Friday, March 24, 2006

To speak or no to speak...English

When Erap testified at his plunder case yesterday, he wanted the proceedings in tagalog but the laywers argued that it's going to be hard for them and the stenographer as well. They wanted to use the English language (easier for them to do their job). Both parties made a compromise. The lawyers will ask questions in English and Estrada will answer back in Tagalog.

And so the interchange was done in Taglish.. Yikes!

It's funny to think about how we are all Filipinos here and yet the court has to have an interpreter just so it can translate Estrada's answers into English. How silly. Hehehe.

Hell, what happens if you're defending somebody poor who can't even understand the English language? Lawyers will just continue their gibberish slangs and and lexicon blabs without them knowing and understanding what the fuck is going on! Just look what happened during Ultra stampede hearings. The victims (mostly poor ones) were so clueless as to whats going on cos prosecutors and and everybody else was talking in english!

The PC [political correctness] movement exists not in order to improve the well-being of those whose oppression it purports to combat. Rather, its purpose is to wrap its proponents in a kind of verbal comfort-blanket. Beneath its complacent cosiness and nauseating sanctimony, the intrepid shock-troops of 'populist authoritarianism' pretend that suppressing the language of prejudice is the same as eliminating prejudice itself. Smug and self-satisfied, having assuaged whatever guilt they may have felt through their attacks on the 'non-PC', they ignore the real inequalities, ignominies and powerlessness of those whom they pretend to champion. They are instead complacently content at their 'victory' in contorting the language of 'acceptable' discourse in the classroom, in the textbook and in the mass media. ~Erik Kowal, as posted on The Wordwizard Portal

Uhm

Maybe Lawyers should realize that if their clients cannot speak much less understand English, they ought to go down to their level of understanding and talk to them and explain things to them in Tagalog. If you're a Filipino though you should be able to speak and talk argue and defend in your mother tongue and rephrase words in the most effective way.

On the other hand.....

Many agree that when it comes to court cases and hearings, English language is best used for arguments and questions and everything else. They said that terminology and articulation is but hard and will be difficult for them to translate into Tagalog words. Okay maybe they are right about that. Also if you want to be successful in the corporate world and be a professional (Doctors, Lawyers...etc) and travel abroad of course you need to speak good English-correct grammar and the right pronounciation and enunciation. One doesn't need to be so fluent (although it helps a lot).

Communicating effectively is a must. Whether it's in your native tongue or different language.

And just so you know, I speak fluent Tagalog.

Anyhow...

If you can speak three languages you're trilingual. If you can speak two languages you're bilingual. If you can speak only one language you're an American.

Hmm. I have nothing more to say.

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