Ads and stereotypes

Today’s advertisements, in spite of its creativity and the new modern aesthetics, have all changed to something bigger but slightly less ethical and moral than the photographs we all pas everywhere in our daily lives. These are reflections of current businesses and society, as well as our unnecessary desire to flourish within what we describe a society, the “system”.

Advertisements are the result of people wanting to make money and profit, as well as to be noticed by their peers within the field. A sign of these people trying too hard may be the absurd stereotypical appeals used in ads today. Advertisers will not always listen to every voice of our society. What they call “entertaining and humorous” is only for the people under two-story houses, enjoying life, and feeling comfortable. The exact same material that some believe is funny, can be very offensive to others. What they create are not advertisements, however are bad jokes that mock and reduce the standards of the audiences. It may worsen the stereotypes among the viewers, who have not experienced them, against certain groups of people. Therefore, I believe as an international student ,that advertisers do have the moral duty to avoid making stereotypical appeals in their ads. They must not put all of their work into profit, but to make sure they are not offending anyone. Advertisements must change the method of making an effective ad , and make sure that they follow societies standards.

An Ad Analysis

Looking at this, it is easy to see that the advertisement consists of two people, one being male and the predominant figure being female. The product being advertised can be found in the bottom right corner of the image. We as the audience are looking straight at the ad, and what is easily noticed is how there is a very small amount of text, however they have used quite impactful words to influence you into buying their product. Let’s start off with the fact that the ad was made in India because of the female figure within the image. This model is a famous Bollywood actress, Anushka Sharma. The use of a famous social figure is a common within advertisements and commercials, but it is quite effective because of peoples trust, respect have in these people.  However this also sets societies standards for beauty higher, and this is where we can move on to the meaning, the purpose of this ad. This ad shows us how society thinks highly of those who are classified as beautiful, within this print ad they are focusing on female beauty. We know that this ad is focused on women, which is proven by the female model has been placed more central in the ad. She has also revealed a lot more skin to show how this product has worked and given her amazing skin. Proof of this would be the quote “for visibly smooth, and touchably soft skin”. All this makes the female model empowered, because she has been the focus of this ad.  The male model has been pushed aside, marginalized, meaning he is not as important in this ad, as the female is. This also gives us the idea that women in general should be more worried about having such wonderful skin, the reason why  is how the man has been used to “fill in the gaps”, and the women is showing us her back, which is a large area of her smooth skin. 

Reflecting on a Presentation

We have just completed our first presentation on a Pitch for advertising our product in Language and literature. Today I would like to discuss what we included within our Pitch, what went well and what could have been improved. Within the presentation we attempted to incorporate the idea of pathos, with how families would go there in tough times, or to enjoy themselves as well as the younger generation where they would enjoy themselves and make some new memories. As well as Logos due to giving information about how it was affordable, making it sound logical to eat there when you are facing financial hardship. With what we were given I believe we failed in this aspect due to our decision on context, we had been given the chance to fully choose our context, however this made it harder for our group due to the making of another decision.  We struggled in incorporating the context, which was In America during the 1980s, which would have mace the pitch slightly more interesting due to the time period. We used very few images, one of them being the Uncle Sam post which says “I want you” on it, we chose this to try and make the product relate to the American culture, and that they had just come out of a war. The other images were about the different foods which would give an example of what to expect from Cheeky Chaps Burgers. Moving on I personally believe that we as a group were clear and understandable, when presenting our information, we had tried to make, the animations were and attempt to connect our context to the Pitch, also to make the presentation more amusing. This has shown me that preparation is the key, being able to recite your speech and information without looking at a que card, and a clear understanding of your topic. I have also notice that you need to follow the rubric and what is needed from you to complete the assignment at hand. 

Ethos, Pathos, Logos in terms of Advertisements

When looking into adverts of the modern day, I've notice that there are clear uses of ethos, pathos or logos. The advertisement chosen for this post is a thirty second Hyndai advert. The beginning starts with dads constantly saving their sons from trouble, or stupid situations. This carries on for around 20 seconds with a cheerful song in the background, until it changes to a young man driving his car when he is almost about to crash, but the car stops itself and then the narrator says "now you wont always need dad".  This advertisement uses ethos, with the use of the connection between father and son they are able to make this relate to many people and families, Pulling on the heartstrings of people.

Twtr? It's majorly bad! Letter to the Editor.

Texting in the last decade has emerged as the new communicative language. People use it on their phones to quickly talk and tell each other about certain things. And it’s not just kids. The majority of texts being sent out are from adults. And even so, text speak is only made for writing. If someone was to try and say these words out loud no one would be able to comprehend such. This isn’t a new language but instead a new technique towards communicating. As well as that if you look at the new mobile phones from Android and Apple being released you would notice that text speak is slowly being pushed out for a more standardized English in such conversations. The new Apple and Android phones have the full keyboard to offer, making words much easier to type (unlike the old Nokia phones). If you look at the beginning of the 21^st century, the old phones would require multiple buttons pushed multiple times in order to achieve one letter. That made writing long sentences or words much harder. These days that is not the case.

Kids also know that if you try and use these types of words and try to incorporate them into more formal sentences it won’t work. Saying such words in an essay usually come from confusion from the children. They would have to know how to spell the word first in order to spell it incorrectly. If you look at the word ‘gr8’ of course you would know not to put a number in that word; especially in more formal means of communication. So kids do know that you would need to know how to spell the word to then re-spell it for an easier way to use text speak.Another concept that these headmasters seem to be unable to comprehend is the fact that the standard of English has become much stronger. Over the decades there has always been this fear of the lack of the standardization of English in people. But if you look at our pasts you would notice the huge improvements into the educational standards of students and the ability of them to speak this language.

Text speak should be accepted as its own language. Not because it represents the standard of English, but because it represents its own communicative ordeal. Rejecting a new language that people use to communicate because it doesn’t represent its standard is absurd. If you reject text speak you can also look forward to rejecting the other types of English used around the regions of the English speaking world. 

Text Reactions

Understanding How the Brain Speaks Two Languages

While reading Jeffrey Kluger's article, I found some points that I related to. He mentions and points out the struggles that young children face when learning another language. I can relate to this , I grew up learning two languages, due to my family being split by the two languages. However it was difficult for me because my brain was always switching between them causing a lot of confusion in my thinking when I was younger but i slowely began to control it, but resulted in me using the second one less and less. 
I have heard many a time,that learning more than 1 language when growing up can be extremely usefull to your brain's development and health, as well as in your future but this article gave a lot of detail into how bilingualism can be a hurdle in a child's development but is a benefit to its learning and mental health in its future.

You Say Cup, I Say Mug

From what I've  I read, this one was the most informative. When discussing a similar topic to the one of this article in class, we talked about language being a tool to understanding literature and written works. After reading this article, I now know that there is a lot more to it. The article explains how language is not only the key to understanding literature and being able to communicate but also how we perceive the world around us including factors such as time and space and how we understand the world around us. One of the researchers, Lera Boroditskey explains this really well by giving an example of how "knocking over a cup" is processed differently in our brains based on our knowledge of a language.

Language is no Smart Chart

I personally found this article very interesting because it related to my way of thinking as well. The article is mainly  about stereotypes of intelligence being made based on accents and ways of speaking.If you have an accent you should not worry about it, and should not be judged. Accents define who we are and give a little background of our heratige, who we are and how we can turn out in the future. However the study mentioned in the article, generalizations are being made about ones intelligence based around their accent. My opinion is that this is not true, your accent may hinder you in some aspects but does not affect ones intelligence. In this past this was a common thought by all those people who were well educated, but in todays modern age this is no the case.This can be see  back to our work in class, when we looked at Amy Tan and her mother. Her mother was being discriminated and judged against due to her inability to speak English at a the same level as all of the native speakers, which is quite unethical.

Eminem Interview

Welcome back, this blog will be an interview between me and Eminem, where I will ask questions based around our past few classes. I will then create a response with information I have gathered about the artist.

Intro: Eminem who was once known as slim shady is considered to be one of the best in the business , his lyrics has inspired many other young artists, as well as ordinary people. He became the the first white male rapper to produce an album that surpassed his African American counterparts, Eminem was the proved a message to the world that hip hop is not associated with race or skin color. Without further a due, lets begin.

Q: How and why did you end up in the hip hop community?

Eminem Response:So as a kid I had many intense times, My mother  who was a drug addict and an abusive step father , I never met my real dad. I had been harassed and bullied for a long time, until i began to rap in the seventh grade, I'd always loved rap but never got into it due to me bein white and all. I was scared, cause i thought they wouldn't accept me, but I did it anyway. Just as eighth grade was ending I got more comfortable and creative and started to rap bout my experiences. I had a message to communicate , i found a way to share my problems in an extremely innovative and direct manner. I think this is the primary motivation to why I began to rap, about me, my problems and the people around, with full satisfaction of what i was doing. 

Q: What are the factors that pushed you in your journey and slowed you down?

Eminem Response: Well the first obvious factor that affect my "journey" id me being white, when rap was associated with the African American population. This wasn't an obstacle that took much to overcome, in reality it gave me the inspiration to prove to each and every one that anybody can enjoy this form of hip hop as well as how it can be a method for communicating your issues regardless who you are.  I grew up in a ghetto, which was loaded with African Americans, and i was introduce to the rap scene at an early age. I have been brought up in an area where their dialect is all I heard, along these lines as a child I adjusted the dialect which is connected to rap. I additionally had a considerable measure of issues which is the reason I always have something to rap about. However the struggles with my family hit me hard, I was struggling until i focused those emotions into my rap, the anger just flowed until it ended. Nothing could slow me down for long. 

Q: How exactly did your community affect you?

Eminem Response: As you said earlier I'm the first white rapper to actually have a major affect on the Hip Hop records, I have shown the  world that type of craftsmanship can belong to anyone, that particular tongue is  not connected with yo skin or race in light of the fact that anybody can be a victim of racism, just as I was growing up in an African american neighborhood. I have a lot of haters loathing on me on the grounds, sayin "I’m a "black wannabe" and that I need  to leave this genre because it's what makes African American's standout. I imagine that rap is an individuals  way expressing their ideas, and an outlet for their emotions and hardships. This did not phase me and I pushed on. Look at me, I'm one of the best rappers in the world, and I'm white.

Mother Tongue

Hello and welcome back to this Lang and Lit blog. Its been too long since the last post, so I'm sure your "eager" to hear what I have to say. However this blog will be slightly different from the others, this shall be an opinionated discussion about Amy Tans, "Mother Tongue" article. Her article goes through multiple struggles that non native English speakers face when moving to a prominently English country. How they are treated differently, schools often move them away from English and into maths and sciences, as well as just being viewed differently.

The final point above is what I want to focus on, how society see's these people due to their lack of skill with the english language. The first example of this would be from Amy Tans article, from when she begins to talk about her life in school. Throughout her years in education she was always pushed towards the mathematical and scientific side of education, due to her struggles with english as well as for here ethnicity, with the stereotype of Asians "being exceptional at maths and science". This is highly unethical and in a way racist, because of her skin and accent she was treated slightly different and not as an equal in her english class. For an Ib student, I feel that this truly is unfair, and have seen students with next to no knowledge of english become fluent speakers of the language. Although times have changed and people are a lot more opened-minded I still believe that this was an inappropriate response by the teachers. If we look into modern day society there are still many instances where this is happening. For example, have you ever changed the way you speak to match someone who is not a native english speaker, or have you seen someone do this. I've looked into this and have found that this is extremely common. Even I do it, when trying to communicate with someone who struggles at understanding the english language. I personally believe that you will be viewed differently based on you level of understanding and skill of a language, but should be phased by it because that can be changed, Amy Tan is a great example of this.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to new topics for this blog.

Good English and Bad

Hello again

For this post I am  going to discuss about a a recent text I have read, "Good English and Bad" by Bill Bryson. to begin I would like to talk about what exactly the  title is trying tell us about the text? Like is it going to be one that tells us which is wrong and which is right?, or possibly which was better English, with no alterations. 

The answer is no, because the text is about English language, its rules created by grammarian often simply ignored because of the over complicated words. Overall, the author of the text has sent a message about the standard use of the English language and its rules that have been forced onto us with  can have no actual reason. Then the author begins to use irony, saying that the reason why the word hopefully is not allowed to be used in an absolute value is because "somebody at New York Times once had a boss who wouldn't allow it because his professor had forbidden it, because his father thought it was ugly..., because he had been told so by his uncle..., and so on". I think author is  criticizing and questioning the standards above by mentioning some "pieces of advice" which after less than a century became "immutable rules". The example that the author is giving in this case is the rule according to which you should not end a sentence with a preposition. The text contains many more examples about the  rules of English and the way English has changed after it started  the "grammatical percepts" of Latin, which died thousands of years ago. 

Taken as a whole, this discussion made me think about my mistakes and made me realize how complex the English language really is. Reading this text, I found  some rules that are completely new to me, which gave me the  opportunity to learn something new. Which improves my English and my view of the English language. 

Thanks for reading

Meaning of a Name

Welcome Back

Today I will be exploring the meaning of my name, as well as what it means to me.  I've done a little research into my name, and have found a couple definitions from different languages. Lets begin with English, who actually took the name from the french, which means Grevaise spearman. After looking into it, I found that it means man who serves the spear, a master at using the spear. This was  quite an interesting find so I kept looking until I found that my name is also and ancient Hebrew/ pre-flood biblical  meaning rose (flower), as well as descending or follower of the lord. However these are not the reason for why i was given my name, its quite a humorous story. My parents wanted to keep my gender a surprise. They had already chosen a name for a girl but not for a boy, so on heir way to the hospital they started to argue about my name and my father just told my mom to name me after her favorite character from the series she was watching at the time.

My name has its own meaning to me, because I have my own identity and personality and use my name as a  mane factor to describe myself. Therefore you don't need to follow what is your name and what it means, make it your name and why it is part of your identity.

                                                                    Jarred

Welcome To a Language & Literature Blog

Welcome to my language and literature blog

This will be a blog based around my journey as a student who ha

s chosen the IB’s rigorous Language & literature course. I will be using this blog to convey my opinion on certain subjects and texts as well as to be a platform where I may share the knowledge that I will acquire through my diploma years.

However I am getting ahead of myself, my name is Jarred and I have just begun my first year of the International Baccalaureate diploma program, within this diploma students must choose six subjects to focus on and study over the span of two years. One of mine being the Language & Literature course, which promises to teach numerous new skills in the art of analysis, meaning students will learn to question and communicate over media, written texts and society. Making this subject more applicable to life outside of school-this truly excites me.

I have a great interest in art, which is tied to one of my future aspirations, that being that I would love to become a Graphics Designer and move into the field of advertisement. But you may be wondering how will this course aide me in my studies to becoming a graphics designer? It’s actually quite simple, this course will help me develop my skills in speech and presentation making it easier to communicate ideas to others in a work environment, as well as to expand my analytical capabilities, so I can examine society and media and apply this to the work I would be doing as a graphic designer. Another point to talk about is the fact that without language we would have no way to share our ideas, converse, elaborate etc. Making it an essential subject to study. 

With this all said, my journey as an IB Language and Literature student has only just begun.