Cultural Controversy

Chapter three of Chaika, the author talks about the different styles of speech.  It mentioned that each society has its own rules of politeness, but it can be taken differently by anyone depending on the style of speech.  One of the terms mentioned in the chapter that I connected to was voice quality.  In the chapter it says, the voice we use isn't necessarily the one we are born with.  Each person is born with a variety of voices, in which we choose one to be our base or normal voice.  I think this is really important, because I have observed this everyday.  We may speak to one person in a higher pitch, but the next person may hear a totally different voice.  The voice we adopt may be the one we use in a social setting, but can change depending on the setting or event.

In relation to the S.P.E.A.K.I.N.G. acronym, I believe the term voice quality can be applied to it in a variety of ways. The setting would be where ever the conversation is taking place. Participants are those involved int he conversation. Event would be whatever was happening during the time the conversation was taking place. Act would be the way in which the people involved spoke to one another. Key was little more difficult for me to place, but I would say it's when the one of the people changed the the pitch or quality of the voice and maybe the mood they were in when talking.  Instrumentality....I'm not exactly sure if I can place that anywhere using this term in this context. Norm would be the way the spoke to each other using their "normal" voices and changing around others or in a different gathering. And the Genre depends on the story or whatever they were speaking to each about whether adventurous or jokingly.

Fresh Prince of Bel Air- Example of how speech Varies in Communities

I chose an episode from the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.  It was the first episode aired, during this episode Will Smith moved in with his aunt.  Originally he had lived in an urban city in Philadelphia, so it was a very different experience.  He spoke very different from his family and often made fun of the way they spoke.  Some of the words used during the episode were "Stupid" meaning "Good" and "Bad" meaning "Attractive".  Will wasn't used to the way they spoke there and insulted them several times.  Since Will didn't speak like them he thought it was weird, but to others they spoke proper English.  Who has the right to say what proper English is?  Doesn't speech vary within communities?  The video is a little long, but the example I'm using will begin at 2 minutes and 30 seconds.

Throughout the video you can hear code-switching and the difference in dialects as they speak to each other.  It's obvious that Will shared the same speech patterns with his friends back at home, but it wasn't so common in Bel Air. 

Job Placement, With a Record...States Help Find Work (and Hope) For Ex-Convicts

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/25/business/25offender.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=Job%20Placement,%20With%20a%20Record&st=cse

The link above will take you directly to the article in which I'm blogging about.

In Tuesday's paper, "The New York Times", there was an article on how it's hard to find jobs for ex-convicts.  I spoke to many people about this article to find out their interpretation of the article and how they feel about it.  The majority felt that it was a motivational article and they were proud that the government is trying to do something fund programs so more ex-convicts can find employment after incarceration.  I felt something totally different from everyone!  When I read the entire article it seemed to be more on the negative side.  The reporter of the article continuously mentioned how hard it was to find a job being an ex-convict.  He also stated that the reason most ex-cons can’t find jobs is, because they go to jail three years after being releases.  Is it me or isn’t that rude!  What if that wasn’t the reason employers didn’t want to employ ex-cons…now that do!

Another portion of the article that captured my attention is the subtitle.  It said, “States Help Find Work (and Hope) For Ex-Convicts”.  I thought the subtitle was a bit sarcastic.  It says they want to find hope in parenthesis, but each time something positive was mentioned something negative came to shut it down.  I’m not sure if I read it wrong or I am just overly dramatic, but the language in the article seemed to be a bit questioning!  It is possible that the article was written this way to pull people in and hopefully get the funding that is needed, but I don't think that was the right way to go about it.