Before starting English Language and Literature, I was not aware of how much we encounter it every single day – even if we do not read every day. That text and literature have an impact on our viewpoints – both culturally and globally – is not new to me, but the extent of influence is something I was not familiar with. In the future, I hope I will be more aware of the ‘sources’ to my perspectives; Is Greece really as dancy and lovely as Mamma Mia makes it? Does every country in Africa have young engineers changing the whole country’s economy because of a significant new machine? Is the Latina culture all about dancing, siestas, and eating tapas late in the evening?
Unfortunately, the majority of the knowledge I have about other peoples’ countries and cultures is from movies/text, and sometimes it misrepresents. If a culture is only briefly mentioned, or only a small part of it is represented, we might believe everyone from that culture have the same values or act the same way. Even if people are aware of Crazy Rich Asians and the tiny tiny group it represents, I still believe they will have certain expectations to Singapore and its citizens. Texts in all ways still affect our perspective on people and cultures even though we are aware of it, which might not be a bad thing – we just need to acknowledge it.
Looking at the different areas of focus today, the one which focuses on communication also stands out to me. Recently I have become a lot more conscious of my use of words, both when writing and speaking. By making what seems like subtle changes to a sentence, the whole attitude and intention of it can change. Every single text uses some kind of communication to reach the receiver of the text, and it will always be important.
The way movies and books communicate these things towards us is crucial to understanding the meaning of it and what the reality to our expectations may be. By writing a book or a movie script, and choosing which elements can stay, there will be aspects of it that the author knowingly chose to ‘ignore’. This has a great impact on how we feel a text represents something/someone, compared to what the intention might have been.
