Creole Characteristics

 According to David Cristal’s “Ensyclopedia of the English Language”, all English based creoles share many common futures despite the geographical distances, political and cultural differences of the countries where the creoles are spoken. These similarities are especially observed in the grammar of the languages. The fact might be explained by the “creole hypothesis”, according to which all the creoles have developed out of the creole used by the first black slaves in America and the Carribbean. Originally this language was very different from English but later, as generations were in contact with white English population, it obtained many linguistic features from the standard variety.

I think, here it is worth mentioning the differences between a creole and a pidgin. A pidgin is a means of communication among people who do not share a common language but have to contact with each other, usually for commercial purposes. Such language has a reduced grammatical structure and a limited vocabulary. Pidgins are only used in circumstances where there is no other way of understanding each other.

When in multilingual community an increasing number of people began to use a pidgin as the main means of  communication, and then it is passed down to generations, it becomes a creole. So, we can see that a creole and a pidgin are two different stages of the same phenomenon.

            As it has already been mentioned above, various creoles share some common characteristics. For example, there is no agreement between the subject and the predicate in the present tense in sentences in almost all creaoles: She sing a song. The auxiliary to be is not used: She a nice person. A verb can be brought in front of the sentence for emphasis: A talk Mary talk make she trouble. There is no case distinctions for pronouns: She see he come.

ATTACHMENT

                                   

Various psychologists tried to explain the phenomenon of attachment and love between a mother and her baby. According to the podcast about attachment (Psychology), from the time they are born, babies are especially sensitive to the social signals they get from other people. It is really very interesting how babies become the most important persons in their mothers’ lives, and how they develop this attachment. In psychology, I have come up with two explanations of attachment.

The first one is Freud’s drive-reduction explanation. According to this explanation, “attachment to the mother originates in the satisfied need for nourishment”. Babies are attached  to their mothers because they need their care and love. However, this explanation was not well-supported by research.

The second explanation was suggested by John Bowlby, who is considered the founder of   attachment theory. He thinks that attachment has evolutionary basis; “it provides sense of security and safe base from which to explore the world”. Babies are born helpless and dependent and they need to be protected and taken care of. It is part of their evolutionary background that parents take care of their babies and babies are attached to their parents. This theory was strongly supported by research.

There was an experiment with monkeys carried out by Harry Harlow. He separated baby monkeys from their mother but took care that all their needs were satisfied. As a result, the experiment had a negative effect on the baby monkeys’ psychological development; as they grew up they were easily scared and stressed. Besides, they were completely unable to raise new generation themselves. Harlow also discovered that there can be various substitutes for a mother. He did an experiment with two types of substitutes. One of them was a “wire mother” which gave food, the other one did not provide food but it looked much more like a real mother; it was covered with soft fur, it had a face like a monkey. And it was discovered that, although baby monkeys went to get food from the “wire mother”, they preferred spending most of their time by the second mother.

The experiment showed the evolutionary nature of attachment babies have towards their mother.

Bowlby found out that human babies tend to show two types of behavior as they start developing “clear-cut attachment”. One of them has security base; whenever babies are scared or stressed they run to their mother. The other one is “separation anxiety”. I have often noticed babies showing this separation anxiety when they are separated from their mothers; they feel distressed, they start to cry.

Gender Issues

Nowadays, some of the most debatable issues concerning the English language are those referring to gender differentiation. There have been a lot of criticisms concerning the way the language reflects social attitudes towards men and women. These criticisms mainly refer to the English grammar and vocabulary, where one is usually faced with the traditional male oriented view of the world. According to this view, men are considered to have a higher status in the society than women. The feminist movement in the USA gave rise to linguistic changes affecting English. These changes have affected both grammar and vocabulary.

In vocabulary, the “male” words were replaced by more neutral items; for example, “chairman” was changed into “chairperson”, “salesman became “sales assistant”. It was interesting to find out that in some job descriptions the use of sexually neutral words has become a legal requirement. However, in my opinion, these changes are hard to be applied to the whole vocabulary. For example, there is still certain disagreement on whether these changes should also affect traditional idioms such as “Neanderthal Man”.

In grammar, the linguists suggested using a sex-neutral third-person singular pronoun instead of he and she. The problem usually occurs when we need to replace a sex-neutral noun or an indefinite pronoun with a third-person singular pronoun.  I myself, have often come across such problem in my writing. And, usually, I prefer using one of the alternatives suggested in some textbooks, i.e. replacing such words by he or she.

All such changes in a language are usually more noticeable in writing than in speech. For example, nowadays, there have been published many guidelines that recommend that the authors should avoid using sexist language. However, when it comes to spoken language, it is usually hard to say whether it will really be affected by these changes. For example, in written language I try to avoid using sexist language, but in speech I often find it hard to use sex-neutral words. The reason, I think, is that speech is usually spontaneous and fast, and I often find it difficult to control its flow. 

The Literacy Problem

According to David Crystal’s Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, literacy is a problem which is faced not only by the underdeveloped nations but also by many people in English-speaking countries. It is often difficult to estimate the exact number of illiterate people. The problem has to do with how we define the concept of  “illiteracy”. Thus, according to some surveys, in the UK 3-4 per cent of the population is illiterate. But other surveys suggest twice this number. In Canada estimates are 5-20 per cent; in the USA 10-20 per cent.

            Literacy is a long-lasting process which includes gradually increasing levels and domains of abilities. I think there are cases when it is difficult to say whether the person is literate or not. For example, he might be able to read and write but unable to spell; or he can be good at reading bur unable to write. There are also cases when a person can read only certain types of texts. So, we can see that illiteracy is not a single dimension of difficulty, but there can be many other possibilities within each level.

According to the definition of UNESCO in 1951, “A person is literate who can, with understanding, both read and write a short, simple statement on his everyday life”. This definition is appropriate when we mean absolute literacy.

However, in 1960 the concept of ‘functional’ literacy was used to estimate the problem.

Accordingly, we find the following definition: ‘A person is literate when he has acquired the essential knowledge and skills which enable him to engage in all those activities in which literacy is required for effective functioning in his group and community”.

            I greatly support the second definition, as I think the level of a person’s literacy greatly depends on the community or group he is functioning in. In some groups the person may be considered very literate, but in another group, with higher level of literacy, the same person may be considered as illiterate. In my opinion, if a person is capable of using his knowledge and skills to satisfy his needs in a certain community, he can be considered literate.

             Very often it can be very difficult for illiterate or semi-literate person reach the acceptable level of literacy in a particular country. The reason is that in developed countries the standards of literacy are higher. I think, countries should organize various literacy campaigns in order to be able to satisfy their requirements and raise public awareness.

Jealousy

It was quite interesting to come across a podcast discussing an emotion called jealousy. According to the podcast (in Stuff You Should Know, N 105), jealousy is one of the most widely known triggers of domestic violence. And it is essential to note that some people consider women abuse out of jealousy to be less negative than women abuse out of any other motives. I think the reason is that the people who hold this view consider jealousy one of the ways of expressing care. They are of the opinion that in couple relationships jealousy is normal. However, I don’t share this view. In my opinion, jealousy leading to violence cannot be justified or treated less negatively.

Is jealousy different from envy? These two emotions might seem similar but in reality they are different. When you envy, you want something you do not have. And when you are jealous you are afraid to loose what you have.

In one of my previous posts, I described fear as one of the emotions typical of humans and most animals. Such emotions are usually considered primary. Other examples of primary emotions are anger, disgust, joy. Besides primary emotions, humans also possess secondary emotions, which are considered self-conscious emotions and are typical only of people. You must have an awareness of yourself in relation to others in order to experience secondary emotions. Thus, jealousy, pride, guilt, shame are all secondary emotions.

As I have already mentioned in my post about fear, all emotions are motivators. For example, joy motivates you to do something again; fear motivates you not to do something. Similarly, jealousy motivates you to prevent something.

Some researches on jealousy are based on gender distinctions. Women display more jealous characteristics than men. One reason might be that women are more open and freer to express their emotions than men. Besides, men are more upset about sexual infidelity, whereas women are more upset about emotional infidelity.  However, more recent studies suggest that jealousy is more individual. I agree with the latter statement, as there are many cases when men become very jealous because of emotional betrayal. Besides, jealousy may have some personal background. For example, if you have often been cheated on before you may become very suspicious of your spouse. Or, if you have often cheated before you are aware that others can cheat on you.  The fact itself can lead to jealousy.

Some other studies suggest that the roots of jealousy lie in the feeling of insecurity. For instance, you may have a sense of insecurity because of your outer appearance. It is interesting that according some research studies, tall men and women of average height are usually less jealous than those who are too tall or too short.

To sum it up, I would say that I support the opinion that one of the main reasons for jealousy is the sense of insecurity. If you are content with yourself, if you are loved and trust the one you love there must be no room for jealousy.

Prescriptive Approach to the Language

According to the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English Language by David Crystal, prescriptivism in grammar is an authoritarian view based on the assumption that one variety of a language should be valued higher than others. Adherents to this approach are certain that this one variety should be imposed on the whole speech community. Prescriptivists value the standard written language or the formal spoken language reflecting literary style, which is mostly encountered in dictionaries and grammar books.

According to the speech by Dr John McWhorter on Prescriptive grammar, that I have recently listened to in the You Tube, there are a lot of people who make mistakes in their spontaneous speech, and  prescriptive approach to the language states that people should always be careful so as not to make mistakes in their speech. This approach prescribes rules to the language. Further in his speech, McWhorter opposes the Prescriptive approach to the Descriptive approach, the aim of which is to describe the language. Followers of this approach describe and explain the patterns of usage found in all varieties of the language, and they think it natural that there are variation in language usage as language is always changing. They do not think that dialects that don’t follow the recognized rules are “incorrect” or “illogical”. It is interesting to mention that Crystal thinks that the notion of absolute correctness is inadequate to explain the cases when one person varies in usage on different occasions (for example, in case of formal vs informal speech). Instead, he brings forward the notion of absolute appropriateness, i.e. the suitability of a usage to a situation. For example, contracted forms are widely acceptable in informal speech and writing, but they are unacceptable in formal writing. Thus, we can conclude that the context greatly influences the usage of certain patterns.

Crystal assumes that most people hold a mixture of prescriptive and descpriptive views. For example, linguist-parents often forbid their children to use language they do not like. Similarly, a prescriptivist-tourist might admire a dialect non-standard speech.

How Fear Works

Having listened to the podcast about fear (Stuff You Should Know, N 36), I have come up with interesting ideas on what fear is, how it works, whether it is an inherent emotion or not, and also some interesting examples from history referring to fear.

According to the Online Webster Dictionary, fear is "an unpleasant often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger and accompanied by increased autonomic activity". In other words, when you are afraid of something certain chain reactions take place in your brain that lead to an autonomic response.Nervous scientists distinguish between two types of responses:a low road response and a high road response. In the process of fearing these two responses take place at the same time.A low road response is a quick response, and sometimes, as the speaker in the podcast states, it can be a false response.The high road response takes longer and it allows much more thoughtful analysis of the situation. Let's imagine the following situation; a man is sitting on the sofa and is watching TV. Suddenly. the door starts rattling.First the low road response takes place, and the man starts to fear. At the same time, the high road response is being activated by the brain, and it engages the memory to analyse the situation.He switches on his memory trying to find out if anything similar has happened to him before.And he comes to the idea that it is probably the wind.This thought makes him calm down.

Fear is similar to other emotions that the humans possess, such as anger, joy, disgust, sadness. And I would like to point out to an interesting fact; fear, as well as the other emotions, is survival motivator.For example, the speaker in the podcast goes back to the history and analyses the following situation; two cave men are sitting and talking. Suddenly they see a snake. One of them touches it. As a result he is bitten by the snake and dies. Next time, the other man, seeing a snake, becomes scared as the case with his friend showed that snakes might be very dangerous.So,If you fear the right things, such as snakes, lightening, spiders, you have more chances to survive and you will become wiser. In this way the man develops his fear memory which he passes down to his next generations.

Darwin was the first scientist suggesting that fear can be an inherent emotion.He came to this idea when he was once attacked by a snake in the Zoo. Although the snake was behind the glass, he was very scared. Besides, Darwin had never been bitten by a snake before.This example illustrates that fear is an inherent emotion. 

Another interesting point about fear is that we can anticipate being afraid. We don't have to be bitten by each new snake to fear them all.We can anticipate that all of them can bite us. Thus, we are afraid of snakes in general. Or, a person might be scared of the plane being crashed even if he has never flown before.

Also, fear can be conditioned. One can teach somebody being afraid of something or not being afraid of something. 
There are different types of fear that are named differently: claustrophobia, agoraphobia, sociophobia. And I have also heard of an unusual type of fear called phobophobia (when a person is afraid of being afraid).