ENGL2075 Social and Cultural Discourse Week 1

DISCUSSION BASED ON VIDEOS

VIDEO I: Singapore English
1. How is the male speaker different from the female speaker, linguistically?
2. Why do you think the female speaker speaks that way?
3. Why do people in the background laugh? What is their attitude towards both speakers?

VIDEO II: American Tongues

Speaker 1 (Woman)
1. What is her attitude towards her male partner?
2. Was she right to feel that way and to break the relationship?
3. Would you do the same thing? Why?

Speaker 2 (Man wearing glasses)

1. What were his feelings about southerners’ (South of the USA) drawl (the way people talk)?
2. Was he stereotyping all the southerners? Do we stereotype people? How?

Speaker 3 (Ohio Columnist)

1. Why do people get defensive about the way they speak? Do you?
2. Nasality in New York ... think “The Nanny”. Is there anywhere in Malaysia that uniquely has one
sound that typically does not exist elsewhere?

Speaker 4 (Older woman)

1. When can we use different words or phrases to mean the same thing? Examples?
2. People from the Southern parts of America use ‘darling’, ‘precious’, ‘honey’, etc. to show their
gentler side. Do we have anything similar in our languages or dialects?

Speaker 5 (Texas columnist)

1. Using Malaysian examples, discuss some (linguistic) stereotypes we have in this country.

Last speakers - actors in the taxi

1. Why did Rock Hudson use a different variety compared to his real one? Did Doris Day fall for it?
2. What propagates regional stereotypes?
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ENGL2075 Social and Cultural Discourse Week 1

3. Is it better to speak standard variety compared to regional varieties? Why?