PERSPECTIVES: MY ENGLISH JOURNEY
BRYAN CHIGUANO ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAM LEVEL 6
YACHAY TECH, ECUADOR
PERSPECTIVES: MY ENGLISH JOURNEY BY BRYAN CHIGUANO ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROGRAM YACHAY TECH LEVEL 6 – 014 TEACHER: DAVID MONTENEGRO DECEMBER 12, 2016
IMBABURA, ECUADOR
Table of contents Portfolio Letter Response Essay Argumentation Essay Interpretation Essay Final Research Project: Essay Additional Materials Thank You Letter
PORTFOLIO LETTER
Universidad Yachay Tech Imbabura, Ecuador Dear portfolio reader,
Hello, my name is Bryan Chiguano. Thank you very much for reading my English Language Portfolio. In this letter I will tell you some of the most relevant experiences that I had in this time. During this semester I have improved a lot in my speaking and writing skills and this portfolio is a detailing collection of my best works. I am proud for all my work and I enjoyed doing it. I hope you enjoy it too. In order with the facts, my main purpose during this semester was improve my speaking and writing skills and I got it! I have always been very shy and having to face public was the most difficult part in this semester. But we had many presentations and interviews between the classmates. This was beneficial because we can share emotions and laughs, opinions and comments. I improved in this speaking section, now I am less shy and more confident in myself. The second thing that I have to tell you is my new experiences writing essays. My criteria developed more and more. I learned many new things with all written essays. For example, I didn’t have idea that learn a new language shapes your way of thinking, or the fact that the globalization of a language is important in many aspects of the people’s life but it have its own consequences: the loss of identity and culture. With this two achieved objectives, I am ready to leave the English Language Program at Yachay. From here I carry with me many pleasure moments with friends, the teacher and myself. My new expectations for my English career at fifth semester is not stop to practice and learn English. I want to become a good student in my next class. One of the things that I have to improve is the communication in formal conversations. I know that the future readings will be more complex to understand and the future presentations also will be more difficult, but this is a challenge that I have to comply. Again, thank you for your attention in this letter. I hope that you enjoyed it.
Sincerely,
Bryan
RESPONSE ESSAY
How does our language shape the way we think?
Bryan Steven Chiguano Tapia
Yachay Tech University
One of the most controversial question in the history, which is analyzed by philosophers, anthropologists, linguists, and psychologists is if language shapes our thinking. Thus Lera Boroditsky tries this issue in her article: How does our language shape the way we think? Differences about how people (of different parts of the world) appreciate concepts like: space, time, colors or other things that give us an answer to this question. In her article she explains how a set of tests show the great influence that language has in the thought of very different people. The main point of Lera Boroditsky tell us that the influence of the language can be appreciated between people of different parts of the world, which I agree, because if we think about how people, in our environment, see the world or define the things that they do, we can find a lot of differences between each other.
Humans being have a complex system to communicate with others. Language is the way that humans being share ideas, thoughts and feelings; but it does not have the same mean in all places,because each one differ with others in many different ways. For this reason Boroditsky argue “Language is so fundamental to our experience, so deeply a part of being human, that it’s hard to imagine life without it” (2016, p. 2). In fact, is impossible to imagine to not have a way to communicate with others. If it was the case, maybe we could find another way to do it, but again we could think that the new way to communicate would shape the thought of people (if we had one). Languages require different things of their speakers. Due to the versatility of the different languages that we find around the world, people have to relate the name of the things that they know and try to imagine what those things are in the other language (or in many cases in the same language but in a different region). For example, in Latin America the predominant language is Spanish and we have a vast vocabulary to refer to a same thing, like “aguacate”, is the Spanish word to we use in Ecuador to refer to avocado, Dominican Republic people, Mexicans, and Argentineans refer to avocado as “palta”. Thus, as this simple word there are many others who qualify the same things, certainly this is possible, but Boroditsky asked the question “Is it possible that everyone thinks the same way, notices the same things, but just talks differently?” Learning a new language would be easy if we thought in the same way. For many people learning a new language is considered as a competitive advantage in the actual world, but it requires time, dedication and effort. Also depends on the language that people want to learn, for example, for Spanish speakers is very easy to learn English, but for English speakers is a little more difficult learn Spanish due to the versatility of the language (verb conjugations, different words for the same thing). The same problem occurs when people try
to learn a language that is not close to their mother tongue (e.g. Spanish speakers trying to learn Arabic, Russian or Mandarin). In this case, Boroditsky claims that is necessary to put attention to things for knowing if we have the correct information to include in what we say, rather than having an extensive vocabulary (2016, p. 3). The way to appreciate things differs around the world. In languages like Spanish and English people have words to refer directions (right, left, forward, back), but in the studies of Boroditsky, she found that “aboriginal groups [like Kuuk Thaayorre], use cardinal-directions terms – north, south, east and west” to refer to space. To understand this, she explains with an example: This is done at all scales, which means you have to say things like "There's an ant on your southeast leg" or "Move the cup to the north northwest a little bit." (2016, p. 3). That sounds complicate! We are used to say “move to the right or move to the left” and we understand. But, if we have to be oriented all the time, at least if we talk with someone that has this perception of the space, we are in trouble. People use their perception of the space to build more complex representations as the time. In Spanish and English we use a timeline (from left to right) to position us in the time. We can refer metaphors in the past, present or future, but what happens with people like Kuuk Thaayorre or Mandarin speakers? Boroditsky tell us that in one of her experiments, which consisted to put in order a sequence of pictures, people of Kuuk Thaayorre showed a pattern to do it. They ordered the cards in relation to their position “when they were seated facing south, the cards went left to right. When they faced north, the cards went from right to left. When they faced east, the cards came toward the body and so on.” (2016, p. 4). Other case of how people see the time are Mandarin speakers who appreciate the time as vertical timeline to express their metaphors (from top to bottom).
Gender plays an important role to classify things. In English the words by themselves don’t distinguish a gender, for example, the word “cat”, we don’t know if we are talking about a male cat or a female cat (we must ask for this information). But, in other languages like German, Russian or Spanish this distinction is very important because the things for those people don’t have the same meaning (Boroditsky, 2016, p. 6). Studies done between German speakers and Spanish speakers show this importance: the test involves asking different people to describe objects that have opposite gender assignment in those two languages. The results were surprising, things like a “key” that is masculine in German was described with adjectives that represents strength while in Spanish it is a feminine noun and was described with adjectives that represents smoothness. This shows that the simple act of assigning a gender to the things, can affect the form that people think. In conclusion, the work realized by Lera Boroditsky is a good source to show us the great impact that language has on the way that we define the things. Examples like the “cat” that doesn’t have gender in English, but in other languages it is important to give a distinction between male or female; or how people appreciate the concept of space and use it to build more complex structures like the time, are a proof that the language shapes our thought. Finally, I want to do reference the phrase of George Orwell: “But if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought.” (1984).
References Boroditsky, B. L. (n.d.). How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think By Lera Boroditsky. Retrieved September 28, 2016, from http://integraloptions.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-does-our-language-shape-way-we.html
ARGUMENTATION ESSAY
Should there be one global language?
Bryan Steven Chiguano Tapia
2016
Through time people have the need to share their feelings, thoughts and ideas with others. The unique barrier in all of this is the diversity of languages that exist in the world. For this reason people try to find a good way to do it, and the answer to this problem is having a global language, whatever it may be. Many people agree with the fact that this language could be the English because it is easy to learn, it doesn’t have so much grammatical rules and it is present in around one hundred countries all over the world. Nevertheless, the consequences that would bring the adoption of only one language for all people in the world could be very serious. First of all, the cultural diversity could be at risk of disappearing. Nowadays, the globalization of the English language is facilitating the interaction between people of different parts of the world, which allows the exchange of culture. On the other hand, according to expert linguists it is estimated that there are around 6909 different languages (including English) in all over the world (Cancio, n.d.), each one of them with their own particularities. The main consequence that brings the globalization of a language is the disuse of other languages, and with this their extinction. For example, many aboriginal cultures (around the
world) have been forced to learn other languages and set aside their mother tongue, losing with this, many of their traditions and abandoning their ancestral culture. Another point that is important to emphasize is the fact that people believe that problems between them, communities or even countries will finish with the globalization of a language. This argument is not valid, since, in the alleged case that all people in the world could speak the same tongue doesn't mean that problems should not exist. Just look at the case of North and South Vietnam or Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland, they all share the same tongue, respectively (Cancio, n.d.). There are other interests involved: political, economic or social interests. The consequence of globalizing a language could result in monopolization of the economy and with this the creation of a new problem. In conclusion, having a global language is very helpful to communicate with people of other parts of the world, however, if we will pretend to eradicate several tongues for positioning only one language and try to facilitate our lives, we are making a serious mistake. We are not only eliminating a language, we are losing more than that, and we are losing the ancestral culture that these tongues have to tell us. Another impact that could be generated the globalization of a language is the Power struggle between the great countries to position themselves at the head of the global market. Finally, the possibility to have a global language looks frustrated due to people want their mother tongues, they don´t want to be subjected to a foreign language and because this is practically a utopia.
References Cancio, C. (n.d.). What if everyone on Earth spoke the same language? Retrieved November 29, 2016, from http://science.howstuffworks.com/science-vs-myth/what-if/what-ifeveryone-spoke-one-language1.htm
INTERPRETATION ESSAY
Interpretation: The Last Judgment; Representation of Decadence?
Bryan Steven Chiguano Tapia Dayanara Lissette Yรกnez Arcos Enrique Tapia Maldonado
Yachay University for Experimental Technology and Research
2016
What will happened if the demon is not bad, and the personification of badness is a representation of the decay of the sinners? What will happen afterlife, if you only are judged without a defense and by only one person? These are some of the questions that arise with the interpretation of “The Last Judgment” by Marten de Vos, in which he represents the decadence of the human being in his last attempt to find forgiveness. At the beginning of the Catholicism, besides imposing regulation of what is good and what is bad, their desire to demonstrate by illustrations the pain and suffering of the sinner afterlife. Because of that that, they created the inferno. The spiritual condemnation was born in the wake of propose a punishment for people who do not do the “right thing” in their lives. In other words, they create a place where the decay of the humanity is the principal reason to stay there. On the other hand, we have the heaven as the representation of a dream place to live, a place created for people who God consider are worthy to enter. By nature, the human being is a miserable and greedy being, full of secrets and mysteries which makes them interesting. According to the Catholic ideology, it can only enter to the kingdom of heaven those people who respect and fulfill the commandments of God; in the picture we can interpret how they all want to be saved, but not all of them want to do the correct to get it. Maybe, being dragged and humiliated could be represented as the biggest punishment for man because it destroys his inner ego, that much appreciated by each individual. Another interesting point in this picture is the absence of the devil (in some occasions called like Lucifer: the Fallen Angel) which could represent the free will granted by God to
man. The Fallen Angel is the commander identity charged of custody the souls that have been condemned to the hell; attributed guilt of the disobedience of God. Nevertheless, that figure is not represented in this artwork that can be interpreted as the man that is only one guilty for the sins. In other words, the free will given by God is what drive us to our own corruption. In the wake of these, the inferno result to be the place where the decay and declension of human. Despite of being a figure known in the Catholicism, Lucifer does not have his own representation in the picture of “The Last Judgment”. The author shows that the only person who decides if someone is good or bad is God. We can observe the figure of Jesus Christ in the middle of the scenery, leading the judgment and controlling angels and demons do their job: to save and punish people. But, in our interpretation we consider this as a mistake in the pillars of the Catholic religion because no one else besides Jesus is the judge; nobody else intervenes in judgment, nobody else appeals the sentence. In this way, where is the sense of a fair trial? We can interpret this as a unidirectional sense of “the right thing”. In other words, the focus of the picture is to demonstrate the punishment of the sinners with only one possibility of salvation; heaven. For that, it is mandatory to pass the judge and be considered suitable to enter to the kingdom of heaven. Nevertheless, the only one sense of justice put to God as the “perfection” is failing, being that, God is love and forgiveness, understanding and forgetting. As it is known Jesus died on the cross for the salvation of all sins, and the debt for the final day was paid with his own blood. Having said this, would not all sins have to be forgiven and all people saved without exception? The last point to analyze in this artwork is the fact of all people who are being judged, are naked while angels and saints are wearing clothes. This could be assumed to be a presumption of superiority by those who are at the heaven many time ago. If we go into the
author's mind we can understand that people (by the time that this work was created) still maintain those feelings of inferiority towards a religious doctrine. But, why is it important to mention this? It is because nowadays people also have the same feelings but in another context. A context of competition that carry people to feel naked (in a metaphorical sense) to get the attention of others. We could assume that nudity as a way of weakness, a way that presents man as a defenseless being in his more pure expression. In contrast to painting we can say that we are always judged by our actions, however, it is bad actions that qualify us socially and morally. This can be compared to people who have known the taste of victory and then have had to endure defeat. In the last judgment people only will show their soul, their purity bathed in the sin, ready to receive their sentence. In conclusion, the piece of Marten de Vos “The Last Judgement� is an exemplification of the debasement of the human, in their last pursuit for forgiveness. The humiliation of the invidious represented in the images of this piece is a symbol of punishment of the humans, in order to abolish their inner ego. In addition, another fact is the absence of the representation of Lucifer that can be interpreted by the free will give to humans, and in consequence, the only one responsible of the decay of humanity. On the other hand, the figure of Jesus can be interpreted as an authoritarian sense of justice, because it implies that, in the eyes of the Lord, human beings are his faithful submissive, who always turn to him when the final moment arrives. Finally, there is a hierarchy between the saved, tried and convicted.
References Vos, M. D. (1570). The Last Judgment [Painting]. Bellas Artes de Sevilla, Spain.
FINAL RESEARCH PROJECT: ESSAY
English as Official Language vs Respect for Diversity Bryan S. Chiguano Yachay Tech University L6 – 014 December, 2016
English as Official Language vs Respect for Diversity Have you ever imagined a world in which the whole people can understand each other? If you done it, maybe you never stopped to think about the consequences of the globalization of only one language in all over world. As we know, nowadays the importance to shorten distances and create bonds of friendship are obstructed by the lack of
communication, in other words, people cannot communicate between themselves due to the difference of languages. For this reason most of the people consider that the solution for this barrier is the globalization of only one language: English. However, if we look at the other side of the coin the real problem we face is the extinction of several mother tongues. Several studies have shown that loss of language carries major cultural problems, among them, the loss of ancestral knowledge that is important for the future. In this sense, with the insertion of English as a universal language many different mother tongues could pass to a secondary level in this way, they could be forgotten and disappear, and the consequences that would bring the adoption of only one language for all of the people in the world could be very serious. For this reason I think we should not have a globalized language. One of the most interesting things, and that many ignore, is the fact that the language shapes the way people think. This could be considered as an advantage because in this way people have the opportunity to see the world with other eyes and develop their cognitive and communicative skills. In the article “How does our language shape the way we think?� written by Lera Boroditsky, she claims that people of different parts of the world appreciate the same things in many different senses. To sustain her theory she developed a series of tests between people of different nationalities and contrasted the results with people that speak other languages. Summarizing her work the tests that she realized included concepts like space, time, and gender. The clearest example that she gives us is the case of the Kuuk Thaayorre, an aboriginal community on the western edge of Cape York in northern Australia. In the article she explain us why she decided to evaluate this community: I came here because of the way the locals, the Kuuk Thaayorre, talk about space. Instead of words like "right," "left," "forward," and "back," which, as commonly used in English, define space relative to an observer, the Kuuk Thaayorre, like many other
Aboriginal groups, use cardinal – direction terms — north, south, east, and west — to define space (2009 , p. 3). Boroditsky explains us based on this way of thought, aboriginal people have developed a better navigation ability than other speakers. Also the concept that these groups manage about the space is used to “build other, more complex, more abstract representations. Representations of such things as time, number, musical pitch, kinship relations, morality, and emotions […]” (2009, p. 4). In contrast with the space concept, Boroditsky argues that people have a different appreciation about the time. While some people (Mandarin speakers) have a vertical spatial metaphors for the time, English speakers (also Spanish speakers) tend to talk about time using horizontal spatial metaphors (2009, p. 4).In this way she tries to show that people in different places see their time as a different representation in a timeline; the past, present and future are organized in many different forms. In the last part of the article, she explains the importance of a grammatical gender for the different tongues around the world “In Spanish and other Romance languages, nouns are either masculine or feminine. In many other languages, nouns are divided into many more genders […] some Australian Aboriginal languages have up to sixteen genders” (Boroditsky, 2009, p. 5). In this sense, people classify things according to their strengths and weaknesses, however the difference is that the words don´t have the same meaning (for example) for Spanish or German speakers. As we can observe the diversity of languages not only create barriers between people, they create something more attractive for the human being: a diversity of culture. The way that people see the world depends on their language and Boroditsky has confirmed it. It is in our hands keep this diversity and find the way to do it. The diversity of thought allows an endless number of interactions between people.
The second point that it is important to remark is the fact that language diversity create more opportunities that just have only one language. Imagine a world in which people can understand each other using English (or whatever the language) as an official language. This is a great dream, but let's face it: this is a Utopia. If people learn more than one language these people could be prepare to be more competitive. It has been demonstrated that children are born prepared for bilingualism “Some two-thirds of the children on earth grow up in a bilingual environment, and develop competence in it” (Crystal, 2003). In this sense we are “programed” for being multilingual. Learning more than one language is vital for the future and it could be an advantage for the academic and professional fields. Let’s see some examples: nowadays China is becoming one of the world powers and its language, Mandarin, influences other countries like Indonesia, Cambodia and Malaysia that also belong to the group of strong economies of the world; it could mean that the imposition of a language depends on the economy of the most stronger country that currently is United States but this could change with the advance of China. Or the case of Brazil that is one of the countries with greater projection and growth in South America, and It has multiple university agreements and offers masters and doctoral programs that have high standards of quality (H., 2014). Another giant of the educational agreements is Germany that also has many master´s and doctoral degrees in both languages, however not all these degrees are taught in English which makes it a problem of inaccessibility. This leads to the following problem: people consider that all people in the world have to know English. When someone wants to travel around the world many of the times people don’t worry about the mother tongue of the place of destiny. Simply they want to enjoy the trip. However, the complication could be arisen when they want to communicate with aboriginal people. In
this sense the traveler consider that the other person who knows English (as a basic language for communicate between them) but the truth is that the other person prefers to speak in his/her native tongue and this creates confusion and frustration for both parts. The fact is that if the other person does not speak English, it is the fault of this person, not the traveler. It leads us to the next question should be really considered English as a global language? Or, should be consider the idea of having a global language? Maybe, but if we think about it, this could generate a problem of social status between native speakers and language learners. Most of the people are agree with the fact that English has to be consider as a universal language and they are right in many points. One of this points is that we can find lot of information in this tongue, in fact, the international community of scientists work in this language. Nowadays, if you don´t publish your research in English you don’t exist for the world. The second point that is important is that English is the language of business: conferences, international deals, sales, international flights are some examples of the use of this language. Others affirm that English is too easy to learn, but it depends on the ability of learning that person have, it means for some people it could be more easy to learn French or specially this last that is very similar to other Romance Languages. These and other examples can be mentioned and support the idea that English should be a universal language. As we can see English could be a universal language, nevertheless, these examples are a simply superficial surface application of it. As was already mentioned, adventure people take their things and they launch into adventure with the basic knowledge of English, but in most of the cases people don’t manage this language, they prefer to speak in their mother tongue. This originates a communication problem between the parts. On the other hand, if we consider to impose one language in all the world we have a problem because we will have to
evolve in the sense that all people will have to think in the same way. Having a universal language would cause the loss of culture and the own identity, as David Crystal mention: When a language dies, so much is lost. Especially in languages which have never been written down, or which have been written down only recently, language is the repository of the history of a people. It is their identity. Oral testimony, in the form of sagas, folktales, songs, rituals, proverbs, and many other practices, it provides us with a unique view of our world and a unique canon of literature (Crystal, 2003, p. 20). In conclusion, English as a global language is a reality that we all face and we have to live with. However, neither we have to deny that English is a good tool to link worlds, it simplify our lives and all the information is in this tongue: investigation, discoveries, music, movies. Nevertheless, if we allow that a language, whichever it is, the cultural damage will be irreversible. As we have seen, with the loss of the diversity of languages we lose more than a way of communication between people, we lose our identity. We lose the way of thinking that each community has, it loses the ancestral knowledge that is very important for the progress of the society, which marks our past and develop our future. Finally, the best way to carry this “issue� is trying to preserve the identity of the different communities without imposing a new language.
References Boroditsky, B. L. (2009). How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think By Lera Boroditsky. Retrieved September 28, 2016, from http://integraloptions.blogspot.com/2009/07/how-does-our-language-shape-way-we.html Crystal, D. (2003). English as a Global Language. Second Edition. Cambridge University Press. H. (2014). La importancia de aprender idiomas. - Universidad de Congreso. Retrieved December 11, 2016, from http://www.ucongreso.edu.ar/la-importancia-de-aprenderidiomas/
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