Chapter 25 - Taking essay tests

Chapter 24 - Writing about literature and the arts

do you speak American ?

American dialects come in many flavors. The map and list below show the major (and a few minor) geographic dialects and subdialects of English spoken in the United States. Many of these may be further subdivided into local subdialects that are not shown here. Obviously, the borders between dialect regions are not well defined lines, as a map like this would imply, but a gradual transition extending on both sides of the line. Also, as we enter the 21st century, many of the features described below have become much less prevalent than they were during the first half of the 20th century.

Not all people who speak a language speak it the same way. A language can be subdivided into any number of dialects which each vary in some way from the parent language. The term, accent, is often incorrectly used in its place, but an accent refers only to the way words are pronounced, while a dialect has its own grammar, vocabulary, syntax, and common expressions as well as pronunciation rules that make it unique from other dialects of the same language. Another term, idiolect, refers to the manner of speaking of an individual person. No two people's idiolects are exactly the same, but people who are part of the same group will have enough verbal elements in common to be said to be speaking the same dialect.

How do you answer the question “Do you speak American”? Many people might answer that yes, they speak English. But English is not the only language spoken in this country. Twentyeight million people speak Spanish, and more than 2.8 million of them do not speak English at all. Among Americans who speak English at home--82 percent--there is a variation in pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar, from Maine watermen and Louisiana Cajuns to southern Californians.

There is no one agreed-upon best way to speak American. Many factors contribute to the way a person speaks: regional origin or affinity, ethnicity, social or economic class, level of education. The components of linguistic identity do not always match up neatly. Some people switch from one dialect to another. “You do have to be bilingual in this country,” says Los Angeles disc jockey Steve Harvey, a speaker of Black English. For him and many other Americans, speaking one way at home and another at work is part of living on the ethnic margins of American society.

USA Today Jan, 2005 by Robert MacNeil
ON COLUMBUS AVENUE in New York, a young waitress approaches our table and asks, "How are you guys doin'?" My wife and I are old enough to be her grandparents, but we are "you guys" to her. Today, in American English, guys can be guys, girls, or grandmothers. Girls call themselves guys, even dudes. For a while, young women scorned the word girls, but that is cool again, probably because African-American women use it and it can be real cool--even empowering--to whites to borrow black talk, like the word cool. It is empowering to gay men to call themselves queer, once a hated homophobic term, but now used to satirize the whole shifting scene of gender attitudes in the TV reality show, "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy." As society changes, so does language, and American society has changed enormously in recent decades. Moreover, when new norms are resented or feared, language often is the target of that fear or resentment.

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

1-The level of a building that is underground is called the:
Cellar
Basement
2-What do you call the night before Halloween?
Nothing
Devil's night
Mischeif night
3-You bring back your groceries in a...
Sack
Bag
4-The act of covering a house or area in front of a house with toilet paper is called...
Toilet papering
Rolling
TP'ing
5-You call sweetened, carbonated beverages:
Soda
Pop
Coke
6-You drink from:
A water fountain
A drinking fountain
7-You tend to call the sweet spread on top of cake:
Icing
Frosting
Both
8-Do you use the word cruller?
Yes
No
9-What do you call a traffic situation in which several roads meet in a circle and you have to get off at a certain point?
Rotary
Something else like a circle, traffic circle, or roundabout
10- What do you call an easy class?
A crip course
A gut
A blow off
11- If it's raining while the sun is shining, you call it:
The Devil is Beating His Wife
A sunshower
You have no term for it
12-What do you call something that is diagonal from you?
Kitty corner
Diagonal
Catty corner
13-What is the four wheeled contraption you push around your groceries in?
Buggy
Carriage
Shopping / grocery cart
14-You work out in...
Tennis shoes
Sneakers
15- "Y'all"...
Just rolls off your tongue
Is not sometihng you say
16-The second syllable in pajamas sounds like:
The A in jam
The A in father
17-Does "caramel" have two or three syllables?
Two
Three
You say it both ways
18-Do you pronounce "aunt" like "ant"?
Yes
No
19-"Route" rhymes with...
Boot
Out
20-Mary / marry / merry...
Are pronounced differently
Are pronounced the same

Chapter 3 - Planning

Chapter 2 - The Writing Process

Chapter 1 - Critical Thinking, Reading, Viewing and Writing

One such strategy for critical reading, especially of information – rich texts, is called SQ3R : Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review. Good reader approach words and visual images as part of the same message, reading both while noting how each complements or completes the massage. Using this chapter’s guidelines on viewing, interpreting, and evaluating visual imagery, examine a visual image for its meaning. Develop a written analysis and evaluation of the image.

Where do you stand?FEET: What do I stand for as a foundation of writing?STOMACH: What upsets me about writing?HEART: What do I love about writing?HANDS: What do I feel about writing?EARS: What do I hear about writing?EYES: What do I see about writing?BRAIN: What do I think about writing?



When I was young, I wanted to be a writer but now I don’t. Because I passed the OSY exam, it’s like GMAT in my country, I chose my major in my first university and I studied export-import. I studied business at the second university. Nevertheless, I still like writing and reading about everything but not as much as a writer.

We need our eyes, brain, ears, heart and hands when we write about something. We can write something about what we see by aid of our eyes. We can write something about what we hear by aid of our ears. Our ideas, feeling, point of view can help us when we write.

Are you comfortable when you write something? You should wear comfy t-shirt and pants. You also listen to music, Chose your place; fresh a room with the candle.

I think writing is one of the greatest things in the world a person can do. Lastly; one of my favorite poet says; ‘when I write down my thoughts, they do not escape me. This action makes me remember my strength’ Isidore Lucian Ducasse.


MEHMET KEMAL

where do you stand on writing