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ED209
Joined: 17 Oct 2006
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 Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 8:30 pm Post subject: Re: English English Teacher |
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| rusty1983 wrote: |
Someone mentioned Spanish before and I have been thinking about that too, it is mad that all those countries in South America speak Spanish. I think if I were in one of those countries Id refuse to speak it and just use a more traditional language.
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What's a traditional language? |
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Fresh Prince
Joined: 05 Dec 2006
Location: The glorious nation of Korea
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| Posted: Sun Jul 13, 2008 9:12 pm Post subject: Re: English English Teacher |
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| ED209 wrote: |
What's a traditional language? |
In the case of the Ainu, they had no choice but use Japanese. |
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ReeseDog
Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Location: Classified
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:25 am Post subject: |
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| rusty1983 wrote: |
| I wasnt trying to have a pop at anyone... |
Yeah - whatever, pinko. |
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ReeseDog
Joined: 05 Apr 2008
Location: Classified
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| Posted: Tue Jul 15, 2008 10:29 am Post subject: Re: English English Teacher |
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| rusty1983 wrote: |
| Someone also said that 'English is becoming the language of oppresion' but I think that has been happening for hundreds of years, with the slaves etc. |
I assume you mean former slaves in the US? Check your history, there, red. More slaves went to Brazil than ever made it to US soil. So why isn't Portuguese the language of opression?
Another poster here was right - your logic sucks. |
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Fishead soup
Joined: 24 Jun 2007
Location: Korea
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| Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 9:46 pm Post subject: |
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You're right!!!!!!
So to stop the injustice you need to go back to your home country and start a freegan lifestyle of dumpster diving so you don't add to the wasteful and enviromentaly destructive nature of Capitalism. You should not buy rent or own property because doing so would help the evil capitalist machine that exploits the third world and the land you use for your home was once the habitat of peaceful Animals.
Wait you can't fly home. This is enviromentaly bad and leads to global warming. Since you can't fly home because of the terrible consequence to the enviroment I suggest living on the streets near Seoul station.
There will be lots of people willing to feed you but you must not eat the food that contains meat. Also the trays are made of metal that leads to global warming. So you should avoid the food people give you because it makes you an oppressor of nature |
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rusty1983
Joined: 30 Jan 2007
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 3:17 pm Post subject: |
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| tfunk wrote: |
England isn't really a colonial power any more, so you aren't perpetuating their empire, unless you've brought flags with you.
If you want to feel guilty about England's past, then feel guilty about the millions of people it enslaved, dispossessed etc. and the fact that you are English and are a product of previous generations of Englishmen.
Personally I wouldn't worry about it. As another poster suggested, if Chinese, Japanese, etc were the lingua franca of the day then the same so-called moral issues would arise.
If Ireland was bigger than England, then I'm sure we would've kicked your ass and made you eat potatoes and drink Guinness.
Human nature is pretty much the same, no matter what the colour of the flag. Worrying about moral issues without any possibility of meaningful action is just masterbat*on IMHO. |
Like I said (and will not say again!) Im not feeling particularly guilty or worried about this issue its just something that came into my head a few weeks ago.
I do not agree that worrying about moral issues without meaningful action is a waste of time. You do not have to choose to think about such things but that is when things get swept under the carpet (I mean in general here)
Im just interested in how the language I teach for a living spread and what it used to reperesent.
I agree completely that if it were not English it would be another langauge (Irish though? Never sober enough surely...) so it might as well be me that benefits from being English.
We were colonised plenty of times in the past and English itself is a mish-mash of French, German, Latin, Viking etc etc and so on.
I put the Evil Empire stuff to my much more enlightened colleague recently and he said that although there is obviously some truth to what I said there is a big spectrum of reasons English has expanded so far and it would be blunted to cite this as the main one.
To others -
I did not specifically refer to the US slaves and for a reason, although Im sorry you are paranoid enough to insinuate that. If I really wanted to make myself feel guilty here, I could talk about Liverpool and its relationship with the slave trade.
I am truley sorry if any American thinks even for a second I am attacking their beautiful land of the free. I am too cut-up from your wit and put-downs to even think bad thoughts about America's past.
Also, apologies for excluding other languages/attrocities in my language of oppresion. I did actually think of researching and writing a post that mentioned every past wrong-doing in history but Ive got a job to hold-down here.
Appreciate the above post (I mean tfunk's, not the daft Fishead Soup one) and others that contributed sensibly to this thread. I am not attacking myself or any of you for teaching English, just trying to educate myself about what I do.
I believe the most interesting part of TEFL is learning about this kind of thing, how the language developed and how it is changing currently.
And finally, I am not a hippy! |
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