àDESIPHER = decode;
INSCRIBE = encode.
à Think of your own speech portrait. Do you manipulate it while interacting with others in order to get what you want?
Internet communication allows every participant to preserve his/her incognito. But there always are some clues MARKERS in their texts that betray their personalities and social characteristics. To reach his/her goal in interaction a communicator needs, first, to correctlydecipheràthe interlocutor's characteristics and, secondly, to correctlyinscribeàthem into response. The image of a person that is either decoded from her/his speech or encoded into it can be treated as her/his SPEECH PORTRAITà.
1.There are some other forum posts for you that cover the topic of youth concerns. Read them and complete your Mind/Cognitive and Vocabulary maps with the ideas and expressions from this discussion.
bump
Resolved Question
What are some problems that face the youth of today?
2.^ Would you find it interesting to discuss markers of social and personal characteristics in the posts? Please, do. The note below gives you a hint on what can be treated as markers.
Joy
Best Answer- Chosen by Voters
not only words can serve as markers. You can identify educational level of a person by mere observing his/her grammar, because of the (over)use of jargon you can judge about a person's age, profession, even gender sometimes. Capitalization may tell about a person's emotional evolvement into the topic. In an Internet text you can find lots of other hints: pictures that people choose as their avatars, nicks, manner of paragraphing etc.
'immorality' - too much exposure to negative behaviors being presented, thanks to vast media availability. Seems immoral practices are being instilled within today's youth.
lazi_i6l
Other answers
I agree With The Peer Pressure Thing. Another Problem Is Popularity These Days You Have To Look, N Act A Certain Way
♥ Lil Miss Hyphy ♥
finding out who they are not to get involved in bad situations such as drugs, sex etc. peer pressure to do well try to be liked by everyone to look their best.
thechrom
One problem is being able to afford a higher education to aquire at least a "decent" job in this country. Then going into horrible debt to pay off the loans.
beatle_g
Every generation has their own set of issues, but in my life, I think I've seen some of the worst challenges come to pass: I went through Camelot, Vietnam, Segregation, Assassinations, Watergate, etc, but today, they have their own "versions" of these same kinds of things- only on a more global scale, with the information highway making it possible to take it to another level. I used to not want to be me; now, I wouldn't want to be you.
Jenny
sex...... drugs... home problems.... pressure.... gangs... bfs/gfs.....
Do you understand what the highlighted acronyms (syn. abbreviations) mean?
· N
· BFs
· GFs
· 2days
Read about these and other Internet abbreviations as well as about the Internet etiquette rules at p. 35-37.
mickey
Wel theres drugs that some people go into, theres alcohal and of corse depresion. Most problems start with depresion! Or pea-presure. My brother started with drugs because of depresion. So ya theres alot of problems in 2days asociaty.
from http://answers.yahoo.com
3.^ Write out all the markers of social and personal characteristics of each forum participant. Comprise their speech portraits. The table below will help you.
Forum partici-pant
Markers of
Speech portrait
age
education
nationality
gender
(whatever comes into your mind)
Joy
the use of a descript-tive specifica-tion 'today's' before 'youth' speaks for Joy's belonging to an older genera-tion
perfect grammar, no spelling mistakes, tendency to look for reasons and abstraction 'immorality' - makes us think of Joy as an educated person
mentioning of 'vast media availability' shows that Joy is likely to be a citizen of a developed country, correct English betrays her as a native speaker
emphasizer 'too much', a trial to avoid direct blaming by using passive forms and a verb of uncertainty 'to seem', overwhelming use of continuous forms speak for Joy's being a female
the avatar depicting dogs and the nick «Joy» are the signs of a very positive and merry person, as far as Joy's avatar depicts two dogs (a couple) we can suggest that Joy is not alone
Joy is definitely a very positive person who cares about youth. She (with high degree of certainty Joy is a female) is a representative of an older generation, well (very-well)-educated. She might take a managerial position because of her tendency to analyze the main reason of events. It can be that she is a native speaker of English and has a family of her own.
lazi_i6l
..
_ Compare the speech portraits reconstructed by you and the
To express your (un)certainty use modals as in the structures below:
S/He can't be an easy-going/ person, because . (= I'm almost sure s/he is not.) S/He might/ could be a social worker/ , for . (= I am not sure but there are little chances that s/he is). S/He may be , as far as .(= I am not very sure s/he is. There's 50% certainty) S/He is likely to be . or It is likely that s/he is .(= I am almost sure s/he is) S/He must be . (= I'm 95% sure s/he is.)
For more theory and practice on Modals go to Grammar and Vocabulary File, p. ...