Comment on the Viva Presentation

Viva presentation give me a new experience on how to standing in front of the crowd. Previously, I never feel very nervous to speak in front of my classmate, however during my Viva Presentation I feel scared enough and loss all my spirit to talk because I don’t have any idea what to say during the presentation. Nevertheless, thank to God because everything went smoothly even I Am not really prepared for that presentation. I would like to comment on Group 5 and Group 8 presentation. For Group 5, I think Zaidi managed to do his work perfectly as he can deliver his presentation without read the text just like what the others did and he give an example which I observe it is not come from the article but come from his own idea. But I just want to say that he should work on his voice projection as his voice not really clear and quite slow.

For Group 8, Mia was present her work successfully. As I can see she was very talented in giving speech because she has a good voice projector and good communication skills. She managed to attract my attention by giving an interesting example for his article which is about TV. From the example given, I notice Mia did follow the current issue especially about entertainment.

Islamophobia

At the first time hearing this words, in my mind I was think of Muslim who is phobia about being discriminated by other religion, and Mr Mark was prove it to me that I was going wrong about this. Hehee=) It does not related with the Muslim phobia at all, but it is about other religion who is going prejudice and fear of Muslims and Islam as they think that we, as a Muslim is a terrorist, extremist, and all the other bad reputation are belongs to Muslim. Once I heard for Mr. mark explanation, my mouth automatically pronounce Ah-Ha...Ooo..Then, I was in Ah-Ha moment because for me it is sound irrational why other religious should be afraid of Muslim. As I know and realized, we as a Muslim who is frequently being discriminated by other, and not the one who do it to other people. The term Islamophobia started to be used when the incident of 9/11 happen. This has give Americans especially, and other races has bad perception towards Muslim. I see this as unfair because , the Jews was so long discriminate our relatives which is Palestinian but they were never being labeled as terrorist, extremist, or secularist, but once the Muslim bombed the PWTC, people all over the world accused Muslim as the most ruthless people in the world. For this learning purpose, Mr. Mark was shows to us a video about Islamophobia which talks about the Ground Zero Mosque. We can hear much perspective from the Jews, and Christian about the mosque. Some of their opinion sounds rational and some are quite funny for me. What I had observe from the video is Muslim seems don’t have place and freedom to practices our religion like the other religious do which is totally unfair. They kept using the incident of 9/11 as the reason why the Muslim should be treat badly by other religious.

Euphemistic Language

Euphemistic language is less offensive a word which is not too directed, harsh, unpleasant, and offensive used in daily conversation to avoid other people get offended by us. There are many opinions about euphemistic language from different people.

1.

Noam Chomsky stated that euphemistic language words have negative and positive connotation, some words are for formal content while some are for informal content. He also said the words is changed but the meaning may still stay the same so there is no meaning to use euphemistic language. Noam Chomsky believes that in today’s uncertain world you cannot reveal too much or yourself or they will crucify you.

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Michel Foucalt have different perspective from Noam Chomsky, he said that euphemistic language is honest and direct language. There are is no such thing as positive and negative words. He believe that the appropriateness is depends on the content.

These two people have different perspectives towards euphemistic language. For me, euphemistic language can be good to used as it is sound more polite and not offended others. In my opinion, Malay has applying euphemistic language since long time ago. As I notice, Malay race used to talk politely and avoid saying their opinion out loud in public. But, sometimes it is no good because when we talk at the back it might affected our relationship with others if they heard we talk bad about them. So, just remind ourselves to watch our words before say something or we might offended others and perhaps put ourselves in trouble. However, there are many interesting words from used as euphemistic language which for it is rational to use although it is sound funny. There are some examples of euphemistic language that I have learned from Critical Literacy class and also from George Carlin Show:

1. Negative cash flow position= no money

2. Johns/washroom/ladies room= toilet

3. Appearance disorder= ugly

4. Arguing sperm= rape victim

5. Flight deck=cockpit

6. Lady in the evening= transvestite

7. Personal belonging= stuff which you take along with

8. Low cost housing=cemetery

9. Wrongdoers=criminal

10. Chubby/Obesiti/Overweight=fat

This is my own syllogism for circumstances of Julius Caesar death:

According to Brutus, an honourable man

Caesar was ambitious

Ambitious man would love to be a King

Caesar refuses it thrice

Thus, Caesar was not ambitious

Therefore Brutus is an honourable man

Language Perspective and Ideology

Learning about these things is just about using the skills that I have learnt in thematic words and phrases, elementary process, and also discourse analysis because it is repeating the same thing which are about the perspective, ideology, and thematic words. For this class Mr. Mark was bring to us some opinion from Barack Obama, Nietzsche, and some other famous name which is talk about the Ground Zero Mosque. Like I said before, it is the same thing which we have to look at the person perspective to know his or her ideology towards something and again it is important for us to be knowledgeable and to have skill in order to reveal others opinion. To be skillfully in this particular field, it is crucial for us to read a lot to gain more knowledge about every single thing that has happen in this world.

Discourse Analysis

Whenever you look into a language of the particular article by look at the point of view and ideology, it is called discourse analysis. To learn about discourse analysis, my respected lecture, Mr. Mark was given us an essay title “So Long Old Friend!” which he write it on his own. This essay is about smoking habit and cigarettes. From this article there are also some of euphemistic language used like Pak Mansor (Prime Minister), mischievious (naughty), johns (toilet), blue capos (prefect), euphoria (weird) and many more. Frankly speaking, I never thought that the essay was written by a student’s age of nineteen if I was not mistaken. That was so incredible because the essay look like it was written by professional author. I am so impressive by his works. Credit to my lecture=) For learning this kind of process, we need to have a table to divide the article to the thematic words and phrases, point of view, and ideology which is will help us to analysis the article easily. From Mr. Mark’s essay, we have tried to do discourse analysis and below is the result:

Thematic Words & Phrases	Point of View	Ideology
~“Stay the hell away” ~Long lecture ~Rascals ~Mischievious	~Concerned parents about the dangers of smoking towards their children	~ Smoking is a dangerous habit. ~Smoking can influence people especially the youth to negative actions.
~Boys will be boys ~Bad guy ~Tender age ~Machismo ~Flocking around ~Wise guy ~James dean ~Steve Mcqueen	~Immature teenager ~ Impressionable youth	~Smoking is an exciting way to gain social acceptance from peers and the opposite sex.