Letters

Dear Mark:

Brother, we are living in really hard times, our house is a very little house, and it only has two little rooms. In one room sleep our fathers and in the other room sleep me and our brothers. In our room are two beds to the four brothers so I sleep with Jessica and Peter sleep with Luke, but sometimes I sleep with Luke because he said that Peter make a lot of noise. All the mornings a mockingbird sings outside the window and tells us that a new day is starting.

We live with only one bathroom to all the family and when someone is using it we have to go to the toilet of the restaurant that is near the house.

We have one dining room, that the only time that we use  it is to lunch because in this house there is not food, all the days of the week we lunch the same, lettuce with chicken, and on Sunday we do meet with lettuce. The rest of the day the only thing that have the desk are the cigarettes of our brother Peter, he bought it to a black men outside de football field.

Our kitchen only has a dishwasher and it has all the day dishes above, because in the family anyone wants to wash the dishes.

On summer days the house is very hot and we have to go outside the house searching water, on the other hand in winter days the house is very cold and we have to sleep all the brothers in one bed.

The people that live near our house live all in the same conditions, but there are some exceptions of some rich families that live in big houses. In one of these big houses lives the president of our country Franklin D. Roosevelt.

I hope that you like the letter, I will write you soon!

Dear Mark:

In this second letter I go to tell you some things that do the family without you. First our father work all the day doing some social activities, he left the house in the morning after the mockingbird sing and then he arrived at the night, so in the day we don’t saw him. Our mother work as housewife, she is always concerned of all the brothers. Peter our big brother is always outside the house with his friends, he always is doing bad things. Last week the police took him because he was smoking weed outside the house. Luke the other brother is always outside the house playing football with all his friends, he is a fan of football and is very happy because this year is the World Cup of Italy. Finally our little sister Jessica is a very good girl, she cries a lot but if you gave chocolate to her, she don’t cry any  more.

In the week the family is separated because a lot of things, so in the week end we try to met and do some familiar activities. We play cards all the Saturday night, I always win because I am very lucky, these games always finish with some fight but the next day is all perfect. One day in the month we receive the visit of our grandfathers and is the best day of the month, because we eat delicious things, we visit beautiful places and do things that we never do.

Thank you for reading the letter!

Dear Brother:

In this letter I going to tell you how is the school and my friends. The school is not a big school but there are a lot of students, there are men’s and women’s, whites and blacks, there are all the type of person. The classrooms are divided in two, one to the black boys and one to the white boys. I don’t understand why but I think that this is not good. On break times we always play a football match between blacks and white that all the times finish with a very big fight. The white’s boys don’t have black friends and the black boys don’t have white friends. But I think that I am the exception because my best friend is a black boy called Nelson, he is a very good boy and we like the same things. All my white friends said me that I am abnormal because I have a black friend but I am think that it is normal and that the other people is bad. One time I visit Nelson house and in that moment I think that I was lucky because Nelson lives in the misery, he sleep with all his family in the floor, he eat only one day of the week, he eat and go to the toilet in the same place, Nelson house was very amazing, after that visit I try to help Nelson

The teachers are all whites people and the classes are boring. They always talk about the bad moment that the economy of our country is living. We have five hours of classes each day, but I have one more because I stay to football classes with Luke.

I hope that you like the letter, I will write you soon!

Dear Mark:

This is the last letter that I send you and I going to tell you what is happening in our country now. Our country is living an economic depression. Also there are a lot of conflicts between white people and black people, these is because the black people want to have the same rights that the whites. All the newspapers and radios talk about the same things and conflicts, all the countries fell with the fell of our country there is like an domino effect, especially the countries that depends of our country like Chile that is the country that lose more in the economic crisis.

There are also a lot of new technology items that change the world and each day is a new item that revolutionizes all the world.

Thank you for reading the letter!

SUMMARY TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD (CHAPTER 6 AND 7)

Jem and Dill followed the orders of Atticus, who orders them to stop bothering the Radley property and that poor man. Although this good attitude only lasts till the last day of Dill in Maycomb, in the moment when Jem and he plan to sneak over to the Radley Place and finds their way in through a loose entrance. Finally Scout gets involved too, and they crawl around the house. While crawling, the three of them see the shadow of a man with a hat on and run away, and they heard a shotgun being shot off behind them. They got away by passing under the fence, but suddenly Jem’s pants get stuck on the fence, so if he wants to get free he would kick them. The kids return home and encounter all the adults on the neighborhood: Miss Maudie, Atticus, and Miss Stephanie Crawford; known as the “neighborhood gossip”. Miss Maudie in his speech declares that Mr. Nathan Radley shot at a Negro in his yard. After that, Atticus asks Jem where his pants are; and Dill interrupts and says that he won Jem’s pants in a poker game. Worried about this, Atticus asks them if they were actually using cards. Jem answers that they were playing with matches. That night, Jem makes his way to the Radley Place, and manages to get back his pants.  School began few days later, and Jem tells Scout that he found the pants hanging neatly over the fence, like him someone had found them and just hung them. After school that same day, they found another object hidden in the middle of the knothole: a ball of gray twine. They left it there for a few days, but no one claimed it, so they took it for their own. Among this, Scout declares that he does not feel happy in second grade, so as he did in first, and Jem promises her that school gets more entertaining the farther along one stays. Late that season, another present appears in the knothole: now they were two figures carved in soap to represent Scout and Jem. The three figures are followed by the next objects: chewing gum, a spelling bee medal, and an old pocket watch. The next day, Jem and Scout find that the knothole has been fulfilled with cement, so no more presents are supposed to be delivered.

Interview: Language

Martín Elorriaga

Vicente Jander

Language change

According to the dictionary language is a body of words and the systems for their use common to a people who are of the same community or nation, the same geographical area, or the same cultural tradition. Humanity has always dealt with language; since cavemen with gestures until now with facebook. Language is the tool that allows us to express ourselves and to understand others. Since the British Empire expanded the English language almost world-wide, there have been more frequent language changes around the world, changing with internal and external attitudes in dialogs.  Language is in constant change because the society change and the people start having more needs. There are a lot of theories to explain language change, and for knowing more we want to interview an expert of this matter Mr. German Letelier.

“Language shapes the way we think, and determines what we can think about.” Benjamin Lee Whorf

Interviewee: Germán Letelier

Interview:

Question: 1- What comes to your when we say the word “language”?

Answer: Language is the world, its reality. Language is different to all people. For example, when we talk about the word “home”, people will give to it different meanings. Someone will think about a house, others a place where you can relax and sleep, others a relief; it depends on the experience. So in consequence LANGUAGE IS REALITY is experience and according to that it forms itself and transforms itself.

Question: 2- Is the language you speak part of your identity? Why? Why Not?

Answer: Yes, because the language I speak it’s the language that I have decided to speak; besides I understand that different “moments” of language exist. The language I use in the school is not the same that the one that I use in my house and the one that I use in my house is different with the one that I use with my friends. This action obviously identifies me as a person.

Question: 3- Do you agree with the claim that “The English Language is nobody’s special property”?

Answer: Of course, take another example: New Zealand. The English spoken there is not the same that the English spoken in England, or in the USA. All countries have the right of manipulating the English they speak, to give them their identities. A shared language is a better language.

Question: 4- Would you prefer the fact of having a multiple number of languages in the world or would you prefer English as the only language we should speak?

Answer: I think that the language, as experience, should exist in variation according to time and space. But, there must be a language that should be common world-wide so we can all understand it, and I consider that English is the language that should dominate in that sense.

Question: 5- Why do you think the language changes?

Answer: Because people change, because historical situations change, we change language because space changes. We must understand that the type and concept of language of our parents is different to ours, and that’s for a very simple reason: when our parents where young, for example, they didn’t know the word computer. Today is a universal word.  That kind of concepts, concepts those 20 years ago didn’t exist. So ask yourself a question: How will language be in 10 years?

Question: 6- Do you think language reflects power?

Answer: In most cases, it can be a clear proof of power. For example, when Barack Obama established his political party with the phrase “Yes, we can.”, he is giving power to the people, encouraging them to change. I want you to consider that this kind of power is not always going from top to bottom, but sometimes from bottom to top.

Question: 7- According to you should we all know how to use creoles and learn them?

Answer: No, in my opinion learning other alphabets is useless; you just got to stick to your language. Maybe culture will be interesting to learn, but other languages no. I consider it a waste of time.

To conclude, language according to Mr. Letelier identifies people, gives them the particularity of the human being so they can manipulate it at will. Without language, the human species would be considered as any other animal: without intellect and stuck in the same stage. So language in consequence changes constantly, changes with society; following our needs (each time more and more) leading the human evolution and adapting to it. Language makes the man a man. As he said at the end: “Imagine human being without language, the answer is impossible because there would be no human being”.

"Letter from a Birminghan jail [King Jr.]"

Language Features

Word Classes:

 

The narrator change the point of view (pronouns) of the discourse to include the reader on it. These is reflected in the second paragraph: "You speak [...] at first I was".

 

The narrator wrote the verse in preent and in past tense to compare what is happening now with what was hapening before. We can see this in the second paragraph: "I have tried to stand [...] I'am convinced, beflowing with blood".

Formal and Informal text:

The narrator is using formal language, this is due to the type of text (formal letter) and the importance of it. the formality is shown with complex words and long sentences, such as: "[...] fellow clergymen would see my non violent efforts as those of an extremist "Somebodiness", and words such as: "Rabble rousers" and "outside agitators". As it was evidenced, the presence of complex and pollysilabic words and sentences makes the language used formal at all.

Semantic Field

In the most of the text, the narrator use words related with freedom, for example "Opressed people", "violence" and "Negros frustration". The narrator use these semantic field to demostrate what happens with the "Negros" community in those times because they dind'nt had freedom.

Sumary

NEW TECHNOLOGY TEXTS

Websites: Some websites only differ from traditional written texts in that printed material is presented on a scren raher than on a page, but other have features that make websites a distinctive form a text.

The way material is organised and presented is influenced by the dimensions of the screen.

Almost all the texts are non linear.

The information is broken down into manageable segments. That information is broken down into manageable segments means that the information can be handle in parts.

Website are more interactive that traditional written texts.

E-mail: As websites, not all e-mails differ significantly from their traditional written equivalents, some are very similar to letters.

The informality of e-mail, together with the interactive relationship beetween how sent and how recive the e-mail is more informal and do the e-mail similar to the spoken lenguage.

Significant features of e-mail language include:

• Lexis that uis often conversational.
• Greetings and farewells that ilustrate the informality of the medium.
• Grammatical features thats include loosely constructed sentences, wich resemble the natural flow of speech, sometimes the punctuation marks are omitted.
• Various methods are used to suggest the prosodic features of speech, such as stress and tone of voice.
• The use of abbreviations.
• The use of emoticons.

Text messages: The main influence on text messaging style is the need to keep messages as short and concise as possible. To do these the people who weite use:

• Words shorted. (TXT = text)
• Phonetic spelling. (LUV = love)
• Letter homophones. (C = see)
• Number homophones. (2 = to)
• Grammatical compression.

Written language:

• Planed
• Delayed interaction
• Discourse markers

Oral language:

• Spontaneous
• Instant interaction
• Tone

Text C: These text contains words shortened, from example Tues (Tuesday), Wed (Wednesday), Thurs (Thursday), Fri (Friday), Sat (Saturday), Sun (Sunday), JillyB that is how write these shortened words, do it to use less time. Other thing that have these text is that have words in capital letters for example the word BOOK, Geoff that is who write these, do it to put more enphasis in these word. Finally the text have phonetic spellings, for exapemle wanna (Want to), don´t (Do not), the narrators of these words use these to use less time writing the text in a informal way.

PIECE OF NEWS

FEWER THAN 40 PEOPLE KILLED IN MEXICO

On 10 of April in one of the most dangerous cities of Mexico Juarez, fewer than 40 people were killed. These murders was produce by a gang called "Los Zetas".

Three of the people killed was people of the police. One of these men was Ismael Sergio Apodaca, that was one of the coordinators of the police station of the city of Juarez. He no was the only mas of the police that was killed, other two people also were killed and more people of the police are now in the hospital  with several injuries.

The forty men that were killed, were killed in the last fourth days, the age of the men is between twenty and fifty years old, these people were killed  in different places like in the workshop, garage or other places.

One of the most terribles homicide was the homicide of man, that when the police found him, he was without head and without arms, the name of these man still lost.

All these murders was produce by a gang called "Los Zetas" that is a criminal organization that the principal objective is the theft of cars, kidnapping and kill people. Is one of the principal groups that participates in the narcotrafic war.

The police is trying to stop these gang, but with a very little support of the state. If the police no stop these gang now in more time there going to be more murders. In 2011 as many 600 people were killed in these city.ty

Some members of the gang "Los Zetas".

Bias

News title: "Brazil rejects request to halt Belo Monte dam in Amazon.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-12990099
Main Points:  - Brazil had said a request to halt work on its massive hydro-electric dam in the amazon.
                     -There live indigenous people.
                     - The hydro-electric will create job and provide electricity to 23                                     millions homes.
Bias detected: - Bias throug placement.
                      - Bias by headline.
                      - Bias by photos.

Technology is killing art?

In this image we can see a parody of Salvador Dali's work " Persistence of the memory ", this image wants to say that with the television and the technology we are killing art. Since the same image goes out but in an a bit burlesque way and laughing at this one, in the image The Simpons are fused with the art sees the famous television program, to indicate that in the epoch of the postmodernism  the technology is killing to art.