Aspects that contribute to the various changes in a common language between countries

This research essay will focus on the different aspects that contribute to the various changes in a common language between countries. The countries that I have chosen are England and the Philippines. This entails that I will both compare and contrast the similarities and differences between the two newspaper articles for each respective event. I will, as well, set a couple of questions in order to understand the analysis further. These questions, however, would be the same for each article I will be analyzing. I have chosen one newspaper company from each country. These newspaper companies, having similarities, due to the fact that they are of the same type. These newspapers are forms of daily newspapers. I chose this form due to the fact that they would most likely write similar articles in a somewhat similar way. Within these newspapers, I have chosen two topics which they have written articles about, a way to make the language analysis and contextualization a lot more accurate.

The two topics I have chosen whose language I will analyze are: The Death of Avicii and The Missing Malaysian Flight MH370. The death of Avicii happened not too long ago. Avicii (Tim Bergling) was a Swedish house music artist who was famous worldwide who died at the age of 28. He was a long-time musician who began the basis of his music career when he was 8. He was a known DJ, playing various festivals and concerts, and even did most of his gigs at clubs, who had been battling several different difficulties in the short time he lived. The Missing Malaysian Flight MH370 is a Malaysian flight leaving Kuala Lumpur and flying towards Beijing that had gone missing a little over 4 years ago. This is something aircraft investigating experts still cannot solve. These two topics are relevant to my thesis statement; To what extent does the English language differ when writing about the same events in British newspapers and in Filipino newspapers? due to the fact that the Avicii articles may be seen as more informal articles due to writing about one sole person, compared to the MH370 article which would be classified as something more formal since they are writing about an event that involves many different aircraft experts and an event that has been ongoing for four years.

Aim

The aim of this research is to find similarities and differences in two different newspapers. One of the newspapers is coming from a country where they have spoken English for a long time, since the English language started evolving, yet there have been many modifications on the way. Whilst the other newspaper has gained the English language to be a part of their national languages, how this could affect the way they speak, due to colonization.

Hypothesis

I believe that the British newspaper’s vocabulary will be more astound, being well built with having access to a wider range of words. This would show the biggest contrast compared to the Filipino newspaper. The Filipino newspaper, I believe, will show a great deal of well-structured sentences with a relatively good use of vocabulary. This due to the fact that the British newspaper possessing a more developed pool of vocabulary compared to the Filipino newspaper. I find this difference very interesting due to the fact that even if both countries speak the same language, there is still room for vast differences between them. The fact that England has used the English language longer entails that they are relatively better at speaking and writing using the language compared to the Philippines.

Background

The English Language

The English language was formed and developed in England. It is a West-Germanic language of the Indo-European language family. The English language has spread all over the world and is used as an official language, side by side with the respective country’s own language. This has, therefore, given the language the position of a Global Lingua Franca.

This entails that it is the language used amongst people who speak vernaculars that are not understood by both parties. Over the years, the English language has evolved and has been simplified with regards to Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, Russian and German, towards constant forms as in Chinese and Vietnamese. This shows how the English language is a mixture of these forms. In German, there are five forms of “ Man”, in Chinese, there is one form and lastly, with English in the middle, there are four forms. Old English and Modern German, where Modern English has derived from, contains more forms of a word whereas Modern English only has a few forms of a word. This concludes that the English language has fairly simplified over the years.

English in the Philippines

In 1898, the Philippines had declared their independence. However, the Spaniards formally surrendered the Philippines to America due to a treaty between the two. The Americans were not aware of the independence and alternatively, it had led to the Philippines having a commonwealth status. The Americans continued their reign for the next fifty years, and the English they spoke had affected and influenced the Filipinos and their language. Tagalog had been the official language of the Philippines. However, in the beginnings of the 20th century, English had been declared as their second official language. In modern day, Tagalog was renamed to Filipino, and is a variety of Tagalog used in their capital, Manila. Filipino amongst their populations is spoken as frequently by the Filipinos along with English.

More often than so, when speaking, Filipinos use approximately 20-30% of English mixed with their Filipino.

Method

In order to fully understand my analysis, I have pieced together a method of analyzation. In order to begin my analysis, I have to read through all four of the chosen newspaper articles thoroughly. It is important to first and foremost understand and identify the purpose of the article. This helps the analysis due to the purpose being the underlying source of the language used by the author. Afterwards, I will identify the intended audience of the articles. This is something that may affect the analysis in the sense that the intended audience makes the author vary their language choice in order to adapt to the reader. These two aspects builds the base of the analysis due to being the two main underlying sources of the vocabulary used throughout the article. The next step of my analysis will consist of the vocabulary. Understanding the use of chosen language within the article is the follow-up procedure after the purpose and the intended audience. These steps go hand in hand due to them solely being used in order to break down and decipher the word choice of the author. The type of vocabulary in the British articles will most likely be more profound and advanced. In comparison to the Filipino newspapers, there will be more basic vocabulary, however with the use of some advanced words. Next, defining Ethos, Logos and Pathos within the chosen articles is done. These three aspects act as a key point for language analysis. Ethos serves as the ethical appeal. It entails that the author writes in order to come off as knowledgeable as well as would the author gain the trust of the reader. Logos serves as the logical appeal. This entails that the author would give off credible information. Lastly, Pathos serves as the passionate appeal. This involves emotion, which is something very important whenever writing newspaper articles. All of the aspects mentioned are what I will be looking for whenever analyzing each article.

The Death of Avicii

The Philippine Star and The Sun contained a whole lot of the same information concerning Avicii’s death. In order to fully show my comparison between both daily newspapers, I will first analyze each article individually.

The Philippine Star

The purpose of this article is to inform the Filipino people of the death of worldwide famous DJ, Avicii. In order to do so, the author of the article involved different aspects from different people into their article as well as did the author involve background information about the artist throughout the article. The intended audience for this article would be the Philippine population. The audience ranging from both the youth due to them knowing of who Avicii was, as well as the old since they are not aware of who the artist was. The author makes it known that they are trying to reach the older generations due to the different information in the text explaining who the artist used to be and what Avicii is famous for. Within the article, excluding the vocabulary from quotations, the author of the article uses such words as “ retiring”, “ well-known”, “ die-hard”, “ mourned”, “ saddened”, “ two-time Grammy nominee”. All of which portraying that the Filipino author has a relatively good source when coming to vocabulary. When looking at the vocabulary from the quotations, there are formal words such as “ profound sorrow” and “ devastated” however, there are also more colloquial words such as “ shocked”, “ grateful”, “ admired” and “ crazy”. These do not contribute to the analysis of the essay due to the quotations being said by people who are not from the Philippines. Therefore, it is not of relevance to the aim of this essay. The Ethos of this article is shown very clearly. The Filipino author writes a lot about the artist who passed away, both as Avicii as a person as well as Avicii as an artist. The author gives off a whole lot of facts about the artist as well as does the author incorporate different aspects and quotes from different celebrities. This also contributes to the Logos area of the article, showing that the author gives off the credible information needed.

Lastly, the Pathos area of this article is shown when the author uses such words as “ mourned” and “ saddened”. The author even makes known of the past diseases and struggles the artist went through, showing the emphasis of how the death of Avicii is an event that has saddened many.