Language Village
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“What is your damage, Heather?”
The movie I’ve decided to watch with my friends was Heathers because we heard the movie was a 1980s version of Mean Girls. At the beginning of the movie I can see why some people say it’s an older version of Mean Girls because it’s about a regular high school girl who is invited by the most popular girls in school to join their clique. There were some elements that were similar to that in Mean Girls but as the movie went on, it got more confusing to me and believe me it’s nothing like Mean Girls. I actually had to watch the movie with subtitles on because I could hardly understand what the characters were saying. It’s true the film was in English but they used a lot of slang that we don’t hear a lot of in today’s world. Since the movie was made about 30 decades ago, the way teenagers spoke back then is way different from the way teenagers speak today. When we searched up the movie, we found out that it was suppose to be a comedy but we didn’t find it to be that funny maybe because we didn’t get any of the references made in the movie. Teens of the 80s probably enjoy that movie as teens of my generation enjoy Mean Girls because we actually understood the references made in the movies and found it funny. Throughout the movie, the characters swear at each other a lot but the way they phrase it sounded a bit weird to me. For example at the beginning, one of the Heathers say “Well, fuck me gently with a chainsaw. Do I look like Mother Teresa?” I don’t think anyone would say that nowadays and I’ve actually never heard a person say this phrase before. I also found phrases like “What’s your damage, Heather?” “Why do you have to be such a mega-bitch?” and “Veronica, why are you pulling on my dick?” (said by a girl) to be a bit strange to me but I got the gist of what it’s suppose to mean though. While watching the movie, I noticed the main character used an infix in a word when she was speaking to a friend she said “U.S fucking A” which reminded of Alafuckingbama, something we talked about in Ling class. 
“Greetings and Salutations” – J.D
The movie that my friends and I watched was Heathers. It is considered a black comedy therefore, it contains foul language. I personally thought the movie was quite boring and even difficult to understand in certain scenes. This film was released in 1989 so the type of language that the characters used back then does not sound like things we would typically say nowadays. The slangs they used could easily relate to the ones teens use today. However, when the characters insult one another, they use weird sentences like “stop pulling on my dick” even though the person that said it was a girl. Personally, that was weird to me. As for my non-language village friend that also watched the film with me, he found the movie to be funny and confusing at the same time. I agree because the casual conversations between characters seem to be so complex and they use weird words. Instead of saying “what’s up” or “hey,” a character in the film says “greetings and salutations” which is very strange because it sounds very formal.
In the scene where one of the rich, popular girl named “Heather” dies, the killers plan to fake a suicidal note and one of them decides to use the word “myriad” in it. However, they realized that “Heather” would’ve never used that word, simply implying that she is stupid. In the next scene where the school board teachers discuss Heather’s apparent suicide, one of them said “I’m surprised she used the word myriad in her suicidal note.” From this, viewers can reach a conclusion that rich people are often dumb because they don’t feel the need to be educated if they have money and fame.
– Jia Wen Xu
Language Village
Language Village Movie Night “Heathers”
I had a movie night with my roommate Kim. We watched the movie “Heathers” for two nights. It was a very strange and disturbing movie. The movie was on Netflix. There was some connections to linguistics. Some of the phrases were different from the the phrases we use now. The slang was like ” totally”, “awesome” , “rad”, or phrases like “your such a brownie”. The slang today does not really use these phrases anymore. The movie manipulated the English language in order to make their own know language. For example, the cool, popular high school girls were called Heathers. The film makers changed idea of cliques with calling a girl a heather because it is a title of fame in the film. Some of sentences were like “fuck me gently with a chainsaw” which is basically trying to communicate that the character is offended or insulted. Another word “Salutations” is like a greeting but the character said it sarcastically. The language used in this film made a statement about the cool, popular kids that were given the opportunity to be called something else then every other high school student. It is a statement made to show that people in high school outcast other people that are not considered cool or popular. Overall, the movie was interesting. Even though, the guy almost killed everyone.
Language Village Film “Heathers”
Me and Paula had a 2 day movie night and watched Heather’s on Netflix. It was a very strange film, and we saw a few connections to Linguistics. First we noticed that they used a lot of language that we do not use much today such as “Salutations” when saying hello to someone or “fuck me gently with a chainsaw” when referring to being offended by another person. As we watched the film we also saw one of the actors compare two styles of saying “tomato”. They also used “awesome” and “cool” and “totally” more than we hear on average today. The film tends to use English in their own purpose and sense. For example, being called a “heather” at Western berg high school was the coolest thing to be named. They changed an average named to signify something of their own in the film. This film refers back to linguistics because we have spoken how English is an extremely complicated language because people use it in their own sense and you can make sense of phrases in so many different ways. The language in this film also makes a statement that the type of language you use defines whether you are cool and popular or not. There were names given to the unpopular fat, nerdy, or out of the circle kids and the “popular” kids were talked to differently and referred to differently as well. even though the movie was a litttleeee creepy, it was a good entertaining movie!
The Language Hunt
We thought we’d start of this oh so lovely scavenger hunt with a little trek out to the International Student Center. Isn’t that fun? That wall is so welcoming it decided to tell you in almost any language you could imagine. In all honesty though, it is an amazing wall that shows a lot of cultural diversity.
I don’t think it was exactly after that (partially because these pictures definitely aren’t in order) , but we decided to stop by the financial aid office. We definitely need to make sure we know all about that, now don’t we?
Next stop, Office of the Registrar. Let me ask you something. What exactly is a registrar anyways? I didn’t even know that word existed until I got to this school, but that might just be me.
Unfortunately, you can’t really read the sign since it’s on a glass door and as we all know glass doors are see through, but it says SDSU Library & Information Access. This building is actually super cool and has a lot of books in, you guessed it, other languages.
There were a couple people strutting it out in our picture, but it was no biggie. it gives the picture some character don’t you think? This is another image of the library just in case you didn’t get the picture from the last one.
That’s right, we have rights. We also have responsibilities but we don’t talk about those. Here is yet another sign we found in the public area that is our campus. Isn’t it just beautiful? Look at that font, and wow, that black on white contrast is amazing.
Kaitlyn DeJesus
Laura Kalmanson
In Search of Culture
We started out our adventure quite excited in the Love Library in search of a poster in English.
Next, we made our way to the International Student Center where we found a poster with every language EXCEPT Russian. There we met nice people and got help from a guy with broad shoulders. This was the beginning of deception. (He gave us wrong directions to the Cross Cultural Center, so we ventured all the way to Chappy to only find out it was now at the Union -__-)
Before we left, we found a poster with Russian on it. We had to play eye spy to find and make sure that language was on there.
On our way back, we crossed paths with the Calpulli Center and stopped by the Student Disability Services room.
We then made it to the Student Health Services Administration room.
We continued our journey to the Office of the Registrar. Our search was very sweaty and tiring… notice our smiles fading.
At least the Student Life and Leaders room was pretty easy to find.
After a couple of hours of searching, manipulation and LIES… we made it to the Cross Cultural Center!!!
We then had to waddle all the way around the building to the Office of Financial Aid and Scholarships #Turnup
After failed attempts in the elevator (thank you Kim), we made it to the Testing Center.
We finally got to this office, but what the heck does OMBUDSMEN mean???
At least our last stop was downstairs from our dorm rooms YAAAAAAAASSSSSS <3
Team Players:
Kiara Grant
Paula Soto
Kimberly Gonzalez
GEN100- Xu and Huang: Scavenger Hunters
We started our scavenger hunt at the Love Library because we assumed that’s where most of the languages would be at. Unfortunately we were very wrong, there were barely any signs in there that were not English. We expected to at least find some signs or posters in Spanish in there, but we didn’t. We then moved onto other campus resources such as the Office of Registrar, Student Life and Leadership, Financial Aid & Scholarships Office, Ombudsman, Student Testing Center and etc. However, those places hardly had any signs or posters in any languages other than English. We did find some brochures and forms in Spanish but that didn’t count as public signage. Then we visited the Cross Cultural Center and hit the jackpot. We found most of our signs and posters of different languages in there. For example we found a huge poster in French in there and a “Si Se Puede” poster from the United Farm Workers motto. In order to prove we went to each location we included little hand drawn pictures of ourselves under most of the signs we took pictures of because we are camera shy.
English in the Love Library
A French poster found in the women studies room in the Cross Culture Center
Arabic found in the Center for Intercultural Relations
Spanish found in the Cross Culture Center
Chinese found in the Cross Culture Center
Tagalog/Filipino found in the Cross Culture Center
The third line is the Korean translation for “star” in English.
The third line is the Vietnamese translation for the word “moon.”
Sign Language for “Center for Intercultural Relations”
Office of Registrar
– By Jia Xu & Xiao Huang GEN100
D5 Creation