Dear readers,
It has been roughly one month since the start of class in UBC and I have been reading about academic writing for my ASTU lectures. I remember discussing about genres in English writing. Professor Luger has talked about how genre is the combination of situation and form, with the help of various examples, I am able to understand to accurately deliver the right message in the form of writing , we need to understand the purpose of our message, the target audience, occasion in order to fully make use of the genre. While there are some obvious genres in our everyday reading, for example: Advertisement, academic essay, news journals, there are also some more subtle genres which can only be understood through comparing multiple samples and noticing the difference and similarities.
I suppose it is obvious that different genres and way of producing a piece of writing suits different occasion and purpose, but does this phenomenon occur within different language? Are there differences in languages that made one more suitable in specific occasion while some might be less capable in expressing certain emotions and messages?
Through out the month in UBC, I have been meeting different people with different cultural background, some of them can only speak English, some may be bilingual, some being trilingual. As for me personal, I am a trilingual person which means I can speak English, Mandarin and Cantonese fluently. In my experience of speaking the different languages, I do notice that English have a greater capability in expressing personal emotions while being able to create a sense of intimacy in a rather natural way, comparatively Chinese is more capable of expressing the superiority of people or to show respect which has reflect the importance of manner in the culture. Despite the cultural difference, something that worth noticing is the emergence of new words and vocabularies. Popular culture has been a big part of the modern way of life, and with the advancement of technology, or the change of social life, new words are “invented” to fit into our everyday conversation. For example the word “Gameboy” was added to the dictionary as the popularity of this hand-held gaming device grew across the globe.
Perhaps, language is not static; language is actually a representation of our way of life, our cultural and society. Language is an ever-evolving matter that is not just a compulsory core subject at school, but rather a topic that contain endless room for discussion, in which we can study and appreciate.