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Usage of English
Usage of English
By Ekin Orer
11/2/2012 I owe great to this project. I always wanted to conduct a research about language. This project is directly relevant to the issues in class, even though it is not an ethnographic essay. I cant think more beautiful way to honor English class by doing a research about English. The reading assignments helped me a lot while beginning and developing the research. I tried to adopt the methods used in Mirabellis Learning to Serve. I worked on my interview questions very well. They were not vague and actually, they were almost in a shape that allowed the interviewee to comment on the questions while being specific. This project unfortunately doesnt fit the given assignment because it is not an ethnographic essay but I think it will outshine among other researches. I used my methods very strictly and scientifically. All interviews were professional and I achieved my pre-research goals as I expected. My assignment could be successful example to how a student should be prepared to a research. I didnt only used references from my observations and interviews. I believe that an observer is always an observer in life. I must admit that I had a very short amount of time to write but I tried to make it formal. I read articles about how I should write my research, although I couldnt manage to do a secondary research. I really enjoyed the interviews because all the subjects were my friends and it was not strict. The main part that really was difficult about my project was I couldnt fully evaluate my interviews because of the given time. Moreover, I felt very lazy to make specific connections between the research and the interviews. I used generally direct observations and primary data to develop my project. This makes my project authentic in some ways but it lacks at secondary data and references. I learned to organize and gather information during this project. I know that this project is not an ethnographic essay but it has many important information in it. It does not end with a definitive conclusion but the body part gives some facts which are more important. Thanks to Mr. Kenzie for making this project possible, Ekin Orer
Introduction
Todays circumstances requires a child to learn English whether he\she is American, British or Korean. Because in order to have your kid well-educated, you should give him some qualities like mathematics, physics, and geometry. English is now among them and perhaps one may think that it is more important than math or physics. But why English has such importance even in the countries which is not directly needed. The answer is simple: English speaking countries have the most economic significance and affect globe significantly. Learning English is not a quality of a person nowadays; it is a must criteria. Anyone who doesnt know English encounters with countless problems in their lives. For example consider a typical day of a middle-class family in Bulgaria. This family uses computer so they have to now English keywords to run it, or when they are watching a film together it is probably a Hollywood movie and requires English to watch. A person in Finland listens rock music and todays popular music culture consists of 90% English. An old man in Thailand wants to enter social network and the whole system operates in English. If a child in Turkey wants to play video games he has to learn English and the list goes on My general interest about these conditions in real life was simply because I was curious. In Purdue, the international students, like me, should have gone through similar or at least some occasions that improves and adapts English to their lives. When I first decided to pursue this curiosity, I knew that language itself is always going through a dynamic process; in other words, it evolves in time but I found this challenging. When I started to talk with students about my research, I understood that the relation between international student and English is directly affecting how English is used among native English speakers. America is a garden for globalization so I chose not to interview with any American because even small effects of the alien speakers can be seen in the English that Americans use. I wanted to learn how other English speaking countries react this situation. My project is about uses of texts and languages within Purdues International Students. This research will divide into two parts: 1. Utilize of English in English speaking communities like UK Ireland etc 2. Usage of English as a second language The main focus point of the project is in what ways English affects peoples lives and how English is affected by this process.
Methodology
I used two different methods: interviews and observations. Since, I know many international students it was not hard to arrange the interviews. My interviews were approximately twenty minutes long, I chose my questions very carefully because I didnt want to offend any student or any questions they didnt want to answer. The interviews held place in isolated places which is really good for my research because I want the subject to focus on my topic. The dynamic interview systems developed the project because my observations are about the interviews too. I think it is essential to observe them while they are aware of the situation because I can tell what they think about language and how they react and think on a question that they have never thought about. My observations took place in public
A Brief Background
Year 2012, Location: Purdue University. This university hosts great amount of students, professors and faculty members. As we can imagine there are all sorts of backgrounds. One professor is from India; he came from a village which is really poor in economy and education. His dream is to become an eminent figure in his field of study. One undergraduate student is from Indiana; he is from middle-class and his father is a contractor, while her mother looks after his two younger sisters. His dream is to graduate as soon as possible and marry with the girl in his dreams. One master student is from Germany, she came here with an exchange program. Even though her father never supported her to go US, her mother convinced him because she saw the spark in her daughters eyes. But among all of these myriad scenarios there is a major factor which allowed them to come. This factor is of course English. Before discussing about my research, I want to give some information about English which are related to this research. English is a West Germanic language whose roots are from Old Saxon and Anglo-Frisian. English became a worldwide language with the expansion of British Empire. Growing industrial revolution drove Britain into a competition with France, Portugal, Nederland, Spain and Germany. Britain colonized almost every land in Africa and North America as well as Australia. In almost two centuries English became an independent organism in the world. Despite of the French Revolution and the independency of USA, English resided in these old colonies as an official language. By the way I learned from my Irish friend, Tyler, that Great Britain has no official language. After French Revolution and Industry Revolution, capitalism reign over the world with the help of USA. This is probably the main reason why we need to speak English whether we are from an English-Speaking Country or not.
If you have seen Christopher Nolans famous movie Inception, you would have loved it. In the movie the main idea was implementing a new idea to someones brain as if it was a pure inspiration. I primarily wanted to conduct my research about how English affects the people in their way of thinking. But there was a problem, this question is purely subliminal and I am not Freud or Lacan. If I have ever started this research, it would have taken many years and I would have won the Nobel Prize. It is very interesting when someone starts to think in a different language, and it requires a brief time. Most of the students in Purdue said that, they started to naturally react English in less than a month but they also said that they never utterly think in English. The Lacan in me said that, I should research how grammar structure affects the cerebral structure. For example, Turkish is a composed of long words but short sentences. This feature makes me more articulate rather than aesthetic. Moreover, it is also phonetic too hence what you write is what you read. This enhances your reliance on your empirical senses. When I asked this to the other students, they failed to answer this question which really disappointed me.
Reference
Stephen, F. (2005). The Ode Less travelled: Unlocking The Poet Within. (1st Ed.). London, England: Hutchinson.