Best Topic for a Speech

Best Topic for a Speech

  • Submitted By: jujupearl
  • Date Submitted: 09/18/2013 4:10 AM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 755
  • Page: 4
  • Views: 212

1.) --QUIRKY CULTURAL INFLUENCES: Explain how culture has influenced the following "quirky" aspects of our society throughout the decades:
__A. -SLANG TALK / Discourse, Social, and Conversational Contexts of Slang Speaking: Slang (informal popular sayings and words), emerged from a particular era or generation's popular social practices, often become accepted into our formal language and lexicon. In linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. What is understood as the “general vocabulary” is itself an ongoing social process which privileges certain groups and perspectives; therefore, despite its critics, the slang talk that becomes apart of the general vocabulary, is created by a "priveleged" class of people...NOT trash talkers.
__B. -URBAN LEGENDS: Like all folklore, urban legends are not necessarily false, but they are often distorted, exaggerated, or sensationalized over time and generations.
__C. -FOOD: In each culture there are both acceptable and unacceptable foods, though this is not determined by whether or not something is edible...it is determined by the values, beliefs, and attitudes of the culture. For example, Americans have become a nation of Fast Food Junkies which is largely in part because of our instant-gratification, fast-paced lifestyles in an individualistic culture. Whereas, some other cultures view our "fast food addiction" as absurd and disgusting. Likewise, horses, turtles, and dogs are eaten (and even considered a delicacy) in some cultures, though they are unacceptable food sources in other cultures.
__D. -PHOBIAS: These fears come in all different, and sometime strange, forms. Cross-cultural psychologists point out that phobias are influenced by cultural factors. Agoraphobia, for example, is much more common in the United States and Europe than in other areas of the world. A social phobia common in Japan but almost nonexistent in the West is taijin kyofusho, an incapacitating...

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