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 Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 8:06 am
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Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:24 am
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Promoting English Communication through a Globally Competitive Edge
In modern times the English language is declining more than ever before due to "text speak" on phones and social networking sites, words are shortening and being put together in the form of acronyms e.g. GTG or BTW. As such new internet sites are having to create dictionaries and even Bibles to adhere to the new language and social networking sites such as gaia are paying the consequences in the form of guilds going dead because of a lack of Rpers and writing forums being taken down from inactivity. "Text Speak" can be a good thing when you are sending quick messages to friends, however, in RP's it can make a piece of writing a lot harder to read and more basic on fronts like character development and descriptions.
Firstly I believe that there is an easy way to help communication between Rpers in the form of spell checking, I realise that nobody is perfect in every spelling and I accept that there may be one or two words spelt wrong in each piece of writing but I think it would help if when Rpers posted a piece of writing they read through it themselves and edited the mistakes they found out so that the writing would become more legible and an easier read. I realise that if the writer is in a hurry then this may not be possible but they could quickly put a note at the bottom of the post saying that they were in a hurry and will spell check later. I often find that when I read Rp's I sometimes can't figure out what a word is when I read it and I am sure that if writers would read through their work they would also discover the mistakes and would easily be able to correct them in a few seconds.
Secondly I feel that grammar standards of writing have reduced significantly, up to the point where I can't say that I know exactly where to put comma's and semi-colons in a sentence. However, I do not believe that it is everyone's fault that they do not know this and I accept that people may be unsure where to put commas in a sentence but I still feel that commas should be included in sentences even if they are slightly in the wrong place because a sentence can be made significantly longer by adding commas and expanding the sentence. Also a sentence without commas is a much harder read than a sentence with commas and as such I believe that this issue should have been solved a long time ago by schools across the globe.
I also believe that words are becoming shortened far too much, in examples like "cause" and I also think that words should not be strung together in an effort to shorten sentences and the amount of writing needed in a piece of writing. Words like "you're and I'll" originally come from two separate words that have been stuck together, I understand that it is better to speak like that but it is still changing the English language to reduce workloads. As such I believe that it would be better if words did not get strung together just to reduce work and that we should still talk and type the English language in its full version.
Swears and curse words have also, in my opinion, become too common in everyday life, they were originally just words to shout out when you were injured or surprised when no other words came to mind but know these words are being heard in regular sentences. It is alright when they are used in RP's when the character is nearly killed or in other dramatic scenes but I am only thirteen and if my parents knew the amount of swearing in some RP's then I would probably be banned from gaia or at least that guild. In the case of swear words many other words or sentences can be used instead of those words and they often require more description and can help the quality of the post. Therefore I believe that swearing should be frowned upon in all realms of society and that gaia and guilds with a no-swearing policy should be harsher on punishments regarding swearing.
Finally I feel that "text speak" has leached too far into modern day society and polluted the very sentence structures that we communicate through, I believe that "text speak" is useful to have a quick conversation with you friends, however it should not be used in everyday conversations or in RP posts as it makes them harder to understand and much less appealing than if it were said or typed in the normal English. Also if you talk in "text speak" then other people who are not used to speaking like that will not be able to understand what you have said or typed. Therefore I believe that "text speak" should be confined to only messages between friends in a hurry and in all other cases the English language in its proper language should be used.
In a conclusion I think that the quality of the English language has dropped significantly in recent years, however, the problem can be easily solved with simple solutions and a little more dedication in bringing it back to its full glory, but I believe that the problem will never fully die out because many people are forced to disagree with this and insist that "text speak" is greater in usefulness that the English language.
(( any feedback on my essay would be thanked so that I can improve my writing skills and I hope you enjoyed it. biggrin ) ) |
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Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:26 am
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Promoting English communication through a globally competitive edge
The world as we know it is comprised of hundreds of different languages and dialects, it is this very variation that makes the planet such an exciting and wonderful place to live, but it is also used to be one of the great inconveniences in life. Imagine for a moment that you are in medieval England and, by some chance, you have arrived in France. In this era you would have a great deal of trouble understanding the language and navigating the culture as a result. Nowadays however we find that the world has become a lot more accessible, with translator websites and even apps that can near-instantly make sense of another language. This essay will look to the promotion of English Communication in particular in the world and why it has become so popular.
To begin with we shall look at how many people speak English as a first language; shrink the earth’s population down to a representative 100 human beings and we will find the following: “16 speak Mandarin, 9 speak English, 8 speak Hindi or Urdu, 6 speak Russian, 6 speak Spanish, 4 speak Arabic as their mother tongue, and 34 speak English as a second language” [[Ref 1]] this shows that around 43 of our representative 100 people speak English as either their first of second language. With almost half the worlds population speaking English in some form, yet how did this language prevail? What gave it the competitive edge against Mandarin (Which more people speak as their first language) The answer seems to lie the past, back to when the British Empire was beginning to expand. The U.K is well known for it’s naval strength and general maritime presence, especially during the latter half of the previous millennia. With trade with other countries soon becoming the U.K’s primary source of National Income it was inevitable that the language used by these entrepreneurs would begin to rub off on the U.K trading partners. It was these men who would meet the traders at the ports and converse with the sailors who would need the language most in order to haggle the best deals and to find out news from across the oceans and seas. From these early days of global travel, English cemented itself as a prominent language.
Travelling and trading however, is not sufficient to cause the popularity of the English Language that we see today. As the Pilgrims explored the world in seek of refuge they came across what is known today as America. With the introduction of a whole society of English speaking people to a new country and with that society eventually coming to be one of the most influential powers in the world today, it is hard to see how English could not have spread. With America becoming one of the major importers and exporters of goods, along with their military might behind them to represent their strength, English became associated with power and status. However this cannot explain the vast amount of people who can speak this language especially if we remember how small a country the U.K is in comparison to most world powers.
The most obvious reason for the widespread usage of the language is something that one may not think of at first. The British Empire. “By 1922 the British Empire held sway over about 458 million people, one-quarter of the world's population at the time, and covered more than 33,700,000 km2 (13,012,000 sq mi), almost a quarter of the Earth's total land area.” [[Ref 2]] With such a vast Empire, and representatives and small pockets of military force occupying these areas the U.K had its influence hanging over a quarter of the world’s total population. With this massive English presence all over the Earth it is now easy to see how, in our representative 100 person model of the Earth, 34 people speak English as their second language. With a massive, world-spanning Empire, the language was introduced to areas of Africa, India and Canada, places that may have never even heard of England before the British arrived.
In comparison to this almost omnipresent influence from Britain, China, who has the most spoken first language in the world, cannot match that nearly half of the world speaks English in some form. Can this be put down to China internalizing it’s food production? Minimizing imports? The inconvenience of it’s geography in it’s trade? With 1 billion people speaking Mandarin as a fist language there has been no real need to expand the language. But what of other dialects? While Mandarin is most spoken as a first language and the reasons why it isn’t as expansive as English have been looked over, the same cannot be said for all the top spoken languages surely? Spanish especially does not encounter many of the problems encountered by China. With easy access to the ocean and a history of explorers and trade why has Spanish not been as successful as English on a Global scale? This can be linked to the Spanish’s lack Naval power overall. Looking back, Spain has never truly used its naval power to expand its horizons instead sending expeditions to bring back treasures and keeping its trading contained within Europe. The factor that seems to have propelled the English language so far is how early the British took to the seas to expand both its trade and Empire. With this newfound land and trade links in place a quarter of the Earth’s population was directly exposed to the English Language.
So to finish, how does all this link in to the promotion of English communication today? From these exceptionally strong foundations it makes the most sense to continually promote the English Language. America, one of the greatest super-powers in the world today speaks English as their first language, this means that most major businesses will be primarily English speaking and, in today’s society, money is a large prerogative thus bolstering the need for overseas companies to invest in the English language. With the strong and efficient foundations of communication already laid by the British Empire it seems almost natural that the rest of the world would adapt the language to take advantage of the system. The world may be full of different languages but the speed at which the English language spread and maintained it’s position at the top, and the neglect of expansion that other countries have held have meant that now, English Communication is one of the most widespread in the world. And despite this competitive environment we now live in, it has strove to remain on top.
References:
1 [[English Test.net - http://www.english-test.net/newsletter/the-world-speaks-english-23.html]]
2 [[Wikipedia.org - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Empire]]
Quote: You found a bridge piece! 
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Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:36 am
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The Globalization of English in a Competitive World
English is a language we use in everyday life in the United States. We could not go about our daily lives or even survive within our country if we did not have our language. This is the language spoken by the two largest super powers in the world, the United States and the United Kingdom. Though it was true in the past that most people in the world spoke English or some other Latin based language it is no longer the case. English is the language used for Science and Math, which is already taking its steps towards unifying the world under one common denominator. When the digi destined needed to communicate around the world in order to stop the ambitions of MaloMyotismon they used English to unify the world. Promoting English communication through a globally competitive edge is the key to unifying the horizons of the world.
English originated in Western Europe through the combination of many old languages and roots. The base of this old language can be seen throughout all of Europe and parts of North America today. English is a Latin based language, a language that consists of many minor elements to create a bigger picture we call words. In the world we live in today English is spoken by 300-400 million people today and is spoken as a second language by 199 million to 1.4 billion [Source 1]. The push for introducing English on an international level is apparent in everyday life throughout the world through the use of math which uses a worldwide system of Latin numbers and letters. This is already a case of the language barrier separating the world’s countries diminishing. With this example we can see order and unity coming for people, using what we see as common everyday language tools, to communicate with the world around them. If more aspects of the English language were to be adopted by non English speaking countries life would be much smoother for them as well as people with English as a first language.
It is common fact that English is used in a few ways to already connect the countries of the world to western European nations as well as much of North America. Not only does integrating English into non-English speaking countries allow for better communication between world powers, it allows for the integration of world culture into the normally ignorant human being. Culture is the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization, or group [Source 2]. The unification of language around the world would give rise to a better understanding of one another. Think about wars around the world. Countries locked in country to country warfare are not only engaged in a political matter, but a cultural matter. With the globalization of the English language we can come to a better understanding of one another. Globalization is a historical process, which has included human innovation and technological progress by uniting under one common governing system, in this case the English language [Source 3]. It is a product of increasing integration of economies around the world, particularly through trade and financial flows. An example of worldwide adopted principles that have lead to better understanding and clarity is the adoption of the ISAB or International Standards Accounting Board where the worlds economic ethics and rules are set to keep everyone on an even playing field. Much like cash is the common denominator in global trade English can be for global understanding. In a future where your children are engaged in a primarily English speaking world they can become more versatile in the cultures of other regions and people and thereby be a smarter individual. A smarter individual is able to make change, and change leads to a global understanding of one another. Violence and war would be obsolete when matters can be discussed before getting out of hand. How would you like your kids to grow up and live in a world where World War III is not a global scare, the adoption of English is a deterrent to a grim future. Promoting English communication through a globally competitive edge unifies the world.
Though English is spoken by the two biggest super powers our world knows today some world argue that adopting a language that is not the most spoken in the world would be counterproductive. Mandarin is the world’s most spoken language today with over a billion people diverse in its artistic character alphabet. The country that Mandarin is most widely spoken is china without being spoken much beyond its borders. China has the world’s largest population with accounts for the language being spoken most on a global scale. Whether it is brought out of the country, whose population dwells on about 1.3 billion people, or spoken from within it adds to the popularity of the language on a global average [Source 4]. The statistics for mandarin put it as the world’s most spoken language it would not allow for easy globalization. As opposed to the Latin based language of the west, Mandarin is made up of characters which complex and precise strokes. This makes it difficult to learn if you are not native to the language and makes it easy to misinterpret on a global scale. This leaves English, which is already integrated into the worlds Math and Science, to bring us together. The potential for English to be adopted is much higher than Mandarin due to the ease of learning it. Countries that have Latin based languages such as Spain, Italy, and France have a primary knowledge of English without even knowing it. Words and roots are very similar and can be communicated easily even though they have a different primary language. If you were to combine all the people speaking Latin based languages it would rival Mandarin on a global scale. The globalization of English would come with ease and allow for a better versed world.
English is a world which continues to grow as more people adapt it. The adaptation of English into modern culture is the key to creating a better understanding among people around the world. Because English is so widely spoken, it has often been referred to as a “world language” and while it is not an official language in most countries, it is currently the language most often taught as a foreign language. Some linguists believe that it is no longer the exclusive cultural property of "native English speakers", but is rather a language that is absorbing aspects of cultures worldwide as it continues to grow [Source 5]. This passage just reinforces my point that the globalization of English has already begun. The world is a competitive place where communication is necessary to live and with the ever evolving world that we live in today unification under one common language would be very beneficial. The reason for this is so that countries and people are not left behind, for people who know English a wide variety of benefits await them such as getting a higher education, getting a higher paying job, and becoming a more cultural diverse person. Countries that speak English tend to be more successful economically and their people are happier because of it. Bringing the world into the idea of globalizing English will set into motion a more friendly and prosperous future. Adopting English in the globally competitive world that we live in today leads to a more unified world for the future.
Promoting English communication through a globally competitive edge is the key to unifying the horizons of the world. English is a popular language that is rooted in the old language known as Latin. Due to this all other countries that speak a Latin based language are able to adapt and keep up with the world we live in. Though the language is not the most spoken in the world it is spoken by the most successful nations of the world. The movement for English as a global language has already begun and will continue to grow as the world realizes its potential for unification. The world we live in today is a competitive and adapting English into the cultures of the world puts us one step ahead of the future we dream of. The future for our children as well as the entire world is dependent on a world that acts as one rather than separately.
Works Cited
http://www.economist.com/node/883997?Story_ID=883997 [Source 1]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture [Source 2]
http://fdumanig.yolasite.com/resources/English Language for communication in globalised society.pdf [Source 3]
http://geography.about.com/od/populationgeography/a/chinapopulation.htm [Source 4]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language [Source 5]
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-InsertEgoHere- Liger Crew
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Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:38 am
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Promoting English communication through a globally competitive edge
As a group of persons with similar views, cohesion and communication are two very important factors that can make or break a group. While cohesion is not always a must, communication is always needed. Without communication, little to nothing can be accomplished efficiently as members of said group will more than. On top of that, in today’s society, human-being are almost naturally led to compete with one another whether for glory or for survival. Competition in a group is also always going to happen as a form conflict. When combining the two ideas (communication & competition) and adding a little more to it (incentive/reward), you create a system that can be both stressful and intriguing at the same as many different ideas and thought processes are presented.
. When you look at the entire world from the prospective of a realist, what do you see? Do you see a world of somewhat intelligent beings working hand in hand to better the entire world? Probably not as much as you would like; what you probably see is a world of somewhat intelligent beings working in their own sects to better themselves and those that help them. This could easily be noticed when you take businesses such as Wal-Mart or Target who make a point to try and beat one another with prices that are lower than the other. What we have here is economics, a social science involves transactions with goods and services, but that’s not what this essay is truly about. The real purpose of this comes when you involve communication. What would happen is Wal-Mart and Target collaborated on their prices and worked together? In general, when you introduce communication to competition, you open the path for working together… or someone getting screwed over in the end (we’ll try to be positive about it.) Think about it, if Walmart and Target communicated, a wonderful conglomerate would be formed. Sure they basically do the same thing, but in the end, it would be easier on the shopper to only have to go to one store rather than two.
Stepping away from the macroscopic details, we’ll drop down to something much smaller like an online guild. In an online guild, you have many different cultures and languages attempting to come together under one unified topic such as Digimon Tamer Island unifying under the love of digimon. When you create a guild, you need a basic way of communicating and as it just so happens, the English language just happens to be one form of communicating that almost every part of globe shares. As I previously mentioned competition is almost always guaranteed to happen when too many different perspectives come to fray. In a ways, this conflict (which is what it is til harnessed) is needed to push members and get them to interact with one another. Once harnessed through involving incentives, it becomes competition and can be rather constructive as well as fun. In the guild, Digimon Tamer Island, this equation (communication + competition + incentive) is labeled as a contest and it is one of many ways that communication is promoted with a slight, competitive edge.
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Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:02 am
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Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 10:27 am
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The Language of Dominance
The world is full of different languages. They change with cultures, regions, and in a few cases with religions. As time passed, certain areas started to identify under one standard language that everyone in the region are supposed to understand and speak. This is called a national language. You will often find that areas that share a common language tend to form stronger communities than those that do not. Regions with the same national language tend to develop much faster due to the ease of communication there. When a one country conquers another, generally, over time the conquered country will adopt that language, or at least mix it with it's own.
As it stands, the most commonly spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese, but that is mostly within China itself. As languages used globally go, the most widely used languages are Spanish and English. Unlike most languages, you will find these almost everywhere. Both of these language have multiple countries in very different parts of the world that identify under them. They have become extremely popular in other countries as well. To the point where countries that have a different national language actually teach these languages to their young people.
So far, the world has no official universal language, but there is supreme potential for English to become that language. Some say it already is. Modern English, is the dominant language or in some instances even the required international language in communications, science, information technology, business, aviation, entertainment, radio and diplomacy. A working knowledge of English has become a requirement in a number of fields, occupations and professions such as medicine and computing; as a consequence over a billion people speak English to at least a basic level.
A problem with English, however is that it is a fairly complicated language to learn. For instance, there are words that are spelled the same way, yet have different meanings based on the context. For example: "The bandage was wound are the wound." In this case, wound has two different pronunciations and meanings. This is extremely confusing to people who learn English as a second or third language. languages like Spanish do not have this issue, because they give different names to different object and actions. That's also a reason why Spanish is also a very common language in the world.
On the bright side, the english language is popular because many of it's characters are recognized by other countries, and it has a written and spoken form. English is loosely based off of Latin, and Latin had also been a very popular language in it's time. So, Latin-based and European countries have an easier time adopting it into their culutres than others. An extreme reason why English is so popular is because the United States has set itself up as the superpower of the world, and in many cases, other countries need the U.S. as a business client, or supplier. Since the United States' national language is English, these countries need to have their own people learn it in order to foster good communication.
English may not be the true universal language in some people's eyes, but it has obviously spread globally, and very few countries can afford to resist learning English. The world is changing, and it will eventually dawn on any doubters that they will need to learn English if they want to find any kind of real advancement in this changing world. It may not look like it, but the United States is becoming an empire with it's power stretching all across the world, and in that empire English is the dominant language. Whether it's hard to learn or not, everyone will eventually have to get on board, or get run over.
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Posted: Tue Sep 13, 2011 6:43 am
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Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 2:48 am
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Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:52 am
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Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 4:58 am
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