English as a Lingua Franca. What Does That Mean Exactly?

English is spoken in fifty-eight countries, has been made official in thirty-nine countries, and is spreading rapidly.*

What does this mean for the rest of the world? Let's dive into a couple of examples of what that could look like, and what could come out of it based on the two films: The Expansion of English in China, and English in the European Union.

Sources: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/09/guide-to-cockney-rhyming-slang

* https://www.worlddata.info/languages/index.php

Endangered Languages: Louisiana Creole

 Legend has it, my paternal grandpa was Creole and he spoke the language. However, he never passed it down to his children, so I didn't grow up with the language in my home. So I decided I would learn more about this language, its origin, and see what it sounds like. Here is an audible excerpt of the language and a brief history.

Music by: The Zydeco All Stars

Song: If It's Good for the Gander

Sources: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Louisiana-Creole

https://www.endangeredlanguages.com/lang/10417

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_Creole

Utopian Lifestyle, or Orwellian Dystopia

China: Surveillance State or Way of the Future

Technology can be a wonderful thing; from quick entertainment to managing finances, its uses are endless. But to what ends are technological advances willing to go and how will they affect us? Here is my take on it.

Silence., SILENCE!, and silence... :A Powerful Tool

 

I could not fit everything I wanted to say in the infographic that summarizes silence in the film, or in the paper I read. But what I did get is this: I wanted to title this blog entry as, "Silence is a Golden Turd." I originally chose that title because Silence can be a very good thing, and it can also be very bad.  Though I could not clearly illustrate that in this infographic because silence has so many layers that there is no purely good silence. Just listening out of compassion could lead someone to commit suicide. A seemingly innocuous secret being told could hold bad intentions, etc. 

Silence has many many layers and nuances to it and each one is more complex than I could fit here. Silence can make or break something depending on the context surrounding many different situations. One of which is, turning a blind eye to a person who is clearly shoplifting, versus no longer speaking to someone because they did an unspeakable thing to you or someone close to you. That's why I wanted to choose the original title, but it doesn't sound very professional or academic, so I chose the latter title: "Silence., SILENCE!, and silence...: A Powerful Tool", which implies different types of silence exist and can evoke a sense of power, even in print form.

Beyond Good and Evil: Violence in Children's Media; A Brief Takeaway

 Today I will be discussing the film titled, "Beyond Good and Evil: Violence in Children's Media", and where power fits into the equation: 

Violence in general is the most basic form of power there is. I would even go so far as to call it a crude form of power because it's looked at as a "Do as I say or else." (Focault's Repressive power) This makes it the easiest to teach people and mold them into the shape you would like them to be. For example, if a child acts out, then they will most likely receive some form of discipline, be it a swat on the bottom, or hopefully a more gentle form of correction of said behavior. But it is easy to use the bottom swat as an example of exerting power over a child because it uses force and gets the child to "be good".To be good is to be compliant.

What does it mean to be evil? To be evil is to be "immoral" or "wicked". But who says what is immoral? What are these sacred morals? Where do they come from? That's where the media comes into play. 

From the beginning of time, media has told stories and informed the masses, be it paper media, cave drawing, radio, television, or in recent times, digital media. With the invention of the television, you can have a barrage of live images and messages rapidly fed to you. This is extremely effective when given to children especially if they aren't of reading age yet. They can listen and watch. That is the very first form of learning, and with that comes doing. A baby will see their family walking, and eventually, they will imitate that behavior until they finally get the hang of it. Media is designed to create normalcy in what a person is supposed to be in the eyes of others. 

 Media can come into play and tell people what they should be thinking about what good and evil are. In movies, the bad guy is usually someone who might be conventionally unattractive, dark, mysterious, and may move about in a sneaky manner. But a good guy is deemed as light, virtuous, kind, and well-meaning. This movie implies that excessive violence is the answer for those who are fighting what is evil in the world.

But this is the story of American history: The "good guys" write the history, but the losers live the aftereffects. 

What should be done about these interpretations of good and evil that have been fed to us in various ways? We must undo the black-and-white thinking the media has fed us for so long.  Life is no longer black and white. It is varying shades of gray, and it's up to us to dissect and turn this puzzle around and look at it from all angles. If we don't our children will carry the same legacy that was left for them, and that is a very intolerant world.

Gender Roles and Power: How They Fit Together

 I would like to discuss, "Tough Guise 2: Violence, Manhood, & American Culture," which is about the things men have to do and be in order to show how masculine they are in our society. It challenges the idea of what it means to be a real man by looking at violence and how it is mostly perpetuated by men who would be seen as masculine, or not masculine enough. For example, a masculine man has to put on a disguise of being stoic, mean, tough, and hardened in order to be respected in society and his peer group in all settings. Take a shrewd businessperson for example.

What image comes to mind when you think of a person of this caliber? Usually, it’s a middle-aged man, possibly in his 50s or 60s in a suit.  He appears stoic, shows confidence, is direct, is strong, and capable.  He may display mannerisms in a photo like below:

 

All of these descriptions fit within the masculine ideology and might display signs of the repressive power dynamic as described by Michel Focault. This is the same power that helps reinforce masculinity. 

Ford,  the popular car manufacturer, has a motto which is, "Built Ford Tough" and boasts that they have been the best-selling truck for 45 years in a row.  When you think about that type of vehicle, we imagine the owner of said vehicle is a man who works in construction, or some sort of manual labor, which are seen as very masculine jobs. 

On the other hand, there is an opposite side to masculinity, and that is feminity. It is the Yin to masculine's yang. Feminity is seen as nurturing, caring, loving and supportive.  While masculinity just "gets things done", femininity approaches the task in, a more gentle, and diplomatic way of handling things.

In gender studies, normative power can be taken as going along to get along, which is expected of a person with masculine or feminine traits. Depending on the circumstance, a masculine or feminine person will go along to get along in order to maintain their masculinity/ feminity. Take India for example. According to The Print, an Indian digital newspaper, "a total of 31,677  rape cases were registered across India in 2021." Women are often forced into a blame-the-victim mentality because they are seen as second-class citizens. As a result, both men and women take a normative approach to rape when it happens. You could also take a boy's locker room setting as depicted in this public service announcement:

 

The boy with the phone and the boy with the towel are going along to get along as the bully harasses the smaller team member.  Taking a normative approach to these things can result in school incidents and an increase of workplace shootings. 

What is the solution?  I believe a strong and full understanding of  Focault's interpretation of power is needed to navigate your way through our culture, be it through gender studies, or life in general.

Language Verses Power, A Complex Balancing Act

My name is Angelynn Scott, and I'm a major in Video Production and Film at Webster University. Here is my take on when language and power worked together to affect me in the past.

When I was a supervisor at a bank, I experienced several managing styles, most in the form of repressive power. This form of power dynamic caused me to ask myself if there was a better way of managing people. 

Before I became a supervisor, I kept my head down and made sure I became extremely knowledgeable in my area where it got to the point where people were asking me about things pertaining to their jobs, and they began to wonder why I wasn't a supervisor yet. 

I decided to climb the chain of command and I sent an e-mail to my lead's supervisor.

Shortly after that, I became a graveyard shift lead. 

The graveyard shift was considered the most unruly shift out of all three of them, and it was expected of me to bring them up to par with the quality of work worthy of acceptance.  By then, I had studied different managerial styles from various places of employment I had worked in the past. I figured out what worked and what didn't work from my experience. I began to devise a plan in order to turn my shift around and make it work for not just myself, but for everyone I managed. Without knowing it, I employed the second and third dimensions of power.

Using these methods, I was able to delegate tasks while working side by side with my employees. In my past experience, prior management looked like this:

Afterward, I trained them so well that anyone could take the place of another co-worker if they were to go on vacation and do the job very well. This way, if someone were gone, my shift wouldn't miss a beat. This worked very well and I found out later that it impressed upper management. As a result, my co-workers demonstrated the third dimension of power.

In the end, I created an environment that went from the picture above, to this:

  

And all it took was a little:

• respect
• trust
• effective communication 
• a clear direction, and
• using a second, and third-dimensional power dynamic built on being side by side with my employees instead of having a stereotypical boss vs employee relationship via first-dimensional power.