English 2150 Blog

A fallacy is an error used mostly in advertisements and arguments to prove a point. Fallacies are both informal and formal. In most cases fallacies are bad examples when proving a point or when arguing on a specific side. Here are some the examples of fallacies from different advertisements:

For this ad the fallacy would be an appeal to authority. That is because the ad is using an Olympic athlete to show us that maybe drinking coke can make us an Olympic athlete. In reality tho we all know that she is just endorsing Coca Cola and drinking coke does not make you a better athlete, instead it can make an athlete worse.

I would say that this is another appeal to authority fallacy. The authority here is the doctor, and it states that more doctors smoke camel cigarettes than any other cigarette brand. We know that smoking is bad for our health, but the ad uses a doctor, who is suppose to keep us healthy, to show that their cigarette is supposed to be healthy. This ad is completely illogical.

This ad is an example of a non-sequitur because it is comparing to completely different things. This ad is comparing the shape of a women and a cigarette which are completely different things and are irrelevant to each other. This ad also seems to be targeting men because of the comparisons with the shape of a women. I think the ad is also offensive to women in many ways.

A body paragraph should consist of a topic sentence, a couple of supporting sentences, and a concluding sentence. The topic sentence is usually the main idea of the body paragraph. The reader should be able to tell what you paragraph is all about just based on the topic sentence. The supporting sentences can be examples or elaboration on the topic sentence. The body paragraph, when written as an essay is usually just about one topic from the introduction of an essay.

Dialogue method:

1. Whats your point?
2. I don’t get it
3. prove it
4. so what?

Rewrite using dialogue method: A body paragraph is a paragraph that is after an introduction and usually elaborates and emphasizes on one point of the introduction. It goes in depth and explains more thoroughly the idea of the point that is being stated. The body paragraph usually consists of a topic sentence which is usually the main topic being discussed, supporting sentences which are used to elaborate and support the topic sentence, and finally the concluding sentence which generalizes the main ideas being discussed. Without body paragraphs in any forms of writing the reader would not be able to fully understand what is trying to be conveyed. Body paragraphs are important to any piece of writing because they give the reader a more detailed perspective of the message or messages that you are trying to convince.

Quantitative Data Analysis

According to John Swales, author of The Concept of Discourse Community, a speech community is group of people that share linguistic rules, cultural concepts, and shared regulative rules. So therefore based on my research I fall into two different speech communities which are English and Bengali. I interact and switch between the two languages when it is appropriate. Sometimes I also mix the two languages together because, though I am fluent in Bengali a lot of the words do not come to me easily, so therefore I just say them in English, but it is still understandable to most native Bengali speakers. This also brings me to my next definition of multilingualism and code switching. Multilingualism is the term for using several languages and in my case the languages I use in my daily life are English and Bengali. According to Rosamina Lowi the process of code switching is when an individual switches his or her language or tone based on the situation or subject he or she is talking to. Also according to John Swales a discourse community, a group that one belongs to based on similar lifestyles or characteristics and Is usually influenced by persuasion and occupation. From my research I can say that I can be a part more than one discourse community. This data is important to me because it is showing me a glance at how I use some of the terms mentioned above without even knowing and it also gives me a good understanding of the unique language and tone that I speak.

All of the data was collected by just taking notes on how and who I spoke to. I used my cell phone to take note of all the languages I spoke and how I spoke them based on the situations. My data was recorded on two separate times, two weekdays and weekends. I broke the time periods up into 3-4 hours a block I was able to jot down the ways I spoke and whom I spoke to. For the most part I would say I was able to take the data down all the time but there were sometimes where I would forget to, and I would add it to the block. Here are brief descriptions of some of the languages and styles of languages that were used:

Bengali: Language used by people from Eastern India and Bangladesh and also the Bengali diaspora around the world.

Slang English: A type of informal English I use to talk to my friends and cousins. An example would be “Yo where you at?”.

Texting English: The English language and grammar that is used when texting. Example would “wbu” which means what about you.

Bengali and English: The use of both Bengali and English in one sentence or statement.

The graph above shows data of different languages used by me from October 7-8.

The graph above shows the different languages used by me from October 12 -13.

In conclusion based on my data, my use of languages really varied from weekends to weekdays. I anticipated these results because during the weekends I am usually at work and a lot of formal and semi-formal English is used. During the weekday, I use a lot of texting English and also slang and semi-formal English because I am away from work and more around family and friends. This data really helped me realize that code switching is something I do on a minute to minute basis. It also gave me a little understanding of what discourse communities I belong to, though I still believe this is too little of a sample to show what discourse community I am part of.

References:

1. Swales, J. (1990). The Concept of Discourse Community. Boston: Cambridge UP.
2. Lowi, R. (n.d.). Codeswitching: An Examination of Naturally Occurring Conversation. In (pp. 1393-1406). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press