to a particular profession or group.
Argot: It is a specialized vocabulary peculiar to a class or group., especially one devised for private communication.
When we find ourselves talking with the group of people that belong to our work we are referring to Jargon, Jargon is formal and the words are known by all the members of this group. An example of this would be used in Medicine, doctors use Jargon to communicate topics about their work.
When we talk about Slang, we are referring to the one used also by a group but a group of persons who communicate in a informal way, this may be related to the age of the people that are communicating with slang or the social class.
2. Does context help in the process of acquiring a new language?
Yes, Alex explains that in his case, the easiest way to learn the language is by context, he says that he remembers better what he saw or listen to, instead of what he reads on a paper.
3. Are there any languages that have similar pronunciation?
Yes, Alex mentions that Dutch and Afrikaans had very similar words but different personalities, he mentions that Spanish and Greek are very similar.
4. Which of the languages spoken by Alex seem more colloquial?
Afrikaans
5. Is class a more important factor in language variation than geography?
No, class will only change the language to be consider in a formal or informal way, maybe jargon and slang, but the geography changes it to a completely different language.
6. Do you think, the ability of learning a language is innate or learned?
I believe that some people have a ability to learn languages in a faster way or in a better way, or maybe both. In Alex's case he talks about learning a language, and thanks to that language he will be able to learn another language that is similar to the one he just learned. But you need to repeat the words, understand how to use them and in which case, so language is learned.
7. According to you, are some languages more or less difficult to learn than others? Talk about your own experience.
I believe some languages are more difficult to learn than others, but this is because of what language you live with, your main language may be similar to others, so in that case you will be able to learn better these similar languages.
We had to debate in groups of three with the motion "eBooks vs Paper Books". I was with Mr. Reynolds and Mr. Oporto defending the paper books, against Mr. Barriga, Mr. Núñez, and Mr. Gré who were defending the eBooks.
It was a long debate and to defend the Paper Books we compared the damage to the eyes by staying on a screen a lot of time, we also talked about how there are special books that are collectors editions, and if everyone would use the eBook there would
not be such thing as a "special" book because all the books would be available by download.
And then we discussed about having access to the Internet to be able to download the book you want to read. Portability was not an issue, because when we are reading, we wont be reading more than 2 books at the time.
The extract of "The big sleep" tells the story of a man who gets away from her wife, it is interesting how he talks of death. He mentions that death is The Big Sleep, like there is no way of knowing how death is, the protagonist believes that it is like sleeping "You were dead, you were sleeping the big sleep...", when we sleep, we don't feel anything, maybe we are dreaming but we remember the dreams when we wake up, not at the moment they are happening. The protagonist compares the situation of a dead human to his, does it really matter the where you are when dead? What matters is that you are dead, you are not there anymore. He feels like part of nastiness, and thinks that someone who is dead cant be bothered by things like this, it doesn't matter if he is in a dirty sump or in a marble tower, he wont be bothered. Thanks to certain elements in the text such as the feeling of nastiness of the protagonist, i can conclude he is somehow feeling identified by life and death, because of what happened with his wife.
