Commentary on character's opinions- controversial issue

Both of the blogpost comments are opinions of two characters on the same sex marriage.The first character Chloe, comes across as an educated teenager. The language which she uses throughout the comment is rather sophisticated and it includes an explanation for the existing ideas through the use of a selection of simple and complex sentences. At the begining of the blogpost Chloe used a phrase 'over the moon' to express her hapiness on legalising same sex marriage. The moon ilustrates the brightness which is the eternal love that people of the same sex share. The use of abbreviations such as ‘sis’ and ‘gf’ suggests that Chloe is a teenager as both words belong to slang. They also are a part of the colloquial language. The word 'strongly' presents how much she supports it and the importance which it has to her. The use of 'miserable' and 'lonely' puts a massive effect on the noun 'life', as it shows that the quality of life can be affected by the same sex orientation. Both negative adjectives were used against straight people, which shows that Chloe may be discriminating them. ''This made me absolutely angry'' presents the anger that she experienced after reading the comment from a man from one of the major Christian groups who did not support same sex marriage. The word 'absolutely' shows the level of anger, which can suggest that she dislikes people who have different views and is not tolerant about opinions of others. Reading throughout the post we can also spot ‘LOL’ which stands for ‘Laughing out loud’ . In this context it is used to show how ‘pathetic’ someone else’s opinion is. The phrase ‘it’s a complete joke’ supports the fact that Chloe did not like the opinion that she seen in the BBC article, and she completely disagrees with it. She also makes a comment about Christian Groups and Catholics who according to her 'hate' on gay people. This phrase was used to present her idea of the lack of sympathy which is shown by Catholics towards same sex couples. She used quite a few lexis which include ‘-ly’ suffix such as ‘lonely and ‘equally’.  Her overall opinion on same sex marriage seems to be very positive and we can clearly see that she strongly supports it. However she seems to be very disrespectful and rude towards people whom decision is different, as she tries to tell them that they’re wrong and they should change. The reception of this blogpost may be quite negative. The audience, which are possibly same age readers or anyone wanting to get to know more about the issue, may feel that their views are being affected by Chloe's comment. Some may feel forced to change their personal opinion yet some may feel persuaded and their opinion and point of view might change after reading the post. The purpose of Chloe’s comment is to tell the readers how she personally feels about the issue and get her ideas across. She makes quite a few relevant points such as ‘people of the same orientation should be able to live a normal life, adopt children’ which many other people would agree with. However towards the end of the comment Chloe seems to be quite selfish and only thinks about what she wants not others. The expectations of the readers are met as they see someone else’s opinion just as they expected but they might be shocked with how biased it is.The second character Lily, seems to be older than Chloe, I tended this character to appeal to be in the stage of an early adulthood, 25 years old. This is because she uses standard English throughout her comment instead of slang. She doesn't use any abbreviations neither which can suggest that her idiolect doesn't consists of them.  Lily used capital letters to write some words such as 'wrong' to emphasise its importance which she wanted to draw the readers attention to. At the beginning she says that in her opinion same sex marriage is completely wrong, however towards the end she made it clear that everyone should have their own opinion, which should not be influenced by anyone else’s. She makes a strong link to the Catholic religion, as she says that ''Gay marriage is entirely against God's actions''. This may be slightly controversial as not every reader will agree with it,yet she still openely expressed her personal opinion which shows her braveness and love which she shares towards her religion. '‘Same sex marriage doesn't create a 'healthy' family’'. This quote presents her view on same sex marriage, and adjective ‘healthy’ can be defined in a variety of different ways. In this context, Lily uses ‘healthy family’ to refer to the family consisting of male, female and their biological children, whereas for the same sex couple this would be impossible. Lily used inverted commas to express ‘real’ and ‘parent’ to show that in real life it is a complete opposite, as it is impossible for same sex couples to be the real parents of their children.  She also used some rhetorical questions to closely appeal to the reader and make them feel just as someone was directly speaking to them. ‘’Would you rather live a normal life just as other members of your family or life that you would possibly regret when you're older? '' This quote might affect some readers opinion or even their actions as they may think that what they do may not exactly be the right thing. The audience of this post were people at the same age range and those who are gay/lesbian and consider a future commitment. The main purpose is to share the personal opinion and to inform people about their actions and possible future outcomes, by the use of rhetorical questions which make readers re-think their actions.The readers expect the post to be mainly based on Lily’s personal opinion yet it is slightly persuasive and tries to tell us that our views should be created based on how we feel not how someone else wants us to feel.

Controversial issue- same sex marriage

Chloe

''I am over the moon with the fact that same sex marriage is being legalised in many countries. I strongly support same sex couples as my sis is a lesbian and seeing her happy with her gf makes me smile every time. She didn't choose to be a lesbian, she was born this way. I love her, as she's my family and I strongly support her life choices. People of the same sex orientation can't help who they fall in love with. I think it's great that they find their other half, instead of living a miserable and lonely life. A year ago, when I heard that gay marriage has been legalised in England and Wales I thought that gay couples will finally be treated equally. It is a wonderful thing that people of the same sexuality can be fully open about it and have the same rights as everyone else. Reading one of the BBC articles I came across the comment of a spokesman for the one of the UK's major Christian groups who said that they believed same- sex couples should not get the same rights as married couples. This made me absolutely angry. It's like saying that smokers shouldn't have the same rights as other people just because they smoke. LOL.. it's a complete joke. I thought that Christian groups were meant to support people instead of discriminating them for their lifestyle choices.  We are all humans and we all should have the same rights and opportunities no matter what our sexual orientation is. We are all equal in the eyes of God. Therefore I don't understand why Catholics are 'hating' on gay people.  People of the same orientation should be able to live a normal life, adopt children and teach them that love is more important than other people' opinions. That also means that a lot more of orphans would be given loving parents, a better home, and a proper education.
I am happy that the society which we live in is slowly adapting and supporting gay marriage as this is what we all should do.''

Lily

''I know everyone has their own opinions on this topic, however I think that same gay marriage is completely WRONG! First of all, it is against the Catholic religion. I am a Catholic myself and I find gay marriage very offensive. God created Adam and Eve for a reason, which was to give us all lives. Whereas gay marriage is entirely against God's actions. I personally find it disrespectful towards God as we should follow the path we were given instead of making our own. Same sex marriage doesn't create a 'healthy' family, it creates an awful environment in which kids are forced to grow up and think that same sex couples are completely normal and there's nothing wrong with same sex marriage. Despite, this the kids will never be the 'real' kids as there's no blood relationship with nether 'parent'. Reading Chloe's comment above, it is gross that she encourages people to support gay marriage and tries to tell someone they're wrong just because they're against it. We live in the 21st century where everyone has the right to express their own opinions. Society SHOULD NOT change their views just because an individual puts a pressure on it. What would happen if everyone right now turned gay/lesbian? We humans would become extinct, as there would be no babies born. Whether you're gay or straight it is entirely up to you. This is the choice you make when you grow up, NOT when you're born. Just think about it first, do you want to have children of your own which you proudly call yours or would you rather adopt a child that would be distant to you. Would you rather live a normal life just as other members of your family or life that you would possibly regret when you're older? ''

Sources used:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4493094.stm
http://www.tfpstudentaction.org/politically-incorrect/homosexuality/10-reasons-why-homosexual-marriage-is-harmful-and-must-be-opposed.html

PEE analysis of two articles

In article 1 from the Guardian website, portrays the news story in a very empathising way. For example it uses words such as ''cheat'', ''scandal'' and ''inundated''. The publisher uses these kinds of words to exaggerate the crisis in order to appeal to the target audience. Only negative phrases seem to be exaggerated in this article as to make the crisis itself seem worse and possibly a larger scale problem. As well as this, it could be used to influence reader's opinion on the matter itself and could cause even more problem for Volkswagen. Article 2 also uses this language technique for similar results. The words it uses are ''scandal'', ''cheating'' and ''rogue'', from this we can see it uses two of the same exaggerated words. This suggests both articles had similar intentions and shared the same view of the topic. The downside of this could be that readers are getting 'fed' the same information from different sources which limits their ability to judge the situation themselves.
Article 1 uses many different quotes as well as variety of statistical figures. For instance the quote from the head of the Society of Motor Manufacturer and Traders in Britain and also figures such as ''4,000 cars, which represent about 3% of the car group’s UK stock''. The use of these techniques allow the reader to gain an insight into the scale of the issue and quotes from different groups help the reader to apply to story to life. Whereas the second article does not consist of any quotes and only includes a few figures. Some of the figures present are: ''The cars taken off the market represent 3% of VW's stock in the UK.'' Therefore this article is not as affective as the first one and does not give the reader as much information about the issue.

Article 1: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/oct/01/vw-suspends-4000-vehicles-sale-uk
Article 2: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34410390

Language related poem

Extinction by Daria Jakubisiak

Everytime I hear youngsters speak
I think; what happened to the older speech?
The beauty of language that I have learnt
is passing by quickly with everyday.
The words and phrases are not the same,
completely different they became.
Everytime I try to understand,
completely new words are being made.
It feels like drowning in the sea of confusion,
when I try to understand the language illusion.
Everytime I think of a language I once knew,
it feels very distant and it will not renew.

Evaluation of the article

Things that went well:
The purpose of the article and its message is clearly presented to the reader by the use of informal language. The use of rhetorical questions makes the piece look more professional and make the contact with the reader. Explaining different slang terms makes it easier for the reader to understand what slang is about. The use of pictures in the article also makes the article more appealing.

Things that need to be improved:
Use sub-headings, quotes and facts to make the article more clear and interesting, and to engage the reader even more. Try to think of some figures and statistics and also try to plan the article out first so then you know what you'll write about and you will not run out of time.

English language is being shaped by slang

English language is being shaped by slang

English language has been changing over the years, some words became more popular than others and some completely new words have been created for the slang purposes.  There are many words which our parents or grandparents never heard of and they have no idea what they mean. Whereas
we teenagers use them on a daily basis and treat them as if they were a part of the dictionary.
 
Terms such as ‘bae’ and ‘fam’ are one of the most used terms by teenagers. ‘Bae’ is a term of affection, which is often used whilst speaking to best friends or a partner. It stands for ‘before anyone else’ which represents the importance of a person whom it is addressed to.  ‘Fam’ which is a short term for ‘family’ is being used when speaking to people close to us who we treat as our family even though they’re just friends.


Slang abbreviations used by teenagers nowadays

There are also many slang acronyms which are used whilst texting.  ‘Wuu2’ (What you up to), ‘Wby’ (What about you), btw (by the way) are only some of the examples of the ‘texting language’. Why do teenagers use those abbreviations? One of the answers for this question may be that they’re short and easy to type, so that many people don’t have to worry about making any spelling mistakes. However some teenagers may only use those abbreviations just to ‘fit into’ the society.
 
Another change in language is use of emoticons, which are called emojis. Few years ago, emoticons were also used however not as frequent as today. Since the emoji emoticons came out everyone has been obsessed with them. People use emojis in almost every message. There is a variety of different kinds of emojis, from yellow faces which express different emotions, to animals, clothing, food items and even country flags. Are emojis a good invention? People may argue over this statement as emojis might bring humour into text messages but they might also possibly cause some arguments.

Some of the Emojis which are available for Android and IPhone users

To be continued...



The patterns of advertisement slogans

Majority of the advertisement slogans consist of 3-5 words therefore they're very short and usually quite catchy. This makes the slogans easy to remember which is the main purpose of it as it increases the sales for the companies. The slogans are usually aimed centrally at the audience for instance ''You're better off at Asda''. The way that these slogans are aimed makes us feel just as if someone was speaking directly to us, perhaps giving us a friendly advice and helping us out. Some of the slogans may also consists of a command for example ''Just do it'' . The use of 'just' represents how easy something can be; it's like saying 'Just do it and get it done' as it's quick and simple. ''Just do it'' is a slogan of Nike clothing brand which mainly sells workout clothing, therefore the slogan may also be a form of a motivation for many people.There are also slogans which include abbreviations ''I'm lovin' it'' by McDonald's, or alliterations ''P-P-P Pick up a penguin'' slogan of a Penguin chocolate bar.