Asian Identities

"Inspired by youth empowerment posed by present social movements in the Philippines, this study attempted to discover the discourse practice of young column writers in the country. It specifically sought to describe the prevailing convention on Philippine Daily Inquirer’s Youngblood column with particular attention to target audience, title, word count, and discourse development, with an end view of determining the role that language plays in empowering the voice of the youth in the present domestic space.

The Reflective Inquiry and Practice-focused methods in media discourse analysis were used in the study. Seven columns, published both in print and online, for 15 consecutive days (October 1-15, 2011), were identified and analyzed. The titles, target audience and word count of the columns were analyzed through Gricean Maxims, Flesch-Kincaid Formula, and traditional counting respectively. Discourse development was determined through the analysis of Cohesion (conjunctive and reiteration lexical cohesion), and Halliday’s systems of transitivity.

After examining the texts, it was concluded that the target audience of young writers, whose column compose of more or less 1000 words, starts from high school students but are not necessarily limited to the age group. Narratives that deal with what the writers themselves are doing are preferred over other forms of writing as evidenced by the density of personal pronouns and verbs expressing material processes. This means that the younger generation in the Philippines use language as a means of expressing the fact that they are actually “doing something” worth noticing contrary to local elderly beliefs."

This research explores the world of accent coaching, aiming to
unearth culturally sensitive strategies while coaching Asian actors
an Asian accent. Historically, Asian characters have been depicted
inaccurately in theatre as early as the eighteenth century. The Asian
accent has been a major defining feature of Asian people, particularly
in media and stage portrayals of Asian characters. Owing to the fact
that many characters on stage and film have been misrepresented
through stereotype and exaggeration, Asian actors have had to
adhere to these ideologies in their professional careers. As a reflexive
voice practitioner, I engage with this topic through the grounded
theory methodology and seek approaches that might mediate the
overarching challenges that are faced by the majority of Asian actors.
Through the grounded theory methodology, I venture to learn more
about the Asian experience to help find approaches that might suit
their needs. With this research, I set to create a framework of cultural
perspectives and cultural sensitivity within coaching environments.
The importance of this research elevates the voice field by focusing
on a marginalized demographic.

Approximate areas governed by the Ming dynasty and by various Muslim administrations in the 14th century and areas in Asia with historically significant Muslim populations (ranging from Muslim majority to estimated 1/400) ©  2018 Brendan Newlon.