The Big Sleep Analysis

Critical Reading

To read critically we must create our own opinion about a text by going further the letter. We must know also the context of the text, we have to be updated to what is hapening now and what happend before.

Some techniques to be critical at the time to read a text:

Whose views are being represented?

What or whose interests are being served?

What are the intensions behind the message?

What reading or speaking position are you being invited to take up? Are we asked to see the situation from a particular point of view?

What cultural assumptions are being taken from granted?

What or who is absent that one might expect to find?

1)Why is it important to read critically?

Because we are confronted to problems and situations that we won't be able to solutionate if we dont use a critical thinking

2)What do I need to become critical?

Claritty, acuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, logic.

IMPORTANT:

• There is no language better than another.

• Sign systems. Everything has a meaning by the author

Reading critically this image:

This picture show us a situation of famine under the perspective of Africans to help their interest, which is to eat. The intentions behind is to move masses of people so there are more contributors of the situation. They use this type of images to change peoples perspective and behavior. We are invited to help people hungry because we have more than them as the image show, the white hand is bigger than the black one. The picture show us that we are culturaly different. The implicit that we would excpet to find is community with famine.

Active Reading: simply reading and re-reading the course material in an unfocused way takes more than you can afford

Metacognition Checklist:

• I recalled what I know about the topic.

• I asked myself questions as I read.

• I made connections.

• I decided what was important to remember.

• I thought about the reasons why things happened.

• I pictured what was happening.

What is a Stereotype?

A Stereotype is an image or concept simplistic, generalizing or incomplete, of a group of persons. The origin of the word is relationated with the molds that were used to repeat a form.


But there is also another images or figures stereotyped: the one that use it nearly as a code. An icon, for example to relationate computers to screens, thats a way of stereotype, because I'm synthesizing an idea. 


It is very difficut to avoid the stereotypes from other and from ourselves, because we use it to put in order our minds. Like if our mind is a locker and we just put the ideas in the correct locker that has a title outside.


Some examples of stereotypes: 




This guy that is mongolian its called "chino" in Chile

 This peruvian man would be called "Mono"












And much more...

Language and Thoughts: Which one comes first?

The connection between language and thought is profound. The majority of our everyday life involves the use of language. We tell our ideas to others with language, we “read” their responses and understand their meanings with language, and very often, we “speak” internally to ourselves when we process this information and make logical conclusions. It seems that rational thinking unavoidably involves certain degree of the use of language. This connection seems so tight that, some linguists like Sapir and Whorf had to propose that thought is indeed utterly determined by language. 

On the other hand, some linguists hold that language and thought are two separate and independent entities. The differences in the syntactic structure and the lexicons available in different languages, for example, cannot possibly determine the way these people think. Thus we have thought in the very first place, and then language came in as a tool for expressing our thought. 

Still some others, not feeling contented with either version, proposed a third possibility, that language and thought are interdependent. “Language is a regular part of the process of thinking… It is not a question of one notion taking precedence over the other, but of both notions being essential.”While the conclusion on this issue is not a simple this-or-that answer and cannot be easily drawn, this paper will nevertheless try to provide adequate evidences in linguistic and psycholinguistic studies and seek for a reasonable conclusion.

Source: http://www.thomastsoi.com/2010/03/the-relationship-between-language-and-thought/

You Fit Into Me

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye
a fish hook
an open eye.


This is a poem by Margaret Atwood, based in the New criticism ideology I will answer a quiestionary about the text.


1)What is the relationship beetwen the title and the rest of the poem?


The title tell us an affirmation, the text try to explain it more by a comparison

Hook

2)What words, if any, need to be defined?


Hook: Is what is used to catch the fish.

Hook-and-eye

Hook-and-eye closure: Is a method of fastening garments together








3)What relationships do you see among any words in the poem?


There is a relationship between 4 words. First pair: Hook. It first refer to a hook as part of the Hook-and-eye. But then it refers to hook as a fishing instrument.
And the second pair: Eye. First it refers to an eye as the complemente of a hook in a Hook-and-eye. But later it says "an open eye", so it is pretty ambiguous.


4)What are the various connotative meanings of the words in the poem? Do these various shades of meaning help establish relationships or patterns in the text?


The text plays with the meaning of the words in the context, first as a Hook-and-Eye and then as a hook in an eye. This only make us wonder what is it really trying to say, it doesn't help at all for the comprehension of the text. But this is obiously what the text wanted to create, confusion.


5)What symbols, images or figures og speech are used? What is the relationshipe between them?


The two symbols created are a hook-and-eye in the first 2 lines, and then throw a comparison the text says us that the real meaning was a hook and an eye. The only relationship between those two frases is that they are pronounced and written the same.


6)What elements of rhyme, meter or pattern can you discuss?


The poem has absolutely no rhyme and the pattern of syllables is not constant.


7)What is the tone of the poem?


The tone is of pesimism, pain and anger.


8)From what point of view is the content of the poem being told?


It is in first person. This character has been in love, but then he or she suffers and does a very cold and ironic comparison


9)What tensions, ambiguities or paradoxes arise within the poem?


In the poem is a clearly ambiguity and a paradox, because we don't know if she means a hook-and-eye or a hook in an eye. This cause confusion and tension.


10)What do you believe the chief paradox or irony is in the text?


The main paradox is which is the meaning of the text. Is it expressing love? as we could conclude in the first 2 verse. Or is it expressing hate? because the other 2 verses change the meaning Thats the paradox


11)How do all of the elements of the poem support and develop the primary paradox or irony?


All the elements make the perfect result of confusion and tension caused by not knowing the answer.

The Study of Literature

In the western culture the study of literature has been in constant change, the conception of what is literature is something they have been asking since long ago. The first ones that studied and read literature were the greeks; thats where the history of literature starts in western culture.


Greeks (5th b.C. C.): The greeks legacy to the study of literature is that they introduced the first ideas of literature; they thought that literature was an imitation of life and a guide to people of how to behave in a civil society. The key concepts are Ontology: is the philosofical study of the nature of being, existence or reality; and Epistemology: is the branch of the philosophy concerned with the nature and limitations of knowledge.

Romanticism (E. 19th C.): In this period the idea was that poetry was a reflection of everyday life; an expression of feeling; and it was written in common language.

Scientific Determinism (Mid 19th C.): From Charles Darwin's publication of the origin of the species, the science became very popular. People started using science to answer all quiestion, including literature. So books became scientific studied, this mean they applied the scientific method.

New Criticism (E. 20th C.): The new criticism propose that the only thing important and object of study was the text itself. Not even the author and his history was relevant. They didn't care about the context of the book creation. The book was independent.

Reader-Response Criticism: This is a response to the new criticism period. People wanted to make their on reflections on a text based on their life experience.

By José Tomás Gré

Structiralism: Saussure proposed this theory which consist in that words were signs, made by a signifier and a signified. This mean that a word is composed by the letter of the words it self (Signifier) and by an imaginary picture of the word (Signified).

Post-Structuralism: The idea of this is that we concive language because we can make difference. So if someone say me the word cat I know what he is not trying to say me, so I get to the conclution of what he mean, by knowing what he doesn't mean.

Marxism: This applies the same ideas of the marxism in the politics to the texts. And that idea would be: "The root of the conflict is anchored in social class and economic differences". All text have a subtext with an ideaological thinking or any event that is happening at the time the author wrote it.

Feminism: Women use literature to express their experiences and also they interpret it.

Cultural Poetics: If we follow this idea at the moment of reading a book, we should investigate everything that surround the time when the text was written, all the history: of the author and what was happening at that time. Because we can know all the answers by this method.

Post-Colonial Criticism: The nationality of the author of a book is seen in the text. In the counrties that were colonies the people use literature to talk about their situations, thats what the post-colonial criticism is about. The history of the author do matters. And the text tell us about real situation that they were living.

The Tower of Babel

Me and my group chose as the topic of the English Presentation The Tower of Babel. 
Maybe you have heard about this tower before, but do you really know the story of this famous Tower? This is your lucky day because I'm going to tell it to you.

The Tower of Babel is a biblic story it is located in the Genesis 11:5-8. It tell us that when people were migrating to the north east from the west of Africa. They all spoke just one language, the reason of why they could migrate because they were the most advanced, the other tribes didn't have a good enough way of communication. So when they were close to the region Shinar, were they found a great plain, and the people decided to build a city and the biggest tower ever to reach heaven, to be famous and to not spread around the Earth. They were decided to build it, with bricks instead of stones, but God came down and saw the city and tower th people were bulding. He thought that all humans were one tribe and speak one language, they were able to do anything they propose. So he confused their language and by that humans spread. Leaving the construction of the city and the tower (as the picture shows). It was called babel because there God confused all humans language.


To represent this very interesting story in the presentation, we decided to do it by acting instead of a regular discourse. We were just 3 so at the beginning the three of us were humas and we were talking about building a tower. Then two of the three remain working and the other one leaves. As the two guys were working they start talking about language origins; one defended the posture that we were taught how to talk it and we developed it by thousands of year. And the other one thought that language was a human instinct. In the middle of this God suddenly shows up and stop the two persons of building the tower by changing their language; so when they try to communicate they can't, and then the presentation ends.

Class Debate

"Humans born with the hability of create language" - "Language is a learnt construct like the rules governing a sport"

About the first affirmation the arguments we have are the following:

-Humans learn speaking around 3 years old. It is a very complex thing to learn though it is one of the first one we do, so, we have special hability to learn language?

-Language is like spider webs. Spider aren't taught how to do their spider webs, they just know how to. Same as humans, they know perfectly how to use language

Second Affirmation:

-Babies are thaught from the time they are born how to speak. Thats why speaking is the first thing they learn. They are surronded by it and parents won't stop stimulating their childs untill they learn ho to communicate.

-Language can't be an instict because a child that isn't taught language won't create a new language at the age of 2. They can learn it fast due it arround them al of their life. But they can't create language when they have no influence of someone.

What is Literature?

Merrian-Webster Online Dictionary: Writings in prose or verse; especially: writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas for permanent or universal interest.

The Free Dictionary (Online): Written material such as poetry, novels, essays, etc., especially works of imagination characterized by excellence of style and expression and by themes of general enduring interest.

L&L Course Companion p.9: A highly developed use of language in that is the stylized manipulation of language for larger effect (purpose) and/or affect (emotional response) 

2 of these definition say "Written". So we can make a difference between language and literature that would be that language is spoken and literature is written, but, what other concepts are relationated with Literature. We have poetry, novels, essays; also prose, verse.

So in Literature we have Form and Background, how do we express something, that has to be always written but there is where porse and verse are. And what do we express, it can be emotions, situations, critics, etc. Literature is all the written things, it includes form and background.

Language: Instinct or Culture?