The Minstrel Legacy: African American English and the Historical Construction of Black Identities in Entertainment

Linguists have long been aware that the language scripted for ethnic roles in the media has been manipulated for a variety of purposes ranging from the construction of character authenticity to flagrant ridicule. This paper provides a brief overview of the history of African American roles in the entertainment industry from minstrel shows to present-day films. I am particularly interested in looking at the practice of distorting African American English as an historical artifact which is commonplace in the entertainment industry today. Dialogue which is clearly meant as an imitation of African American English still results in the construction of an ethnic stereotype that serves as a reflection of European American attitudes regarding African Americans. As a result, such depictions provide non-Black acculturated people with a perception of Blackness that is founded in inaccuracies and derision but has been portrayed as authentic, leaving Black life open to continual mimicry

Programs for Children the Neglected World

What do children watch on Indonesian television? This article tries to answer this question in the conviction that TV shows made for children require an understanding of their needs in order to grow, motorically, cognitively, psychologically, socially, and culturally. From my own fieldwork and research done on the data provided by my informants, I found that on television during the time slot set for children there are shows that are not intended for children to watch. I also found that children enjoy two favourite television shows in Indonesia the most, which are not programs designated for children. The conclusion is that Indonesian television pays little attention to children\u27s needs, and children are neglected

The N-Word: Lessons Taught and Lessons Learned

In the fall of 2008, I dared to teach a fifteen-week course that focused on a single word, a word arguably like no other, a word adorned with these emotionally colorful descriptors: “the most explosive of racial epithets,” “our cruelest word,” “the most toxic in the English language,” “the most troubling word in our language,” “almost magical in its negative power,” “six simple letters that convey centuries of pain, evil and contempt,” “an almost universally known word of contempt,” “occupies a place in the soul where logic and reason never go,” and “the filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language.” I have since taught the course three more times. Because of the overwhelming success of my multimedia and multi-genre undergraduate course, “The N-word: Lessons Taught and Lessons Learned,” both for my students and for me, and because of the peculiar and alleged post-racial American historical moment in which we now are living with the first African American U.S. President, this reflective pedagogical piece, “The N-Word: Lessons taught and Lessons Learned,” is particularly relevant and timely. Indeed, although the use and history of the “nigger” with its various interracial, intraracial, and intracultural associations have garnered public attention in American classrooms, in the American media, and in American popular culture, deeper implications surrounding this word, the word “nigger” has not had the kind of sustained classroom exploration my semester -long course afforded. Putting this single word under a critical microscope underscored for me and my students the fact that ideas about language and identity, about language and public performance, and about language and American race relations inextricably connect youths and elders, blacks and whites, males and females, children and adults, the international and the domestic, past and present, public and private, and the personal and the political. Specifically, this pedagogical reflection offers a social and political context for the course, an intellectual rationale for the course, specific and detailed course content, students’ responses to the course, students\u27 and teacher\u27s overarching lessons gleaned from the course, and bibliographic suggestions for classroom practitioners and critically curious others navigating the ocean of materials on the word that journalist Farai Chideya has called “the all-American trump card, the nuclear bomb of racial epithets.”

The Omnipresence of Television and the Ascendancy of Surveillance/Sousveillance in Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451

This paper is an attempt to analyze Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451(1953) under the light of Jean Baudrillard's notions on the media and the influences it exerts on people's daily lives, and with an eye to Michel Foucault's surveillance as well. The title-mentioned work, it is suggested, portrays a representative sample of a culture where different fields including books, education, and history fall under the influence of the media. Bradbury presents a society in which its inhabitants are bombarded with excessive data transmitted through television most of which is detrimental and not reliable. It is concluded that the presented culture in the novel is a microcosm of contemporary societies where authorities keep their subjects under control, engendering an atmosphere of anxiety, trepidation and apprehension for subversive forces and therefore preclude any disturbance on the part of the

Contradictory Character Traits as Seen in Persona 4: the Animation

Anime is Japanese cartoon that has a vast popularity due to its story and art. The popularity of anime results in the various genres such as: crime-fiction, urban fantasy, and slice of life. One of the popular animes that combines the three genres is Persona 4: the Animation. The popularity and the combination of three genres of that anime makes me interested in analyzing this anime. I am particularly attracted to the two main characters in Persona 4: The Animation namely, Yu Narukami and Tohru Adachi. Those two main character possess contradictory character traits and represent a certain symbol on the society. In this paper, I examine the values that influence their character traits. Using Carl Gustav Jung's theory of individuation, I proves that they have contradictory character traits by looking through their Persona, Shadow, Ego, and Self. Through the analysis of character traits, I find that they symbolize yin yang. Like yin yang, they are contradicting as well as complementing. Yet, they also are not paragon of evil or goo

A comparison between word analysis and prompting in oral reading.

Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston Universit