Credibility

I have been realizing something unusual, well at least it is unusual for me at that very moment. During my first semester of foundation, we were told that presentations contribute partially in the final result. And I believe most of the students got anxious especially Chinese students who are not fluent in English Language, and most of us were not experienced to speak in front of crowds. When the day came, everyone dressed in formal and got ready to present.

Some students made good slides and presented excellent ideas. Yet, they tend to mumble their points, so it was not influential enough since everyone could not understand a single word. This made a big mistake since he/she failed to catch the audience's attention. Whereas some students who spoke English fluently yet presented common points succeed to lure the audience and judges' awareness. When I did the comparison, these talented students spoke confidently with whatever they wanted to convey. They also mixed with jokes and expressed them with impressive-sounding language. Therefore, audience listened more intensively to their speech.

Research also shows that audience judge the speakers based more on the credibility that arose from his use of language skills than from the ideas he expressed. Therefore, it is significant to learn to speak confidently than knowing what the ideas should be presented. A successful speech must consist of READABLE and CLEAR words. Practices make perfect =D I believe no one born to a good presenter.

Jargon talk

Jargon talk is defined as meaningless talk or gibberish. It is also defined as the specialized vocabulary that functions as a shorthand by people with common backgrounds. People now, i mean teenagers are more into the hip hop kind of talk as in " Hey, wats up man!!" or " Dude, lets go 4 a game of bball.". Some people also uses shorthand to communicate like brb for 'be right back', lol for 'lots if laughter", btw for ' by the way' and many more. Some may be more descriptive. Here, i have uploaded a video about jargon talk. Its about someone socializing at a meeting. This serves as an advice for people who are trying to mingle around.

As you can see, the guy ask the woman about her job. The woman replied by making her job sound fabulous and professional. As she goes on and on, you can see that the guy is speechless and when he tries to talk, she cuts him off.

Accents...

An accent is a manner of pronounciation of a language but it is often confused with dialects. Dialects are usually spoken by a group united by geography or social status. Accent varies from country to country and one is able to identify other peoples' origin by just listening to their accents. Accents could be changed. 1 huge example is when actors and actresses tries to immitate different accents for their roles in movies
This is a video from 1 of my favourite movie the pink panther and it reli catches me. This is prove that the accent of the people from France is relatively different from the American accent

Language can be a pain...

Greetings and salutations readers, this would mark my first blog post ever as I have never made or kept a blog until this one. On the 3rd week of Human Communications class we learned about Languages in Communication and the topic I'm gonna touch on in this post is Phonological Rules and how it can make communication among humans a real pain (especially in the English language). Phonological Rules are basically the rules that govern words with the same pronunciation and spelling but can have completely different meanings.

Take for example the word object. It can mean an item or a thing you're referring to, or it can mean to disagree or refuse a statement or argument. Every year there is a new meaning to a word that has been used for a long time such as the word apple. To many, an apple is that red (or green) fruit that we eat to keep the doctor away, or as the fruit that dropped on Isaac Newtons head which lead to him discovering gravity. Today apple could mean the Apple Macintosh computer operating system. The same applies for Windows. Next thing you know, there'll be Doors operating system and a new definition of the word door will be added in the dictionary.

As we go on in life, languages tend to become more and more confusing. I recently found an article that revealed 8 everyday words that have very racist meanings. That very article can be found here http://www.cracked.com/article_16967_8-racist-words-you-use-every-day.html. I was especially surprised with the true meaning of the phrase "Hip Hip Hooray" Who knew that people who were celebrating with that phrase was actually saying "Let's go kill some Jews".

Phonological rules are one of the main reasons that foreigners find learning english difficult. Words with dual or more meanings are confusing even to us english speakers. Just imagine how confusing it will be to foreigners who are learning english! The Woodchuck tongue twister alone (How much wood would a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood?) would leave foreigners baffled as to why the word "Chuck" is used so many times. So to end this post, language can be a pain, but it is essential in our daily lives. Phonological Rules may be confusing and could lead to some extremely awkward moments, but it could also lead to some very humorouse moments that you'll probably cherish for a long time.

Power of Language

We tend to underestimate the power of language because we don't understand how does that work within our daily life. Words can be added or removed from a conversation to make it more influencial and effective. It also depends on the communicator's capability of conveying the messege. There are two ways of conveying our messege- the powerful language and powerless language.

Powerful language tend to be used when we are ordering, instructing or demanding, and usually leads to an unsatisfy outcome. This language is usually use by authorities or elders and is seldom use when we are communicating with our friends. Unless, we are intend to offend them. An example of powerful language: 'Collect the plates and cups from the table!', this can usually hear from our mother/father/granny after taken our meal. We will grumble and mumble the unwillingness; or we even pretend not to hear anything. These will be the unsatisfy outcome. Outcome is less satisfying therefore it's less effective.

Powerless language is usually used when we are speaking to the elders or somehow begging for something. Words like 'please', 'thank you', 'excuse me' do contribute in the final outcome. It sounds more repectful and acceptable especially when we are appealing for an application or requesting something. An example of powerless language: ' Could you please collect the plates and cups from the table?', an additional 'please' would change the effectiveness of this statement. Reciever are more willingly to do what he/she offered.

In my opinion, the power of language does make a big different in communication. We don't instruct our friend to do something but we ask politely instead because we knew that different person may need a different level of language power.