Sunday, 31 January 2021

english as a lingua franca in post-brexit europe

What is the future of the English language on the Continent after Brexit?

Jay Doubleyou: brexit and the english language

Jay Doubleyou: the future of the english language after brexit

Some would say it's on the way out:

Jay Doubleyou: the eu has no plans to downgrade the use of english after brexit

Jay Doubleyou: “slowly but surely english is losing importance in europe”

Recently, the French minister for Europe suggested English should not be a working language of the EU - but that 'linguistic diversity' should be encouraged:

EU should stop speaking ‘broken English’ after Brexit, says French minister – POLITICO

Brexit news: Macron ally moans eurocrats are still using English even after Brexit | Politics | News | Express.co.uk

Here's the opinion from the EL Gazette, the journal of the ESOL/TEFL profession:

Is it au revoir to English?

Liz Granirer

18th January 2021

Post-Brexit, it was perhaps no surprise that France’s Europe minister, Clement Beaune, raised the idea of the EU dropping English as one of its two working language. While not advocating a return to French as the only working language, he suggested that each country should speak its own language in an effort to maintain “linguistic diversity”.

He might have a hard row to hoe to get his way. What Beaune referred to as “broken English” when he spoke to reporters last week, is a form described as English as a lingua franca (ELF) by linguists which is widely used and understood by those for whom English is not their first language. Further, in an effort to simplify their operations, many EU institutions now try to operate exclusively in English and in many member countries, even the newer ones, English is almost a second language. In Croatia, for instance, the EU’s most recent member, over 80% of its population can speak English.

So, while the EU has reluctantly said au revoir to the UK, it may still be choosing to say how do you do in its language.

Is it au revoir to English? | E L Gazette

Tuesday, 26 January 2021

disinformation

Will the BBC be banning the 1970s musical 'Grease'?

grease to be banned - Google Suche

It doesn't seem so:

Grease won’t be ‘banned’ and neither will Harold Wilson – a few ‘woke’ tweets does not a story make

Some are so desperate to criticise so-called snowflakes that they report stories based on flimsy evidence pulled from social media

At what point does a story become a news story? When should it make the jump from WhatsApp group-worthy to newsworthy?

These stories should really stay on social media, where they usually originate, but they are regularly reported in national publications. And some are more sinister than others. After the film Grease aired on Boxing Day, The Mail on Sunday published an article claiming that the musical had “become the latest target of ‘woke’ critics”, with millennial and Gen Z viewers tweeting “to label it ‘rapey’, ‘overly white’ and misogynist”. The source? A few tweets – some of which appeared to be made in jest...

The occasional news pieces based on press releases, pseudo-scientific studies and rigged polls are nothing new. But social media, and Twitter in particular, has given rise to even further wilful misreporting. These articles are often fuelled by nothing but a race to the bottom for virality, and an attempt to stoke up the culture wars. The biggest casualty is the integrity of the industry.

Grease won't be 'banned' and neither will Harold Wilson – a few 'woke' tweets does not a story make

Yes, this is part of the 'culture wars':

Jay Doubleyou: culture wars

Jay Doubleyou: brexit and the culture wars: part two

But it's also part of the whole 'fake news' phenomenon:

Jay Doubleyou: fake news

Jay Doubleyou: information wars

Jay Doubleyou: the psychology of lies and why we fall for them

So says a new BBC radio programme:

A Year of Disinformation
The final months of Donald Trump’s presidency and the coronavirus pandemic led to an explosion of misinformation – conspiracy theories, rumours, misleading social media posts and so-called “fake news”.
It’s meant busy times for a team inside the BBC who work to untangle truth from fiction and identify the bad actors behind bad info.
BBC Trending presenter Mike Wendling and specialist disinformation and social media reporter Marianna Spring have investigated some of the most viral falsehoods and conspiracy theories circulating online.
With the help of colleagues, they explored the rise of the pro-Trump movement QAnon. And they unpicked wild rumours and pseudoscience about Covid-19 that led to real-world harm – including deaths, riots and the destruction of mobile phone masts.
In this programme, they look back at some of the biggest stories of the past year, and reflect on what they learned about who spreads disinformation, who believes it, and what we all need to watch out for in the year ahead.

BBC Radio 4 - A Year of Misinformation

A little more on conspiracy:

Jay Doubleyou: conspiracy theories

Jay Doubleyou: brexit, fantasy and boris

Jay Doubleyou: political narratives

Jay Doubleyou: coronavirus and populism

Jay Doubleyou: conspiracy movies

Sunday, 24 January 2021

2021: "The real-life Mad Max will be about water"

2019 was the year Blade Runner was set in:

Futures Forum: 2019: Blade Runner > "The future has arrived: it's just not evenly distributed yet."

The 2020s are when quite a few dystopian films are set:

10 great films set in the 2020s | BFI

And several in 2021:

It gets … worse: what can we learn from movies set in 2021? | Film | The Guardian

And there's one in particular:

I don't want to be pessimist but mad max is set in 2021 meme - AhSeeit

Which has been recalled after events earlier this month:

Twitter Compares Capitol Siege to Scenes From 'Mad Max', Believed To Be Set In 2021

Although there's some debate about the accuracy of the date:

Capitol riots compared to Mad Max as false meme confuses fans | The Independent

If you are interested:

No, ‘Mad Max’ is Not Set in 2021

What's perhaps more prescient are some of the themes running through the cult movie:

Futures Forum: "The real-life Mad Max will be about water"

As this piece from 2015 points out:

Over the past 20 years, Australia has weathered one of the most devastating droughts on the planet. You’ve seen the dust storms. You’ve seen the wildfires. And you’ve seen the trailer for Mad Max: Fury Road. The film takes place in a parched, near-future Australia, where the control and manipulation of water is the greatest power in the world...

The lesson here is that in the climate of today, cities cannot just prepare for one extreme or the other — they must be prepared for anything.

As for where to shoot the next Mad Max, Miller might need to look for yet another location. Namibia — considered to have some of the driest places on Earth — has started to see its own historic floods. Climate change may force the filmmaker to follow emerging weather patterns, chasing catastrophic droughts all over the globe for the best post-apocalyptic settings. Hopefully they won’t be filming the next Mad Max in the Central Valley of California.

What The US Can Learn From Australia To Avoid A Mad Max Future

Friday, 22 January 2021

brexit and the english language

Here's an interesting piece which looks at how the most traumatic event for years has effected the way the British use their language:

How Brexit changed the English language

Andreas Buerki

0 COMMENTS

Published: 10:00 AM January 8, 2021 Updated: 9:04 AM January 11, 2021

The UK's departure from the EU not only introduced new phrases, but showed how language can be used to shape political debate. ANDREAS BUERKI reports.

A number of expressions have entered everyday use since Brexit started. Terms like 'Article 50', 'no deal', 'hard border' may now seem just part of life but they were seldom, if ever, used before Brexit.

New and interesting phraseological patterns have also arisen around some of these words. For example, treaty articles didn’t used to get 'triggered'. Instead, they were 'invoked'. But we now take as obvious that Article 50 of the Treaty of the European Union is 'triggered'.

In linguistic terms, this is known as a 'collocation' – the idea that words are commonly used together. So, just as in English (but not in some other languages) one brushes one’s teeth rather than cleans them, one now 'triggers' Article 50 in stead of 'invoking' it. These patterns show that language is a system of conventional habits of expression more than a system governed by strict, logical rules. After all, there is no strict rule that says you can’t use the word 'activate' or 'invoke' before 'Article 50', and yet hardly anyone says that.

These new patterns have entered the grammar of English and need to be part of speakers’ linguistic knowledge if they wish to discuss Brexit (although some of these patterns might well fall into disuse once we talk about Brexit less). This shows that language can change very fast if required, despite the fact that the traditional view of language change is that grammatical patterns take hundreds of years to change.

Language is also often far from neutral. ...

How language became a Brexit battleground | The New European

Wednesday, 20 January 2021

vocabulary apps

It's not easy learning words - but if we can make it enjoyable, that certainly helps:

Word up: how to improve and enlarge your vocabulary | Books | The Guardian

There are some great apps to help keep up our vocabulary:

Top 15 Best Vocabulary Apps (Android/IPhone) 2021

And here's one in particular:

WordUp is the easiest way to learn English words and understand them deeply, with entertaining examples from movies, songs, famous quotes and more. It is unlike any vocabulary builder app you've seen before!

WordUp Vocabulary - Apps on Google Play

‎WordUp Vocabulary of English on the App Store

Here it is:

WordUp: Discover & Learn the most useful English word