Life inside the North Korean bubble
news.bbc.co.uk
news.bbc.co.uk
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2008/05/28/101-being-offende...
Those who enjoyed this should google "viceland north korea" for a very cool documentary.
[1] http://www.megavideo.com/?v=KBMBL7GJ (video)
I liked the Vice Magazine video myself:
http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-...
I also thought she was a bit aggressive in her questioning, but on the other hand politeness isn't the most important trait for reporters.
True, which is probably why I prefer to read about them rather than watch or interact with them.
Even so, it seems to me she could have broached these subjects much more subtly. I have a hard time believing she could build rapport and get reliable information out of people with her approach.
I should also add one other thing about her questions that bothers me: she's walking around a society where people likely get 'disappeared' quite often for not walking the proper line. She's loudly asking obnoxious questions about potentially sensitive things, endangering others with a sort indignant, lax attitude that bothers me.
It wasn't that she asked difficult questions -- that's wonderful. It's that she asked vapid questions, which incidentally turned out also to be difficult.
She led people into the answers she wanted. E.g., it didn't look like a young lady she questioned actually thought the NK grand poobah dude was actually a god, but the reporter got her to say it.
More than anything, it disgusts me because it makes life harder for people who ask good difficult questions.
She sounded like an obnoxious tourist, not a reporter.
I suppose that coming from the democratic, enlightened West, she's never heard of such a bizarre custom before.
It's not particularly unusual. There's no need to be so rude about non-American accents.
That's your opinion, which I find quite rude.
> People don't have much control over their accents.
Er, people have complete control over their accents. It's not a disability, or a skin color unfavored by popular culture. It's a manner of speech. And it's often cultivated.
No, they don't. Some people can imitate accents which they don't speak natively, but many people can't do this well at all. E.g., how many Americans can do a good impression of a British accent? Not many. If you've ever tried to do an accurate impression of an accent that you don't speak natively, you'll know this.
Also, it's quite unlikely that the woman's accent is cultivated. It's a pretty ordinary English accent.
For this reason, saying that you don't like someone's accent is roughly as rude as saying that you don't like some other quasi-permanent-but-pretty-much-insignificant part of them. You can express your opinion if you want, but it's rude and insulting to do so.
You're confusing "can't" with "not willing to commit the time."
Accents are like learning a language -- if you want to rid yourself of an accent, you can. But most people don't.
> You can express your opinion if you want, but it's rude and insulting to do so.
Look, I'm sorry that you're personally offended by my comment that I can't tell if her speech is due to an accent or a speech impediment, but that's your own problem. There was no value judgment in my initial statement whatsoever, you projected it.
No, that's false. People who learn a language past the age of ~13 never achieve native-like phonological competence. (I.e., they always have a "foreign accent", to some extent.)
It's also pretty absurd to suggest that people ought to invest large amounts of time attempting to switch from one English accent to another, just because some people are accent snobs.
>Look, I'm sorry that you're personally offended by my comment that I can't tell if her speech is due to an accent or a speech impediment, but that's your own problem
No need to apologize, I was just pointing out that it's offensive. You can then consider whether or not you want to cause needless offense when you make similar comments in future. Depending on who you choose to offend, it may or may not become your problem as well as their problem.
You're just making up tautologies. You'll find that people over the age of "~13" are not forced by their surroundings to commit 100% to learning a language. You'll also find differences between individuals.
> It's also pretty absurd to suggest that people ought to invest large amounts of time attempting to switch from one English accent to another
Never said ought, please stop putting words in my mouth.
> No need to apologize, I was just pointing out that it's offensive
Note that I wasn't apologizing for offending you, rather I was feeling sorry for you that you find offense in a statement which had no judgment in it.
No, this is a well-established fact about language learning. There is a so-called "critical period" for language acquisition which ends around the onset of puberty (in fact, probably somewhat earlier for phonology). It is essentially impossible for someone over this age to learn to speak a language exactly as a native speaker does. You can search google scholar for academic studies on this. e.g.
http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=critical+perio...
I'm not sure what you find to be "tautological" about the critical period claim. It's an empirical hypothesis that could in principle be true or false (and there is in fact a lot of evidence for its being true).
>rather I was feeling sorry for you that you find offense in a statement which had no judgment in it.
You have to bear in mind that your posts are being read by people. If you say that someone's accent sounds like a speech impediment, it's hard to read that as anything other than an insult.
If you're confused by the fact that people tend to interpret things in this way, then I feel sorry for you.
What exactly is your point, anyway? I think you need to review.
I said a person can lose or change their accent, that it's no different than learning a language. You insist, "no! It's nothing like learning a language." But now you seem to be trying to use "it's just like a language" to support your claim that people can't change their accent, because you supposedly can't learn a language properly after the age of 13.
So which is it? Is changing your accent like learning a language, or isn't it? If it isn't, why are you talking about studies regarding language learning?
Anyway, as for this age of 13 business, I've met a number of people who came to the US as late teenagers to early 20's and learned to speak West-coast American English flawlessly. The only indication they might not be native would be communication issues around metaphors.
You can rely on a tautology to excuse yourself from mastering languages and accents if you choose to, but I don't.
> If you say that someone's accent sounds like a speech impediment
There you go again, I said I can't tell if it's an accent or a speech impediment. You're reading judgment into my words again.
> If you're confused by the fact that people tend to interpret things in this way, then I feel sorry for you.
The only things here that confuse me are 1) why you insist on misconstruing my statements repeatedly and 2) why you want to randomly start arguing about language learning after you said it's irrelevant to accents.
>You insist, "no! It's nothing like learning a language."
Ah, this is just a misunderstanding. When I said "No, that's false" a few posts back, I was denying the clause following the "--", not your statement that learning an accent is like learning a language (which I agree with). My point was that complete mastery of a non-native accent is impossible for the same reason that complete mastery of a non-native language is impossible (past age ~13).
>You can rely on a tautology
What is the tautologous statement supposed to be? As I said before, the claim that there is a critical period for language acquisition is an empirical claim, not a tautology.
>Anyway, as for this age of 13 business, I've met a number of people who came to the US as late teenagers to early 20's and learned to speak West-coast American English flawlessly.
Perhaps. I know many people who moved to the US before they reached their teens, and all still have detectable non-native accents (though their English is indeed "flawless" in the sense that there is no difficulty in communicating with them). Many of these people are highly educated and would have had every motivation to loose their accent. There may be a few exceptional individuals who can pass for native in ordinary conversation, but they are extremely rare. (I know, for example, a German who might pass for native if you only heard a few sentences.)
>There you go again, I said I can't tell if it's an accent or a speech impediment. You're reading judgment into my words again.
That's superbly disingenuous. I can't tell if you're being deliberately perverse or if you're just an idiot (no judgment implied).