Discourse Organization on Asian Fashion Blogs

Discourse Organization of Asian Fashion Blobs Introduction Background of the study Blobbing has emerged as one of the most popular forms of online discourse. The ease and lack of expense in setting blobs has raised intriguing possibilities for language learning in social media. The unique nature of its architecture and its low cost have not only affected how different floggers can publish and distribute their work to a wider audience but also how they see themselves as writers.According to Blood (2002), blobs have been used in various ways: as online Journals, a meaner of signing hypertext's, and more radically, to create what calls the first native form of discourse on the internet. She argues that blobbing best reflects the dream of Tim Burners-Lee (2000), who was one of the principal designers of the World Wide Web, to make the Web into something truly interactive both in terms of how texts are read and how they can be easily posted and accessed.The growing interest in blobbing ha s aroused the interest of English as a Second Language and English as a Foreign Language fashion floggers who see blobbing as a simple and low cost way of giving traders an access to publishing, advertising and distributing their writings on the internet as a method of providing them with the experience of writing in a digital format, and as a meaner of discussing issues related to their social and personal lives. According to Fleischman (2002), blobbing is the art of turning one's own filter on news and the world into something others might want to read, link to, and write about.The openness can give the floggers a greater sense of the variety of possible audiences they can reach, both for understanding these audiences and learning strategies to spoon to them. These types of on-line discussions have been referred to as â€Å"gated communities† (Lowe & Williams, 2004). With regards to world English, Karachi (1992) conceived the idea of three concentric circles of the language . The inner circle represents the traditional bases and is composed of native speakers of English (e. G.United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Anglophone Canada and South Africa, and some of the Caribbean territories). The outer circle includes countries where English is not the native tongue but they use it as a second language (e. . India, Philippines, Singapore, Hong Kong) while those that belong to the expanding circle are the rest of the world where English is used as the primary foreign language (e. G. Russia, China, Japan, Korea, Egypt, Indonesia etc. ). This idea has helped to classify the eight Asian countries that will serve as the subject in this study on how they use English as a language.Kaplan (1966) claims that English writing is characterized by directness and deductive reasoning, while other languages (e. G. Oriental languages and Arabic) favor indirectness and inductive reasoning. At the same time, he attempts to link the differences in discourse organization between English and other languages to their respective cultures and thought patterns. He marked the birth of the notion now known as Contrastive Rhetoric. It assumes that different languages had their own specific and culturally bound conventions and patterns of writing.This may also tell if there are such characteristics in Asian fashion blobs. Moreover, with regards to each Asian flogger's writing style, contrastive rhetoric should also be considered. Contrastive rhetoric is an area of research in second language acquisition that identifies problems in imposition encountered by second language writers and, by referring to the rhetorical strategies of the first language, attempts to explain them. As summarized by Connors (1997), some internal and external forces give rise to this change in perspective.The internal force comes from criticism of contrastive rhetoric, which has required it to go beyond traditional linguistic parameters of analysis to consider discursive features, processes and contexts of writing. The external forces come from new developments in discourse analysis and changing focuses in first language composition research. To enrich further the structure of each blob, genre analysis will also be considered. This may identify if fashion blobbing belongs in a specific genre by studying how the SSL and FEEL floggers use the language when writing. The focus of this study is on the discourse organization of Asian fashion blobs.Considering their writing style, comparing the blobs of these particular Asian countries that are categorized into two groups will be done throughout the study. Statement of the problem This study aims to answer the following questions: 1 . What are the structures of a fashion blob? . What are the similarities and the differences between the fashion blobs of SSL and FEEL writers? Significance of the study College students of English Language Related Programs Knowing that blob can also be studied as it is a part of our social world, this study can still be given more attention by giving further enrichment by the future researchers.They can provide new findings supported by different related literatures. As the traditional way of analyzing language data from academic institutions, this paper will thoroughly investigate the language used in fashion blobs. This will further explore the online discourse by plunging into the grounds of computer-mediated-communication (CM). Researchers in the Field of Linguistics This research paper will be able to support future research papers that are related to discourse analysis, world English, contrastive rhetoric and genre analysis.As most of us today enjoy the web 2. 0 which includes blobbing (http://www. Slideshows. Net/ muzzy/blobbing), it challenges the researchers to become more analytical in their field. As language researchers move forward by conducting thorough investigations, here will probably be new ideas that will be contributed to t he field of Linguistics. Teachers and Professors of Language The study on contrastive rhetoric among students has always been limited to the doctorate material for pedagogical purposes which is believed to limit learners' ability to express themselves.The paper will further explicate the online discourse specifically fashion web logging which has been considered as one of the tools to express oneself in social network. This would provide enough knowledge to expand the language teachers' repertoire in different writing styles. Floggers Whether these people are in different forms of blobbing, this study may inform them how important language is. In fashion blobbing, it is inspired with different marketing strategies boxed with pictures that are inviting, description of every detail of it and stories experienced by the flogger.Also, they may be informed that this style of marketing includes certain rhetoric in it. Furthermore, this style of writing can be one of the factors of the incr easing subscribers and viewers. A. Scope and Limitation With the number of studies about the circularity and linearity among the SSL and FEEL argumentative essays, court proceedings, business letters and newspapers, this paper focuses on the discourse organization of Asian fashion blobs. The study will only look into the structure of a fashion blob and to identify the differences and similarities of SSL and FEEL writers.The FEEL countries are Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand and the SSL countries are India, Singapore, Philippines and Hong Kong. These countries are only limited for each group. B. Definition of terms Blob is another term for web log, a social networking site (http://www. Slideshows. Net/ cubic/blobbing) of discussion or information site published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete entries (â€Å"posts†) typically displayed in reverse chronological order so the most recent post appears first. Usually, it is being used as an online Journal (ht tp://en. Wisped. Erg/wick/Blob). FEEL stands for English as a foreign language and pertains to how speakers use English for limited utilities, for example, for research references and sign boards. The countries that belong to this group are Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia and Thailand while, SSL stands for English s a second language and refers to English speakers who could speak it intensely and intimately. In Cracker's concentric circles, this group encompasses the countries that were colonized by the Western countries such as India, Singapore, Hong Kong and Philippines ( Karachi and Nelson, 2006).