Hi class:
I turned in grades on June 29th. If you have any concerns, let me know before July 29, as that is the day when I return to America.
You can always reach me at SMDA@aol.com or on Facebook. If I can help you in any way, let me know. I will occasionally post things on this site, things related to second language acquisition or simply things that interest me. Good luck to all of you.
Sean
Friday, July 17, 2009
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Topics
Here are some writings on some of the topics. You can read for practice. The italicized section is a set of questions or an assignment. You can complete the assignment or answer the question for you final exam paper. (Just choose one and write for 1.5-2 pages.) Remember this is just one option for the Final.
Who Am I? Identity and vocation
I identify myself in part as a teacher and as an intellectual (someone who thinks about things). A common cliche is that teaching is a "calling," not a profession--that is, one is born to teach; it's not just a job. It's difficult to identify yourself with a profession now, though, so although I identify myself as a teacher, it's hard for me to identify myself as a teacher at a certain place because of how difficult it is to settle down into a permanent job. (I was proud to be a teacher at this University, but my time here is almost over.) This isn't just a problem for teachers: it seems adults need to change jobs much more frequently now than in the past.
How do we identify ourselves with our vocation when it is more difficult to identify ourselves with our specific job?
Food My relationship to fast food and Taiwanese food.
The food here is very good. I don't eat at expensive restaurants, though. In part because I only eat at simple restaurants, I find myself missing some of the Chinese food and Taiwanese food restaurants in America. It's funny that I seem to prefer a simulation ("fake" ethnic food in America) of local food to the actual local food of where I live. I try now to eat things not readily available in the U.S., so I can miss it when I leave Taiwan.
I'm going to look at another topic as well: fast food and "taste" in food. I have read that childhood is the time when we develop our palette: the food we get used to then becomes our sense of what tastes good. The drawback is that, now that many children are raised on fast food, we identify fast food with good food, and our eating habits become worse while at the same time we lose our ability to enjoy more sophisticated food. I'm not sure I agree, though, because it wasn't until I was an adult that I started to enjoy many different types of food. I still like fast food, though, food I ate all the time in childhood.
Do you see taste in food getting more simple? Too simple?
Eating Habits My fear of eating and my daring
Like a lot of people, I have a love-hate relationship to food. I am often afraid to eat for fear of getting (more) fat. I'm especially afraid of getting fat again since I have lost a lot of weight in the last two years. I am quite daring, though, especially at eating spicy food. I think restaurants understand that a lot of people are daring when it comes to spicy food, for it seems that spicy food in restaurants isn't often spicy. I will eat the spiciest serving at some restaurants and not be bothered at all. Some restaurants do not cater to the stupidly daring customers, however: I will sometimes get food that is extremely spicy, and I pay for it.
What are some common fears about food? What sort of weird games do people play with food (trying spicy or unusual foods, etc.)
Remorse and Regret
Recently on CNN I saw an interview in English with Edison Chen, the Hong Kong celebrity involved in the photograph scandal. His apology and his sense of remorse seemed very self-serving. He says he has not talked to any of the women whose lives he hurt. I wonder how sorry he really is if he won't take the difficult step of trying to talk to them. (It will certainly not be a pleasant coversation.) Cecilial Cheung said that he is a liar: he is not trying to help the women, only himself. It seems true.
self-serving=behaving in a way that benefits you. This often applies to things that seem to be directed toward other people, like apologies, volunteer work, etc.
Why is real remorse so painful? How do we try to "get out of" apologies? Why are we fascinated with famous people and their public expressions of remorse?
Class
My class position is interesting because I am considered high class because of my education. However, my class is rather low in terms of money.
Our last movie, Yi Yi, seems entirely about middle class life. It has a lot to say about growing up, growing old, and how to face life's challenges, but all of the characters and all of the situations seem entirely "middle class" problems. (Maybe this isn't fair, though, because feelings like desire, passion, murderous rage, are all human feelings.)
How is class a complicated issue? Are some movies, etc., too class-bound (about one class) and/or not interested enough in how class affects our lives?
Humor and Jokes
I've always laughed at obnoxious and vulgar jokes. There's often a lot of clever use of wordplay, etc., in vulgar humor. My big problem with jokes, though, is that I laugh at inappropriately offensive jokes--not because they're funny, but because I can't believe that people are so full of hate and invested in stereotypes that someone would make such a joke. I'm laughing at the racism or hatred in the joke, but someone might think I'm laughing because I agree with the joke's hate.
Are jokes a good source for understanding language? Why is vulgarity so interesting? What do offensive jokes tell us about ourselves and our culture?
Health
When I became more focused about staying fit, I started to develop some bad habits. First, I started exercising too much. At times last year I went to the gym three times per day. Second, I stopped getting enough "fun" exercise, like basketball, and focused probably too much on weights and other workout methods. Third, I became obnoxious. It's hard to become interested in something without becoming an annoying person. You start telling people that they are doing something wrong, you talk about a subject with friends who don't care about the same subject, etc. You get so excited that you try to force your excitment on others.
What "positive" phenomena can we become addicted to (exercise, studying, etc.)? What are the drawbacks?
Cultural Metaphors and Cliches
I recall a book I read some time ago. It's central idea was to explore the "logic" of a metaphor by American poet Wallace Stevens: "Death is the mother of beauty." Why 'mother' and not 'father'? There's a good, complex explanation.
Write about a particularly intriguing metaphor without repeating your Paper 5 topic. For example, what does the metaphor "X is the mother of Y" do differently from "X is the father of Y". You could also look at some metaphors in art.
Trauma
People take others' trauma and use it for themselves. It's common to see people who take, say, the suffering that their grandparents faced and act as if they were the ones who suffered. It's good to have a sense of historical memory, but don't we sometimes go too far in our passion for the past and really "steal" the trauma of others? My fear is that it will affect how we see the world today. Certainly we don't want a world where traumas of the past will occur again, but we also want to understand how the world has changed, and how the manifesting of traumatic events also has changed.
What are some examples of people wrongly appropriating the trauma of others?
Stress and Frustration
Stress is bad and I don't want to write about it. :-) I do agree with the Blues music tradition in America, though: we can sing of the things that stress us as a way of making the stress go away.
Belonging and "Fitting In"
I have a sense that I belong here, but it's hard not to feel like an outsider. The main reason I fail to "fit in" is because I don't have the time or work ethic to improve my Mandarin: I work in English for a good part of the day, and I'm tired from my other responsibilities. I also feel that, in some situations, I am only allowed to 'fit in' in a certain way: there's a place prepared for foreigners here. But I really can't understand the complexity of the social system or the ways in which we can fit in until I have stronger skills in the languages spoken here.
Describe some phenomena related to the difficulties of 'fitting in,' or tell a personal story that you haven't already told related to the topic.
Technology and Evolution
In a lot of our presentations about technology, students talked about how technological developments have made things more "convenient." I wonder about the problems related to thinking too much in terms of convenience. Are there things that shouldn't be convenient? Do we develop bad habits because of our preferences for convenient things? Should we identify technology always as an 'advance' instead of a 'change'?
Write about a technological development and discuss it in terms other than "convenience." Or, talk about some of the problems about being too obsessed with (or "hung up on") convenience.
Who Am I? Identity and vocation
I identify myself in part as a teacher and as an intellectual (someone who thinks about things). A common cliche is that teaching is a "calling," not a profession--that is, one is born to teach; it's not just a job. It's difficult to identify yourself with a profession now, though, so although I identify myself as a teacher, it's hard for me to identify myself as a teacher at a certain place because of how difficult it is to settle down into a permanent job. (I was proud to be a teacher at this University, but my time here is almost over.) This isn't just a problem for teachers: it seems adults need to change jobs much more frequently now than in the past.
How do we identify ourselves with our vocation when it is more difficult to identify ourselves with our specific job?
Food My relationship to fast food and Taiwanese food.
The food here is very good. I don't eat at expensive restaurants, though. In part because I only eat at simple restaurants, I find myself missing some of the Chinese food and Taiwanese food restaurants in America. It's funny that I seem to prefer a simulation ("fake" ethnic food in America) of local food to the actual local food of where I live. I try now to eat things not readily available in the U.S., so I can miss it when I leave Taiwan.
I'm going to look at another topic as well: fast food and "taste" in food. I have read that childhood is the time when we develop our palette: the food we get used to then becomes our sense of what tastes good. The drawback is that, now that many children are raised on fast food, we identify fast food with good food, and our eating habits become worse while at the same time we lose our ability to enjoy more sophisticated food. I'm not sure I agree, though, because it wasn't until I was an adult that I started to enjoy many different types of food. I still like fast food, though, food I ate all the time in childhood.
Do you see taste in food getting more simple? Too simple?
Eating Habits My fear of eating and my daring
Like a lot of people, I have a love-hate relationship to food. I am often afraid to eat for fear of getting (more) fat. I'm especially afraid of getting fat again since I have lost a lot of weight in the last two years. I am quite daring, though, especially at eating spicy food. I think restaurants understand that a lot of people are daring when it comes to spicy food, for it seems that spicy food in restaurants isn't often spicy. I will eat the spiciest serving at some restaurants and not be bothered at all. Some restaurants do not cater to the stupidly daring customers, however: I will sometimes get food that is extremely spicy, and I pay for it.
What are some common fears about food? What sort of weird games do people play with food (trying spicy or unusual foods, etc.)
Remorse and Regret
Recently on CNN I saw an interview in English with Edison Chen, the Hong Kong celebrity involved in the photograph scandal. His apology and his sense of remorse seemed very self-serving. He says he has not talked to any of the women whose lives he hurt. I wonder how sorry he really is if he won't take the difficult step of trying to talk to them. (It will certainly not be a pleasant coversation.) Cecilial Cheung said that he is a liar: he is not trying to help the women, only himself. It seems true.
self-serving=behaving in a way that benefits you. This often applies to things that seem to be directed toward other people, like apologies, volunteer work, etc.
Why is real remorse so painful? How do we try to "get out of" apologies? Why are we fascinated with famous people and their public expressions of remorse?
Class
My class position is interesting because I am considered high class because of my education. However, my class is rather low in terms of money.
Our last movie, Yi Yi, seems entirely about middle class life. It has a lot to say about growing up, growing old, and how to face life's challenges, but all of the characters and all of the situations seem entirely "middle class" problems. (Maybe this isn't fair, though, because feelings like desire, passion, murderous rage, are all human feelings.)
How is class a complicated issue? Are some movies, etc., too class-bound (about one class) and/or not interested enough in how class affects our lives?
Humor and Jokes
I've always laughed at obnoxious and vulgar jokes. There's often a lot of clever use of wordplay, etc., in vulgar humor. My big problem with jokes, though, is that I laugh at inappropriately offensive jokes--not because they're funny, but because I can't believe that people are so full of hate and invested in stereotypes that someone would make such a joke. I'm laughing at the racism or hatred in the joke, but someone might think I'm laughing because I agree with the joke's hate.
Are jokes a good source for understanding language? Why is vulgarity so interesting? What do offensive jokes tell us about ourselves and our culture?
Health
When I became more focused about staying fit, I started to develop some bad habits. First, I started exercising too much. At times last year I went to the gym three times per day. Second, I stopped getting enough "fun" exercise, like basketball, and focused probably too much on weights and other workout methods. Third, I became obnoxious. It's hard to become interested in something without becoming an annoying person. You start telling people that they are doing something wrong, you talk about a subject with friends who don't care about the same subject, etc. You get so excited that you try to force your excitment on others.
What "positive" phenomena can we become addicted to (exercise, studying, etc.)? What are the drawbacks?
Cultural Metaphors and Cliches
I recall a book I read some time ago. It's central idea was to explore the "logic" of a metaphor by American poet Wallace Stevens: "Death is the mother of beauty." Why 'mother' and not 'father'? There's a good, complex explanation.
Write about a particularly intriguing metaphor without repeating your Paper 5 topic. For example, what does the metaphor "X is the mother of Y" do differently from "X is the father of Y". You could also look at some metaphors in art.
Trauma
People take others' trauma and use it for themselves. It's common to see people who take, say, the suffering that their grandparents faced and act as if they were the ones who suffered. It's good to have a sense of historical memory, but don't we sometimes go too far in our passion for the past and really "steal" the trauma of others? My fear is that it will affect how we see the world today. Certainly we don't want a world where traumas of the past will occur again, but we also want to understand how the world has changed, and how the manifesting of traumatic events also has changed.
What are some examples of people wrongly appropriating the trauma of others?
Stress and Frustration
Stress is bad and I don't want to write about it. :-) I do agree with the Blues music tradition in America, though: we can sing of the things that stress us as a way of making the stress go away.
Belonging and "Fitting In"
I have a sense that I belong here, but it's hard not to feel like an outsider. The main reason I fail to "fit in" is because I don't have the time or work ethic to improve my Mandarin: I work in English for a good part of the day, and I'm tired from my other responsibilities. I also feel that, in some situations, I am only allowed to 'fit in' in a certain way: there's a place prepared for foreigners here. But I really can't understand the complexity of the social system or the ways in which we can fit in until I have stronger skills in the languages spoken here.
Describe some phenomena related to the difficulties of 'fitting in,' or tell a personal story that you haven't already told related to the topic.
Technology and Evolution
In a lot of our presentations about technology, students talked about how technological developments have made things more "convenient." I wonder about the problems related to thinking too much in terms of convenience. Are there things that shouldn't be convenient? Do we develop bad habits because of our preferences for convenient things? Should we identify technology always as an 'advance' instead of a 'change'?
Write about a technological development and discuss it in terms other than "convenience." Or, talk about some of the problems about being too obsessed with (or "hung up on") convenience.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
More English Rhetoric
More repetition examples
End a clause with one noun, begin the next clause with the same now.
"Work requires effort, effort requires energy, energy requires ample rest."
Climax
Make a list in order of importance.
"A woman should love her country, her family, and her God."
Repetition in Reverse Grammatical Order
This is a common trick to describe ideas in a way that helps people remember.
"A person should eat to live, not live to eat." <--We use the same words because people remember the idea better.
Compare: "Eat food that keeps you healthy. Food shouldn't be an important part of your life because you will start to enjoy a lot of unhealthy food, and consequently you will be unhealthy." It's harder either to understand or remember the idea.
Chiasmus
Reverse grammatical order, but do not repeat words.
"It's hard to save money, but to spend it is easy."
"By day hard work; fun at nighttime."
Rhetorical Question
Asking the reader a question is an effective way to state a problem. Don't ask too many questions, though.
"It behooves us to ask, Is college education properly designed for the needs of today's students?"
(Some people will use a comma, then capitalize the question; others will use a colon.)
End a clause with one noun, begin the next clause with the same now.
"Work requires effort, effort requires energy, energy requires ample rest."
Climax
Make a list in order of importance.
"A woman should love her country, her family, and her God."
Repetition in Reverse Grammatical Order
This is a common trick to describe ideas in a way that helps people remember.
"A person should eat to live, not live to eat." <--We use the same words because people remember the idea better.
Compare: "Eat food that keeps you healthy. Food shouldn't be an important part of your life because you will start to enjoy a lot of unhealthy food, and consequently you will be unhealthy." It's harder either to understand or remember the idea.
Chiasmus
Reverse grammatical order, but do not repeat words.
"It's hard to save money, but to spend it is easy."
"By day hard work; fun at nighttime."
Rhetorical Question
Asking the reader a question is an effective way to state a problem. Don't ask too many questions, though.
"It behooves us to ask, Is college education properly designed for the needs of today's students?"
(Some people will use a comma, then capitalize the question; others will use a colon.)
"The Exception that Proves the Rule"
This is a concept that explains things that might disprove someone's theory or observation. For example, a person might say, "Only skinny women can be popular in Asian culture." If someone mentions 沈殿霞, the person might respond, "Oh, she's the exception that proves the rule." (In other words, she is so unusual that, although she breaks the rule, she shows how accurate the rule seems to be. This case also explains the idea of "tokenism".)
Another example: "Only soccer players, baseball players, or basketball players can be famous all over the world." "What about Tiger Woods, the golfer?" "He is the exception that proves the rule."
Is this a useful idea? Explain how it works. Give some examples in addition to the examples that I provided.
Another example: "Only soccer players, baseball players, or basketball players can be famous all over the world." "What about Tiger Woods, the golfer?" "He is the exception that proves the rule."
Is this a useful idea? Explain how it works. Give some examples in addition to the examples that I provided.
Hypocrisy
I have an interesting story related to hypocrisy. When I taught a remedial English class in America, I loaned a movie to one of my students. The movie starred Shu Qi (舒淇) as one of the actresses. Another student, a female ABC from a Hong Kong family, saw the movie and loudly said, "Did you know she used to be a porn star!?" I said that I did, but she has moved into mainstream movies and sometimes is a good actress (although she usually makes bad movies). I also thought it was interesting that she was able to become a successful actress in a culture that's often unforgiving of women who are involved in any kind of sex scandal, etc. (e.g. the women involved in the Edison Chen [陳冠希] photo scandal).
While Shu Qi hasn't exactly helped the cause of women entertainers (because a lot of women have to use their bodies to become famous, and because many cultures are youth-obsessed to the point that an older woman can find it hard to be a successful entertainer), she was able to become successful after some embarrassing early work. Why should we continue to judge her for the past, and why should we care about her early work? No one forces us to look at it.
A year or so later I did what most bored Americans do: I went on Facebook and started to look up friends and former students I hadn't seen in a long time. I happened to check for my Shu Qi-hating student. I found her, and I saw that she posted a photo shoot that she participated in. They were common pictures one might take for fun or if a woman wanted to start a modeling career. They were provocative but not explicit, the type of picture of "spicy women" we often see in advertising. I found it very strange that this student was so judgmental of Shu Qi, yet she also would pose for pictures in a way that, like in Shu Qi's early work, are taken for people to admire the person's body. My student was proud of these pictures enough to put them online, so why did she care so much about an actress who did something similar (but much more extreme) in the past? It seemed like a type of hypocrisy.
I can think also of the many times I've criticized someone, only to find later that I was behaving in the same way. I'm most guilty of criticizing things like macho nonsense, then finding myself acting macho inappropriately. I'm also shy in many social situations, but I'll criticize someone for being too shy.
Is this a common problem? Do we often strongly judge famous people but don't think about what's important to us--how we should judge our selves and how we should judge other people?
While Shu Qi hasn't exactly helped the cause of women entertainers (because a lot of women have to use their bodies to become famous, and because many cultures are youth-obsessed to the point that an older woman can find it hard to be a successful entertainer), she was able to become successful after some embarrassing early work. Why should we continue to judge her for the past, and why should we care about her early work? No one forces us to look at it.
A year or so later I did what most bored Americans do: I went on Facebook and started to look up friends and former students I hadn't seen in a long time. I happened to check for my Shu Qi-hating student. I found her, and I saw that she posted a photo shoot that she participated in. They were common pictures one might take for fun or if a woman wanted to start a modeling career. They were provocative but not explicit, the type of picture of "spicy women" we often see in advertising. I found it very strange that this student was so judgmental of Shu Qi, yet she also would pose for pictures in a way that, like in Shu Qi's early work, are taken for people to admire the person's body. My student was proud of these pictures enough to put them online, so why did she care so much about an actress who did something similar (but much more extreme) in the past? It seemed like a type of hypocrisy.
I can think also of the many times I've criticized someone, only to find later that I was behaving in the same way. I'm most guilty of criticizing things like macho nonsense, then finding myself acting macho inappropriately. I'm also shy in many social situations, but I'll criticize someone for being too shy.
Is this a common problem? Do we often strongly judge famous people but don't think about what's important to us--how we should judge our selves and how we should judge other people?
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Using Music in Movies: An Example from Yi Yi
When Ting-Ting plays the piano for her grandmother, she plays a George Gershwin composition called "Summertime." This is a well-known song written for a musical called Porgy and Bess. Porgy and Bess is about a group of African-Americans in South Carolina. The musical is infamous because it is written by a white composer in what the composer thinks is black English. Although some find Gershwin's compositions patronizing or ridiculous, many of the pieces--especially "Summertime"--were performed and recorded by African-American musicians.
Here are the lyrics:
Summertime, And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' And the cotton is high
Your daddy's rich And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby Don't you cry
One of these mornings You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky
But till that morning There's a'nothing can harm you
With daddy and mamma standing by
Summertime, And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' And the cotton is high
Your daddy's rich And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry
Given the lyrics, you might find the use of this song in the movie to be ironic. First, it's not the Summertime. Second, while the song plays, we see both some regular behavior--Yang-Yang doing his homework, etc.--and some behavior that shows that, beneath the ordinary boring life, there is a lot of conflict (Lili fighting with her boyfriend, Min-Min [the mom] upset about her mother and about Yang-Yang not talking to her, etc.) The lyrics are ironic in the musical in which it appears as well, for the plot is about the difficulties in life: a disabled man tries to rescue a woman from an abusive relationship. The lyrics are a bit odd because, although they say that the person being sung to "can't be harmed," there's also a sense of deferred freedom: the subject still hasn't "spread wings" to "fly" (i.e. "be free"). In a lot of ways Yi Yi is about people who live safe, normal lives but, for many reasons, cannot be free: NJ and his wife have long, unfulfilling jobs, Ting-Ting is overcome by guilt because she thinks she caused her grandmother's stroke, Ah-Di can never overcome his money problems, etc.
Think about some of the other songs you hear in this movie and other movies (for example, the Japanese video game designer playing a popular Japanese song, then playing "Moonlight Sonata," at a piano bar). How does music help make a movie more interesting and complicated?
It's common to use songs to teach language skills. You'll notice that I haven't done this. I have a few concerns (e.g. a lot of popular songs don't make sense; I might choose a song more to "look cool" than to help teach language skills; the lyrics are less important than the music accompaniment). If you'd like to write about some songs for your Final Exam paper, that's fine, as long as the paper is 1.5-2 pages long and sophisticated. You can write about the use of music in movies, analyze some English songs or songs in another language, or you can look at some adaptations of songs into other languages and see how changing the lyrics and the language of the lyrics affects the song, an interesting concept given that it seems melody and rhythm are more important than lyrical content.
(It would be very interesting to look at the use of American music in Taiwanese films. Edward Yang, the director of Yi Yi, once said that American music is very powerful in other countries because it "sounds like rebellion," a feeling that is very new to people, especially young people, in non-American cultures. Yang was thinking especially about the effect of American rock music on 1960s Taiwanese youth.)
Here's a performance of "Summertime" by the jazz singer Ellas Fitzgerald. Notice how, although the lyrics seem to have a carefree message, the song is sung as a lament, an expression of sadness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j6avX7ebkM
Here are the lyrics:
Summertime, And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' And the cotton is high
Your daddy's rich And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby Don't you cry
One of these mornings You're going to rise up singing
Then you'll spread your wings
And you'll take to the sky
But till that morning There's a'nothing can harm you
With daddy and mamma standing by
Summertime, And the livin' is easy
Fish are jumpin' And the cotton is high
Your daddy's rich And your mamma's good lookin'
So hush little baby
Don't you cry
Given the lyrics, you might find the use of this song in the movie to be ironic. First, it's not the Summertime. Second, while the song plays, we see both some regular behavior--Yang-Yang doing his homework, etc.--and some behavior that shows that, beneath the ordinary boring life, there is a lot of conflict (Lili fighting with her boyfriend, Min-Min [the mom] upset about her mother and about Yang-Yang not talking to her, etc.) The lyrics are ironic in the musical in which it appears as well, for the plot is about the difficulties in life: a disabled man tries to rescue a woman from an abusive relationship. The lyrics are a bit odd because, although they say that the person being sung to "can't be harmed," there's also a sense of deferred freedom: the subject still hasn't "spread wings" to "fly" (i.e. "be free"). In a lot of ways Yi Yi is about people who live safe, normal lives but, for many reasons, cannot be free: NJ and his wife have long, unfulfilling jobs, Ting-Ting is overcome by guilt because she thinks she caused her grandmother's stroke, Ah-Di can never overcome his money problems, etc.
Think about some of the other songs you hear in this movie and other movies (for example, the Japanese video game designer playing a popular Japanese song, then playing "Moonlight Sonata," at a piano bar). How does music help make a movie more interesting and complicated?
It's common to use songs to teach language skills. You'll notice that I haven't done this. I have a few concerns (e.g. a lot of popular songs don't make sense; I might choose a song more to "look cool" than to help teach language skills; the lyrics are less important than the music accompaniment). If you'd like to write about some songs for your Final Exam paper, that's fine, as long as the paper is 1.5-2 pages long and sophisticated. You can write about the use of music in movies, analyze some English songs or songs in another language, or you can look at some adaptations of songs into other languages and see how changing the lyrics and the language of the lyrics affects the song, an interesting concept given that it seems melody and rhythm are more important than lyrical content.
(It would be very interesting to look at the use of American music in Taiwanese films. Edward Yang, the director of Yi Yi, once said that American music is very powerful in other countries because it "sounds like rebellion," a feeling that is very new to people, especially young people, in non-American cultures. Yang was thinking especially about the effect of American rock music on 1960s Taiwanese youth.)
Here's a performance of "Summertime" by the jazz singer Ellas Fitzgerald. Notice how, although the lyrics seem to have a carefree message, the song is sung as a lament, an expression of sadness.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1j6avX7ebkM
Thursday, June 4, 2009
More English Rhetoric
Antithesis: This is the use of opposite ideas in parallel structure. It makes your description more interesting. You see antithesis in the dependent clause + independent clause structure "Although...,Independent clause." "Although he is handsome, he has never had a girlfriend."
Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations starts with a famous set of antitheses, the first of which is, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." (That line was parodied in The Simpsons episode we watched this week.)
Repetition for Effect
You can end several clauses with the same word for effect.
"No peace without independence. No freedom without independence. No justice without independence."
You can also repeat a word within a single clause for effect. (Often this uses homophones, words that spell and sound the same but have different meanings.)
"In computer science, one rule of coding is, 'Garbage in, garbage out.'"
"The light in the world will help us find the light in our hearts."
"We are so in love with things that we become possessed by our possessions."
Charles Dickens' novel Great Expectations starts with a famous set of antitheses, the first of which is, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." (That line was parodied in The Simpsons episode we watched this week.)
Repetition for Effect
You can end several clauses with the same word for effect.
"No peace without independence. No freedom without independence. No justice without independence."
You can also repeat a word within a single clause for effect. (Often this uses homophones, words that spell and sound the same but have different meanings.)
"In computer science, one rule of coding is, 'Garbage in, garbage out.'"
"The light in the world will help us find the light in our hearts."
"We are so in love with things that we become possessed by our possessions."
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