Rationale:
This written task focuses on the topic of language and community in Part 1 of the course, specifically
how language forms the identity of a community - a topic which I’ve become interested in through
our
discussions in class. For my written task, I’ve decided to write an online article for the Guardian, an
English newspaper with a ‘center left’ view, targeting an audience who is educated and open minded
enough to understand the values of multilingualism expressed in the article, thus illustrating the
importance of languages especially through minor language like Turkey’s ‘bird’s tongue’. Focusing
on
the values of the language to the identity of a community, the external threats that led to its decline,
and
current efforts to preserve it.
Written from the point of view of a freelance journalist coming to the Guardian (for example, the
columnists, John Harris, who specialises on politics and pop culture) to write about my specialism
that
is linguistics, the article will follow an editorial style; supported by real statistics from the Linguistics
Society of America to appeal to the logos of the audience. These will be underlined to be shown as
fictional links similar to a real article. My aim is to communicate the advantages of maintaining this
language and its role of forming the social identity of the community: their culture, their history and
their rich interpersonal relationships.
Through research, I’ve created characters such as Selim Kocek for interviews to represent the subject
of my study, demonstrating the personal and community values these languages imbued. These
sources
gives a human touch to the article to engage the readers, eventually merging them at the end to
represent
, the voice of the collective – showing how a community can be shaped by its use of language. These
can
be found in the bibliography.
Word count: 300
A Lost Whistle In The Digital Age: Keeping The
Turkish Language of Birds
Editorial
For centuries, residents of Kuskoy have communicated with each other through their
whistled language. Now, the rise of technology has put this tradition under serious
threat.
By Alec Balsa in Kuskoy
This written task focuses on the topic of language and community in Part 1 of the course, specifically
how language forms the identity of a community - a topic which I’ve become interested in through
our
discussions in class. For my written task, I’ve decided to write an online article for the Guardian, an
English newspaper with a ‘center left’ view, targeting an audience who is educated and open minded
enough to understand the values of multilingualism expressed in the article, thus illustrating the
importance of languages especially through minor language like Turkey’s ‘bird’s tongue’. Focusing
on
the values of the language to the identity of a community, the external threats that led to its decline,
and
current efforts to preserve it.
Written from the point of view of a freelance journalist coming to the Guardian (for example, the
columnists, John Harris, who specialises on politics and pop culture) to write about my specialism
that
is linguistics, the article will follow an editorial style; supported by real statistics from the Linguistics
Society of America to appeal to the logos of the audience. These will be underlined to be shown as
fictional links similar to a real article. My aim is to communicate the advantages of maintaining this
language and its role of forming the social identity of the community: their culture, their history and
their rich interpersonal relationships.
Through research, I’ve created characters such as Selim Kocek for interviews to represent the subject
of my study, demonstrating the personal and community values these languages imbued. These
sources
gives a human touch to the article to engage the readers, eventually merging them at the end to
represent
, the voice of the collective – showing how a community can be shaped by its use of language. These
can
be found in the bibliography.
Word count: 300
A Lost Whistle In The Digital Age: Keeping The
Turkish Language of Birds
Editorial
For centuries, residents of Kuskoy have communicated with each other through their
whistled language. Now, the rise of technology has put this tradition under serious
threat.
By Alec Balsa in Kuskoy
