“The 21st Century Flux”
Posted on: January 8, 2010
Some of you might see a contradiction between this video and my previous blog post, Tough Love, since that post pushes students to learn how to write standard English well. There is no contradiction, however, because using language is all about communicating effectively with your audience. If you strive to make a good impression in a professional work environment in an English-speaking country, then standard English you must learn. But if you are communicating with friends and family and in other informal occasions, you can treat English much more flexibly. Of course, any deviations you produce will still tend to occur within the language’s flexible, but not arbitrary grammar and syntax, but that’s another story for another day.
[hat tip for video: kalinagoenglish]
1 Response to "“The 21st Century Flux”"
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January 14, 2010 at 7:55 pm
I loved the video
And I totally agree: language – as many other aspects of our lives – depends mostly on context. It is expected of us to use the appropriate language for every and each context we find ourselves in.
This not only means we need to know what is the right language to use in a job interview; this means also that we need to know the right language for a small talk, for a baseball game or for a barbecue.
We all need to be multilingual, not only across languages, but also in our own language. This is the way to go in order to improve our chances for a better communication.