Critical Literacy - Reading Unit 2

In the reading “battling the bullies” the writer tells us about how children nowadays are facing with every parent’s nightmare, Bully. According to this article, based on a psychiatrist said that it is common for parents not to realize their child is being bullied even after having some symptoms’. Clearly, in the whole article, the writer is condemning the bullies. Because of bullies, they are many children became mentally abuse and this will affect their growing stage if it is not detected earlier. The writer proofs his study by adding the opinion and suggestion of psychologist so that people can see how serious this matter is. Thus, writer advice parents to be alert and aware of their children behavior.

For reading 2.2, this chapter mainly present about “Language, Perspective, ideology”. When my classmates presented about this topic, there were more confusion than understanding. However, they are not the one to be blame as it is one’s false not to read the reading before the presentation. Mainly, in this chapter, it tells us about the use of how text will contain linguistic feature that act as indicators of the perspective and ideologies of people. Here, it is stated that linguistic reflexes of differences of perspective across speaker of the same language. It is to differentiate how people think because different people have different perspective. The language is sometimes direct and high lexis. If we listen or read a text, we would know what the writer purpose in writing the article is and differentiate between two articles that convey the message.

For reading 2.3, it tells us about text and textualities. Compared to the reading before, this text is easier to understand and has been presented clearly by my classmates. Here, it discuss about text that has the combination of sign. The words that really attract my interest is “signifier” and “signified". Both sound almost the same and nearly the same meaning but it is totally different. Signifier is words and expression. It is used to represent an object. For example, “Nancy is a girl”. So the girl represents the subject. But for signified, it represents the real girl. So for me, this word is very interesting. For the presentation of my classmate about the whole article, I can say that I understand what they are trying to convey. The uses of visual to explain really help me understand that there are tools for cultural studies. Example ; the use of Dunhill advertisement to promote a product. The uses of a connotation word that can be turn into a denotation word in an advertisement really amaze me. How can people uses a negative aspect and turn it into an aspect where people can accept.

Overall for unit 2 reading , I can understand what is being presented.