bell hooks

8. In contemporary black popular culture, rap music has become one of the spaces where black vernacular speech is used in a manner that invites dominant mainstream culture to listen—to hear—and, to some extent, be transformed. However, one of the risks of this attempt at cultural translation is that it will trivialize black vernacular speech. When young white kids imitate this speech in ways that suggest it is the speech of those who are stupid or who are only interested in entertaining or being funny, then the subversive power of this speech is undermined.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2EEZKVCZ4E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cT_Ulmcrys


The bell hook's quote explains how black vernacular English has been categorized as a joke in some communities when it comes to certain occasions such as rap. Furthermore this quote can be applied to this video which is an example of the black vernacular English and turning it into a remix, devaluing the tone and mood and even the situation. The woman in the video is in distress and she just came out of a burning house. The interviewers catch this woman outside and ask her to explain what just happened, and by doing so utilizing the dialect of black vernacular English she is mocked. Her dialect was perceived as humorous due to the way she spoke and was not taken seriously.

This real life situation is a perfect example of something that was serious and concerning, however because her dialect did not emphasize on the issue with the usage of big and complex words incorporating discription to her speech as well as it could. This text's audience is broad as this is an interview in a news in the T.V. however the purpose of the interview was to inform people of an incident that happened in her house and how she managed to escape from a burning apartment, by doing so consciously warning people to be careful with things that can potentially cause fire. The main factors of her speech which are disregarded and twisted in this video is her tone and style of phrase structure. Although her tone may seem humorous while speaking about the incident, it is proven that people seem to smile when in stress and that is what she did. Furthermore incorporating her lively and expressive tone to this textual analysis depicts how by being articulate in her dialect and over expressive was taken out of context and considered as "funny". In addition, her phrase structures are not in standard English form, therefore it created a judging platform for white americans to play and splice her words and creating remixes and memes who are now famous. 

In comparison, the bell hook's quotation relates to the text chosen. Both express how Black vernacular english is taken out of context sometimes, and within that, comes the decrease of power of speech. Her conversation has be used, misused, exploited, imitated and modified with the purpose of entertainment within the media medium. 

Reconnecting to Kaingang Podcast

Speaking in Tongues

3. What is the value of preserving indigenous languages? 

Languages are extremely important within our world and it provides us with a way of communication. each language has a tradition, culture, beliefs and a story behind them. It is a brutal and fatal concept that once collapsed may bring an entire culture and history down with it. Indigenous languages are vital and each language perceives things in our world in a different way. In fact, every language has its own way of describing and addressing certain issues and concepts in our societies. For example, Aboriginal languages were pretty special and distinctive for the rich vocabularies they utilise to describe nature. The evocative imagery the language contains expresses the love an how close the Aboriginal clans are linked to the land. Furthermore aboriginal languages are one of many examples of why perceiving indigenous languages are valuable and important to us. These languages see the world and speak differently than we do, therefore translation is not sufficient enough to convey all the passion and the meaning behind certain things. Indigenous languages have a different way of expression and they have a deeper understanding of the world and of nature than the civilians who live in the city do. Indigenous people have been in the surface of this Earth long before the colonies arrived and started treating their people and their language, which establishes a closer contact with life. In conclusion, I believe that every single language should be valued to the maximum because people perceive and communicate things differently. In addition, every language has extensive and diverse vocabularies used to description which is distinctive and unique. By preserving indigenous languages, our understanding and expression can be more extensive and we can understand life more thoroughly. 

Stereotypes

Do you think that advertisers have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping people? 

All advertisements are responsible for what they put in the media. Personally I think that it is their duty to preserve the image of their company or agency when creating advertisements by not offending anyone in any way. If a closer look is taken at the advertisements of today at least one stereotype can found. The reason why companies and agencies include stereotypes in their campaigns and advertisements is to easily target audiences who have the same view (agree with that stereotype). However there are some advertisements in which the stereotyping was not initially planned because the designer of the advertisement did not take that into account. Furthermore, it can be generalised that most advertisements have somehow provoked a reaction or offended someone, therefore since we are in a society which communicates its mind and fully express themselves, this negative reaction can be prevented.

In addition, as the passing of the years our society has become more aware and more sensitive towards offensive media. Honestly, before I do not blame the companies that create advertisements for including stereotypical remarks as a way of reaching a specific audience. However now days that these companies are aware that the public notices these stereotypical remarks and that many people get offended by them, I believe that it is past time they start doing something about it. The advertising companies should make it their priority to not offend anyone in order to gain the sympathy of all audiences. I believe this because now days everyone is very sensitive and anything can trigger anyone, therefore if the companies reduce the amount of stereotypes they display in advertisements and actually consider the offenses that it could be causing, advertisements would not be considered as an offensive and bad propaganda.

Summarizing, I do think that advertisers have a moral duty to avoid stereotyping people for their own good.

Blog Post: Print Advertisement

Hour Choice - Never Follow 

The historical context of the advertisement is highlighting the tradition of the white wedding dress of when one gets married and it is also contradicting that tradition by having the girl wearing a white elegant wedding dress with a veil on her head yet, as shoes she is wearing converse and she also has within her possession a watch. Furthermore this advertisement is appealing to all the cultures that believe that in marriage the wedding dress of the bride has to be white. In addition, the social context of the advertisement would have to associate to this century because of the use of wordplay; "hour choice sounds very much like "our choice". 

In this advertisement the most important characteristics displayed are the fact that there is a girl with makeup sitting on a staircase and dressed with an elegant white wedding dress while wearing a watch and putting on a pair of converse. Not to mention the caption of the advertisement which says "Never Follow". This caption can be interpreted as a way of telling the audience to that we do not need to follow tradition and that we can do whatever we want. The values portrayed in this picture are the values of tradition yet contradicting the values of rebellion. As a whole the entire advertisement is portraying the idea of choice and using the appeal of autonomy because it is giving the audience the idea that "we" stand out and be individuals and that we do not need to conform.

Furthermore in the advertisement analysis, the ad could relate to how women are represented. The ad might have represented the girl in this way, in order to portray the watch in such a way that it would look like as if they were trying to change the way women in society are looked at, as women did not have as much freedom as the role of a male back then, so women in general would be emphasised in this way.

Pitch Reflection

The main appeals that I used in my pitch presentation were humor, intensity, repetition, charisma, flattery, new, autonomy and psychological needs. I combined these appeals in my presentations because I believed that they would appeal to the audience. I tried to incorporate ethos, logos and pathos in my speech as much as possible in order to grasp the audience's attention.  I decided that these appeals would be effective because I wanted to sound entertaining yet professional because the Casio Keytar is supposed to be an entertaining musical instrument and I wanted to give that same feeling to the audience.

The persuasive techniques that I mostly focussed on was on intensity, the idea of new and charisma and flattery which are all factors that attract an audience. An example for intensity is: "We, we will promote it and you, you will make big, huge, immense, massive, substantial, fat profit out of it ". Another example for the idea of new, charisma and flattery is: "The Casio Keytar is an innovative and unique musical instrument. It is the new piano and the new guitar all in one. Playing just one instrument is old fashion. However playing two instruments at the same time is wicked. We will introduce the Casio Keytar to our audience as the next step into technology, the next step into a world full of possibilities, as the next step into the future". I believe that these techniques were effective because it engaged the audience and also it intensified the idea of the new and amazing Casio Keytar. Furthermore I used flattery so that I could complement the musical instrument and highlight why it is so special and amazing.

An awareness of audience and context influences the approach of this activity because with this knowledge I was able to know how to acquire the audience's attention and how to talk in a way that it would be interesting to them and also appropriate.

Lastly but not least, if I were to prepare this presentation again I would have tried to be more calm while presenting and not speak so fast, and I would have done this bt practising my presentation at home in front of my parents. In addition, I would have added more pathos to the content that we used in the pitch because most of the appeals contained logos and ethos and not so much pathos. In conclusion, this pitch preparation was a really good activity to our summative FOA. I felt like I did really well and now I know on what things that I can improve for next time.

Ethos, Pathos, Logos > Advertisement Analysis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aNN9nL2vppM
This is a Super Bowl advertisement which is marketing HEINZ.

Considering the fact that this is a super bowl advertisement, it doesn't really display much ethos or logos but rather  focusses on pathos. The intended audience of this advertisement is towards especially americans that are watching the super bowl. Normally during the super bowl there are parties and get together to watch the games or people will simply go the game. Usually the most common food served during the super bowl is hot dogs and therefore HEINZ used took advantage of this occasion to market their products such as ketchup and mustard. This advertisement uses pathos effectively by displaying appeal to emotion and portraying family and animal compassion vibes. In the advertisement a bunch of Dachshund are dressed in a hotdog costume running towards adults and children that are dressed as ketchup and mustard. This conveys a very family friendly feeling which appeals to family and it also conveys the feeling of being happy. Furthermore the little dogs in the video just makes it even better showing animal compassion and attracting the views of animal lovers and children. This is an effective advertisement considering that it is marketing HEINZ products.

Furthermore this Ad shows appeal to humor and bandwagon. It displays humor appeals with puppies being dressed as hot dogs and it also displays bandwagon appeal by showing how adults and children feel happier by using a certain brand of drink or food (HEINZ). Need to nurture can be found in this advertisement because whenever se see a puppy or children it appeals to human's paternal or maternal instinct.