Category: Language

My thesis consists of explaining how sexist language affects us in our society and which initiatives we can follow to use a proper language. How can we first talk about equality when there are words that are harmful to us? To begin with, I would like to clarify the aim of sexism. Sexism implicates prejudice or discrimination commonly against women. It also implies behaviours, conditions or attitudes that foster stereotypes of social roles based on sex. Regrettably, sexism is a political issue this day.

Once we have cast light on sexism, it is time to concern people about how the utilization of sexist language can impact on human’s behaviour. Sexism in language is an offensive reminder of the way the culture sees women. Besides, it devalues members of one sex invariably women and thus fosters gender inequality.

In our society, the sexist language comes across on all sides. Our language and society reflect one another, so we need to recognize and respect the change in the meaning and acceptability of words. Due to this fact, human beings are not conscious or they do not perceive this as an offensive manner to treat in a sexist way to a whole part of the world: women. Some of these words refer to professions; postman, chairman, freshman, congressman, businessman. Others to the entire Universe; ‘mankind’. Analysing these words, where is the presence of women in our world? Why are there so many professions that do not take into account the presence of women?

Without realising it, we are moving women away from our society. Unconsciously, we are creating an unequal culture. This is the reason why it is important to make the presence of women real, and everything must start changing our language. Language is related to culture if there is a world where the presence of women is ineffective, what we are making up is inequality, where men are superior to women.

Concerning humans about the use of sexist language is part of our increased awareness. If you write using a non-sexist language, you write to represent with fairness the gender in many words. An alternative is denominated Gender-Fair Language. The practice of using ‘he’ and ‘man’ as generic terms poses a common problem. Rather than presenting a general picture of reality ‘he’ and ‘man’ used generally can mislead your audience.

In English, we can find many sexist language expressions, verbs or phrasal verbs: To Man Up: “Being a man”, means being “strong”, fearless and confident. You are saying that men should not show and feel emotions. You are discouraging a sense of positive masculinity and declaring that women are instead weak-over emotional.

Gender Fair Language is not only introduced by changing some linguistic aspects of our vocabulary but also there is an association made for this proper use of non-sexist language. This institution is guided to teachers and their students in classrooms on college campuses, and in online learning environments. It is called The National Council of Teachers of English and it is devoted to improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education. This mission statement was adopted in 1990. It promotes the development of literacy, the use of language to construct personal and public worlds and to achieve full participation in society, through the learning and teaching English and the related arts and sciences of language.

Non-sexist language is a resource we have at the tip of our tongues. Language reflects reality and we have to work on changing the unequal gender arrangements that are reflected in our human’s behaviours. The words we use can also reinforce current realities. Words are the tools of thought. It is time to take into account that it is not the same if I think of myself as a ‘girl’ or as a ‘woman’, it makes a difference . Do we want a truly inclusive language or one that just pretends?

There is an undeniable difference between genders, their physiognomy is different, biologically men are more muscular than women as they start to develop muscles during puberty . However, the world of sport is responsible for enhancing further disparity between the sexes. These differences have separated the two genders for decades and is now used to entertain, demean or marginalize them. From these disparities, expectations and oppressions have grown and started to affect today’s youth uncontrollably. As a result of society’s coercion towards genders, the values of sports and its benefits such as improving mental and physical health have been diminished. Unfortunately, media and advertising encourage this movement by building up a negative image of sport through specific language and images.

I chose this topic because I have a keen interest in sports, and I’m aware of the benefits it has on society and its individuals. However, I’m also conscious of the problems and controversy present in sports and the media. One of the issues I wanted to focus on is sexism. Being a teenager, I am in contact with technology every day, and social media in particular, which is consequently the main source of propagation of information that this generation receives. I frequently see pictures or phrases that make me question personally and doubt my abilities and options in the sport department as a teenager girl.

Methodology

As the language used is often condescending, such as “ladies” to describe a female athletic event at the Olympics or the phrase “strong is beautiful”, even though the purpose isn’t necessarily intended that way, the message conveyed behind the words and images subconsciously affect us. Therefore, when I repetitively saw headlines of female athletes being marginalized or demeaned because of their words or actions, I felt personally targeted. I started looking online for more scandals, sexist remarks and advertisements which reflect a sexist attitude towards women. I then reflected on how that would impact young women on how they perceive themselves or the limitations they self-impose in response to what they see on the media. With that in mind, I was able to conclude my research by watching documentaries like “Straight/Curve: Redefining Body Image” , or TEDTalks videos such as “You Throw like a Girl! Telling Stories about Women in Sport” and reading books about the topic. This was done to understand how the content, images or language, of sport advertisements can be perceived as sexist or discriminatory, and how the representation of women in those adverts makes teenage girls feel.

Observations

The media provides considerable knowledge about sports, and the ways in which it chooses to characterize or emphasize certain aspects contributes to the mindset of individuals in society. These include interpreting concepts such as the athletic body, femininity and masculinity . Sports in general are very advertised and viewed on different platforms, mostly on social media which appears to be the main source of propagation and by all means, the reason why it affects so many young people. One way in which the media can target the most people of different demographic is through advertising.

Gender rules and stereotypes

Advertising often spreads traditional views of genders, whether it be clichés of what masculine and feminine is, or prejudices on their roles and place in society. These views are frequently distorted, unrealistic and marginalizing towards both genders, but particularly women, who find themselves dictated on everything they can or can’t do. As a consequence, we unconsciously follow society’s rules and get caught in a vicious cycle of mental brainwashing of how we must dress, act or sound. Each gender has their own stereotype, for example girls have to be classy, always well dressed, shopaholics and emotional, while boys are better at sport, aggressive, messy and dominant.

We can find these concepts regularly in sports advertisements, such as this ad for the 12th annual women’s golf classic in 2012 [see appendix image 29] which portrays the stereotype of women as addicted to shopping and obsessed about how they look. We can see a stiletto, which is used to represent a golf ball on its tee, moreover, the shoe refers to how women have to be classy and feminine, however golf is not played in heels, therefore this reinforces the stereotype. The key word here is “priceless”, which suggests the idea of women being compulsory buyers and shopaholics, the familiarity of this word and its association to women would attract the female eye. Likewise, the fact that MasterCard is sponsoring the event also refers to this addiction to shopping that is assumed every woman to have. As we have seen, the attractive language as well as the portrayal of the stiletto are irrelevant to the sport and the ad, they are only used to enhance the stereotype attributed to women.

As previously mentioned, the brand Always released an ad [see appendix image 27] that captured how people of different ages and from both sexes interpret the phrase ‘like a girl’. In the video they asked the participants of 14 and older to demonstrate what it was for them to: “run like a girl”, “throw like a girl” and “fight like a girl”. Then, they asked younger children from ages 6 to 10 the same thing, but the responses were completely different. We can observe that the teenagers showed the stereotypical way of these actions to do ‘like a girl’, while the younger ones just did them as they would normally do, as themselves. This is because the younger generation is much less affected by society, whereas the teenagers are in direct contact with society’s standards whether it’s through social media, television or movies. Thus, the cause of the teenagers’ actions was social media and society displaying a certain image of women as weak and incompetent in the sports domain, this degrading perception results in low self-confidence and lack of participation from young girls as we will later see in this essay.

Along with stereotypes, one of the most famous and fast-growing sport brands in the world, NIKE, who, besides its sportswear, is known for addressing issues such as race and gender equality. Unfortunately, in this ad [see appendix 28] from the 2009 NIKE campaign, the views are different. The ad features a fairly good looking and fit man, representing society’s standards, with the caption “One more thing for men to rule – Join the men Vs women challenge”. There are different components in this ad, the first part of the slogan says “one more thing” which goes back to gender stereotypes where men are dominant and control everything, whether it’s in the workplace or at home, they always come before women. The second part states “for men to rule”, which accentuates this idea of men having complete power and being in charge of everything. Furthermore, the words “VS” and ‘challenge” point out that for men everything is a competition, being the best, having this feeling of superiority and pride in winning. Although this ad’s focus is on men,

On the contrary we have the example of cheerleading, which was originally an all-man activity when it first began in the 1870s, before women were allowed, in 1923 . In the late 1920s, many school manuals and newspapers still referred to cheerleading as masculine which changed at the start of world war II when young boys were being called to war and women took over the sport. Over the years it gradually became more and more sexualized, as we can see in this poster [see appendix image 26] which explains cheer rules in terms of appearance. The recurring words are ‘don’t’ and ‘do’ which connects to the theme of society imposing strict rules on women, how they dress, do their make-up, act or speak. We can notice in this poster the gender biased vocabulary used such as “glow”, “flattering”, “girl lipstick”, “athletic physique”. These words not only impose a perfect, ideal image of women with “false eyelashes” or “natural tan”, but they go against the philosophy of sport as being fun and made for everyone. We can then conclude that, in the context of a sports game, it’s a figurative activity, where young teen girls wear as little clothing as possible and act ‘feminine’ while cheering their team on. They’re not on the field playing but on the side for the audience to enjoy, but fortunately it is now seen as a sport, even though the same rules apply.

Similarly, this also frequently occurs in tennis, for example the Women’s Tennis Association launched a campaign entitled “Strong is Beautiful” in 2011, featuring professional tennis players such as Serena Williams or Maria Sharapova. The purpose of this campaign was to give women the confidence to feel pretty in every situation, that they can be successful and beautiful. The message conveyed is contradictory to what Germaine Greer said in The Female Eunuch which is: “Every woman knows that, regardless of her other achievements, she is a failure if she is not beautiful.’ . Although the idea behind this ad is empowering, it displays a different view when associated with the image. As we can see the woman in this ad is the professional tennis player Maria Sharapova [see appendix image 30]. She is seen playing tennis with the phrase in capital letters “STRONG IS BEAUTIFUL” written across. Specifically, she is wearing a dress and makeup, which is unusual for playing tennis, let alone any sport. In addition, the ads are done in a studio, with special lighting and effects to embellish the photos, they are not taken at a tennis game, where the statement sentence would have much greater impact as it would show the raw and natural side of athletes. The caption is in the form of a statement, with the verb “IS”, implying it’s an affirmation, that being strong can only mean you are beautiful, which enhances the immateriality between the context of the ad, and the tennis player.

Additionally, another ad for the WTA “STRONG IS BEAUTIFUL” campaign [see appendix image 31] features a man and a woman. The man has his hand on his chest with the word “STRONG” written on his forearm, as if implying that he is strong. On his left hand is written the word “IS” pointing at the woman. She is holding up a board with the word “BEAUTIFUL” on it, implying that she is beautiful. One disparity on the image is that the man has the word written on his arm meaning that he is strong, while the woman is holding up a sign with the word on it, there is no direct connection between the word beautiful and the woman, both her and the sign are here for figuration. He is presenting her as one would present a car. The man in the picture is a professional golfer, whilst this is an ad for women’s tennis association featuring professional tennis players. Therefore, there is very little relevance between the man and the ad, nevertheless he is the one presenting and saying the quote, he has the spotlight in this ad. Additionally, the women is wearing all black clothes and she is in the dark shaded part of the ad on the right-hand side, enhancing the exclusion of women from having an important and primary role in society.

Sexualization

Furthermore, these stereotypes make the sight of a woman wearing non-sexualized sports clothes on the cover of a magazine unusual for some people, but a half-naked woman won’t come as a shock and would be considered “normal”. As we can see in this ad for a Dutch cycling tour , [see appendix image 25], there is a naked woman lying down on the field, taking up most of the poster with cyclists drawn riding on her body. This is an example of sexualizing women, as the usage of her naked body is irrelevant to cycling and is simply there for sexual purposes.

Likewise, in this ad for the crisp brand Hunky Dorys [see appendix image 32], who’s the sponsor for the Irish Rugby Football Union, shows women playing rugby in bikini with the phrase “TACKLE THESE”, demonstrating once again the sexualization of women. The word “THESE” establishes an objectification of women, they are given no meaning or relevance, and along with the imperative verb “TACKLE” which is meant to address men, shows the inability for women to act freely which further accentuates the status of women as mannequins. This idea of women being watched by men is similar to film theorist Laura Mulvey’s idea of The Male Gaze, stating that women in music videos, films or television programmed are objectified and appear vulnerable or sexualized on screen for the male dominant audience to feel empowered. Even though this is an ad for chips as sponsors of a rugby team, there is very little relevant elements coinciding, besides the rugby ball. The ad’s main focus is on the women, as the bag of chips is small in size and in the bottom right corner, they are not put forward as the advertised product. The women are seen “playing” rugby with most of their bodies uncovered, even though it’s meant for the Irish Rugby Football Union, which is a men’s team. Furthermore, as a sponsor, it gives a bad image as its job is to promote a brand or an event in order to attract consumers, therefore resulting in a wide audience. If the ideas communicated are as such, more people will be impacted by the discriminatory image of women conveyed.

Impact on girls

Consequently, this gives rise to the generation of sexist remarks, from men especially and the fact that men nowadays still use this reference shows how we expect women to be okay with such attitudes, because it has always been like that in the past and we don’t contribute enough to change it. Similarly, the negative effect these words have on young girls can also be depicted in advertisements, such as this 1995 NIKE campaign [see appendix image 24] which features young girls taking part in regular activities while lecturing the powerful message of “If you let me play sport.” The video showed them in a playground, we can hear them say “I will be 60 percent less likely to get breast cancer … will suffer less depression … will be more likely to leave a man who beats me … less likely to get pregnant … I will learn what it means to be strong. If you let me play … play sports. If you let me play sports.” The repetition of the phrase “If you let me play sports” puts an emphasis on the restrictions brought up on young girls and their young age represents their innocence, how they’re not responsible of their actions and easily influenced by their surroundings. The phrase “let me” underlines the idea of women not being in control and being subject to others, the girls are asking for permission to be free and make their own decisions. The use of the future tense “I will” emphasizes the foreshadowing of what comes in a woman’s life, but is paradoxical to the use of “if” which implies a hypothesis. Here NIKE is picturing the oppression by bringing the attention to the fact that society has not removed the concept of “girl activities” and “boy sports” which are inflicted from a young age. The message conveyed is powerful as it implies that whatever there is to come in the near or far future of these young girls’ lives can be changed if they are allowed to play sports. To support this, as previously mentioned the brand ALWAYS has started the campaign “epic battle Like a girl” and collected data on girls’ feelings around the subject of society’s oppression. They have observed that at puberty, “50% of girls feel paralyzed by the fear of failure, with 80% of girls feeling that the fear of failure comes from society’s pressure, based on a 2017 study among US girls aged 16-24”. This is more specifically a result of gender stereotypes which girls try to live up to, they are bound to believe that they must be ladylike and fashionable, that sports is reserved for boys. Consequently, they will be less prone to take part in sport in the risk of not fitting in.

Furthermore, the “ideal” image of women generated by social media circulates amongst teenagers as a portrayal of what they should look like in order to fit in, thus illustrating and supporting ALWAYS’s statistics results. Similarly, we could argue that on the subject of body image, we as a society are obsessed with size, ‘People come and always want to know what size something is,’ said Emma McClendon, who organized the exhibition The Body: Fashion and Physique about the history of the idealized body type in fashion, at the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. Size is associated with how much something will satisfy our needs, for clothes, furniture, and so on, this obsession fuels society’s pressure to look a certain way, have this body type, especially with young women. When seeing these advertisements and pictures of models with the caption “beautiful” as we’ve seen with the WTA “STRONG IS BEAUTIFUL” campaign, young girls can’t help but compare themselves to it, question their worth. This creates insecurities amongst children, they lose their confidence, feel like they’re not good enough and need to change the way they look because every picture of models in magazines told her so.

Conclusion

Even though nowadays there is a rise of feminism in the world, with trending hashtags, female social media influencers, feminist groups such as Time’s Up and simply bringing up issues as we saw with the movement Me Too, sexism is still part of our everyday life. Whether it’s at the workplace, in a sports team or at school, men and women are affected every day by the place they are given in society. The language used in advertisements is often discriminatory against women, targeting their power and place in society as a minority, and the images portray how they could only be useful, which is as sexual objects for male desire. Moreover, as observed, sports advertisements use prejudiced language and images of women which are irrelevant to the ad and exclusively used in the context of stereotypes. Likewise, society influences women to concentrate their attention solely on their appearance, as Germaine Greer said, undermining that physical features and meeting the standards of beauty is the only way for women to be recognized and successful. With that in mind, women make up the vast majority of victims of sexism, as John Berger said “Men act and women appear. Men look at women. Women watch themselves being looked at.” . Coinciding with the Male Gaze seen by Laura Mulvey, implying that women see themselves through the eyes of others, they’re a background and entertainment to men’s lives. It’s this mindset that still drives certain people to say such comments and contribute to the chain of discrimination in our society. Consequently, because of the popularity and spreading of this concept, young girls are driven to act accordingly, possibly leading them towards methods of self-harm and malnutrition. Therefore, we need to teach young people to make decisions because they want to, not because they want to fit in as well as to see beyond the body image and limitations defined by society.

Introduction

The word “transgender” has faced several variations throughout the years. However, it is solely now, in the 21st century, that this concept is finally self-addressed as a relevant matter. It is intriguing the history and origins behind the term used to describe someone whose, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, “sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond to that person’s sex at birth, or which does not otherwise conform to conventional notions of sex and gender”.

Historically, the terms ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ have been used as one, nevertheless their usages have become more and more distinct, and it is imperative to know the differences between the two in order to discuss such topic: ‘sex’ refers to the biological variations between males and females, such as the genitalia; “gender”, on the other hand, is harder to define, but it can refer to the part of a male or female in society (gender roles), or a persons’ own concept of themselves, or gender identity.

This essay searches to follow and perceive the evolution of the transgender terminology.

The Beginning

Since its negative use in medicinal texts within the 1960s to the implementation of the term to represent both a concept and an identity, the term “transgender” has made many progresses.

There are two major derivation points of the etymology of ‘transgender’: in 1965, Dr. John F. Oliven published a medical text that covered one of the first recognized uses of the word ‘transgender”: “Where the compulsive urge reaches beyond female vestments and becomes an urge for gender (‘sex’) change, transvestism becomes ‘transsexualism.’” The term is deceitful; in fact, ‘transgenderism’ is what is meant, since sexuality is not a main factor in primary transvestism. At this point, Dr. Oliven used the word “transgender” as an alternative word for “transsexual” regarding those who transition through surgical procedure.

Virginia Prince, activist and trans pioneer who popularized the term through her advocacy and journalism on the 1970s is the other major origin moment for the word “transgender”. In 1969, Prince used the term “transgenderal” for the first time in order to differentiate herself from transsexuals, or those who used surgery to transition. Her employment of the term “transgenderal” visibly distinguished the methods people decide to transition.

I, at least, know the difference between sex and gender,” she wrote, “and have simply elected to change the latter and not the former. If a word is necessary, I should be termed a ‘transgenderal’.

The same year that Virginia Prince used the term “transgenderal,”, was, as well, the year that the Stonewall Riots[footnoteRef:1] started the modern gay rights movement. This moment marked the transformation in terms of broader prominence for the LGBTQ+ community. A few years later, in 1974, social employees, medical experts, and activists produced the first Transvestite and Transsexual Conference, at the University of Leeds. The earliest seminar literature on the market on trans wellbeing, made obvious distinctions amongst transvestites (people who dressed as the opposite gender), transsexuals (people who transitioned genders through surgery), and transgender people who did transition but did not choose to endure surgery. [1: Spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community against a police raid that began on June 28th, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City.]

In 1975, another huge achievement: the first-time protections for the transgender community were established into the civil rights law. Minneapolis was the first city to do so by approving a nondiscrimination ordinance preventing prejudice on the premise of “having or projecting a self-image not associated with one’s biological maleness or one’s biological femaleness.”

Throughout the 1980s, artists like Bruce Laker, also known as Phaedra Kelly, had created alternative terms such as “gender transient” to refer to being transgender, which was still different from “transsexual.”

By the 1990s, the distinction concerning “transgender” and “transsexual” began to disappear. According to Jonathan Dent, the Oxford English Dictionary lexicographer, this happened once the broader LGBTQ+ community began to take into account “trans” as an “umbrella” term that would “cover a wide range of identities” that might not fit with “traditional notions” of gender, parallel to “queer” for sexuality.

“Trans” is merely a prefix, from the Latin for “across,” as opposed to “cis,” which implies “on the same side.” For instance, the word “transparent” derives from the Latin “parere”=“to appear” which generally translates to, “appear from the other side”. For that matter, once it involves gender, one either falls underneath the transgender umbrella or one is cisgender. Whereas transgender can mean many things, hence the “umbrella”, cis signifies only one thing — one’s gender aligns with the binary sex appointed at birth (male or female).

Nowadays

A few extra terms that may fall under the transgender umbrella are: transsexual, intersex, gender nonconforming, gender nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, drag queen and genderqueer among others (see annex 1).

Because the trans umbrella grouping is thus new, there is nonetheless some debate as to who is or is not trans. Drag queens are considered by some people to belong under the trans umbrella, for they are gender nonconforming. Others, as RuPaul (major drag queen figure), have notoriously disagreed, alleging drag as an art for cis queer men only.

You can identify as a woman and say you’re transitioning, but it changes once you start changing your body, it takes on a different thing; it changes the whole concept of what we’re doing.”

Nonbinary people, too, may or may not identify themselves as trans. A trans nonbinary person is usually someone who does not identify with the sex that was assigned to them at birth (hence, trans) but also has a gender identity that cannot be labeled as entirely male or female (therefore, nonbinary). Some nonbinary people who are not trans identify somewhat with their assigned sex at birth, even though not identifying as precisely male or female.

Conclusion

Ultimately, transgender is a key word that symbolizes both a notion and a series of certain identities. In its most broad usage these days, transgender means to cross the edge of one’s original or assigned gender.

The transgender umbrella covers many identities and those individualities can now be labelled due to the progression of society’s mindset and to the always growing language that allows more inclusive terminology.

Bibliography

1. G. G. Bolich, P. D. (s.d.). Transgender History & Geography: Crossdressing in Context, Volume 3. Psyche’s Press. Obtido em 11 de 12 de 2019, de https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0615167667
2. GLAAD Media Reference Guide – Transgender Issues. (s.d.). Obtido em 11 de 12 de 2019, de Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation: http://www.glaad.org/reference/transgender
3. Levin, S. (s.d.). Who can be a drag queen? RuPaul’s trans comments fuel calls for inclusion. Obtido em 11 de 12 de 2019, de https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2018/mar/08/rupaul-drag-race-transgender-performers-diversity
4. Oxford Dictionaries – The World’s Most Trusted Dictionary Provider. (s.d.). Obtido em 11 de 12 de 2019, de Oxford University Press: http://oxforddictionaries.com

Linguistic identity refers to a situation whereby a person considers himself or herself to be part of a certain group that speaks the same language. Most people become fluent in a second or third language at risk of losing their identity. My linguistic background is that I was raised in a linguistic environment where I used Xhosa as my home language and English at school. After that, I found myself in a different language where I need to use isiZulu. This may change somebody`s linguistic identity but not mine. The main reason for speaking more than one language is that when a person grows up, he or she continues to interact with various people and various institutions for the purpose of living or even relocating to other places in search of greener pastures. As a result of that, a person will be automatically forced to know, understand and speak different languages. Some people believe that if a person speaks more than one language, his or her linguistic identity will be lost but according to my opinion, I will not lose my linguistic identity due to the fact that I am now able to speak English, isiZulu, and isiXhosa.

I do not think my linguistic identity will change due to the fact that I am speaking more than one language because linguistic identity is influenced by many things. Some of the factors which influence linguistic identity are culture, race, religion, and background just to mention a few.

My culture will influence my linguistic identity positively in the following way; if people speak the same language, they behave and think in the same way. As people think and behave in a certain way they create culture. For example, all Xhosa people have their unique way of doing things. The way I behave culturally is influenced by my mother tongue, which I used to speak when I growing up. This is the reason I said that even though I speak more languages, my linguistics will not change because it is something inbuilt inside me. I will always behave like other Xhosa-speaking people.

My religion will influence my linguistic identity positively due to the following fact; I as a Xhosa speaking person, I followed my religion of Xhosa speaking people since I was a young person. In each and every religion, people use identical terminology and tone when expressing certain views. It is difficult to change my tone when speaking

regardless of the fact that I am now speaking more than two languages. This is a reason why I mentioned that my linguistic identity will not change because I am speaking more than two languages.

Furthermore, my race will also enhance my linguistic identity in the following way; I am a black or African person. Even though I have white friends who speak Tswana, I will never ever change my linguistic identity. It is difficult to change the way I do my things regardless of the fact that I have white friends. I will learn and speak Afrikaans every day but I will always be comfortable when speaking Zulu. This clearly shows that my linguistic identity will not change because I am now speaking more than two languages but my race will influence positively my linguistic identity.

The English language will now dominate my thinking and worldview because it is a Universal language. I speak the English language at school and at work. It now dominates my thinking and worldview because I am now spending most of my time at school and at work. As a result of that, I always speak English most of the time, that is the reason why I mentioned that the English language will now dominate my thinking and world view.

Regardless of the fact that I am now always speaking English most of the time at work and at school, this will not affect my cultural beliefs and identity. I speak English at school and work and I speak isiXhosa at home. Usually, things that affect cultural beliefs and identity are done at home. The events such as ceremonial celebrations are done at home. People always speak Xhosa and follow their culture. There is done relating to the culture at school and work. At school and work, people always do their core business like learning and working. These things are nothing to do with culture and belief, that is the reason why I said speaking English at school and work will not affect my cultural beliefs and identity.

To sum up, my culture, religion, and race contributed very much to who I am today. In my life, I have to follow my culture and my religion in order to succeed. As a result that my linguistic identity will not change and not be affected by the association of different people at school and at work, who speak different languages.

because whenever they speak and appreciate something, they mentioned the word Siyabonga is a clear indication that whenever we use language, we reflect who we are. It is not only isiZulu who have their special words for expressing themselves but other groups of people have their special words for expressing themselves, hence linguistic identity will be maintained.

The fifth post or comment is from a white person. He said, At work, I will always want to work in the Administration department using computers and I am not used to hard labor “. This clearly shows that this post is from a white person because at work they always want to work in the Administration department using computers, working with technologies such as computers is a pre-requisite for white people. Added to that they are not used to hard labor, which is a reason he mentioned that I am not used to hard labor. It is a clear indication that whenever we use languages, we reflect who we are.

In conclusion, the way we post or comment reflects who we are due to the following reasons; they are certain special words that are used by a certain religion, certain cultures show respect and kindness whilst others do not show, preferences from individuals, other cultures use slang when using language but other cultures do not, just to mention a few.

Around the world 7,000 languages are being spoken, and most of us only speak one or two. Our identities are formed by a lot of aspects: by the people around us, the books we read, the music we listen to and the work we do. But, speaking a second language, can lead one to create a different disguise and help to understand who we are. The beauty of multilingualism lies in the ability to express yourself in multiple ways. Even though the language is mostly used to communicate it also conveys your culture and identity. A lot of times, multilingual face problems when it comes to balancing language and their cultural backgrounds. On the other hand, sometimes people feel like they have a slightly different identity while speaking a language other than their mother tongue, especially in countries where speaking another language next to the official langue is rare, like in Egypt. To understand this better I have interviewed 2 students from 2 Arabic countries to explore being bilingual through their own experiences.

Situation: Speaks English at home and school but lives in Kuwait.

As someone who speaks English on a daily basis, how do you find it affecting your Arabic culture?

I feel like I am much more westernized than my Arabic classmates. Because of my English education, I notice that I have other ideas about certain topics which definitely affect my Arab culture. To be honest, sometimes it feels like I am living in two different worlds and I feel further from the Arab one.

Have you ever experienced an identity crisis because of people’s attitude towards you speaking English in predominantly Arab society?

Sadly I have, I had a lot of difficulties making Arabic friends. The things I interact with are mostly English based which results in a slight distance between me and my peers. Furthermore, I have felt like people were wrongfully judging my character because of my speaking English, perhaps they felt like I was showing off, but the truth is that this is the language I have been raised with and to speak a language different from my own just to belong would be wrong.

Do you believe that you need to speak Arabic to be connected to your culture?

By speaking Arabic at home I learned manners, ways of joking, and values that are in the culture itself, there are some things you can’t just study about but really need to understand. I also do believe that language is a big part of cultural heritage and in this way is very tight to culture.

In what ways do you believe English has an influence on your identity?

By learning to speak English it gradually became possible for me to talk about certain matters which seemed to be quite taboo in Arabic. People who speak the English language seem to be less squeamish about certain matters. Using English l learned how to become freer in my use of language.

If you could only speak one language for the rest of your life, which one would it be?

English, definitely, is the language that is closest to my heart and that I wish to be affiliated with the most. Also when I speak English it gradually becomes possible to voice certain matters which seem a big taboo in Arabic. In the English language, people are less squeamish about certain matters, which in my opinion is much more freeing.

Nationality; Egyptian situation: Always spoke Arabic but learned English on an international school.

As someone who speaks English on a daily basis, how do you find it affecting your Arabic culture?

Speaking English and speaking Arabic for me are two completely separate things, I speak English at school and with my friends and I speak Arabic with my family at home, and in that way, it doesn’t affect my Arabic culture as much as it could if I would not keep it separate. I see English as a bonus language to reach a lot of people as it I spoke all around the world.

As you started learning English in high school, did you encounter any problems?

Learning to speak English carried a lot of difficulties for me: the frustration of not being understood, and the feeling of being stupid, being reduced to a smaller vocabulary than my first language, and not having the familiarity of expressions. I find it impossible to appreciate poetry for example. There are some things you can’t translate directly, key emotions and key understandings, then there is something of culture itself that does not completely translate.

Do you believe that you need to speak Arabic to be connected to your culture?

I don’t believe that you need to speak it necessarily to be connected to your roots, although I do think that it makes it easier because you connect more easily with the locals and so you understand them much better than if you speak English to them. Arabic connects me to my country of origin and my heritage, but I think you can also learn traits of culture when not speaking the culture’s language.

Do you feel like English is a part of your identity?

I don’t really feel like English is a part of my identity, because I can’t express myself as well in English as I can in Arabic. Also, my family does not understand English and this often makes me quite uncomfortable

If you could only speak one language for the rest of your life, which on would it be?

Arabic, because it connects me to my relatives and my cultural heritage, and I don’t feel connected to English nor another language. Also because the English language does not connect with my cultural heritage and my relative and I can’t express myself as good in English as in my mother tongue.

“Immigrants should speak English in their own homes to help prevent ‘schizophrenic’ rifts between generations of their families as almost a third of British Asian speak only their native language”. It is ironic that David Blunkett is demanding immigrants to speak English, yet in my household the language English was not allowed. Despite having a father born and raised in London and a mother who was fluent in multiple languages including English, the presence of English was not in my home. For the first fourteen years of my life my mother only conversed with me in Urdu. Being born and raised in Hampstead, attending a catholic independent school at a young age, had me adopting British English values, perhaps my mother felt scared that I would turn away from my Asian identity and refuse to understand my roots. Her fear was not baseless as a child I used to hate getting asked the question: “Where are you from?” and being told “I think you look more [insert nationality here]”.Due to my mother’s incessant lessons and refusal to acknowledge me if I spoke in English I had mastered the language at a very young age, in order to get my way or at least to find out where the cookies were placed. As a child I did not have an issue with learning Urdu nor speaking it, it was a way for me to communicate with my mother and a way to get my voice heard, it was normal. However, once I started school I realised that despite knowing English yet not speaking it; is unusual and was considered weird behavior.

On my first day of year one instead of speaking English, I would speak Urdu, the teacher would ask me a question in English I would respond in Urdu. After doing this a few times I was taken to the head teacher, where they simply could not understand my “weird alien language” and had demanded my parents to be bought in. It was surprising that they demanded to speak to my father, as they knew he was fluent in English; in the English that does not have a weird accent, but the same English accent they speak in, and disregarded speaking to my mother whom they assumed did not know a word of English.

Yet it was my mother who arrived, suited and booted, coming from a meeting and the first thing she said “ Sanah aap teek ho?” ( Sanah are you okay ?). My mother a walking contradiction; a woman who was quiet adept in the corporate world, who used English consistently along with other ‘esteemed’ languages, was glared at and looked at in contempt simply because instead of greeting me in English she used her mother tongue. The Headteacher sat my mother down and very slowly (now that I think about it- patronizingly) explained to my mother that I do not know the language of this country and that perhaps I should be referred to a psychologist as a child my age should know how to speak, yet I seem to have supressed issues and probably was not smart enough to pick up the language. I watched as my mother slowly get angry and muttered “Gaddi” (idiot) under her breath, but once her eyes met mine she smiled and in perfect English stated “Sanah I want you to respond to me in English”. My six-year-old self was confused but obeyed my mother’s wishes and responded to whatever she asked me in perfect English, perfect English with a London accent, not a mixed accent. My teacher and head teacher watched in shock, they assumed I was a child who perhaps was slow or mentally challenged simply because I did not speak the same language as them, yet when I spoke their language in their same accent they seemed astonished. It was at that moment I realised that my native language isn’t common, yes it is common in my household but outside my home it does not exist so why did I learn it if I am not going to use it beyond my home?

This question followed me throughout my childhood, why learn Urdu when its considered weird or alien? Its not fancy like French or Spanish, it’s a “freshie” language so why on earth was I pushed to learn it?

It is interesting that I was pushed to learn Urdu and not any other language despite that the fact my family is a melting pot. My Father is half Italian and half Pakistani, whilst my mother is Pakistani. Both are fluent in many languages and growing up I would often hear them speaking to each other in a mix of languages, they would start of in English, delve into Spanish, sprinkle in some Mandarin and end in Urdu; it confused me greatly. But when they conversed with me it was only Urdu (from mum) and English, I never learnt to speak Italian, perhaps by his third child my father was too tired to teach it; but what is greatly confusing is that despite not knowing how to speak it, I can understand it perfectly. How?

Perhaps its due to the yearly family reunions in Milan, where language became our obstacles and we were forced to improvise. Having family that could just speak either Italian or Urdu was hard, how do I converse with my cousin and aunts who only speak Italian despite marrying someone who speaks Urdu too? simple, through hand gestures and broken vocabulary. it was these yearly reunions that allowed me to understand and perhaps work hard to understand what was being said. I look forward to these meetings as year and year on we get better at talking to one and other, conversations got longer and animated (not that they weren’t before, just less charades now). But it was something that made me realise with family there is no barrier, despite the fact we could not understand each other in the beginning and could barley speak without acting out a whole movie, it did not stop us from conversing instead it brought out our own language, a language that mixes Urdu, Italian and English (sometimes a little charades.)

Whilst my relationship with the Italian language grew, my one with Urdu deteriorated.

By year 7, my family and I had relocated to Newham, one of the most deprived boroughs in London, but to my parents it became home, a place where they felt like themselves, as they didn’t have to deal with a lot of racism. They were now in an area where everyone was diverse, where the schools were more secular and a place where their children could at least have some religious ties to their community. One would think moving to a more diverse area, I would start to perhaps embrace my language culture and identity more, but I did not. I refused to speak Urdu to anyone but my mother (I had to speak it to her or else she would’ve just stared at me till I repeated my self in Urdu). Even my maternal grandparents who were not fluent in English, and would speak to me in Urdu always received a response in English.

In my head I thrived without my culture, language and identity, I was a good student, was on the school council and even made it to head girl. Everything that my family should be proud of yet my mother and grandmother always stared at me in pity, not that I understood their looks at that time. It was not until my sixteenth birthday where I was expecting a card with money in it from my grandmother and instead received a book as a gift. I was infuriated inside, everyone else on their sixteenth got cash for their birthday why on earth did I get a book with the words Cracking India on it? I’m not even Indian. Despite this, I smiled politely at my grandmother, thanked her and assured her that I would definitely read it. I was not going to read it.

Fast forward a couple of months and I had just finished my GCSE’S, my grandmother called me to congratulate me for finishing and wishing me luck for results day, she asked me if I read the book and I just pretended that I could not hear her and handed the phone to my mum. I felt guilty. So I read the bloody book. And I am glad I did. As I was reading the book and trying to comprehend young Lennie’s mind I did not even realise that half the book was written in Urdu, I just read it, I got engrossed in it as I would not put it down, it wasn’t until my mother pointed out that I have been given the Urdu copy that I was shocked. I sat there thinking I read this text without struggling without even giving it a second thought, it was English for me. While reading about Lennie’s journey and understanding the context of the country my ethnicity is derived from, I finally began to understand why my mother forced Urdu upon me, why my grandmother gave me this book. It was to highlight that no matter how hard I try to be white and hide my ethnicity and just refuse to acknowledge it, it will always be apart of me.

As I now sit and think about my change from absolutely disregarding my language to embracing it speaking it everyday with my grandparents, with my parents and even in public. I realize that I am glad my mother forced Urdu upon me. Although it may not have the same esteem as French or Spanish, Urdu helped me fit in with my extended family (once I started speaking it regularly) and instead of abandoning my roots I embraced it. Our native language not only allows us to communicate and connect with one another, but it allows us to understand and appreciate the history of our ancestors and our upbringing. It cultivates an appreciation and understanding that is beyond beneficial. All in all, my learning and acceptance of my language has made me what I am today, so David Blunkett may want me to speak more English and abandon the use of my mother tongue, but I would quite rather continue on speaking it whenever I please.

Introduction

This paper is going to discuss the use of impoliteness in the YouTube comments of a video advertisement. Impoliteness can be best summarised as behaviour that is face-aggravating in a particular context (Locher & Bousfield, 2008). YouTube is an online platform where users can post and comment on videos with a user-name. Impoliteness is arguably greater in computer mediated discourse because of the anonymity that the internet and such user-names can provide. According to Suler (2004) when people can separate their actions online with their lifestyle and identity they feel less vulnerable about acting out. The advert that will be considered is from the company Gillette which sells men’s shaving products. For the past thirty years they have used the tag-line: “The Best Men Can Get,” but in 2019 they questioned masculine stereotypes and updated their tag-line to “The Best Men Can Be.” The research question for this paper is to investigate how impoliteness is perceived by analysing the impoliteness meta-language in each of the comment sections in light of the different contexts of each video. Meta-language in the broad sense refers to examples of language which focus on the language itself (Culpeper, 2011, p.73).

Literature Review

Background on Politeness Theory

Although not the first, Brown and Levinsons (1987) research was one of the most influential in the realm of politeness theory. They drew on Goffman’s (1959) notion of ‘face’ stating that all interlocutor’s have an interest in maintaining face during an interaction. They distinguished between a positive face which is the consistent self-image that people have of themselves and a negative face which is the personal right to non-distraction. A face-threatening act is therefore an act which challenges these face wants. Similarly, they presented politeness to also have a dual nature, where positive politeness is used to indicate similarities and show awareness of the interlocutor’s self-image and negative politeness is used to minimise imposition (Brown & Levinson, 1987 in Kitamura, 2000, p.1).

Brown and Levinsons (1987) work has been greatly critiqued and has been used as the foundation for future work on politeness theory. One critique made by Eelen (2001) is that the theory is too universalising because it only considers one form of politeness in one culture. Culpeper (2011) went on to argue that all research on impoliteness needs to capture the fact that people have different values and that these values lie at the heart of impoliteness. Politeness theory can be divided into first and second order approaches. Brown and Levinson (1987) adopt a second order approach because the researcher applies an analytical framework to the data (Locher & Bousfield, 2008, p.5). This approach has limitations because as stated by Eelen (2001) and Culpeper (2011) it does not consider the norms of the context in question.

Current research often adopts more of a first order approach where the focus is on judgments about the behaviour that are made by the social actor themselves. The interlocutor arrives at these judgments according to the norms of their particular discursive practice (Locher & Bousfield, 2008, p.5). Haugh (2007) suggests that when analysing for impoliteness one should focus on the ways in which participants interpret and understand one another’s verbal conduct. Watts (2003) also argues that impoliteness should not be viewed as a one-sided interpretation but rather as a language behaviour that is realised through the context of interaction. This paper will adopt a first order approach by analysing how the user perceives impoliteness through their impoliteness meta-language.

Studies on Impoliteness

Shum and Lee (2013) led an investigation on impoliteness in two popular internet discourse forums in Hong Kong. In order to conduct their study, a questionnaire was administered to browsers of the discussion forum where they were asked to rate certain disagreements found in the forum for aspects such as impoliteness and inappropriateness on a 5-point scale. Shum and Lee (2013) concluded that on the internet, negative politeness often involves posting long low-content messages and the most prominent violation of positive politeness is on-line flaming. Flaming has been defined by Turnage (2008) as instances of hostility, aggression, insults and sarcasm.

Culpeper (2011) stated that when people express opinions about language that they consider to be impolite they use what he refers to as ‘impoliteness meta-pragmatic comments.’ According to Culpeper, by analysing the metalanguage relating to a particular linguistic or communicative area, we have a way of tapping into impoliteness related attitudes. In order to analyse these meta-pragmatic comments, Culpeper asked informants to provide labels for conversations that they reported made them feel bad. He then sifted through these metalinguistic labels and formed groups on the basis of the semantic similarities. He concluded that regularly occurring meta-language acts as a window to the persistent frames of interpreting impoliteness (Culpeper, 2011, p.74).

Both of these studies have shown how individuals categorise impoliteness in computer mediated discourse. However, this paper is going to develop the work of Culpeper (2011) and will analyse the YouTube comment section for impoliteness meta-pragmatic comments rather than just looking at how people describe the language upon reflection.

Methodology

The data that will be used for this paper is the YouTube comments from a video advert from the brand Gillette. The data is publically available but for the purpose of this paper all user-names will be anonymised. In order to collect the data, I will use the YouTube scraper tool to convert the comments into a TXT file. I will then use AntConc to compare the comments from the video to the Baby BNC as a reference corpus in order to generate a key-word list. A key-word list identifies any word that has an unusually high frequency when compared to its frequency in the reference corpus (Scott, 2010). From the key-word list I will then identify the two most frequent examples of impoliteness meta-pragmatic comments. In order to identify these comments, I will follow Culpeper’s (2011) definition of impoliteness as a blanket term and that impoliteness meta-language includes any synonyms of the word impoliteness.

Having identified the two examples, I will conduct a close analysis of a sample of four concordance lines to discuss how the user has perceived impoliteness and what effect this has in light of the different contexts. Culpeper (2011) notes that context is a hugely valuable source of participate understandings. Evaluating something as impolite with explicit impoliteness meta-pragmatic comments gives us good evidence that impoliteness was perceived.

Corpus methods are useful in preventing examples from being ‘cherry-picked’ from the data-set. However, due to space and time constraints a limited amount of data will be analysed and thus this paper cannot provide a full picture of the data. Future research could perhaps allow more space to analyse a larger sample of impoliteness meta-pragmatic comments and concordance lines.

P&G are a toxic corporation

P&G stands for Proctor and Gamble and is the name of the mother company that owns many big brands such as Gillette, Always and Ariel. The fact that this user has extended their negative evaluation to not just Gillette but to the whole “toxic corporation” indicates the negative repercussions of this advert has had to the whole company. In describing the corporation as “toxic” the user has copied language from the advert of ‘toxic masculinity’ and flipped it so that it mocks and negatively presents P&G.

This concordance line contains another example of sarcasm, where the use of laugher with the colloquial phrase “haha” contrasts to the word “toxic.” Similar to example 6 with the discussion of a “corporation” this user is also showing disapproval to the whole “billion-dollar company.” Hoffman (2014) found that millennials give more credit to brands that use corporate social responsibility appeals. However, in this instance these attempts have failed because the users have seen through the over-arching purpose of such an advert, to make money. Impoliteness often involves a clash with expectations (Culpeper, 2011, p.14), in this instance there is a clash between what is expected of an advert, to sell something, and their attempt at “changing the world.” An awareness of this “billion-dollar company” has led customers to question the sincerity of this advert.

In this final concordance line the user has shown the failings of the advert. In presenting their customers in a negative way it has meant that this one man “will no longer support your company.” This advert has been generally criticised for presenting all males negatively and as we can see above examples discussed above people do not like being criticised like this; particularly by a money influenced company.

Conclusion

In conclusion, having analysed the use of impoliteness meta-pragmatic comments we have been able to see how the users perceive impoliteness in the advert and how they have responded to this in the comment section. Despite the positive goals of the advert, that being to question masculine stereotypes, we can see that the response has led to some very negative reactions with a main theme in the concordance line that users are choosing to no longer shop at Gillette. Gillette have attempted to tackle such a taboo issue and as can be seen from the analysis this has led to a negative perception of the brand. However, this paper has only focused on a very small sample of the data and so future work could analyse a larger sample of the meta-pragmatic comments and concordance lines in order to get a larger picture of the data and draw broader conclusions.

Bibliography

1. Locher, M.A & Bousfield, D. (2008) Impoliteness in language, Mouton de Gruyter, Berlin
2. Suler, J. (2006) The online disinhibition effect, Journal of applied Psychoanalytical studies
3. Culpeper, J. (2011) Impoliteness, Using Language to Cause Offence, Cambridge University Press
4. Brown, P. & Levinson, S.C. (1987) Politeness, Some Universals in Language Usage, Cambridge University Press
5. Kitamura, N. (2000) Adapting Brown and Levinsons politeness theory to the analysis of casual conversation, Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society
6. Eelen G. (2001) A critique of politeness theories. Manchester: Taylor and Francis
7. Haugh, M. (2007) The discursive challenge to politeness research: an interactional alternative, De Gruyter
8. R.J. Watts, (2003) Politeness, Cambridge University Press
9. Taylor, C. (2019) https://www.forbes.com/sites/charlesrtaylor/2019/01/15/why-gillettes-new-ad-campaign-is-toxic/#6d7632e15bc9. Accessed on 17.04.19.
10. Shum, W & Lee, C. (2013) (Im)politeness and disagreement in two Hong Kong Internet discussion forums, Journal of Pragmatics
11. Scott, M. (2010) https://lexically.net/downloads/version5/HTML/index.html?keyness_definition.htm. Accessed on 17.04.19
12. Bousfield, D. (2008), Impoliteness in interaction, John Benjamins Publishing Company
13. Fede, H, Herrera, I, Seyednezhad, S.M, & Menezes, R. (2017) Representing Emoji Usage using Directed Networks, A Twitter Case Study, Studies in Computational Intelligence. In International workshop on complex network and their applications
14. Kunneman, F, Liebrecht, C. Mulken, M.V. & Bosch, A.V.D. (2015), Signalling sarcasm: From hyperbole to hashtag, Elesvier
15. Turnage, A. (2007), Email flaming behaviours and organisational conflict, Journal of computer mediated communication
16. Smith, E.R. & Mackie, D.M (2000), Social Psychology, Psychology Press, Hove in Langlotz, A. & Locher, M.A. (2008), ways of communicating emotional stance in online disagreements, Journal of Pragmatics
17. Dynel, M, (2012), Swearing methodologically: the (im)politeness of expletives in anonymous commentaries on YouTube, European Journal of English Studies
18. Extejt, M.M (1998) in Turnage, A.K (2007) Email flaming behaviours and organizational conflict, Journal of Computer Mediated Communication

People, as the center of the world have a lot of control over things, and these things are developed around people’s preference, thus, can reflect the social trends of societies that people live in. Social media language is one example of these. It was developed from the formal English that people read and write with, however, under certain situation of human development, it varied a lot that differentiates and contradicts the tradition rules of English language.

There are several social trends that affect the variation of language and shape it into social media language. The biggest one is the fast-paced world that we live in. People in modern days are busy in various things. They have to study, work and take care of their families. As the population continuously grows, competitions have been created between people, so they all try to balance their time between communicating with others and the time which they need to focus on their specific tasks. People are focusing on their desires of things they want and the time they want them, thus limiting time on communicating by creating common sense on certain social media language rules. In this way, people can shorten the amount of time they need to greet people, read and write messages. Besides, as media has been well developed, celebrities can be displayed to the public easier to attract people’s attention. Things they do have become fashion trends that the general public tends to follow. Therefore, celebrities have been leading the trend of social media language on a large scale and boosted the interaction between people. In addition, people not only like to imitate celebrities, but also each other to fit in with the society’s lifestyle and fashions. People try to gain confidence through the process to have the sense of community and inclusiveness. All in all, there is a fundamental reason which is people are not doing face to face communication, instead, they are talking to screens so that they have to emphasize things that they want people to notice in order to communicate effectively.

Therefore, in this essay, the author is going to investigate on the relationship between social media language and social trends to see the connections and how one affects the other. This topic is significant to investigate on due to the fact that social media has been emerged suddenly and developed so quick that soon occupies people’s lives. It is worthy to see the connections behind that caused people to create social media language and how it reflects people’s lives. It will include characteristics of social media language, examples that correspond to those traits and how they can reflect the social trends in modern society.

This category of research has been started by great authors and researches. They had been investigating on the links between social media, the language it uses and people’s lifestyle. Therefore, products of their research have been meaningful sources for me to make references to. Also, in order to justify all those characteristics have been existing in real life, real examples from social media platforms are largely relied on by the author. By using the combination, points could be fairly argued. In the main essay, the author will discuss on characteristics of social media including its simplicity, informality, expression on emotions and how superficial the contents could be in terms of sharing personal and daily life details.

Living in a world that changes rapidly, people tend to save time on accomplish all their tasks to settle down smoothly, thus less time will be spent on unnecessary typing time. People established shared rules to communicate through ways that ensure its effectiveness and time saving. Therefore, abbreviation, omitted letters, emoticons and shortcuts exist for the purpose of saving time which creates succinctness. The abbreviation refers to shorten phrases or words; omitted letters are words that dropped vowels in the middle or at the end of words. Emoticons are the visual images that can be in forms of static and dynamic. In general, they have specific meaning under certain context, people use them to express themselves. Shortcuts refer to the buttons on social media platform that allow people to share their comments quickly. Four of them share a common feature that they can all shorten or eliminate typing time because each of them requires people to type fewer letters than formal English.

Abstract

Indonesian is the identity and identity of the Indonesian people. Indonesian plays an essential role in all aspects of life. Today is the millennial era, a time of increasing use and familiarity with communication, media, and digital technology. This has an impact on the development of Indonesian. The current situation is that the function of the Indonesian language has begun to be replaced or displaced by foreign languages ​​and there is behavior that tends to slip international terms, even though there is an equivalent in the Indonesian language, due to an attitude that believes that it will look modern, and educated and with the reason to facilitate communication in the millennial era . Symptoms of the language phenomenon above are examined using sociolinguistics qualitatively. Data collection using a questionnaire containing 35 foreign vocabularies, to be answered equivalents in Indonesian form by respondents. Respondents in this study were SMK Sukoharjo and STKIP PGRI Pacitan, which were sampled from the population using purposive and random sampling techniques. The data that has been collected is then analyzed using the matching method with a translational langue determination tool. The results obtained, Harapan Sukoharjo Vocational School of Industrial Electronics Engineering based on a questionnaire, were all students mastering the equivalent in Indonesian from 9 vocabularies. The vocabulary was only partially mastered by three students’ vocabulary and for dictionaries that were not learned by their Indonesian equivalent by 23 students. While from 35 foreign language vocabularies, all students of STKIP PGRI Pacitan VII semester of the Indonesian Language and Literature Education Study Program, do not know the equivalent in Indonesian from 16 dictionaries, then six vocabularies are mastered by only a small portion of students and all students see the equivalent in Indonesian 13 vocabulary

Introduction

Indonesian was born and designated as the language of the State of Indonesia on October 28, 1928, to coincide with the date of the Youth Pledge. In the text of the youth oath contained in element number three, which reads ‘Menjunjung bahasa persatuan, bahasa Indonesia,’ which means that the language of the unity of the State of Indonesia is Indonesian. The origin of Indonesian is from Malay. Sutan Takdir Alis Jahbana, in his book entitled ‘Sedjarah Bahasa Indonesia,’ expressed the Malay language has the power to embrace common interests so as to be in the archipelago. In the era of Dutch rule in the Indies, Malayu was used as the second official language in correspondence with local people. Competition between Malay and Dutch is increasingly stringent.

Eventually, Governor-General Roshussen proposed that the Malay language be used as the language of instruction in Indonesian people’s schools. At the time of reading the text of the proclamation on August 17th 1945, there was a sentence that strengthened the position and function of the Indonesian language constitutionally as the language of the Indonesian state. As time goes by, the pronunciation of Indonesian vocabulary is not in accordance with the large Indonesian dictionary. Like in a millennial generation now teenagers sometimes say mixed language, for example, the word friendzone which means only limited to friends, woles the opposite of slow, kepo which means in English Knowing Every Particular Object which means to know.

But not only in terms of sentence language, sometimes from shows on social media and electronic media such as Instagram, Line, Facebook, television shows, and radio broadcasts. With the Indonesian language mixed with English, it makes the Indonesian language incompatible with the sizeable Indonesian dictionary, starting from the pronunciation; from writing, it is also sometimes wrong. For example, like an aquarium that should be an akuarium. The aim of this research is to see how many people know about the correct way of writing, pronunciation of sentences. How many people speak mixed Indonesian – English. And this research is also seen from the results of the calculation of national exam results in 2018 and 2019 in Indonesian language lessons.

Method

This study uses descriptive methods to produce accurate research and to illustrate also how much the use of slang vocabulary is used among millennials. Aside from using descriptive methods, this study also uses non-participant observation methods and secondary documents, namely the results of the 2018 and 2019 national exam scores. From the methods mentioned above, it has been answered that there are still many people sometimes still wrong or deceived by Indonesian. Standard and non-standard both in writing and pronunciation.

Result and Discussion

Often hear or see from someone’s chat with words that may be strange but familiar to our ears. But sometimes we wonder what the word means. As a small example of the phrase typo, this word typo sounds a bit strange but is familiar to us. It turns out that the word typo is a clipping of the word typography, which means a typo or writing error. Here are a few words that are being hits among young people that are often used on several social media or commonly used to interact face to face or via chat. Ababil, for example, ababil, is an abbreviation of abg labile. This title applies to young people who are still temperamental and childish.

Often hear or see from someone’s chat with words that may be strange but familiar to our ears. But sometimes we wonder what the word means. As a small example of the phrase typo, this word typo sounds a bit strange but is familiar to us. It turns out that the word typo is a clipping of the word typography, which means a typo or writing error. Here are a few words that are being hits among young people that are often used on several social media or commonly used to interact face to face or via chat. Ababil, for example, ababil, is an abbreviation of abg labile. This title applies to young people who are still temperamental and childish.

Conclusion

The conclusion of the above research is how the Indonesian language develops from generation to generation. In this millennial generation, there have been many changes in language vocabulary mixed between Indonesian and English. The above research will make it easier for people to know how to pronounce and write standard Indonesian, good and right. And to reduce the language of hits, namely Indonesian mixed with English, there needs to be a lot of education from various environments, be it the home environment, campus environment, or family environment.

References

1. Pusat Peniliaian Pendidikan, Kementrian Pendidikan dan Kebudayaan
2. Universitas Ciputra, UC, Surabaya “Metode Pengumpulan Data Dalam Penelitian” 02,25,2016
3. Indowonders “999+ Istilah dan Singkatan Gaul Kekinian” 01,11,2019
4. Dian Salama, “120+ contoh Kata Baku dan Tidak Baku Beserta artinya A sampai Z, Mei,30,2017
5. RomaDecade, “Sejarah Bahasa Indonesia”

As shown above, language can provide an inside look at how the people in that language tell directions. However, this is only one aspect of the Cree culture and language can be utilized to show other aspects. When looking into the Cree language and how it is used within society, there is a part of it that can be described as vulnerable and it is related to the importance of truth within the Cree society (Muehlbauer, 2016). The following paragraphs will look into this concept of truth in the Plains Cree society and how language is used to help make this emerge.

Speeches are an important area where truth plays a major role. One example is counting coup. In the Plains Cree culture, counting coup is similar to a monologue done in a performance but for the Plains Cree it occurs during a gathering and normally a person is talking about themselves, specifically their deeds (Muehlbauer, 2016). The purpose of counting coup is vulnerability because the speaker is being judged by what they are saying. However, they are being judged on the truthfulness, not the content (Muehlbauer, 2016). There are two outcomes that can result after the speech. The first is that everything the person said is truthful so they will be seen as a truthful person. However, the second outcome is that the person said something that is untruthful. As a result, people will be weary of what this individual says (Muehlbauer, 2016). This speech shows how the Plains Cree society values truthfulness which is important when trading, hunting, and in other aspects of everyday life.

Truth can also be seen in other ways during a speech. For instance, another example of a speech is âtâyôhkêwin (Muehlbauer, 2015). This type of speech is similar to a folktale and therefore holds an important meaning behind the story. However, this speech is related to truth because when telling the story, the speaker is in a sense “lying,” and some may even use the word kiyâtisk, which means liar, before telling the story, because the story holds a truth that isn’t theirs (Muehlbauer, 2015). This isn’t saying that the mythological truths in the speech are lies or that the speaker is actually lying, but it is to let the audience know that this isn’t the speaker’s story (Muehlbauer, 2015). In English, we determine truth based off of personal experience with the person, therefore we trust them until they prove us wrong. This is different than the Plains Cree, who constantly put themselves out there whether they are showing people they are trustworthy by not lying in front of them or by stating before a speech whether this speech holds their personal beliefs or if it is someone else’s (Muehlbauer, 2016; Muehlbauer, 2015).

In any society, truth is important because it guides how people interact with us. However, in Plains Cree, it holds more of an importance that it can be seen incorporated into their speeches. In one type of speech called counting coup, the speech is used to judge the truthfulness of the person by making them vulnerable to others (Muehlbauer, 2016). On the other side, in the speech called âtâyôhkêwin, there are truths within the story, but the speaker lets the people know that the truth belongs to someone else and they are just retelling it (Muehlbauer, 2015). These are just two ways that truth can be observed in the Plains Cree society but it shows that this society is built around this concept.