Preparing us for what?

MollyB   Mon May 12, 2008 10:41 am GMT
Do you agree with Nayar's view?

“the ideological loading of most of the arguments in cyberspace postings authorizes the view that English learning is seen as a part of the process of preparing them (the learners) for the chance of joining us (the native speaker community).

Nayar, in [i]Us and Others: Social Identities Across Languages, Discourses and Cultures [/i]By Anna Duszak.
Guest   Mon May 12, 2008 4:08 pm GMT
Why do you always ask strange questions about books no one besides you has ever read? I don't get you...
Pos   Mon May 12, 2008 7:24 pm GMT
<<Why do you always ask strange questions about books no one besides you has ever read? I don't get you...>>

Why do you always appear as "Guest"? And what's so strange about the question?
Wintereis   Mon May 12, 2008 7:40 pm GMT
Oh, I despise that kind of pseudointellectualism, that abstraction. It really has no bearing. The real question one should be asking on this matter (the one that is actually asked) is related to the Imperialism of the English tongue. And yes, if a person is going to compete in the global market, it is beneficial for them to know the English language. If the Spanish speaking world had as much influence as the English speaking world on economic and other such issues then the Spanish language would be the most important to learn. And thus it goes for every language. It just happens, through a series of historical events, that the English language is the most important one to learn presently. The fair and equal world does not exist and has never existed. Sometimes we have to descend from the ivory towers and idealism of academia and acknowledge the real world.
MollyB   Mon May 12, 2008 8:05 pm GMT
Why do you always ask strange questions about books no one besides you has ever read? I don't get you...

There's no obligation upon you. You don't have to be in this thread.
MollyB   Mon May 12, 2008 8:06 pm GMT
<Oh, I despise that kind of pseudointellectualism, that abstraction. It really has no bearing. >

No bearing for whom?
MollyB   Tue May 13, 2008 11:01 am GMT
More thoughts:

"The generative linguist’s reliance on ‘intuition’ has required the postulation of an ‘ideal native speaker/hearer’ and in practice of an invariant variety of the language in question. But research in sociolinguistics has highlighted the variability of the competences of different native speakers belonging to different social groupings and even the dialectal varaibility of a single speaker's language.As soo as the non-uniformity of the language is accepted as normal, it is evident that the native speakers' knowledge of their language, as a social or cultural phenomenon, is incomplete. "

The Linguistics Encyclopedia By Kirsten Malmkjaer
greg   Tue May 13, 2008 1:11 pm GMT
↑ Ceci est vrai et connu depuis Saussure. ↑

Les langues sont des faits sociaux. Toute société comporte ses normes, sous-normes, pseudonormes, antinormes etc.

Postuler l'invariance d'un registre X pour ensuite construire une théorie autour ne pose aucun problème dans la mesure où le périmètre de validité de la théorie est identifié et appréhendé comme tel.
Guest   Tue May 13, 2008 1:37 pm GMT
My parents taught me that it was impolite to speak to someone in a langauge they didn't know. How about your parents, Greg?
Guest   Tue May 13, 2008 5:51 pm GMT
How the fuck is greg going to know which languages you don't speak?!
Guest   Tue May 13, 2008 6:11 pm GMT
This is an English forum. Greg shouldn't post here if he doesn't know it.
greg supporter   Tue May 13, 2008 6:19 pm GMT
This is forum about English but not an English forum necessarily, despite people usually speak in English. One can ask things about the English language in other tongues if they desire. For example, imagine that I don't speak a single word of English but want to learn it and find this forum, I may ask people in a different language rather than English yet mi question would be acceptable because it is about the English language.
Guest   Tue May 13, 2008 6:24 pm GMT
This is the English forum...
Guest   Tue May 13, 2008 6:32 pm GMT
<<My parents taught me that it was impolite to speak to someone in a langauge they didn't know. How about your parents, Greg? >>

I think the working assumption is that everyone here at Antimoon is fluent in French, or at least that MollyB is fluent in French.
Guest   Tue May 13, 2008 7:14 pm GMT
"MollyB is fluent in French"
That seems to be a problem. Perhaps Pos can translate ;-)