Search Results: linguistics
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AUSTRALIA
Sam Kerr’s alleged comment to a UK police officer has divided opinion as to whether it constitutes racism. The central question involves whether a structural understanding of racism should supersede a universal, neutral sense of racism of the kind that is enshrined in law.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Neve Mahoney
- 20 February 2019
28 Comments
There is still a segment of the internet obsessed with enforcing 'correct' grammar: the self-styled Grammar Police. In communicating with others, grammar provides clarity, and Australian standard grammar is one way of accomplishing that. But knowing the standardised rules is a skill not everyone has the same access to.
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AUSTRALIA
- Sheila Ngoc Pham
- 27 March 2018
7 Comments
On my first day of primary school, I understood very little English and spoke even less. My parents seemed to feel little anxiety and assumed I'd just figure it out at school. Turns out they weren't wrong. However, what they didn't anticipate is what would happen to my Vietnamese.
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ECONOMICS
- Collince Adienge
- 31 July 2017
7 Comments
When limitations are placed on an individual’s liberty some people will call it bureaucracy or tyranny; others will say that they have been denied an opportunity to make decisions. The common sense middle position is typically that freedoms should be protected if they do not infringe on other peoples’ rights.
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EUREKA STREET TV
- Peter Kirkwood
- 15 April 2015
3 Comments
Last week corporate heavyweights including Google, Apple and Microsoft were grilled about the practice of moving profits from Australia to lower tax jurisdictions. Rev Elenie Poulos, director of UnitingJustice, speaks about the public interest and social good as defined by neo-liberals, and how this is opposed to the Christian notion of the common good.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 05 February 2015
2 Comments
The brilliant linguistics professor Alice Howland and her biologist husband, John, sit down to break the news to their adult children: Alice has early-onset Alzheimers. At first Alice maintains a fragile, trembling stoicism. But when she tells them the disease may be passed on genetically, the façade slowly implodes. 'I'm sorry,' she weeps, horrified by the prospect of what she clearly sees as a betrayal.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Philip Harvey
- 23 July 2014
6 Comments
Swedish physicist Sverker Johansson has reportedly written over 2.7 million articles on Wikipedia since 2001, at an average of 10,000 articles a day. Phil Parker is purported to be the most published author in history, successfully publishing over 85,000 physical books, each of which takes less than an hour to 'write' — 'patented algorithms enable computers to do all the heavy lifting'. But the real work begins after they have finished.
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AUSTRALIA
- Ailsa Piper
- 22 January 2014
17 Comments
I'm fifth generation Australian, but I don't have a word to describe the emotional malnutrition I feel at our leaders' lack of vision. Maybe there are words for such feelings in Yamatji, or Eora, or Noongar, but most of us wouldn't know. This was a place with more linguistic individuation than Europe, before our boat-people ancestors arrived, but they didn't take the time to learn its words or hear its stories.
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AUSTRALIA
- Zac Alstin
- 17 September 2013
66 Comments
'Zoe's Law' was named in honour of the unborn child killed when her mother was hit by an allegedly drug-affected driver. We have the curious idea that 'pro-choice' is synonymous with compassion, respect, inclusivity and empowerment, yet opponents of Zoe's Law are philosophically unable to support a compassionate response to Zoe's mother, warning instead that 'We cannot accept a foetus being considered as a 'child' in NSW law.'
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RELIGION
- Zac Alstin
- 25 October 2012
71 Comments
The Hon. Michael Kirby recently said those in the churches expecting gay people to be celibate should start thinking about 'real moral questions'. If some Christians are obsessed with sex, it is because many human beings are. The ethical 'supply' exists to meet the demand, and when it comes to sexual ethics, the demand is not being met by secular society.
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AUSTRALIA
- Zac Alstin
- 17 October 2012
30 Comments
Whatever happened to American Christians concerns over Mitt Romney's Mormon faith? Like unease about Romney's conservatism and pro-life record, theological issues have been brushed aside in anticipation of November's US presidential election. Can a religious believer rightfully put their trust in either Romney or Obama?
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MEDIA
- Zac Alstin
- 17 September 2012
25 Comments
Half a million Australians have an intellectual disability and 600,000 are projected to have dementia by 2030. Yet our lives increasingly depend upon advanced cognitive activity, seen in the proliferation of online social networking, banking and shopping. Can the fullness of life really be encompassed by our immersion in the life of the mind?
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