• In this week’s discussion, you are going to reflect about language and identity concepts in your life. These ideas are explained in the textbook on pages 230-231.

Original discussion post must be submitted before 9.00am on Tuesday:

Step 1- Watch the following videos:

a)

I Am NOT Black, You are NOT White (Links to an external site.)

b)

Stop the Stigma Video (Links to an external site.)

Step 2- Choose TWO questions and answer them in your original post.

1. Can you think of ways that you were labeled as a young child? In other words, what adjectives or adjective phrases did parents, teachers, and/or peers use to describe you? Do you think those words influenced your personal identity and behavior as a child? If so, in what ways do you think they influenced your self-concept?

2. Can you remember acting towards others in a stereotypic way? Do you think that this, along with other people perhaps acting the same way towards that person or group of people, influenced that person or group of people in terms of their future behavior? Explain.

3. Did you have a nickname when you were young? If so, was it given to you by someone in your family, a friend, or someone else? If you had a nickname, do you think that it influenced your personality? Explain.

4. A concept related to language and identity is called social stigma. Social stigma is extreme disapproval or dislike of a person or group of people based on some social or physical characteristic that they have or are perceived to have. Social stigma could be based on sexual orientation, biological or ethnic ancestry, disabilities, profession, and many other factors. What are some of the labels that you know about that have been used to characterize stigmatized people? What effect do you think that these labels have on the people who are labeled in this way?

* Your original post should be 200-250 words long (combination of part 1 and part 2).

RESPONSE TO THE POSTS OF YOUR 2 CLASSMATES- must be submitted before 9.00am on Friday:

Follow these steps to write the discussion response:

1. Read all posts of your classmates.

2. Find a classmate who has not received a response to his/her post yet. You CANNOT respond to an original post which has already received a response if there are still some posts that have not received a response.

3. Just as you would during a spoken discussion, write what your think about the ideas of your classmate. You can add more ideas to the points that your classmate has made or write a different opinion in a polite manner.

* The response to each post should be 100-150 words long.