【推荐1】Why Is Canadian English Unique?

Is there such a thing as Canadian English? If so, what is it?

The standard stereotype (刻板印象) among Americans is that Canadians are like Americans, except that they say “eh” a lot and pronounce “out and about” as “oot and aboot.” Many Canadians, on the other hand, will tell you that Canadian English is more like British English, and proof holds that the spellings “colour” and “centre” and the name “zed” for the letter Z.

Canadian does exist as a separate variety of English, with subtly (细微地) distinctive features of pronunciation and vocabulary. It has its own dictionaries; the Canadian Press has its own style guide. However, the core of Canadian English is ambivalence (矛盾).

Canadian history helps to explain this. In the beginning, there were the indigenous peoples (原住民), with far more linguistic (语言的) and cultural variety than Europe. Starting in the 1600s, the French colonized the St. Lawrence River region and the Atlantic coast south of it. In the mid-1700s, England got into a war with France, concluding with the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which ceded (割让) “New France” to England. The English allowed any French to stay who were willing to become subjects (臣民) of the English King.

At the time of the Treaty of Paris, however, there were very few English speakers in Canada. The American Revolution(革命) changed that. The founding English-speaking people of Canada were United Empire Loyalists — people who fled (逃离) American independence and were rewarded with land in Canada. As a result, Canadian English was, from its very beginning, both American — because its speakers had come from the American colonies — and not American, because they rejected the newly independent nation.

Just as the Americans sought to have a truly distinct, independent American version of English, the loyalists sought to remain more like England. These were people whose variety of English was already different from the British and vice versa. When the residents of London began to drop their r’s and change some of their vowels (元音), people in certain parts of the United States adopted some of these changes, but Canadians did not.

There did end up being more British influx (大量涌入) and influence in Canada. After the War of 1812, Mother England encouraged emigration to Canada to ensure the loyalty to England. The accent did not become British, though British schoolteachers and authorities did leave their marks on the nation’s spelling and grammar.

Today, one-fifth of Canadians have a mother tongue other than English or French — nearly as many as have French as their mother tongue. And yet the basic character of Canadian English still appears like a household of Anglophile (亲英派) Americans, with bits from other cultures mainly in the kitchen, a few traces of the indigenous cultures who used to be the only residents, and some influence from the French roommate.

【推荐3】Learning a second language is really helpful for us.    1    

1.You become smarter.

Learning a second language improves your memory (记忆).Becoming bilingual (双语的) exercises your brain，challenges you to concentrate,and improves your problem­solving skills.    2       Learning a second language also improves your native language,as it teaches you the structures (结构) behind any language—not just new languages.

2.It's great for traveling.

Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said that “the limits (限制) of your language are the limits of your world,” and he was right.    3       Traveling through a foreign country becomes much easier if you can speak the language of that country.

3.    4    

Researchers are also saying that people who can speak different languages are more creative than monolingual (仅懂一种语言的) speakers.Learning a foreign language improves not only your ability to solve problems,it also makes you experiment with new words.

4.It builds up your self­confidence.

You’re about to teach yourself to believe,“Yes,I can.” Confidence increases when a new skill is mastered,and learning a foreign language is no different.    5    　The way you use to develop a second tongue results in a greater sense of open­mindedness.

【推荐1】In today’s digital era, social media users are increasingly coming across fake news online. This leads to the pressing issue: What causes people to fall for misinformation on the Internet?

According to researchers at the Penn State College of Information Sciences and Technology,   users can easily fall into an echo chamber (回声室)—a sort of virtual space where users consume only one-sided news, eventually distrusting any opposing views. “We all tend to agree with the group opinion. Hence, people naturally get together with others who hold the same opinion,” said Dongwon Lee, one of the researchers. “But if you’re not cautious, there is a high risk of falling into an echo chamber.”

To prevent this phenomenon, the researchers have crafted a novel tool, a game named ChamberBreaker, to help players resist echo chambers and reduce the rate of fake news spread. The fundamental approach employed by ChamberBreaker centers around a decision-making procedure that mirrors the creation of echo chambers. In ChamberBreaker, a player is tasked with trying to have community members fall into an echo chamber. To begin, the player is randomly assigned a situation that focuses on a health, political or environmental issue, and is presented with six pieces of news on that topic. Then, the player selects news that could cause the other members to fall into an echo chamber while at the same time maintaining their trust. If successful, the community members will fall into an echo chamber and the player will witness the resulting negative effects on the community.

After developing ChamberBreaker, researchers tested it with over 800 subjects to see if it raised awareness of echo chambers and changed news consumption behaviors. The researchers found that those who played ChamberBreaker were significantly more likely to state their intention to observe online information from more diverse perspectives and showed an increased awareness of the echo chamber phenomenon.

Ultimately, the researchers hope that their methodology can excite a greater interest in the scientific and scholarly study related to information consumption. The application of tools like ChamberBreaker, which focuses on fostering analytical reasoning, may lead us towards a more informed online community.

【推荐2】In UK, Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras are everywhere. They help the police solve crimes (犯罪) and keep the streets safe. But that’s not all they do. They also catch people doing very stupid or smart things.

One of the videos is of a British woman Mary Bale. She clearly doesn’t like cats. In 2020 she was caught on CCTV throwing one into a dustbin. The video shows Mary walking down a quiet street. All of a sudden, she notices Lola the cat jump onto a fence (篱笆). Mary stops to pick up Lola and drops her into a large dustbin. Lola was saved fifteen hours later.   And Mary was caught by police for causing unnecessary suffering to an animal. She was fined ￡250 and was not allowed to own pets for five years.

Another video shows “Britain’s drunkest man”. And he’d obviously had a few too many glasses of beer. At about 2 a.m., he was kicked out for being too drunk. So, he decided to walk home. On the way, CCTV cameras filmed him falling down stairs and crossing the roads madly… A hotel waiter said, “It’s amazing he didn’t hurt himself badly.”

Sometimes they also record smart events. Once a British band The Get Out Clause didn’t have any money to make a music video. So, they came up with an unbelievable idea. They set up their instruments and played a song in front of eight CCTV cameras. And then, according to the English Freedom of Information Act, they asked for a copy of all the footages (镜头) , which they edited. The result is that a totally new music video was made, and it didn’t cost them a penny.

【推荐3】Ads, news, movies, TV shows, and many other types of media all want you to accept their messages at face value. However, you should look beneath the surface and ask questions to decode what the media message is really saying. You need to ask yourself two basic questions: Who is the source of the message? How is it trying to get your attention?

(Picture A) Knowing who is responsible for a message can reveal its true intention, as well as any possible prejudice. Just take the picture above as an example. Why are we asked to ban the impacts? Don’t forget that the source at the bottom plays a part. If, sometimes, the source isn’t clear, we can look for it by checking legal documents.

(Picture B) The obvious part of a message is called the text, which includes any language, imagery, music, or anything else you can see or hear. The implied part of a message is called the subtext, and it’s suggested by the content rather than directly seen or heard. We as individuals then decide how to interpret this subtext based on our personal ideas, world views, and expectations. People with different perspectives might interpret the same piece of message differently. Mind that some media may just take advantage of the prejudice.

(Picture C) Photo control is nearly as old as photography itself, but modern technology has made it common and easy to do. Using photo editing software, almost anyone can make big changes to an image, from adjusting colors and lighting to adding and removing content. That’s why you should always keep a critical eye on images in the media. Some media may hold back or overstate information, like an advertisement that makes the products appear more effective than they really are.

(Picture D) Social media users can also give themselves a digital transformation with a little effort. They can make themselves look however they like in just a few moments. But since these edited images are presented as reality, they can affect our mental well-being. By constantly seeing pictures of artificially superb people, some of us may start to believe that these pictures are genuine, and that we can never live up to these unrealistic ideals. This type of harmful thinking can lead to all sorts of mental and emotional health concerns.

【推荐1】It’s difficult to determine whether social media is safe enough for children’s mental health, according to a new report from Dr. Vivek Murthy.

Although there are some benefits, social media use brings “a great risk of harm” to kids. “We’re in the middle of a youth mental health crisis, and I’m concerned that technology companies are contributing to it,” Dr. Murthy said.

“It is generally believed that parents and kids should be responsible for managing social media, despite the fact that these platforms are designed to increase the amount of time that our kids spend on them,” he said. “So that is not a fair fight. It’s time for us to support parents and kids.”

Up to 95% of kids aged 13 to 17 report using social media, with more than a third saying they use it “frequently”. And although 13 is commonly the minimum(最小的) age to use social media sites in the US, the report notes that nearly 40% of kids aged 8 to 12 use the platforms, as well.

One study of 6,595 US adolescents between ages 12 and 15 found that those who spent more than three hours a day on social media had twice the risk of symptoms(症状) of depression and anxiety as non-users, the report notes. It also cites(引用) studies that found reducing social media use led to improvements in mental health.

Murthy says he hopes the report will encourage measures before it is too late. “Independent researchers tell us that they have a hard time getting the information they need from technology companies about the health effects on kids,” he said. “Social media companies should be responsible for protecting children as other industries are. As to other products that kids use, we take the approach of safety first. We need to do it here, too.”

【推荐3】As you may have noticed, machine learning and artificial intelligence are two of the hottest areas in technology today. One company that seems to have been caught flat-footed in the artificial intelligence race is Apple. To successfully participate in new markets, Apple is seeking ways to combine its strategy in Siri and artificial intelligence.

Apple’s voice assistant Siri significantly falls behind competing smart speakers from Amazon and Google. Take HomePod, Apple’s smart-speaker product for example, though reviews praised the device for having excellent sound quality, Siri’s poor accuracy could limit its usefulness. Besides, the high price of the device also made it a harder sell than it would have been. Apple charges for the HomePod $350 while the competing Echo Plus, for example, costs $150.

If Apple wants to successfully participate in new markets, and keep its core iPhone and iPad products competitive well into the future, it needs to go from zero to hero in artificial intelligence. The company recently hired John Giannandrea, who previously led Google’s artificial intelligence efforts. And the company gave him more power, which seemed to suggest that Apple is really trying to rework its entire strategy in this field. Under this new specialist in artificial intelligence, some positive changes will take place in Apple’s artificial intelligence development.

However, let’s be realistic. A management change isn’t going to affect Apple’s products and technologies that we have seen for some time. Developing good software is a long process, especially considering the possibility that Apple will effectively throw out the current generation of Siri and start from beginning.

Nevertheless, one reason that I’m hopeful is that Apple seems to understand that it has a problem here and is making efforts to change the situation. If Apple is successful in reshaping its artificial intelligence efforts and continues to fund them appropriately, then there’s a reasonable chance that within a few years, it won’t be a laggard(落后者) in this field but a leader.