CONTENTS
- About This Issue
The Editor
- Change Is Gonna Do Ya Good
Ilan Stavans, Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts
- English, like all living languages, is vibrant, unpredictable, and ever-changing.
- Unraveling the Mysteries: Tools for Decoding Slang
A. C. Kemp, Director of the Slang City Web site and Instructor of English Language Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- The Internet provides numerous Web sites that help readers understand American slang.
- The Language of Blogging
Reporters Without Borders
- Reprint from Handbook for Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents
-
Youth Speak
Robin Friedman, Journalist and Author
- Young people are at the forefront of coining slang expressions.
- Game On! Sports and Recreation Idioms in American English
Jean Henry, Author and Teacher
- Because of their popularity in the United States, sports and games have contributed many idioms to the language.
- What’s New? The Effect of Hip-Hop Culture on Everyday English
Emmett G. Price III, Assistant Professor, Music and African American Studies, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts
-
The urban lexicon of the hip-hop generation has crossed over to mainstream America.
-
Spanglish: Speaking la Lengua Loca
Ilan Stavans, Professor of Latin American and Latino Culture, Amherst College, Amherst, Massachusetts
-
In the United States, Spanish and English have mixed to form a hybrid language.
- From Arabic to English
Alan Pimm-Smith, Journalist and Teacher
- Hundreds of English words derive from the Arabic language.
- Arabic in the Saddle
Gary Paul Nabhan, Author
- Many English words relating to horses and horsemanship came from Arabic by way of Spanish.
- Additional Resources
-
|
|
VIDEO FEATURE  |
|
A mother and daughter speak to each other using the letter system
teens use for text messaging – broadcast of this humorous and
exaggerated commercial included the subtitles shown.
AT&T commercial by BBDO
This promotion for the Independent Lens television series
documentary film about the phenomenon of hip-hop shows many
of the images and introduces themes included in the Emmet Price
article, “What’s New? The Effect of Hip-Hop Culture on Everyday
English,” included in this journal.
Video courtesy ITVS
|
| RELATED WEBCHAT |
Ilan Stavans Date: Monday, 20 August 2007
Time: 9:00 a.m. EDT (1300 GMT)
|
| |
| RELATED ISSUES |
|
|
|
|---|
eJournal USA:
Society & Values
Volume 12, Number 8, August 2007
|
The Bureau of International Information Programs of the U.S. Department of State publishes five electronic journals under the eJournal USA logo—Economic Perspectives, Global Issues, Issues of Democracy, Foreign Policy Agenda, and Society & Values—that examine major issues facing the United States and the international community, as well as U.S. society, values, thought, and institutions.
One new journal is published monthly in English and is followed by versions in French, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish. Selected editions also appear in Arabic, Chinese, and Persian. Each journal is catalogued by volume and number.
The opinions expressed in the journals do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. government. The U.S. Department of State assumes no responsibility for the content and continued accessibility of Internet sites to which the journals link; such responsibility resides solely with the publishers of those sites. Journal articles, photographs, and illustrations may be reproduced and translated outside the United States unless they carry explicit copyright restrictions, in which case permission must be sought from the copyright holders noted in the journal.
The Bureau of International Information Programs maintains current and back issues in several electronic formats, as well as a list of upcoming journals, at http://usinfo.state.gov/pub/ejournalusa.html. Comments are welcome at your local U.S. Embassy or at the editorial offices:
Editor, eJournal USA
IIP/PUBJ
U.S. Department of State
301 4th St. S.W.
Washington, DC 20547
United States of America
E-mail:
eJournalUSA@state.gov
| Coordinator | Jeremy F. Curtin |
| Executive Editor | Jonathan A. Margolis |
|
| ____________________ |
|
| Creative Director | George Clack |
| Editor-in-Chief | Richard W. Huckaby |
| Managing Editor | Robin L. Yeager |
| Production Manager | Christian Larson |
| Assistant Production Manager | Sylvia Scott |
| Web Producer | Janine Perry |
|
| ____________________ |
|
| Assistant Editor | Chandley McDonald |
| Copy Editor | Rosalie Targonski |
| Photo Editor | Ann Monroe Jacobs |
| Reference Specialist | Martin J. Manning |
| Copyright Specialist | Connie Faunce |
| Cover Designer | Bryan Kestel |
|
|
About This Issue 
