Language and Culture

2nd Round of Podcast on Public and Private language issues

Listen to the second round of podcast on Public and Private language issues.(posted to our class's discussion board)

Featuring Justin, Carrie, Jason and Daniel

Give it a listen and tell us what you think! To send comments, click 'Leave comments' link.




To download the file, right click (hover your mouse to this link) here. And click 'Save file as'. After downloading the file, you could transfer it to your mp3 player and listen to it while you're on the go!

Total running time: 14:38
Background Music: Freeplay music

posted by Aiden @ 1:00 AM 0 comments

First Round of Podcast shows on Public and Private Language issues

Listen to the first round of podcast shows on Public and Private language issues.(posted to our class's discussion board)
Give it a listen and tell us what you think! To send comments, click 'Leave comments' link.




To download the file, right click (hover your mouse to this link) here. And click 'Save file as'. After downloading the file, you could transfer it to your mp3 player and listen to it while you're on the go!

Total running time: 19:58
Background Music: Freeplay music

posted by Aiden @ 11:11 PM 0 comments

Students' work published

A letter submitted to the Editor of China post by a group of students in my Language and Culture was published in China Post, a local newspaper in Taiwan. The letter to the Editor was part of a task-based project that was submitted in partial fulfillment for the course. The digital video the group submitted is still available on our class blog. Congratulations to Tai Hsiao-wen, Erica Tian, Stephanie Weng, Alicia Lin, Carrie Chang, and Sibyl Lee. I'm so proud of you.  


https://www.chinapost.com.tw/opinion/letter1.htm Scroll down the page until you see
"Does the quest for the perfect figure lead to heaven or hell of anorexia?"
2006/01/08
Tai Hsiao-wen, Erica Tian, Stephanie Weng, Alicia Lin, Carrie Chang, Sibyl Lee Students from Wenzao Ursuline College of Languages in Kaohsiung

posted by Aiden @ 7:46 AM 0 comments

Reading for March 22

Performing Identity:
a Stage for Multilingual English and Multicultural Englishness

Charlene Rajendran is a writer, teacher and theatre director/performer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. 


Read the full article here (Click the link)

With links to vocabulary, click here.

Translation of some Malaysia words mentioned in the article, click here, courtesy of Jim Duber.

posted by Aiden @ 7:59 PM 0 comments

Cindy Hsu's response posted to Public and Private Language discussion forum

Listen to Cindy Hsu's voice message (posted to our class's discussion board)




"I think no matter what, a person should be proud of his/her own culture, even when he/she move to a new country and learning a whole new different language in order to communicate with the locals, he/she till has to know where he/she belongs. No matter what, a person should not abandon his/her own culture." Cindy Hsu

To download the file, right click (hover your mouse to this link) here. And click 'Save file as'. After downloading the file, you could transfer it to your mp3 player and listen to it while you're on the go!

posted by Aiden @ 6:48 PM 0 comments

Asignment for March 15

http://wenzao2005.forumsplace.com/post-80.html#80 


Read the questions here.

posted by Aiden @ 10:12 AM 0 comments

"Brown: An Erotic History of the Americas"

Richard Rodriguez

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

Richard Rodriguez, Peabody Award-winning journalist, is an editor at Pacific News Service and regular essayist on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer on PBS. His previous memoirs, Hunger of Memory and Days of Obligation, addressed the intersection of his private life with public issues of class and ethnicity. In Brown: An Erotic History of the Americas, he completes his "trilogy on American public life" by considering the issue of race.

Source: UC Santa Barbara Interdisciplinary Humanities Centre

Listen to the audio file.




Click here to watch the video. A new pop-up window will open.

Read another interesing speech from Richard Rodriguez, 'Remarks of Richard Rodriguez' at http://www.library.ca.gov/LDS/convo/convoc21.html

posted by Aiden @ 8:29 AM 0 comments

Immigration and the Fracturing of Community

Immigration and the Fracturing of Community by Richard Rodriguez, Author, PBS Commentator

From Penn National Commission on Society, Culture and Community

posted by Aiden @ 8:08 AM 0 comments

Comprehension questions based on the reading, 'Public and Private Language'

To download the file, right click (hover your mouse to this link) here. And click 'Save file as'. After downloading the file, you could transfer it to your mp3 player and listen to it while you're on the go!


Richard Rodriguez was born July 31, 1944, in San Francisco. He received a bachelor's degree from Stanford University in 1967, and a master's degrees from Columbia University in 1969; he later completed graduate study at the University of California, Berkeley, and Warburg Institute, London. He received a Fulbright fellowship in 1972-73, and a National Endowment for the Humanities fellowship in 1976-77. In addition to free-lance writing and odd jobs, Rodriguez was a Perlman lecturer at the University of Chicago in 1984, and a journalist and essayist for PBS series "MacNeil-Lehrer NewsHour." His works include: Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez, 1982; Days of Obligation: An Argument with My Mexican Father, 1992; American Soul, 1995; and King's Highway, 1999. His works have been published in American Scholar, Harper's, the Los Angeles Times, the New Republic, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post.

[1] Rodriguez argues bilingual education by distinguishing between what he calls 'private individuality' and the 'public individuality' made possible by assimilation. How heavy a price does Rodriguez think he paid for graining a sense of 'public individuality'? How heavy a price do you think he paid?

[2] Richard Rodriguez takes the position that the acquisition of a public language, English, is more important than using the native language in class to make students feel at ease. Why do you think he feels this way? Do you agree or disagree?

[3] As someone who speaks a second language, describe the privileges or freedom that speaking more than one language creates?

How much do you understand the article? Click here to take the online quiz. Let me know how you did, click the 'Post comments' button.

An Interview with Richard Rodrigues: The Culture of American Identity (Grace Cathedral).

Listen to the interview.




To download the file, right click (hover your mouse to this link) here. And click 'Save file as'. After downloading the file, you could transfer it to your mp3 player and listen to it while you're on the go!

posted by Aiden @ 7:26 AM 0 comments

Taiwanese Language Immersion Program

"Taiwanese had a negative impression in many people’s mind; even until now, most of the people still think those who speak Taiwanese are less educated and low social status. On the other hand, the government recently realized the importance of reserving dialects and local culture. From September 2001 Taiwanese is taught in the elementary schools."

"The education of Taiwanese language in elementary school seems not so effective and successful. Actually, students are not learning Taiwanese by studying at school, but rather through the process of natural language acquisition."

Read full paper, here.




To download the file, right click (hover your mouse to this link) here. And click 'Save file as'. After downloading the file, you could transfer it to your mp3 player (Ipod Video) and listen to it while you're on the go!

142.9 MB

YE4A
1093100009 Margaret
1093100010 Carrie
1093100011 Julie
1093100012 Linda
1093100045 Cindy
1093100046 Ingrid

posted by Aiden @ 11:45 PM 0 comments

The Amis Language

Read Group 2's paper, click here. (Doc. file)

posted by Aiden @ 9:12 AM 0 comments

Reggie's audio message

Listen to Reggie's audio message (posted to our class's discussion board)




To download the file, right click (hover your mouse to this link) here. And click 'Save file as'. After downloading the file, you could transfer it to your mp3 player and listen to it while you're on the go!

"I, myself, am now facing the crisis of losing my mother tongue, Hokkien. I was brought up in a Hokkien speaking family. Both of my parents speak fluently Hokkien. Thanks to my folks, I used to be good at it. Nevertheless, after I leave for studying at a junior college in Taipei county where most resident are the so-called ¡§mainlander¡¨, my Hokkien got rusty a bit by a bit. Over there, somehow, speaking Hokkien would be regarded as a "Taike" literately means ¡§Taiwanese Guest¡¨, a person who is not well-educated, not graceful, and able to represent as a symbol of Taiwanese culture (in a negative way, picture this, a man dressed himself ¡§very¡¨ colorful wearing a pair of flip-flop with betelnut in his mouth).Click here for an image of Taike

The usage of language change causes me a few trouble, despite the inconvenience of switching to Mandarin every now and then so as to express myself whenever speaking to a Hokkien speaker (including my parents), I was twice mistaken as a Hakka and a mainlander because of my rusty Hokkien.

I can¡¦t help but starting to worry about the impact to native language that brought by Mandarin. For the time being, I am speaking Hokkien as a pidgin, but for my next generation is a creole. By then, Hokkien would be a lot different from what Hokkien was in the past. Gradually, Hokkien won¡¦t be Hokkien any more, not to mention other minority languages would be very likely lost in the future. "

posted by Aiden @ 7:31 PM 0 comments

Richard Rodriguez: Private and Public Language

An Interview with Richard Rodriguez, click here

The New, New World
Richard Rodriguez on culture and assimilation, click here to read more

Books of the times, click here to know more about Richard Rodriguez

posted by Aiden @ 7:02 AM 0 comments

Permission Slip

Dear all,

Could you please spare a few minutes (around 2-3 minutes) to fill in the persmission slip to publish your documentary films on our blog.

Click on this link to fill in the online slip.

Thanks.

Aiden

posted by Aiden @ 2:49 AM 0 comments

Julie Chou's audio message

Julie Chou wrote: I found it interesting that government bans people from speaking their own language (or language they do not understand) is because they are afraid of being toppled over by people. I never knew the power of language could be so strong. I had though that the reason behind this is that the government wants the language to be united so I would be easier to run the country.

Listen to Julie Chou's audio message (posted to our class's discussion board)




To download the file, right click (hover your mouse to this link) here. And click 'Save file as'. After downloading the file, you could transfer it to your mp3 player and listen to it while you're on the go!

P.s.
Reggie also sent his audio message but I could not open the file. I hope that he sends me the correct url so I could share it with you all. Thanks, Reggie!

posted by Aiden @ 2:23 AM 0 comments