We are on the final strech of this English program; therefore,  we are also working on our semestral projects. The aim of this work is to encapsulate the knowledge that was obtained during the semester regarding the culture of English speaking countries and the globalization of the language.

For our final project we chose what we consider the main reason behind the constant evolution of English, expansional history. The thesis that we introduced in our research states that the difference between the English dialects from different regions is tightly related to the situations that surrounded the arrival of English to that specific region. I think that this project reflects a lot about what we have learned about the English speaking world, because from the topic it can be noticed that we have gained a new perspective of the language and how it has become what it is today.

Probably after these last sessions I have noticed that all of us have created new perspectives about what English implies and the relevance that it could and most probably will have in our future.

For this almost last week of class we repeated an assingment but with different cultural background. Last time we worked on the analysis of the movie "boy" from New Zealand, now we immerse ourselves in the South African history regarding the arrival of foreign people who imposed their culture through force, being this one of the scenarios were English got its bad reputation of an oppressive language. The movie was called "The Power of One" which told the story of a young man that learnt the point of views from different people through his childhood and choose to fight against the Apartheid regime in South Africa. The aim of this week activity was to learn from a South African text (Unto Dust) and the movie, from this we would create a personal opinion about the relevance of the situation in which a language arrive for the way local men percieve it.

India

India is the second largest English speaking country in the world. One of the biggest problems in India is the lack of space. It is said that their major cause of pollution is their own people.

Most people in India are devoted to a religion. Hinduism is the biggest in India, followed by Islam. Because of this, India has the largest number of vegetarians in the world. In India animals are loved and in Islam the most sacred animal is the cow because they believe that when a person dies their soul reincarnates in an animal depending on your life you incarnate in certain animals being the cow the biggest privilege.

Important places and people are from India. For example, most of the people in this world knows or at least heard about the Taj Majal may not know the history of the building or knows where it is, but the name is very famous. India’s most important person and for some people in world’s history is Gandhi. Gandhi fought for the independence of India, but believed more in dialogue than in war. He was able to achieve an independence without fighting.

New Zealand

Is an island located in the Pacific ocean near to Australia, due to this they’re a highly active culture regarding fishing activities and seafood cuisine. By watching their traditional dishes we could notice the marked influence from the Australian (British) culture. New Zealand origins go back to the maori people, the original inhabitants of the island that little by little were displaced by the Pakeha (both Australians and British) and now they only represent 14 % of the population. Another remarkable thing from this country is their truly amazing landscapes that attract every kind of traveler from photographers, journalist, documentarists and filming agencies.

There’s also a high multi-cultural population over New Zealand that provides the region with a variety of arts, language and religions. The most “authentic” New Zealand art is in someway wood carving characteristic for the Maori culture that they used a lot to represent their deities that also belonged to a polytheistic religion from their people. Also at the same time there can be find an strong  percentage of christian followers, although it wasn’t explained why Anglican religion was  not as positioned if they had a high index of England traits.

Liberia

Located in Western Africa, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean, between Cote d'Ivoire and Sierra Leone is born from the The American Colonization Society in an attempt of getting rid of slavery in West Africa. In the year of 1847 Liberia becomes independent from the United States of America after writing their official constitution at Harvard University and establishing their  first african governor Joseph J. Roberts. Because of their tight relation with the US Liberia has also been involved in several US conflicts like the two World Wars, backing up the american forces.

A shameful but yet unavoidable part of of the Liberian history and culture had been their brutal internal conflicts (civil wars). First one led by the s Samuel Doe in a military coup against the actual president, the attack was swift yet truly hurtful for the country leaving tens of thousands of casualties among its people. In 1985 Samuel Doe became the president of Liberia, yet “peace” did not last long. From 1989 to 2003 around 250,000 people died in civil conflicts due to paramilitary groups that fought against Samuel Doe government and against themselves. All these conflicts left a damaged country that was economically unstable and susceptible to suffering famine and diseases like Ebola taking even more lives in the process.

Scotland

Scotland was born in 124 by the Roman Empire. After more than a thousand years and different rulers from different empires. According to the presentation it is until 1306 when Robert “the Bruce” named himself as king of Scotland, but what it is not said in the presentation is that they are not and independent country. Scotland is part of the United Kingdom. Nevertheless Scotland is trying to be independent since 2014 when the idea was brought again.

Scotland gave birth to one of the most touching movies in the history of cinema. The speech given by William Gallace before the war is known as one of the most important speeches in movies.

Every person in this world when they hear Scotland the first thing that comes to their mind is men’s skirt. Being this the typical dress code in Scotland, they even play certain sports in this outfit.

English speaking countries are linked in many ways and must of them also share history and a mother culture, nevertheless during week twelve we worked and exposed an small research on different English speaking countries in order to understand more about the similarities and  differences in each one of them. It was certainly an activity that helped every one a lot regarding the understanding of English as a global language.

During the presentations we were able to listen different stories about how each one of this countries has adopted a particularly different culture although everyone of them under the "shelter" of English. In someway an interesting fact that I managed to retrieve was that indeed, has a really controversial point of view regarding how it made its way to all those regions. Because even if it has gave birth to a lot progress in sciences and art in all their levels, it has also came with a high level of conflict.

Last week was focused on the elaboration of the proposals for the final project. The team was gathered again and we started to elaborate the components of the essay theme and thesis as well as the overall structure of the project. At the end of the class we decided to talk about the relations between the variations   of English in different English speaking countries in relation to the roots that made English be adopted by that specific culture.

Next session we saw the movie "the boy" a New Zealand movie that served as an example of the variations that different regions develop in the English vocabulary that they adopt.

          On week number nine and part of eight the group started working on an essay that was about a crucial moment for the formation of English language as we know. This moment in history was the Battle of Hastings, that it was mainly about the conflict between to William of Normandy and Harold ll of England. At last William emerged victorious   and due to that, the french nature of his army was to provoke the bonding of this two languages by adapting a lot of words and sounds to the English vocabulary, this is a really interesting fact because it explains how French can find itself in English even if the last is a Germanic language.

          This kind of informations turns to be really important to understand the evolution of English as a global language and its also a great fact to bring up at certain conversations.  After that we also made an exercise of lecture identification, by reading an anonymous card written by an assassin which also turned to be based on a true event. This kind of historical approach is great for gaining new perspectives of English and what makes it up.

During the last few weeks the class has leaned to a different path. By this I mean that we have been working on literature culture, specifically with Thomas Hardy´s novel Tess from the U´bervilles. We worked on an activity for recreating certain scenes from the book and then we also develop presentation for the book How English Became English in order to make some studying material for this text. This book was actually really intersting due to the fact that it explained a lot of things about the language and how it has evolved through time.

At last i must say that exploring English through its literature authors its a more complete way of understanding the culture.

Amado Gutiérrez Sánchez

Nico Jan Wiersema K. 

3 de marzo de 2017

Famous Writers Challenge

Oscar Wilde

Born 16 October 1854 in Dublin, Ireland Oscar Fingal O’Flahertie Wills Wilde was to become one of the greatest exponents of English literature during the Victorian age. He was a poet, novelist and a dramatist and developed a few masterpieces in each of this literature branches, as a matter of fact most of his fame comes form three texts; The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891), and on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan (1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest (1895). Although he also wrote other plays, poems and even essays, the abrupt falling of his reputation led to most of his work being diminished. 

From his early life it is known that he was born to a well educated family that was also surrounded by literature. His father was a surgeon who had also published some books, while her mother was also a respected literate. From there he attended to Dublin´s Trinity college, where he excelled academically and grew a name for his witty writing and conversation. He made himself a great path through his academics surrounding himself  in high social circles who appreciated  his “flamboyant” way of being. This social climbing led him to be a prominent figure of literature in victorian society form the begging and until his downfall due to accusations made to his homosexuality.

When talking about Wilde´s work his most featured writing was published during his last decade of life. He first published his first and only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray which was a book that expressed the internal fight of man, in this case Wilde himself regarding good and evil, and the consequences it has for ones life not to be able to control the impulse of pleasure over values. After that novel he wrote what is allegedly the pinnacle of his success, those were his social comedies Lady Windermere´s Fan and The Importance of Being Earnest. This last one is a harsh but yet surprisingly well received criticism of the victorian society hypocrisy and values scale.

What is most remarkable of Oscar Wilde´s writing is the fluency and wit with which he expresses his ideas or complains. Even the talking it is said that this writer was able tu find the most creative ways to appeal the humor of the people and at the same time reproaching their actions. That is mainly how he was able to get away with writing plays  that in any other “language” if not his where to outrage all society.

At the end of his career his fall came mainly if not all because of the accusation of homosexuality, that came from his affair with Lord Alfred Douglas, it´s important to recall that back then homosexuality was severely criticized and punished. When the court failed to give a verdict in his favor, he was sentenced to two years of hard labour. After this sentence his health was badly damaged and many of his work criticized, a few years later in November 30  1900  at Paris, France he passed away.

Bibliography

"Oscar Wilde." Britannica Academic, Encyclopædia Britannica, 9 Sep. 2010. 0-academic.eb.com.millenium.itesm.mx/levels/collegiate/article/Oscar-Wilde/76981. Accessed 2 Mar. 2017.

Øyvind Olsholt. (2013). The life and works of Oscar Wilde. 02/03/2017, de skoletorget Sitio web: http://www.skoletorget.no/abb/eng/wilde/pdf/ow2.pdf

Over the last week we formed teams for working on a video project that would approach the theme of global English. During this project we pass through different stages, first we got to know each other since it was the first formal team made for an assignment in class, once we were introduced it was time to develop the ida of how we would emphasize the importance of learning english.  At the end of the hour we had decided that using the laboral advantages was the best way to transmit the idea.

Last day we made an other couple assignment about Thomas hardy's life which led to many cool facts i ignored about him. At last it was a pretty busy and productive week, it would seem that we`re starting to make more dynamic projects for class now on

• Art museums

o   In the southern states of mexican republic art museums have few if any private or governamental support in order to develop new expositions.

• Nutritious food

o   At big cities nutritious foods had been exaggeratedly overpriced because of the continuous deterioration of fertile soil in rural fields.

• Living on campus

o   Living inside the campus provides the student with great advantages for proactive studying, such as time reduction for getting to classrooms, safe environment and more social interaction with students.

• The music industry

o   Latin music industry has over the last decade take a full turn into the production of music inside the musical gender of “reggueton” and tried to mix it with other Spanish speaker singers of other genders.

• The use of technology in language education

o   Mobil devices apps are to become fundamental in language educations for they provide a “handy” way to inmerse on language paratice at any given moment.

• Cosmetic surgery.

o   Cosmetic surgery is an increasing medical department because the media has reduce its negative opinion towards it and even promoted as a valid way of social acceptances using famous actresses as models.

• The English language.

o   English is not received kindly in several places because it is seen as language with an oppressive cultural baggage due to colonialism from Great Britain and that represents an obstacle for it to become a global language.

Trends on television
Television has become much more inappropriate and violent, creating non-educating programs. 

Drinking and driving
Drunk driving is very dangerous, not just for yourself but for the passages with you and other cars on the road, people aren’t always aware of the tragedies they can cause. 

 Legalization of marihuana

Marihuana has shown positive affects on certain illnesses, however it should be controlled.

Animal testing
Animals should not be tested on for the simple fact that it is very cruel and inhuman and if we dont test on humans we should not test on animals. 

Changing universities (going from one to another)
Changing universities could have its benefits such as meeting new people, getting a second chance on what you actually want to study, however it also has disadvantages like losing time.

Endangered species protection
As humans it is our right to protect endangered species, there is many simle thing people can do on their daily life to prevent species from endangering like not purchasing products made from threatened or endangered species, making our houses wildlikfe friendly among other actives. 

Life on other planets
Throughout time, we have all been questioning whether the is life on other planets, there is facts that support both sides,

Conclussion

Developing the ability to create strong and coherent thesis staments is in my fundamental on our path to develop ourselves as formidable writers in the language, because somehow the thesis represents the core idea of any essay regardless of its aim (persuasive, informative, comparative). During this session we work over that ability and what i consider my most important lesson is that it is essential to make specific thesis and leave no part of it to open interpretation if what you are looking for is to set a clear idea.

        It has been a very active week, a lot of things must be done in this first days of school. Regarding the class of Language and Culture of the English Speaking World (LaCu for the rest of the entries) it would seem that is going to be a nice class, why?

        Because from the explanations presented at day one i was said that this course will be more than just a regular english learning class, we are allegedly going to approach the class with assignments based on formal writing about how English has become such a prominent language around the globe. And for doing so we are not only going to write papers about it but instead we're making open discussions about it, deal in research and preparing presentations over various themes.

Amado Gutiérrez Sánchez
A01172915