English Language & Literature

There was once a study conducted by a popular dating site about languages and whether bilingualism is an attractive trait. What was however surprising to me, was that there was an immense amount of gender differences and how a language can be more attractive depending on who was speaking it... man or woman. The study is unfortunately limited in how it was conducted for two big reasons: 1. The gender is assumed as binary. There is only a 'female' or 'male' as gender options and depending on what each individual believes as the amount of genders, others will continue to identify as whatever they feel they are, so it cannot be generalized among the entire population. 2. The study is limiting to only heterosexuals.   According to the study, the top four attractive languages for men are Swedish, German, Norwegian and Dutch. However the other that completed the top ten were Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, French, Arabic and Russian. Interesting enough, Ger...

In "How to Pay for a Baby," Kool A.D frequently addresses a certain audience in either being new to parenting or about to have a child and with this, A.D purposely uses very informal diction to bring a cynical and humorous tone in order for the audience to not view this as an ordinary article but one that they can relate to. The article states in the first line of this column, "I'mma keep it 100 with ya'll," and in saying this, A.D is trying to establish a truthful connection with the reader through literary devices such as colloquialisms and slang. The use of the many slang for 'yaper' and negative writing towards it like 'fake a** currency' and 'worthless tiny pieces of paper' can indicate that A.D has a low socioeconomic status or has struggled with income before. However, the advice that he gives throughout this column demonstrates his knowledge/experience on this subject and signifies an educated sociolect and gives the...

Language has had and continues to have a huge affect in my life especially living in such a culturally diverse country like the UAE. English is my first and only language however throughout school life, I have touched in other languages such as French, Italian and Greek but none of these progressed to a level where it was fluent or where I would be comfortable speaking in that language. Being exposed to an international school and having many different friends with various ethnicity's and languages, I have always been very enthusiastic of the idea surrounding languages, how they are created, understood and communicated. I lacked a second language and this lead to me often feeling a bit excluded when friends would talk in their native tongue but also the idea that they had access to a whole other culture and way of living. I found this extremely interesting and after so many years of studying languages and never being able to grasp them, it made me question how all of these...