Language Learning From Cartoons

Language is one of the main reasons that we, as human beings, have been able to progress and adapt so much through history to build kingdoms, empires and populations like we have today. That doesn’t seem to big of a deal now because we’ve been blessed to be in an era of awesome communication techniques, but when compared to a panda or a giraffe, for example, they don’t have anywhere near the ability to communicate as we do and thus can’t progress like we can and have through our history. We can relate the things that we’ve learned to others through our trials, so that someone else may be able to use that knowledge and skip over the time it would take to learn it and begin something new, based on that knowledge. Language evolves rapidly, like the technology of today. With each new generation of kids, there are new vernaculars and idioms. Relating to this blog, in most cartoons, the new language is spoken very clearly and also uses phrases that can be interpreted very well, given the context. Even those with limited knowledge of a language can watch a cartoon and know what’s going on with the story.

“For language is not simply the medium by which we express our ideas and experiences to each other. Rather it is fundamental to the thought process itself. It involves categorizing and naming objects and sensations in the outer and inner worlds and making associations between resulting mental symbols. It is, in effect, impossible for us to conceive of thought (as we are familiar with it) in the absence of language, and it is the ability to form mental symbols that is the fount of our creativity, for only once we create such symbols can we recombine them and ask such questions as “What if …?” (Lamberton 2006:374)

Language is that important, even down to our thoughts. One of the best ways to learn is by hearing and practicing clearly pronounced language. When I liven in the Dominican Republic, I knew hardly any Spanish. So in order to practice my listening, I went to a neighbor's house from time to time and would watch with their kids, Spongebob Squarepants (Bob Esponja) and Pinky and the Brain (Pinky y Cerebro), to name a few. Half of the time I had already seen the episode and knew the dialogue in English more or less, so when I heard them in Spanish, I wrote down the phrases and translations.

One of the important things is that these cartoons are good for older people to learn new idioms in their own language, too. For example, my favorite cartoon by far is the Ninja Turtles. Michelangelo frequently uses odd terms and phrases, such as, "gnarly," "radical," "bodacious," and the personal favorite, "cowabunga." An Interesting side note to this is that they live in New York. Generally, as is mentioned in the documentary, Riding Giants, terms like this have been found to originate from California and Hawaii, during the beginnings of the surfing era.

The following map has details illustrating my theories on the origins of the knowledge of surfer lingo.

View Alternate Origin of Ninja Turtles in a larger map with details.

Many of the phrases make no sense on their own, but with the context, one can learn how to use them and ultimately what they mean. In The Adventures of Fat Albert episode, Don’t Call Us, Fat Albert says, “Don’t be a dropout, be a winner.” If someone that is watching, doesn’t know what a dropout is, they only need to know what a winner is and they know that a dropout isn’t a winner. Through the context of the episode, you learn that a dropout is one that quits school. Cartoons are a great way to learn new languages, and also a good method to learn new lingo of your own language.

Other Sources:

Lamberton, Don. "New Media and he Economics of Information." The Handbook of New Media. Ed. Leah A. Lievrouw and Sonia Livingstone. London: Sage, 2006. 364-385.

"Ninja Pedia." Mirage Studios, Inc., 2009.

Riding Giants. Dir. Stacy Peralta. Perf. Greg Noll, Jeff Clark, and Laird Hamilton. Sony Pictures, 2004. (on google videos)

0 comments RSS Posted by ParkerT at 10:09 PM

Teamwork pt. 2

Despair.com

As was mentioned before, teamwork is the means to which multiple people achieve a goal collectively.

On the other hand, we find weakness if we mix inexperience with pride, leading us to think that we can survive on our own. In the Thundercats’ second episode, The Unholy Alliance, Lion-O, with the rest of the crew, finds himself battling his enemies alone on an unknown planet where they have both crash-landed. During the fight, Lion-O calls for the other Thundercats to come to his aid, with his Sword of Omens. Lion-O is able to fend off the mutants until the others come to his rescue. Later, in that same episode, Lion-O finds himself again alone face-to-face with a new evil villain. But he decides to hold off on calling the others. He thinks that he is able to fight alone without any help because he is the leader of the Thundercats. By the time he realizes that he is no match for Mumm-Ra, his Sword of Omens won’t allow the call to occur because it is covered in tar. His inexperience and pride allowed him to make this costly mistake. Luckily, Mumm-Ra had seen his reflection in Lion-O’s shield, which was enough to get him on his way, before destroying Lion-O and taking the sword. Had Lion-O called for his band before his sword was enveloped with the tar, he wouldn’t have had such a close call. Illustrating the lesson that on our own, there are some tasks that are near impossible to achieve. We need to rely on each other’s talents and strengths.

The next part of a team is that sometimes if you begin going at it alone, you can get better results. In the cartoon series, Recess' episode, Gus' Last Stand, the playground bully, Gelman, loses his current regular victim because the victim moves far away. This leaves a vacancy needing to be filled. Unfortunately, Gus, the son of a military leader and one of the main characters in the main group, receives the honor to become the new victim. The whole playground is uber intimidated by Gelman, so they leave Gus to his own. When Gus’ father relates a WWII story of Belgium standing up to Germany, Gus decides he’s got to be Belgium. When he sees Gelman next he tells him off, and puts on some boxing gear. When the whole playground sees Gus’ gumption, after being beaten up a little more than usual, Gus’ group stands up to Gelman, soon followed by everyone on the yard. Sometimes there isn’t a team, but when a few see a challenge that they would all like to defeat, they become the team. And collectively unified in a purpose, we are stronger than many individuals for the same purpose.

0 comments RSS Posted by ParkerT at 12:01 AM

Teamwork pt. 1

Teamwork is a quality that we all need to learn, if we want to be successful people. Teams have classically been part of cartoons for a long while. Image fromDespair.com

It’s probably not a huge surprise that some of my favorite types of cartoons consist of adventures of mutant or super-powered teams. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, He-Man and The Masters of the Universe, Voltron, and Thundercats, are just some of them. One special characteristic of each of these teams is that they all have to accept that there are weaknesses as well as strengths of each individual, and without the combination of the strengths, they cannot hope to defeat the challenges with which they find themselves. In the introduction scene to the Ninja Turtles cartoon, the theme song specifically notes each turtle’s strength, “Leonardo leads, Donatello does machines, Raphael is cool but crude, Michelangelo is a party dude.”

In Ninja Turtles Episode 85, Leonardo Lightens Up, the turtles realize that without Leonardo’s leadership and focus, they cannot defeat the villain, G. Cleff. Donatello had invented a personality modifier, which was used against Leo when the other three were getting tired of his bossy attitude when Splinter left him in charge. As the title of the episode emphasizes, they lose Leonardo as their leader, when he becomes a jokester and goes off to have fun. They get defeated due to the lack of their normal dynamic with Leo as their team captain. It isn’t until Master Splinter returns that they can return him to normal and finally defeat G. Cleff.

I’ve found that this lesson is also true to real life. If there is a group working toward defeating a particular challenge, like a recent group project I had been assigned to participate in, there are multiple areas that need to be filled with different personality traits. We had a few that stepped up as team leaders, me being one, but there was one who became the main honcho. There were a couple who didn’t know what they were doing, so we just decided for them that they would do a particular part when we were ready to begin that part of the presentation. One of us was especially eager to type, while we were brainstorming ideas and once we got rolling on the essay part of it. Another got hyped up when we decided to add movie clips to the presentation. On top of that, we needed to have some stress relief from time to time so that’s another area that was filled in with a goofball that got dressed up to resemble Mr. Rogers. All in all, our presentation and the work leading up to it, could not have been done so well, had we not teamed up and did things with our own areas of expertise. We were also blessed enough to have been grouped with such diversity to have been able to do so.

0 comments RSS Posted by ParkerT at 11:37 PM

Got to start with something--

Life Lessons Learned from 80’s Cartoons

by Parker Timothy

As hip-hop artist, DJ Z-Trip, so perfectly described in the lyrics of his song, Breakfast Club, the Saturday morning ritual of many young children throughout the entire modern world, “I love eatin’ cereal, when I’m watchin’ my cartoons.” [i] I remember on multiple occasions, my father yelling to me to turn off the cartoons because, “They’re going to rot your brain!” Are cartoons really so devoid of merit like my father suggested, or, like the Transformers, is there, “More than meets the eye?”

When I watched cartoons as a kid, I tried to learn how radioactive ooze could turn me into an awesome, pizza-loving turtle with an apprenticeship to a ninja master rat. But after having watched cartoons for years and years, it became apparent to me that many cartoons had underlying lessons and principles to their story, rather than just showing a time line of action.

At times, the educational parts are made fairly explicit like in He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, but more often than not they are implicitly taught. At the close of every episode of He-man, there is a very specific lesson to be learned, such as how to take the responsibility of caring and loving pets and other animals,[ii] or to not take unknown drugs that make you feel outstanding and perform very well.[iii]

He-Man was a bit extra special, in that they had an education and psychological consultant, Donald F. Roberts, PhD. Most of the cartoons that I encountered, that weren’t specifically for educational purposes, like Schoolhouse Rock, had no such staff position in the credits of the cartoon.

These lessons were important to us as children in a way that we didn’t entirely understand. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, along with other cartoons with a group of heroes, were very influential in my development of learning the importance of teamwork. And in a team, everyone has different strengths and weaknesses, but together they would cover those weaknesses.

Some of the lessons aren’t things that one can detect just from observing every episode. Rather they are little blips just a few seconds long. Though the series is more for entertainment, than educational purposes, the importance of mental health is displayed, in a single phrase from the Ninja Turtles’ Master Splinter, “it is well known, that physical exertion often serves to relieve the pressures of mental stress.”[iv] In many instances throughout all of the various series, one may find that there are lessons to be learned in subtle ways like this.

Still, there are many cartoons that are made specifically for the education due to the FCC’s Children’s Television Act of 1990, which was updated in 1996.[v]

Additional Sources:

Breakfast Club song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP4u4I96DVQ

He-Man etc.: The Dragon Invasion: http://www.hulu.com/watch/48621/he-man-and-the-masters-of-the-universe-dragon-invasion

He-Man etc.: http://www.hulu.com/watch/48629/he-man-and-the-masters-of-the-universe-a-friend-in-need#s-p1-so-i0

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[i] DJ Z-Trip. “Breakfast Club (feat. Murs and Supernatural).” Shifting Gears. Hollywood Records, 1995.

[ii] Reaves, Michael. “The Dragon Invasion.” He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Season 1, Episode 4. Filmation Associates, 1983.

[iii] Friedman, Ed. “A Friend in Need.” He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, Season 1, Episode 16. Filmation Associates, 1983.

[iv] Mendelsohn, Jack and Mendelsohn, Carole. “Too Hot to Handle.” Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Season 6, Disc 1: Episode 8. Fred Wolf Films, 1992.

[v] Children’s Educational Television. FCC. Updated 10/21/08. Accessed 9/30/09.

0 comments RSS Posted by ParkerT at 7:54 PM