Food Crisis in Sahel

 “The Food Crisis in Sahel” is an article made by “Oxfam International”. Oxfam is an international confederation of 17 organizations working together with partners and local communities in more than 90 countries, with the sole purpose of ending hunger and poverty. The main aim for this organisation is to persuade people to join it and contribute to help these people in need. Where it is very noticeable “Oxfam is targeting to reach one million people across Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger and  Senegal with humanitarian aid”. The article simply starts off with the logistics aspect of the cause, by giving the audience factual numbers of what’s happening in terms of the food crisis and the aftermath (to capture the audience’s attention). And this idea of using logos to attract people’s attention and thus turning into pathos as well (because it would affect people’s emotions to see the ones more needy suffering), is shown throughout the entire  article.

As said earlier this article is to persuade people to join the cause of helping the people in need in Sahel. However it’s more than that as well, it is also to inform and educate people about the problems there. More than that the clear target audience is anybody who is interested and willing to help the ones in need and the ones that are less fortunate. By (as said before) their use of continuous data of numbers in their writing, to affect people’s emotions (turning logos into pathos). This article also outlines what Oxfam is doing to try and stop this crisis, and what they as an organisation and community intend to do as well. Furthermore the author tries to convey the message that these people in Sahel need help, and it is in Oxfam’s interest to do so. Thus I believe the way that the author tried targeting their audience is by making the readers feel sad and bad about the people in Sahel, so that they can get more people to join the cause and jump on the bandwagon. To do this the author uses mainly logos to attract the people’s attention. Such as where it states: “Recent evaluations suggest 12 million people across West and Central Africa are facing a food crisis”. Or when it claims that: “Recent reports said over 5.4 million people in (35% of the population in Niger, some 1.7 million people in Mali, 1.67 million in Burkina Faso and 700,000 people (over one-quarter of the population) in Mauritania are estimated to be vulnerable to food insecurity.” This makes the reader’s think and realize how good they have it compared to others, hence, making them feel bad about these people and hopefully join the organisation.   

The tone of this article is very eye catching and serious, considering that just by looking at the title there’s already a situations “Food Crises in Sahel”. In addition their use of vocabulary, how they do not sugar coat it they go straight to the point which is: There is a food crisis in Sahel and people are going to die if we do not help them. They are able to say these things and really catch the audience’s attention through the use of statistics and numbers of causalities and people in need of food etc. For example: “In Chad 13 out of 22 regions could be affected by this food crisis: some 2.4 million don’t have always enough to eat. There are key words in there that also make set the tone of seriousness such as: ‘serious’, ‘crisis’, ‘causing serious problems’ etc. This makes people really feel for the people in Sahel and in Africa in general, thus altering the mood to a sad one (as said before).

In this article although it is discussing a serious matter it uses the informal approach of using pronouns. But why? As said before since Oxfam is trying to persuade people to join their organisation (as this is their clear goal), I assume that they use pronouns to try to already convince the reader that they are part of this action taking society, by including them. They do this by using words such as: ‘We’re’, or ‘we’ etc. The whole article engages the reader because it portrays a problem and includes the reader to find a way to solve it. As well as that the main sentence structure is for the whole article is declarative, because it declares that ‘there is a food crisis in Sahel’, it declares the number of people who are suffering from this crisis etc.

In conclusion this article was created to get people more aware of the situation happening in Sahel and what Oxfam is trying to do to help. It is also there to inform and educate the people that do not know what’s happening in Sahel, thus meaning to raise awareness to this serious cause. This has been explained in the text, by explaining how they use the vocabulary, who their target audience is, how they use statistics to attract people’s attention and what tone and mood they try to give off with the article itself. 

FOA reflection

My further oral activity was based around AXE the multi-national co-operation, but more solely focused on how they use advertising techniques to attract the male audience. The overall feeling I had when I was done with my presentation was that I was feeling very confident, because I practiced it and put a lot of effort into it. Therefore when I went to present I did not feel that nervous which made my whole presentation a lot better, because I had confidence to talk; which I believe attracted the audience to pay more attention to my presentation. Therefore I believe I was very successful. By looking at the criteria I believe my strengths are definitely criterion A and B. “A” because: I understood the material I was explaining thoroughly well I gave detail, examples, I went into depth with my analysis etc. And “B” because, I broke down all the language in each ad differently. For example: my first ad didn’t really have much language but I talked about how the language in the music in the background added to that effect, or how the second one I broke it down in terms of language claims, and lastly the third one with the use of breaking down the script into the four parts (supernatural, nature, man-made, and man), they were all broken down differently to show variety and diversity and I believe I did show that in my presentation. I chose my text because I felt that no one has done that yet, I mean focus on “advertising techniques” and I thought it might have been interesting to break down how one specific company uses them (AXE). The thing I learnt most in this FOA is that it takes a lot of presentation, I mean if you go up there with nothing prepared then it will be harder. Therefore, there’s a lot of presentation, preparation, rehearsal etc. By doing this it will help me later on in future FOA’s. 

Blog Post Advertisement and Culture

In our last class my group and I presented an ad from OLAY. This ad was based around the image of a woman who is overjoyed because she feels ‘complete’ by using the new moisturizer from OLAY. However it wasn’t simply that, in the image the woman had a description of her roles…what does that tell us about our society? This brings me to gender roles in advertisement. Unlike sex which is the product of biologically based male-female difference; gender is a result of socialisation in a culture. Gender signifies the association between men and women or femininity and masculinity. It is this connection that advertisers focus on, because people express themselves by their gender, and gender can be noticed at a glance making it much easier for advertisers and marketing agencies to use this theme in their work. For example: if an advertiser wanted to target the male audience they would include things that men think make them masculine (women, beer, monster trucks etc). Going back to the original question what does that tell us about our society? Well it should tell us that we are sort of sexist, because we classify products and goods as to being only for one sex. Take the OLAY ad for example, they are only targeting women for their moisturiser, however why can’t men use moisturiser as well? As well as that women are used as objects in ads and are classified as certain things. In the OLAY ad (as mentioned before) the woman has roles “mother, wife, shoe aficionado” etc, therefore classifying her, and thus targeting the women who are those things. In conclusion I believe that people need to start seeing the tricks in advertisement and start asking questions, because we are open to thousands of ads a day and we are starting to not notice what that is really trying to convey in their message.  

Smoking Kills

Smoking Kills...STOP! (By: Medicine Plus) 
Smoking is accountable for numerous diseases, such as cancer, continuing respiratory diseases, and heart disease, as well as untimely death. Over 440,000 people in the USA and 100,000 in the UK die because of smoking each year. Smoking causes cancer. 90% of lung cancer patients established their disease due to smoking. Lung cancer is one of the utmost communal reasons of cancer deaths in the world. Smokers also have a considerably higher hazards to evolving cancer as well. Not only that but they have the greater risk of smoking reappearance (which means the cancer coming back). This article (by “Medicine Plus”) is being written to really show the significance that smoking has on people. Smoking really does affect us and des cause cancer because, it affects our cells and how they grow. In some cases they may grow rapidly causing tumours, or in other cases may kill the cell fully. Not only that it causes breathing problems because your lungs get so clogged up with tar that it affects the way you take in oxygen. Smokers are twice as likely to have a heart attack due to the clogging of arteries. Kids do it nowadays as well not just adults, because of several reasons: bad influences (peer pressure, or parents who do it etc), some of these kids die by the time they are thirty five years old. Save yourself, the people around you and the kids…stop smoking

Texting

Rationale:

In this unit the topic that truly interested me is texting and how it is affecting language, which is what my written task was based on. The creative writing piece I have chosen was a letter to the editor on from the perspective of a teacher and the other from a job recruiter at a marketing firm. The reason I chose this type of imaginative response because I wanted to show both the negatives and positive sides to texting without being bias (as in not from the perspective of a linguist). The reason I decided to choose an English teacher is because because it could show the reasons from a person that has to deal with students who might use that type of language in class. And I chose a job recruiter simply because when they look for new recruits for their firm they always are interlinked with technology and texting. The target audience is anyone who texts and doesn’t see both the benefits and limitations of texting. Since texting is such a recent concept there is not much history to back it up and get all sorts of facts and evidence, therefore the time period that will be discussed is now. The cultural status of this article is that it is based in the UK. Lastly for the ‘social’ part, it will be basing off how the topic links people socially. Lastly, the language that is being is used is basically just facts and graphs, so I guess the language that is being used is factual language. It provides information of how texting affects language, in society today (both the benefits and limitations) connected with personal and cultural identity, with no bias. 

Written Task 1: Letter to the Editor

Dear Anuli Akanegbu,

            My name is John Smith I am an English teacher of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme here in the UK. I have been teaching in this sort of programme for over thirty years, and I have noticed a downfall in the way kids are using language these days. Thus since you wrote the article ‘Is Texting Killing the English Language?’ I thought that I should give my insight on the topic due to my experience, which is why I am composing this letter to you right now.

            Firstly I agree with your statement that ‘texting is a lot more global now’, however since I have been a teacher for so long I now can see a difference between how students used language before texting rather than how it is being used now. Simply because it affects students spelling and grammar. There is even research to back this statement up http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/3346533/Pupils-resort-to-text-language-in-GCSE-exams.html, where it states that students started using ‘textspeak’ in their GCSE exams. Including text message spelling such as ‘U’ for you, or not using apostrophes, or full stops etc. That being said how can anyone argue that texting is not killing language as a whole?  Thus leading to your second point that ‘some text words have been around a lot longer than when texting was ever created, such as OMG’. Yes, this might be true however back then it had no effect on language because people did not use it as much as they obviously do now. Therefore I completely disagree with that statement. As mentioned before texting is killing language in the sense of how it affects people grammatically, but what about socially? This topic is not mentioned in your article however, I wanted to bring it up because I believe that this is an important factor of how texting has affected language not only individually and personally but socially as well. As for the third statement ‘texting helps shape paralinguistic restitution and drives language brevity and speed’. Paralinguistic restitution the study of vocal signals beyond the basic verbal message or speech. If this is the case then texting is provoking it, since it has nothing to do with vocal speech, but more to do with ‘textspeech’. Lastly texting does not help language speed whatsoever bearing in mind that when people are texting they lose focus on their surroundings and focus mainly on their phones, thus decreasing the speed of vocal language.

            In conclusion Anuli, I believe that since you are a writer and editor of a big website (rather than just some blog), all your statements lack detail and it really does not portray the negative impacts of texting to be as bad as they actually are. I hope this letter has changed your mind on what texting is really doing in the world; to individuals and communities.  

To Anuli Akanegbu,

            My name is Jennifer Dawson and I work for a marketing firm in downtown London, as a job recruiter. I read your article on ‘Is texting killing the Language?’ And it seemed that you were sort of confused whether to say it was or wasn’t. You might be thinking is why I (a job recruiter) is composing this letter to you? The reason is I am here to give my insight and personal opinions on the matter, due to the fact that since I am a job recruiter I deal with texting, social media and that sort of language every day.

            Right from the start I agree with your statement that ‘texting is more global now’. In my eyes this is a great thing, because there is no need to meet the people I need to interview face to face (unless I consider them as serious candidates). What I mean by this is that since I am a recruiter I need to be able to make assumptions on the candidate. Before texting this was very hard to do with just one 20 minute long interview. Whereas now I am able to text my candidates, check their social media to see what kind of people they really are etc. In my opinion texting is a form of communication, and even though some might say that it is killing language grammatically at the same time it is its own separate form of language. Not only has it linked people all over the world, but also it has created a sense of community and togetherness. Due to me experience on the topic I can honestly say it has helped me and my firm to pick out the best candidates for this style of work. Yes, I agree that 95% of people who text are 18-24, but that shouldn’t be the case. People need to start being more open to this form of language because it is the most global way of communicating with one another in this time period. Another point is due to texting my firm is able to keep communicating with each other and keep it concise and not waste time, because we are always to the point and focused on the topic at hand whatever that may be. As well as that, in my firm we send out a page of questions for any potential candidates before we even talk to them in person or through text. This provides us with the knowledge we need, to make our assumptions on the person before we even think about researching this person.

            To sum up texting is most definitely not killing language due to the reason that there are many different forms of language. For example: there are different forms of English such as Singlish or Konglish etc, and whether people nowadays can accept it or not; texting is a form of language. In my opinion it is helping evolve language for the better rather than destroying it. I hope this letter has been of some use to you, and I hope to read more from you soon. 

Texting

Texting

Texting: successfully sending a text message to someone. The first text message was sent in 1992 from Neil Papworth, a former developer at Sema Group Telecoms. Mobile phones didn't have keyboards at the time, so Papworth had to type the message on a PC. Papworth's text "Merry Christmas", was successfully sent to Richard Jarvis at Vodafone. At what long way texting has come from that first text. This blog will discuss the word ‘texting’ basing it off the opinions of two world renowned linguists; David Crystal, and John Mcwhorter.

             Linguist John starts off his speech by stating the point that “texting is not writing at all”. What I interpreted he meant by this is that texting is not so much writing as it is speech. He states that it is speech because when people do talk casually they tend to shorten sentences so that it is averaged between 7-10 words, however writing is formal. This is similar to the when David Crystal mentions in his commentary the word ‘Textspeak’, because he is addressing how texting is more related to speech than writing. People say that texting has no structure and it’s murdering language, and they feel that something has just gone wrong somewhere. However to these two linguists they both mention how texting has rules and structure for people who actually do text. Such as: how John Mcwhorter mentions the abbreviation ‘lol’, it is supposed to mean laughing out loud, however people these days who do text know that that is not all it is used as.  In addition they both mention briefly how texting has evolved and keeps evolving (such as the abbreviation lol). However David focuses more on how the words are written, for example: David makes reference to the word love and how it has evolved in some cases to ‘luv’. Unlike John who bases his point on what the words actually mean (such as: like mentioned the contraction ‘lol’). What I find interesting is how both these linguists never said that this is the end of how far texting can go, as in it can’t possibly evolve or be involved in the world any further. David actually mentions that texting might be creeping into other forms of writing such as school essays etc. As well as that John states that throughout all of language there have been people saying that there is no structure and this is the same sort of thing that is happening with texting now. When he said that, it reminded me of how people used to say the same things about forms of dancing and that people used to discriminate against some of the most popular ones of today at that time. For example: People used to say that tango and salsa are a lot less sophisticated than what dancing should be, and now they are widely celebrated all over the world. We can relate this to the new and upcoming form of dance that is being discriminated against; twerking. Which people are saying is very vulgar and not a form of dance whatsoever, sort of what people say about texting. So history repeats itself once again… 

Letter to the Editor of 'On Reverse Cultural Appropriation'

Letter to the Editor:

 I personally agree with what your main point was in the article that you wrote. Which is that cultural appropriation should not and cannot happen this cruelly when power is not distributed in a cruel way. With culture comes a sense of identity by what we wear, the symbols we create and it’s a sense of self, and when our culture is stolen from us, there is this deep sense of loss, is the thing I interpreted from what you were trying to put across in your article.

I concur with your point that not everything that is taken from other cultures counts as cultural appropriation due to certain reasons. For example: When ‘white’ people say “people of colour being able to speak English because it is a form of cultural appropriation”, however they somehow don’t take into account the fact that in many cases, COLONIZED countries were forced to adopt the culture of the colonizer while their own culture was violently removed. This is NOT the same situation as to when ‘white’ hipsters wear the Native American headdress because it is a commodification of indigenous culture. It takes something from someone else’s culture without any context or respect and turns it into something marketable and profitable. How can something like this go unnoticed, but when people make a fuss about ‘black’ people wearing suits, or people of colour speaking English there’s a big problem? 

Then people have the audacity to say that they are being sensitive and being overly dramatic, and just trying to cause drama. In my opinion they’re not being dramatic enough! These are the people that came and slaughtered a lot of their ancestors, diminished a lot of their privileges and basically considered them outlaws on their own home land, and then come around and have the discourtesy by wearing these headdresses. Lastly what I think about sometimes is that, is power really divided equally? Let me rephrase my question a bit better…is ‘white’ supremacy really over?