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Have you ever had one of those moments, when what you’re seeing is so… hilariously funny, yet, somehow powerful enough to move you to tears? Something so thought provoking it leaves you with a strong desire to talk about it?
I was greeted by a delightful tweet earlier in the week by the fabulous Britmums! A tweet informing me that I had won their competition, bagging myself a pair of tickets to this weeks WOW (Women of the world) Festival, located at London’s Southbank. What’s more this included tickets to see the play “Losing it” and a chance to meet the star “The Lovely Ruby Wax” following the performance.
I’d previously heard about the show, which also stars the very talented signer-songwriter “Judith Owen” so had some knowledge of the plot. What excited me most, was the fact this wasn’t set to be your average play, Ruby Wax was actually on a mission to break the stigma associated with mental illness, this would be her being open and honest about her own mental health while somehow keeping it comical!
I’d never seen it done, the only time id ever seen a comedian raising such a subject was by cracking non tasteful jokes, laughing at those with the condition, as opposed to laughing with them! I was intrigued to discover if and how Ruby would achieve it!
Well, yesterday morning I found out….
“Losing It” is the complete opposite to the above, its made up of an extremely funny, yet thought-provoking script that really is capable of causing you to fall of your chair as you pee your pants laughing or draw a tear as its strong message buries itself deep within you. Judith Owens amazing voice with powerful lyrics combined with the hilarious yet informative words of Ruby Wax, together create something amazingly powerful, something that grabs a hold of you, leaving you replaying it in your mind once its over, therefore proving it to be the powerful awareness tool it set out to be!
Here’s what they say about “Losing It” over on the official website
Ruby Wax had it all – career, dream house, husband, kids, so when was the moment she realised she was the 1 in 4…
Somewhere between painting her kitchen beige (again), realising she didn’t own a life manual or comprehend the contents of a children’s party bag?
Ruby’s acerbic, honest humour and Judith Owen’s touching songs are both poignant and laugh-out-loud funny. This show gives you the chance to explore the ups and downs of mental illness, its stigmas and the freedom you discover when you share the darkest moments of your life.
I may not have had the same life as the lovely Ruby Wax! I didn’t attend drama school and bag myself a carer as an actress or comedian, but I did create my own wonderful family consisting of three beautiful children. However, like Ruby, this didn’t stop the hand of depression, it didn’t cure me of the ongoing anxiety attacks, severe OCD and the up and down eating disorder, all being an active part of my existence since childhood.
My head nodded furiously as Ruby touched on the feelings of shame one feels because this is an illness located in the brain rather than another organ in the human body! Ruby is right, Mental illness doesn’t care who you are, celebrity, doctor, mother…. If your one of the 1 in 4 that mental illness has chosen to capture, than status holds no ground, we’re all human after all.
Ruby becomes an open book, she tells her story by doing what she does best, creating laughter! I don’t know anybody who has managed to talk about depression for an hour or more without causing its audience to leave with their heads hung low.
Oh, and it seems that Mental illness isn’t all Ruby’s clued up on… Oh no! She seems to have the whole relationship and marriage thing sussed out pretty well too! Now, I really don’t want to ruin it for those who are yet to see the play, lets just say, I almost choked on my own tongue laughing… Ruby at her best!
Both ladies make this sensational entertainment, the sheer fact that together they have created something so funny from such a serious issue, without damaging it, is fabulous, and reminded me how talented a comedian Ruby really is. This show left me wanting to go home and help break the stigma, while allowing myself to let go of any shame I may still hold regarding my own demons. As a woman who has been to crazy town and back again, as well as a parent to a child with Asperger’s who suffers greatly with anxiety and depressive moods, I’m with these ladies! It’s about time our society realised that depression isn’t having a bad hair day or feeling sad! Stop offering us tea and telling us to perk up… tea and ignorance cure nothing, just piss us off that bit more!
I’d recommend everyone checkout “Losing It”, if this doesn’t change ones perception of mental illness, then quite honestly nothing will! Having already performed for all branches of the priory and a large number of mental health wards up and down the country, “Losing it” brought the play to the public by going on tour last year! Both the public and media seem to love what these ladies do, with a large number of glowing reviews and feedback from your national news papers, your average tom, to celebrities such as Annie Lennox.
I was lucky to have a quick chat and grab a picture with the lovely lady herself see belowOn the whole, a great way to spend my Friday! A large dose of appreciation is on its way to Britmums for the tickets and a double dose making its way to Judith Owen and Ruby Wax for their truly inspirational play and attitude to metal illness… your all great!
Check Out the official site for show dates (currently offering special price of £25 for their planed shows in London’s West end in August) click HERE for details
Please check out the Black Dog Tribe a social network/forum and informative website where members can share advice, connect with one another, get all the latest news and updates on mental health and current campaigns and developments! Both Ruby and Judith are a big part of the network and encouragement you all to go and say hello, speak out, gain comfort and break down the stigma
Here’s a taster I uncovered for you on youtube
Lastly those attending Britmums Live, don’t forget Ruby wax is a listed speaker, so if you haven’t got your ticket by now I’d suggest you wiggle on before its listed as a sell out.

domain: psychology


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What I’m soon discovering, as I lose 12 kilograms, weight loss isn’t a matter of standing on a scale and hoping for the very best. You already know that a balanced weight loss plan is one of the simplest ways to get the nutritional vitamins and minerals your body needs as you age. But it’s possible you’ll be overlooking your eyes’ specific wants, particularly because the years go by. An eye fixed-health complement, corresponding to Ocuvite , the vitamin developed by Bausch + Lomb is really helpful for people 40-years-old and older to assist replenish important eye nutrients lost in the course of the regular getting older course of.
March is National Nutrition Month and the 2015 theme is “Chunk Into A Healthy Lifestyle.” Nationwide Diet Month is an annual campaign sponsored by the Academy of Diet and Dietetics, which the academy and its members are a reputable supply of scientifically based food and diet information.
While previous studies have concluded that laughing usually has potential well being benefits, equivalent to boosting the immune system and fending off depression and insomnia, recent medical research has found that frequent giggling is associated with decrease prevalence of cardiovascular disease, too. After analyzing nearly 21,000 adults who had been at the very least 65 years old, people who claimed they nearly by no means laughed had been extra prone to suffer from coronary heart points, no matter their way of life elements, in addition to other situations, together with hypertension and despair.
We all know the drill — eat proper, brush your tooth, train and get enough sleep. But living your healthiest life truly involves a few extra rituals than you would possibly anticipate. The good news: Including any of those day by day habits to your routine is simpler than you assume.
Have enjoyable. Creativity, imagination and innovation normally find us during moments of play. Take day without work and discover ways to recharge your inventive and bodily vitality, Wagner suggests. Take walks, get common exercise, spend time in nature, take heed to music, research paintings and images, volunteer.
After analyzing the information of more than 17,000 wholesome folks 50 and over, neuroscientists from the College of Exeter Medical Faculty and Kings Faculty London found that individuals who commonly did phrase puzzles confirmed brain perform equivalent to of us ten years younger. They performed significantly better on duties assessing attention, reasoning and reminiscence.

domain: health


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3 Things you Need to do for Promoting your Hospital
Strategic planning is that set of decisions and actions which lead to the development of an effective strategy to achieve the basic objectives of the hospitals, viz. quality patient care at a reasonable cost and achieving excess revenue over costs.
Strategic planning is gaining importance in advanced countries, because the health care needs and technology is changing so fast that it is the only way to anticipate future threats and opportunities. Strategic planning is the need of the “market place”—which the health care industry resembles in some respects.
(ii) Marketing of Medical Services:
India now does not lack the infrastructure to attract overseas patients in substantial numbers. We do not have a lobby to sell medical services to the West.
Yet, among the services that India can sell to the West, health care could be one of the easiest. And the pickings promise to be plentiful in foreign currency.
When the UK’s National Health Service found hospital beds going empty at home, it began to sell health care services to the US. India needs to market its medical services abroad aggressively if it is to win a share of the global health care market.
India can now offer world-class facilities and services, with its growing number of well-equipped corporate hospitals at costs far below the international rates. The cost of a major surgical procedure, e.g. open heart surgery is still about one-third to half of that which would cost in UK or US.
Hospitals will have to be more receptive to marketing management philosophy which involves many conceptually new approaches within the framework of strategic planning.
With increasing health insurance coverage, price competition becomes an appealing marketing tool. We can anticipate competitive pricing schemes, use of incentive premiums, new attitude towards admissions, discharge, food service, “package pricing” obstetrical family participation programmes, and similar other changes designed to attract and service patients and his or her family members.
A competitive health care industry, with carefully devised marketing strategies for market product combinations is an emerging alternative to a heavily regulated and socialised system.
Strategic planning and marketing are associated with the challenge to do better in the health care market place, and to provide new dimensions to hospital management. The subject is dealt with in more detail in a later chapter.
(iii) Specialty Hospitals:
Medical science has expanded laterally to include the conditions surrounding sick people. Specialised hospitals are coming up in many places in recent years, e.g. those for cancer and cardiovascular diseases, geriatric hospitals, paediatric hospitals and perinatal hospitals.
Health maintenance organisations are institutions that are concentrating on preventive aspects of medicine, emphasising on diet, exercise, antismoking and anti-alcohol programmes, meditations and the like, with provision of only primary medical care.
The scope of conventional preventive medicine is being expanded by the health check-up centres. And the time may not be far when health promotion centres be in vogue as extensions of hospitals.


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This article looks at how the issues of social identity have been examined and addressed in the field of second language acquisition (SLA). More specifically, it reviews selective empirical studies that investigated second language (L2) learners’ negotiation of identity in various communities of practice and its impact on L2 learning. I review articles published since the rise of social turn in SLA in 1990s and address how the field has evolved in investigating identity issues in L2 learning. I begin with the construct of identity and the typical research methods employed to study identity and SLA followed by a broad discussion on the interrelationship between language and identity. I then deliberate in research examples of examining L2 learners’ negotiation of identity and its impact on L2 learning. Finally, I conclude with the pedagogical implications regarding the role of identity in L2 learning and teaching as well as future directions on identity and SLA research.
Keywords: identity, L2 learning, communities of practice, social consequences
Firth and Wagner (1997), though not explicitly, was the first article linking the concept of identity issues to second language acquisition (SLA). In their article, Firth and Wagner challenged the narrow view of identity that had been discussed in most second language (L2) learning research, which were the native speakers (NS) identity and non-native speakers (NNS) identity. They asserted that NS and NNS identity were only one facet of the various social identities (i.e., teacher, colleague, father, stranger, and etc.), which may also play important roles in language learning. Later on, Gass (1998) called for the needs to establish the identity categories to L2 learning and she argued that while previous SLA research studied L2 learners from a cognitive perspective which categorized L2 learners as fixed and binary terms such as motivated and unmotivated, introvert and extrovert, the sociocultural perspective viewed these dispositional characters as situated and may change in different contexts across time. Gass further argued that language learning theory and research needed to investigate the power struggles in the social worlds and in the target language community so as to better understand L2 learners’ linguistic behavior and performance within a certain social context. Since then, there has been a remarkable increase of studies conducted in investigating the interrelationship between learners’ social identity and L2 learning (i.e., Pavlenko & Blackedge, 2004; Miller, 1999; Norton, 1993).
Language learning is never just about the language itself, for many people, perhaps the purpose of learning a new language derives from their desire to change social world, to be accepted by other members, or to become more competitive in the society (Ortega, 2009). Block (2003) also posited that language learning should be conceptualized as a social process in addition to the traditional view of cognitive process. The question then is: how does language learning take place through social interactions and what’s the role of L2 learners’ identity in their language learning process and outcome? Drawing on identity and SLA literature, this paper discusses how the issues of identity started and evolved in the field of SLA and more specifically, the way in which L2 learners negotiate and structure their identities through communities of practice and its impact on their investment in L2 learning.
I begin with a brief discussion on the construct of identity and the typical research methods that have been employed in examining identity and SLA. I then link language with identity and particularly discuss how linguistic forms are used by speakers to mediate and negotiate social identities (i.e., Bourhis, Giles, & Lamber, 1975). Next, I explore how L2 learners negotiate and transform their identity through different communities of practice and its impacts on their motivation and investment in L2 learning. I further discussed more recent identity research emphasizing the role of learners’ identity in their development of specific language areas (i.e., Polat & Schallert, 2013). Finally, I conclude this paper with pedagogical implications in aspect of L2 learners’ identity in L2 learning and teaching practice as well as future directions in the line of identity work in SLA.
The construct of identity
In studying identity and language learning, many SLA scholars have put forward different terminologies for identity and conceptualized identity in a variety of ways. For instance, Hall (1995) used the term identification to presuppose the processual angle, while Weedon (1997) preferred subjectivities which she defined as “the conscious and unconscious thoughts and emotions of the individual, his or her sense of him-/ herself and his / her ways of understanding his/her relation in the world (p. 32)”. Davies and Harré (1999) employed positioning, as for them, identity was about an individual’s continuous and ongoing positioning in social interactions with others. In most current research, identity and subject positioning are used interchangeably. For the sake of simplicity, this paper uses the term identity in most cases unless otherwise is indicated.
Other than the heterogeneous terms used by different SLA scholars for identity in their research, the approaches that different researchers took to examine identity and language learning also varied. Before 1990s, identity was examined from an essentialist view where identity was conceived as a fixed subject that an individual either possessed or lost (Horner & Weber, 2018). Later on, a poststructuralist perspective was proposed and received great attention and credibility in identity studies. The poststructuralist view acknowledged an individual’s multiple and dynamic identities and framed identity not as something fixed for life but something that may change and be reconstructed as the sociocultural environments changed (Smart, 1999). According to research, the dynamic and situated nature of one’s identity appeared to be particularly salient when he or she arrived in a new social environment, such as moving to a new country (Bhabha, 1994; Hall, 1996). When situating in a new environment, an individual may go through a period of identity negotiation and struggles in finding a balance between his old and new identity. That’s also one of the important reasons why most of the identity research was conducted in the immigrant context.
Based on the poststructuralism perspective, methods required to study the interrelationship between identity and language learning need to be able to grasp the complex, situated, and dynamic nature of identity negotiation in different social contexts. Furthermore, identity research also needs to take into account different social backgrounds such as political and economic issues or various identity classifications such as gender, sexism. It is therefore ethnological and longitudinal case studies were the most popular trend in identity research. Learners’ narratives about their language learning experience is one typical source data in the line of identity and SLA research. Other typical ways of data collection in identity and SLA research involve ethnographic observation, interviews (formal and informal), journal writing, and written responses to structured questions. In terms of data analysis, based on the nature of the source data, qualitative analysis was the major approach, though there have been few quantitative studies in investigating identity and SLA (i.e., Polat & Schallert, 2013)
Language and identity
The link between identity and language may not seem to be straightforward on the surface level, but in many social contexts especially in multilingual and multicultural situations, language may be used as a powerful tool by interlocutors to index a particular identity. Indexicality is “the process whereby the speaker’s use of certain linguistic forms ‘point to’ a specific identity” (Horner & Weber, 2018, p. 106). For instance, Bailey (2000) documented naturally occurred interactions between a 17-year-old Dominican teenagers, Wilson, and his peers in school, home and community contexts through ethnographic observation, video-recording, and interviews and showed how the varieties of languages (English and Spanish) were employed skillfully by Wilson to negotiate (or renegotiate) his identities among different social situations to either align with or distinguish himself from different social categories.
The negotiation of identity through using different linguistic forms occurred in an interactional process where individuals either showed their alignment with others or distanced themselves from others constituted the various and shifting we / they dichotomies. According to Gumperz (1982), we-code referred to a societal minority language spoken at home and within the same communities (in-group code), while they-code pertained to the societal majority language used when talking with outsiders (out-group code). Depending on the interlocutors and the conversational contexts, individuals may switch their “codes” of communications.
Code-switching and identity
In linguistics, code-switching refers to the alternating use of two or more languages in a single conversation. According to Gumperz (1982), code-switching could be classified as situational or metaphorical code-switching. Situational code-switching referred to the changes of linguistic behavior when situational conditions (i.e., setting, interlocutors) of conversation changed. For instance, a group of Chinese conversing among each other in Mandarin but switched to French or English when ordering food in a local restaurant in Montreal, Canada. In the case of metaphorical code-switching, linguistic switch is often used by the speakers to invoke and renegotiate identities or to display particular values or beliefs.
An example that demonstrated the metaphorical code-switching could be a study carried out by Bailey (2002) where he examined the relationship between language use and the negotiation of identity among second-generation Dominican Americans. Isabella, a Dominican American teenager told her friend that she was going to break up with her boyfriend because he spoke too much Spanish and refused to speak English. In this case, it seemed that Isabella was trying to establish the “American identity” through the use of English and intentionally distanced herself from the “Dominican identity” through the avoidance of Spanish. Isabella’s tendency to use one language and avoid using another to index her identity suggested the inseparable connection between linguistic forms and social identity and cultural values, assumptions and beliefs. Bailey (2002) demonstrated how languages were used as a “metaphorical extensions of specific sociocultural interpretative frameworks” (p. 132)
Another form of code-switching that has been the central of discussion in sociolinguistic literature is how one’s speech style influences his or her achieved (assumed) or ascribed (imposed) identity. According to Gee (2000), achieved identity referred to one’s desired identity and how a person identified his/herself, whereas ascribed identity referred to the identity that others assigned to a person through social interactions. In other words, one may be recognized as he or she wished to be identified (achieved identity) or may ignore the achieved identity and continue to work on the identity that is assigned to him/her (Palmer, 2007). Depending on one’s perception of his or her own identity, the individual may change his or her speech style to achieve the identity he / she wants to establish in social contexts. Conversely, one’s speech style may also influence other people’s perception or judgment of that individual’s identity and social class. Speech style involved various aspects such as accent, pitch level, pronunciation, speed of speech, quality of speech and etc. (Seligman & Lambert, 1972). This paper focuses on one variety of speech style, accent, for its tremendous impact on one’s achieved and ascribed identity.
One of the very first examples to look at the relationship between speech style and social consequences was Bourhis, Giles, and Lamber’s (1975) seminal study. In attempting to investigate the impact of different accents on social consequences, Bourhis et al. (1975) proposed three types of speech style accommodation and conducted similar studies in two different nations (Quebec, Canada and London, Britain) investigating different accents of French and English. The three accommodation included: upward convergence where the speaker raised his or her standard of speech style to accommodate the interlocutors, downward divergence where the speaker lowered his or her standard to accommodate the interlocutors, and no accommodation where the speaker made no change of his or her speech style.
In the Quebec context, 211 French Canadian students were assigned to listen to an interview between a Canadian athlete and a European interviewer (both athlete and interviewer were guised by the same French speaker who was able to switch comfortably between the roles and among three different accents of French: Formal Canadian, standard and informal Canadian style of French). The participants were asked to listen to four versions of two interviews with six different conditions where the upward convergence, downward divergence and no accommodation were interchanged and then completed a questionnaire asking about their attitude towards the athlete in each condition and if they were able to perceive the style switch of the athlete. Through a 3 x 2 analysis of variance, the result showed that the athlete was perceived to be more intelligent and educated when shifting to European (standard) French (upward convergence).
Moreover, 65% of the shift was perceived correctly by the participants and 86% of whom stated that they would not change their speech style to accommodate the European interviewer because they did not want to lose their “Quebecois identity”. The same procedure took place in London but the speech style/ accent in this context were the shifts between Received Pronunciation (upper class), mild Welsh-accented English (middle class), and broad welsh-accented English (working class). Similar to the first study, the result of the second study also showed that shifting to the Received Pronunciation (upward convergence) was perceived as more intelligent but interestingly, the participants (72 students secondary school students who possessed south welsh accents) perceived shifting from Received Pronunciation to more Welsh accents (downward convergence) more trustworthy and kind.
In short, both studies suggested that upper convergence was related to an increase in perceived intelligence but in the Britain context, upper convergence also pertained to be viewed as less trustworthy and kind than no shift. Bourhis et al.’s (1975) revealed the impact of one’s speech style, accent specifically, on others’ perceptions of one’s identity and social class. Meanwhile, their study suggested that the choice of one’s speech style was related to their own perception of identity. The participants in the Quebec context did not want to switch their speech style to accommodate the interviewer due to the fact that they perceived “Quebecois” as their achieved identity.
Not only one’s accent or speech style may impact how others perceived that individual, but one’s social identity may influence other people’s judgments or expectation on his or her accent. The very process where listeners tend to assign a speech style to a speaker according to what they expect to hear based on the speaker’s social identity but not based on what they actually hear is called Reversed Linguistic Stereotyping (RLS) (Rubin, 1992; Kang & Rubin, 2009). In RLS, attributions of a speaker’s group membership may result in twisted and inaccurate evaluation of that speaker’s speech style.
For instance, Rubin (1992) had the participants (62 undergraduate students who were all native speakers of English) listened to a 4-minute speech recorded by the same speaker twice but projected two different females (one Caucasian and one Chinese) to the screen respectively. Through the quantitative analysis on the scores of the listening comprehension cloze test and the questionnaires on attitude, background, value, appearance, ethnics and impression to accents, Rubin found that participants rated the Chinese woman’s accent more “foreign” and that the listening comprehension scores were generally lower when listening to the speech with the Chinese woman but in fact, the speaker was the same person.
Rubin’s study showed that listeners tended to attribute the accent differences (even though in fact the difference did not exist) to their perception of the speakers’ social identity. In sum, it could be seen that one’s speech style (accent) and his or her perceived identity went both ways, interacting and influencing each on many levels.
Identity and second language acquisition
The link between identity and SLA was not vigorous in the field of applied linguistics prior to 1990s. It was until Norton (1993) published her dissertation where she documented five immigrant women’s struggle of identities in Canada that the field of identity and SLA started to grow. Studies on identities and SLA mostly examined the impact of L2 learners’ identity negotiation and power struggle on their investment and motivation in L2 learning. In this section, I start with the introduction of an influential identity and second language learning model that was proposed by Norton (1995). Based on Norton’s framework, I discuss research examples of L2 learners’ negotiation of identity in different communities of practice and its impact on L2 learning and among which, studies in the immediate communities of practice is the focus.
Norton’s second language identity theory
Among all the second language identity theory, the most compelling one may be that established by Norton (Norton Peirce, 1995; Norton, 2000). The most important concept in her second language identity theory was the notion of investment, which according to her, “if learners invest in a second language, they do so with the understanding that they will acquire a wider range of symbolic and material resources, which will in turn increase the value of their cultural capital” (Norton Peirce, 1995, p. 17).
She further explained that the reasons behind L2 learners’ investment in L2 could only be appreciated as their accounts for identities, desires and changing social world and all these three elements worked together to influence L2 learners’ different investments in L2 learning at different times across contexts. Another important construct in Norton’s identity theory was the right to speak. According to Norton, L2 learners often struggled to claim their right to speak due to the unequally distributed power dynamic as an illegitimate speakers of the language in different communities of practice. According to Norton (1995), it is of great importance for L2 learners to possess their right to speak especially in their development of communicative competence in L2.
Based on Norton’s (1995) identity theory, I discuss below research that has been conducted on identity and SLA in various communities of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Most identity and SLA research was conducted in the context of immediate communities of practice and most subjects of such type of research were immigrants learning English in a new social environment. Therefore, this section discusses extensively on L2 learners’ negotiation and construction of identity in immediate communities of practice and its impact on their L2 learning.
Research has also shown that not only did immediate communities of practice play an essential role in L2 learners’ negotiation of identity, but imagined communities of practice also influenced L2 learners’ construction of identity, which in turn affected their L2 learning. Therefore, relevant research examples in the context of imagined communities of practice are also discussed. More recently, research has started to explore the impacts of L2 learners’ self-determined identification with their first language (L1) communities and L2 communities on L2 learning whose research examples are also presented. Finally, I end this section with other social factors that may also play a role in L2 learners’ negotiation of identity and its impact on L2 learning.
L2 Learners’ negotiation of identity and power struggle in immediate communities of practice and its impact on L2 learning
Oftentimes, immediate communities of practice occurred in the circumstantial L2 learning context. Circumstantial L2 learning context referred to situations “where language minority learners must learn the majority language for reasons “that are related to large-scale social events like immigration or occupation” (Ortega, 2009, p. 243). Research in this context demonstrated that L2 learners struggled to negotiate their past and new identities, fought to fashion positive identities among other members in the society in various social contexts (i.e., workplace or institutional contexts).
Norton (1995) was the pioneer study in identity and SLA where she documented her one-year longitudinal study of five immigrant women in Canada. Also noted in her book (Norton, 2000), she traced five immigrant women’s experience in Canada from January to December 1991 through diaries, questionnaire, interviews, and home visits. Her findings suggested how negotiation of identity and power relations in different social contexts affected the participants’ decision to create or resist opportunities to speak English. One the one hand, social constraints may limit L2 learners’ opportunities to practice English.
For instance, Mai, an independent woman who had a great investment in her job mentioned that she was uncomfortable speaking to her boss, while Katarina who possessed a master degree in her own country stated that she was uncomfortable speaking with other Anglophone professionals like her teacher or doctor. For Felicia who had a strong L1 identity (Peruvian identity) felt most uncomfortable speaking English in front of Peruvians whose English was better than her. On the other hand, social contexts may also urge L2 learners to claim their right to speak among target language speakers, which may lead to improvement in the language.
Norton (1995) highlighted two immigrant women who legitimated themselves among their Anglophone colleagues through identity negotiation and finally developed their communicative competence in English. Martina, who often referred herself as “stupid” or “inferior” when she first arrived in Canada because of her limited proficiency in speaking English, asserted that she could not give up learning English due to her identity as a mother and a caregiver for her family. She even drew on her identity as a mother and reconstructed the power relationship between herself and her teenager coworkers to claim her right to speak.
Another immigrant, Eva’s case was an illustration of the crucial link between social identity and the desire to speak the target language. When Eva found her first job in an English speaking environment, she felt powerless as an illegitimate speaker of English and oftentimes she was silenced by her Anglophone coworkers due to her lack of knowledge in Canadian culture. However, as she looked at herself differently, she started to seize the right moment to converse with her Anglophone coworkers, which helped her to finally develop her social identity to be a multicultural citizen and her communicative competence in L2.
Both Marita and Eva’s communitive competence improved thanks to their awareness of how to challenge and alter their social practices of marginalization. Norton (1995, 2000) also argued that investment was a better term than motivation to grasp the complicated relationship of language learners and the target language as well their occasional ambivalent desire to speak the target language. Her findings suggested that a language learner may be highly motivated in learning the language but felt constraint or reluctant to practice it due to the social contexts he or she is in.
Another study that showed the pivotal role of the social context in L2 learners’ negotiation of identity and its succeeding impact on language learning was illustrated in Harklau (2000). In her three-year ethnographic case study, Harklau examined three students: Aeyfer, Claudia, and Penny’s experience through their last year of high school and first year of college. Data was mainly collected from tape-recorded interviews where participants were asked to recall and describe their recent class activities and assignments. Through a qualitative analysis of the data, Harklau showed how the educational settings impacted ESL students’ negotiation of identities and in turn affected their motivation and investment in learning English.
For one, the three students were situated in an ethnically diverse high school where the images of immigrants (representation) were considered as “hard working, highly motivated and even inspiring” by the teachers. For another, they were often provided opportunities to talk and write about their personal stories.
Situating in such a context, the three participants were highly motivated and largely invested in their L2 learning. This positive identity, however, was altered when they started college where they were regarded as “non-native English speakers” and therefore were placed in an English as a second language (ESL) program in the college. Contrasting from the high school context, all three participants struggled to resist their labelled identity as “outsiders” or “non-native speakers” and their imposed identity by their college teacher as “immigrant students who tried their best but would always struggle academically”. Despite their effort in resisting such imposed identity by working extra hard, their teachers neglected their resistance and efforts.
As a result, even though they were highly motivated to advance their English, they decided not to reenroll in more ESL classes when they realized that ESL classes were not mandatory. Although the social contexts discussed in Norton (1995, 2000) were different from those in Harklau (2000), the participants were all situated in the immediate communities of practice and experienced the impacts of the surrounding contexts in their L2 learning journey. This again suggested that language learning was a social phenomenon and L2 learners’ investment in L2 learning may change across different social contexts.
In the immediate communities, not only did social contexts play a vital role in L2 learners’ investment in learning the target language, but research also showed that L2 learners’ desire to establish positive identities in the new social environment and their urges to change social world were also important for L2 learners’ investment in developing L2 skills. For instance, in their two-year longitudinal ethnographic research project, McKay and Wong (1996) qualitatively analyzed the data from class observation (mostly ESL classes), field notes, writing samples, and interviews and found that the participants (who were four Chinese adolescent immigrants) appeared to struggle in negotiating and structuring positive identities in the new social environment and that this negotiation and reconstruction of identities contributed to their investment in developing different ESL skills.
For instance, the three Taiwanese students managed to establish positive social identities through personal strengths and talents, which allowed them to integrate into the new social environment and affected their ESL learning outcome directly. Take one of the participants, Michael, as an example, Michael’s multiple identities as an athlete and popular friend motivated him to improve his listening and speaking skills but limited his investment in English writing skills. As McKay and Wong conjectured, the reason why Michael was not invested in writing skills was perhaps because he had already gained enough satisfaction from his identities as an athlete and popular friend.
However, the other participant, who was the only participant coming from a lower economical l background, failed to establish a positive identity in the new environment and finally dropped out school. McKay and Wong (1996) indicated that L2 learners’ negotiation and reconstruction of identity play an important role in second language learning, especially when learners experienced sudden change of environment, such as immigration. Furthermore, their study suggested that learners may selectively invest in different English skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and the four skills were not necessarily developed at the same time and the proficiency in one skill was not an indicator of another skill.
McKay and Wong (1996) was also supported by Morita (2004). Morita (2004) traced the class participation of six female Japanese L2 learners of English in their first year of graduate program in a university in Canada and demonstrated the critical link between learners’ desire to claim their rights to speak in L2 classroom communities and their investment in L2 learning. Through qualitative analysis of the data from participants’ weekly report on their class participation, interviews, and class observation, Morita further suggested that L2 learners, under the circumstantial learning context, constantly struggled to reconstruct their identity in order to be acknowledged as a legitimate and competent member in the given community, which urged them to adopt different strategies to develop their L2 competency, oral skills in particular.
For all the participants, the main obstacle that hindered them to voice in their classroom was the language barrier and in order to claim their right to speak in the classroom, they were aware of the importance of improving their English. Lisa, for instance, felt inferior to her classmates mainly due to her English skills and her fear of making mistakes in English. In spite of her strong desire to participate in class, Lisa held herself back to avoid being judged as incompetent. However, in order to contribute to class participation and establish a positive identity in the class community, Lisa managed to confront the challenge and made up her mind to improve her oral skills by employing a variety of different strategies. Lisa’s example revealed the impacts of negotiation of identities on the development of L2 learning. Her determination and perseverance to improve in turn gained her an increased confidence and positive personal identity transformation.
L2 Learners’ negotiation of identity in imagined communities of practice and its impact on L2 learning
Second language identity research has suggested that not only the immediate communities of practice or the present surrounding discourse, but the imagined communities (referred to communities that do not exist at present but are formed based on an individual’s past experience and desire for the future, as cited in Norton, 1995) also play an essential role in L2 learners’ investment in language learning. For example, Peirce’s (1993) analysis of one of the participants, Katarina’s story, demonstrated the impact of imagined communities on L2 learning.
Speaking three different languages but had no knowledge of English, Katarina, a Polish immigrant in Canada who possessed a master degree and many years of professional experiences in her home country, constantly struggled to resist her labelled identity of as “uneducated and unskilled immigrant”. Hence, she invested in the imagined community where she saw herself as an educated professional and to reach this goal, she signed up an 18-month computer course for which she had to work extra hours as a homemaker and drop her ESL courses.
Katarina chose to invest in the professional training course rather than improve her English due to her imagined identity as an accomplished professional, though speaking English was one of the most important requirements to become a professional in her context. Over time, Katarina developed her English skills but she was only comfortable and confident to communicate within a low-stake context and she stated that she felt uncomfortable to speak English with other professionals. Katarina’s story showed that one’s imagined communities of practice may hinder his or her investment in L2 learning.
By contrast to Katarina’s story (Pierce, 1993), Kinginger (2004) demonstrated the positive force of imagined communities of practice in one’s identity negotiation and language learning. Kinginger followed and documented an American student named Alice and her journey of learning French over a period of four years and demonstrated the link between identity reconstruction and foreign language learning.
Alice came from a working class family and had experienced a great deal of hardship in life, which made her feel inferior to her college peers. Having read about French language and culture through textbooks and Medias, Alice started to imagine her future self as a French-speaking female who would be offered more life opportunities. In spite of the numerous difficulties and disappointments that she encountered throughout her years of studying abroad, Alice managed to overcome the obstacles and accomplished her French learning successfully. For instance, when Alice participated in a French immersion program in Quebec, she was placed to live with a group of American girls and she immediately realized that she would not have much chances to practice her French so she consciously distanced herself from that group and tried to find opportunities to practice French with the locals.
When she started her study in France, she decided to skip many classes as she thought it would be more beneficial to practice French in real-life contexts, which led her to seek opportunities to talk to people inside and outside schools and even found employment in French. Alice wanted to go to Quebec and France and invested in studying French because of her desire to reconstruct her social identity as she imagined for her future self and such desire pushed her to confront a multitude of challenges and finally succeed in her French learning. Alice’s story also illustrated how imagined communities functioned as an impetus of language learning.
Like Alice, Neta, one of the participants in Miller (1999) stated that if she could speak English, she could socialize with anyone she wanted. In order to become her imagined future self as being capable in socializing, Neta seized every opportunity to practice English inside and outside school. Her imagined self of “being capable of speaking to anyone she wished” motivated her to improve her English and at the end of the study, Neta was the only student among three who was granted by the English-speaking students as having the right to speak.
L2 learners’ identified L1 and L2 communities and its impact on L2 learning
The research examples discussed above in both immediate and imagined communities of practice, though linked to L2 learning, they were not targeted a specific language skill area. Further, they were all conducted and analyzed with qualitative methods. Polat and Schallert (2013) was one of the first identity studies that linked to a specific language skill area (accent attainment) and adopted a mixed research method (quantitative and qualitative) to analyze the data. Polat and Schallert explored how learners’ self-determined motivation and identification with their L1 and L2 communities influenced their L2 accent attainment.
On the quantitative side, the authors adopted Jesney’s (2004) global accent judgments as accent measurement and adapted the two motivation theories proposed by Dörnyei and Ushioda (2009) and Ryan and Deci (2000) to categorize learners’ motivation.
On the qualitative side, they conducted semi-structured interviews with the participants. The participants were L1 Kurdish adolescents who were studying in monolingual Turkish schools.
The results from the quantitative analysis on the accent measurement indicated that even though all participants studied and lived in the L2 (Turkish) context, their accents varied to a great degree. Results from the self-determined identification further suggested that there was a significant positive correlation between leaners’ association with Turkish-speaking (L2) communities and their native-like L2 accent but a significant negative correlation between their association with the Kurdish-speaking (L1) communities and their native-like L2 accent. As for the self-determined motivation, the integrated self-determined regulation (referred to the internalized desire to engage in a task) was a moderate and significant predictor of accent native-likeness while the introjected regulation (referred to “engaging in a task to avoid the feeling of guilt and anxiety”, p. 748) was a low but a significant negative predictor of accent native-likeness.
In other words, learners’ inherent desire for learning was beneficial for their accent attainment, while when learners engaged in a task due to external factors, they may not perform as well. In line with Chihara and Oller (1978), Polat and Schaller’s (2013) study suggested that learners who identified themselves with their native communities to a higher degree tended to achieve a less native-like accent. That being said, learners’ self-determined identification with their L1 and L2 community had significant impacts on their second language accent attainment. Unfortunately, though adopting mixed method, Polat and Schaller did not report the results from the qualitative analysis, which might have provided deeper insights into the relationship between learners’ self-identification with L1 and L2 communities and their accent attainment.
Polat and Schaller’s (2013) findings also supported McKay and Wong (1996) where one of the participants, Brad Wang, whose strong L1 identity appeared to be one of the reasons to hinder his ESL learning. Brad, the only student who came from a lower socioeconomic background struggled to a great extent in fitting in the new social environment. First, his great proficiency in Chinese and the fact the he used be a student in a top school in China was not evident to his teachers, but his lack of material good was visible to his peers. In attempting to establish his identity among his peers, he constantly showed his pride in his L1 identity of being a mainlander who was more superior to other Chinese students. However, such move was not beneficial for him to structure a positive identity, as the majority of Chinese students in the school were from Taiwan and Hong Kong. Failing to construct a positive identity and not being recognized by his peers and teachers, Brad finally dropped out of school.
Other factors that may affect L2 learners’ negotiation of identity in L2 learning
As discussed at the beginning of this paper, due to the complex and dynamic nature of identity in different social contexts, identity researchers have also started to extend the research contexts by involving more sociocultural and political factors such as gender, race, sexism and etc. in investigating the role of identity in language learning. For instance, Teutsch-Dwyer (2001) indicated how gendered identities play roles in influencing an L2 learner’s language learning experience and outcome. The participant in Teusch-Dwyer’s study was a middle-age Polish man, Karol, who lived and worked in the United States.
The author traced Karol’s English learning experience for 14 months and suggested that Karol’s gendered identity hindered him from improving his English. He struggled to a great degree to converse with American men but felt confident and easy to communicate women. Through deeper examination, the author found that the women whom Karol spoke to often simplified vocabulary deliberately and sometime was even able to anticipate his speech. Consequently, Karol had no stress in improving his English or to speak good English, as he found his positive identity as an accepted member among the women he communicated with.
Polanyi’s (1995) study suggested that sexism may also influence L2 learners’ investment in L2 learning. In order to establish their identity as strong women and confront humiliations from men, a group of American women studying in Russia worked extra hard to enhance their L2 competencies. Talburt and Stewart (1999) documented a contrasting story where an African woman studying Spanish in Spain decided to end her Spanish learning journey due to her ascribed identity as “a symbol of sexuality” and suffered from continuous harassment. These stories suggested that language learning and identity negotiation could not be understood without the consideration of the social world.
Thus far, I have discussed the construct of identity followed by different conceptualizations of identity in SLA, typical research methods employed by identity researchers, the inextricable link between language and social identity, and most importantly, how language learners’ negotiation of identity impacted their L2 learning in various social contexts. In this section, I turn to the pedagogical implications that can be drawn in the line of identity work in L2 learning and teaching. Further, limitations of previous and current identity research in SLA and future directions are addressed.
The findings of identity research in SLA has offered new insights into second language learning and teaching. As noted at the beginning of this paper, prior to 1990s, a number of SLA research studied language learning from a cognitive perspective, which regarded language learners in a binary terms (i.e., introvert or extrovert, motivated or unmotivated). With the rise of social turn in SLA, more recent research started to incorporate sociocultural factors into examining and accounting for L2 learners’ linguistic behavior and classroom performance and regarded L2 learner identities as context-dependable and may change in different social contexts. The identity research has pedagogical implications in second language learning and teaching on both conceptual and practical levels.
On the conceptual level, it is essential for language teachers to be aware that L2 learners have different identity positions and recognize their struggles in their negotiation of identity within the classroom community. Certainly, in order to better understand L2 learners’ classroom practice and address their needs, it is also important for L2 teachers to explore their students’ sociocultural background. Polat and Schallet (2013) suggested that it might be helpful for L2 educators to undergo an extensive learner profile analysis comprising L2 learners’ goals, needs, motivation, identity position through self-reported data (i.e., surveys or interviews) and observation.
Furthermore, L2 teachers need to recognize that learners’ diverse identity positions may lead to unequal power dynamic within the classroom community, which may in turn hinder students’ investment in L2 learning and their transformation of L2 identity. Hence, it is vital for L2 educators to keep close eyes on the power dynamic of the classroom and make efforts to yield an equal L2 learning environment through pedagogical interventions (which is discussed below). Finally, it is also important for curriculum designers, material developers and school policy makers to take into consideration L2 learners’ struggles of different identity positions so as to minimize the amount of prejudice, misunderstanding, and conflicts in L2 community.
On the practical level, L2 instructors can adopt different strategies to encourage L2 learners’ participation and involvement in class. For instance, when setting up a class discussion or activity, it is important for the teacher to clearly explain the purpose of the activity as well as the cultural background information that some L2 learners may not be familiar with. In this way, L2 teachers facilitate L2 learners in fashioning L2 identity, as learning L2 culture is also important for L2 learners to legitimatize their status in L2 community. Additionally, instructors should pay close attention to learners who appeared to struggle to participate or tend to be in a silent or marginal position so as to find ways to help them become a legitimate member in class (Leki, 2001).
A useful pedagogical intervention may be the turn-taking practices where all students takes turns to participate in an equal manner. Moreover, L2 educators may also plan discussion topics that allow and encourage L2 learners to show their knowledge and perspectives, which may in turn help them in structuring their L2 identity. Finally, other than helping L2 learners to build up a legitimate identity within the classroom community, it is also important for L2 educators and curriculum designers to help L2 learners to claim their right to speak outside the classroom (Norton, 1995). Therefore, implementing a variety of interactional class activities that are related to live experience and incorporating authentic and natural communicative tasks in the second language curriculum are of essence.
Despite of a number of identity and SLA research since 1990s, the field is only at the beginning of studying the impacts of language leaners’ negotiation of identity in language learning. Most of the identity and SLA research focused on the macro level by examining the interrelationship between L2 learners’ identity negotiation and their investment in L2 learning. However, to date, there was very few research linking the impacts of L2 learners’ identity to specific language skill areas. Norton (1995, 2000) touched upon how L2 learners’ different identity position influenced their communicative competence, while Polat and Schallert (2013) linked L2 learners’ identification and motivation patterns to L2 accent attainment. However, these two studies also examined the relationship between L2 learners’ identity and language learning skill on the macro level, as identity was only one of the many other factors influencing the L2 skill area. Thus, future research may specifically investigate the correlation and interconnection between L2 learners’ identity and specific language skill (i.e., fluency, literacy) areas on a more micro level so as to address the link between L2 learners’ identity and language learning in a more direct manner.
As far as the research contexts and population concerned, Norton and De Costa (2018) suggested that future identity research may examine the “internationality” (different social categories such as ethnicity, gender and class) in a holistic way instead of only focusing on one social section. Furthermore, they proposed to expand identity research on digital communities given the fruitful and informative research findings on digital identity in the past ten years (i.e., Lam, 2000, 2004, 2006). Meanwhile, it is also important for researchers to be cautious in digital identity research. As Lam (2006) indicated, although technology may be helpful in fashioning L2 learners’ identity within the digital community, it may not necessarily be beneficial for them to establish a positive identity in the real social world.
Further, digital research may only be possible to be conducted in the wealthy regions, which has limited implication in other contexts. In terms of research population, most previous identity work mainly focused on immigrants learning L2 in the immediate community of practice, Norton and De Costa (2018) argued that more identity research should involve populations such as teacher identities, lingua franca speakers, heritage language learners, and study abroad learners. For instance, it may be interesting and beneficial to examine the impacts of educational policy on teacher practice and identity in a given context.
Future research on identity and language learning should adopt more sophisticated and comprehensive methods to investigate how identities mediate and influence language learning. As noted above, previous identity research mostly employed qualitative research methods in studying identities and language learning through the analysis of journals, narratives, and interviews. It may be beneficial for sociolinguists to adopt mix methods by also incorporating quantitative data and analysis into identity research to better account for L2 learners’ identity and language learning. Although SLA researchers have realized that there is a gap between cognitive-linguistic which often used quantitative approach and sociocultural-linguistic research which often used qualitative research methods and called for the needs to bridge the gap for both sides to learn and benefit from each other’s methodology (Hulstijn, Young, Ortega, Bigelow, Dekeyser, Ellis, Lantolf, Mackey, and Talmy, 2014), cognitive and sociocultural research is still going in the parallel direction.
From the identity literature that I have reviewed, Polat and Schallert (2013) was the only study employing mix methods, but unfortunately, they did not report their results of the qualitative analysis. While Bigelow in Hulstjin et al. (2014) argued that bridging the social and cognitive gap may be of tremendous challenges as a result of the tradition in the field, Ortega suggested that the bridges are not one or two but many and for researchers who feel the cognitive-social tensions, it may be good for them to perceive the gap not as threatening disciplinary concession, but as a captivating invitation to build and travel the bridges, which may lead to a new path to knowledge and creation in the field.
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After almost five years of construction, traffic jams, damage to businesses and on-off work the new tunnel under San Pedro de Alcantara will finally open on Tuesday June 26th at 5:15pm.
This date has been confirmed today by Marbella councillor Jose Luis Hernandez who said the tunnel will be opened to the public by Ana Pastor, the Minister For Public Works.
The tunnel has been marred by controversy over non-payment of workers, damage caused to local businesses and long delays in completion but is now ready to open and will, some claim, revitalise San Pedro town centre which has seen falling retail sales and visitor numbers while construction has been in progress.
One restaurant owner told me they lost almost 50% of their customers overnight.
“The problem at the Estepona end is worse than at the San Pedro end. Guadalmina commercial centre is almost inaccessible at the moment. People coming from Estepona direction have to drive a few miles past to the nearest ‘cambio de sentido’ and many simply carry on into San Pedro,” one Guadalmina business owner told me.
“The day the road was blocked off we lost 50% of our business and it hasn’t come back. So for the last 5 years we’ve been struggling to stay afloat. Hopefully this will change once the tunnel opens.” he added.
So next Tuesday – new tunnel, new San Pedro? No, nothing above ground has changed. It’s a mess with little to attract people. I think there is a possibility that rather than helping the town the new tunnel may be the death of San Pedro. Although it is a nice little place there isn’t really anything to do there. The town now has a bypass and people will do just that – bypass it. San Pedro needs a carrot to get people back there. A new tunnel that says “Look, now it’s easier to bypass San Pedro” is probably not the best idea!
UPDATE: San Pedro tunnel is OPEN!


text:
Favorite PeopleNo people favorites added
2 of 2 episodes seen
Despite that this oldskool was made in the good ol 90´s when magic-fantasy was quite populair in anime serie´s, ovas, movies or specials,sorcerer on the rocks was notable, but not that special.
But all that does not take away the elements of drama, positive cruelty and comedy context,but still its not for ALL ages.
The storyline itself starts quite ´light´ but evolves itself over time to a point that a unexpected twist reveals it self near the end, wich kept me happy atleast ( no spoilers).
Artwise it looked typical 90´s ( if u were there u are already used to it) with the fullblown colours and all, at parts a bit childish but no animation drops in the background or on the charachters itself wich is something good.
There was more operalike music used than i tought, maybe it has to do with the influences of other more wellknown fantasy anime to let it more fit in.
About the charachters maybe in total of 4 i liked, definetly cruel master chivas and his lovable minions, and maybe a villian or 2 and thats because the behavior was back then still stereotypical , something u had to bear a lot in those days . I enjoyed it more on the focus on the little accident master chivas had with his minion and the twist that duped even the villian with some comedy moments in between, its def.worth a watch for fantasy fans that likes alt. settings on other serie´s, and worth a rewatch. read more
12 of 12 episodes seen
Mainly the story revolves around 4 bro´s that can transform into dragons, wich is seen as a very powerfull mystical figure mostly in norhteren asia and each dragon king has his own element based on the position or ranks ( yes its quite a nutcracker) a dragon has, and the higest ranking dragonking has the greatest power as an influence to other dragonkings,in this case on earth the ranking goes from young to old cuz they are reincarnations.
Artwise the animation looks ok for 1991 standards, but detailed enough, very good handdrawing when it comes to dragons ofc and i had the feeling that a lot of shoddy 80´s habit in the animation was mostly gone, and looks colourful enough to see stuff clear.
The intro and the outro was for me the whole thing about music for me, and one of my most fav intro of all time.
Most of the charachters were interesting enough to make a small or big diffrence, kept the fun in and developed ther sort of own personality dring the show, heroes, dragons and villians alike, even more so that the villians back story was way more darker and interesting than some of the good guys, but the 4 brothers def stole most of the show when i came to transforming, or even restrain to doing so.It was entertaining for the most part until the end!!
Until the last episode i had my fun, but then it looked like sort of.... What the hell happened!!!!! was it all a dream instead or something...blew almost my bloody head apart because in an instand it switched from the brothers fighting, to the dragons realm and seems acting like nothing, or something supposed to happen !!!!! wth just too weird , but overall a action packed serie, still one of my all time fav. read more
3 of 3 episodes seen
At first the story itself is based on rpg elements of oldskool platform fantasy videogames like Wataru, Record of lodoss war,Ys, Far East of eden and more.As for the art, for the time it looked nice and very colourfull, a bit chibi like if u want , bit goofy but funny enought to enjoy it, even for the few villians it has for 1991 it seemed the handdrawn animation loosened some of the bad 80´s habit other ova´s and serie´s had.
I din´t paticulary putted that much attention to the music though it was funny to listen at some part´s, like then a treasure chest of a magical relic got unsealed, or a saving throw.
The cooperation between a speechless fox like spellcaster Kiriman, a hotheaded amazonewarrior Moka( female warrior) and a Raccoonlike scaredy cat thief called Buruman to get a magical item named Dragons Head,it sooo damn funny that it has those You f88ked it up moments, things go right, but more things go very wrong, that makes at least some charachters memorable.
Throughout the ovs´s that was childish in a positive way, and colourfull animation, it is enjoyable for a good night laughing with some beer and crisps or just watching it with younger audience that can put up with oldskool animation. in a way i laughed hard read more
31 of 31 episodes seen
i mean JAPAN!what the hell where u thinking back in 1987 to put this kind of tasteless heap of shit on t.v i really mean.... COME THE FUCK ON!!! u had hokuto no ken 2, Bubblegum crisis 2032, Dragon Quest, macross 2012 and Gundam wing to show off with. yes it was a negative infringement of my mind.
By story i would say it is unusual, but nevertheless dull, about when in the further future mankind has reach the potential to travel across stars and found a habitable planet named maris, wich not long after is found by a rogue alien race calles the nozha or something like that, and goes to war, and humanity gets 3 special guns received ´´somehwere in space´ to fight the alien race!
Mostly the fights are just centered on the planet itself so that for me was already quite crap. Artwise i went almost through hell, ok i,m used to see cheap anime styles and stuff .... but the way it was executed with the background, forefront, charachter and villian animation was mostly STOCKFOOTAGE! especially most of the fightsthougout the show, i could do with the alien ship design and the motorcycle mecha models but that was IT! the music was way too repetetive, i mean goddamn that casette must have been totally molten and fucked after the show had ended, almost no change i can say.
I HATE MOST OF THE CHARACHTERS! and i really mean it because i went through a lot with this show.A few laughs here and there for the charachters was the most a could give it, but JJ, Champ , Apple are the teen stars of the show, the development was very poor, stereotypical as hell and what and who i hate the most.... is JJ because the is the unthinking, hotheaded,oversensitive scarin all the girls away and rush into a fight with almost no stratigy FUCKING TYPE of boy, i mean at least the villians came with diffrent types of weapons and enemies and tactics.
there was amost no proper connective ending that completley the mystery´s of the guns in a way thats enjoyable. the more i watched the more i got pissed off by the goofy charachters! DOGSHIT!! poor gasoline on every copy available and burn it BURN IT!!!! read more
3 of 3 episodes seen
Decades and some months later i´ve watched it and it was an adventure i wish i was in it, at first look it is more to figure out ( after the narration ofc) where this ova is going , because though i had no expectations at all, after the 1st episode i was a bit skeptical about the animation and all, but DON´T Judge a book by its cover.
Onwards to part 2 &3 the storyline and all became more clear, even though some early 90´s anime had some bad 1980´s animation habits, it looked more ´proffesionally directed´ more colour and better camera work.
Storywise it reminded me a bit of the 1995 anime Blue Seed wich has simmilair plantlike enemies, Green legend ran looks more respectively but a much cheaper idea and product, but still fun.
Soundwise i had no problems with, i LOVE those 90´s anime sound effects blended into it.
No way that the charachters were´stereotypical´ because each important
charachter has like a clear own personality, ok at times it drops at unexpected moments but thats how it was back then, as for the heroes and villians design it looks quite good, but the villians got a special design given to then ( mainly the ´super villians´) since they are not from earth,that is understandable ofc. Through some oldskool grainy scene´s and sometimes wobbly sidecharachters i had a good time given to me , and as a lone ova project from the 90´s it had a good potential to became more ´wellknown´ as would put it so overall its a good saturdaynight anime for 135 min! enjoy read more
13 of 13 episodes seen
This ova serie´s that i think a side or continuation of the t.v serie´s ( 1990) that was a cornerstone for fantasy anime till this day with exception of Y´S ( 1989).
But there is a catch if u watch it for the 1st time ever, and its that u have to watch the epidose´s in the right order, start with episode 2,3,4,5 after that watch the 1st episode , than # 6 till 13 in order wich i never was able to solve why they did it.
Storywise it was definetly a epic fantasy , dark and well put together with the whole package, dragons, Knights, spells, ancient kingdoms, sort of a ´fellowship´, princesses, trolls, treasures ect. ect. and ofc could be very violent at parts.
As for the animation , in my eyes it was almost flawless for its time, very low background animation fails, charachters and villians design was quite well done and had the right outfits, but what i love the most are the DRAGONS!!!!!!! for 1990 it looked tight and well animated , fluend movements and drawn to look terrifying, we don´t see it like that anymore , sad.
FANTASY OPERA as i call this,and i not mean only the intro but througout the ova serie´s has numerous moments with opera music blended in nicely, to me the intro alone i played it repeatedly in my head, rememberable.
Most of the charachters had a good relationship , likable and not the sort to be forgotten easely, especially if u are an anime fantasy fan, only the main protagonist has still some of that oldskool hotheaded type like that rushed in fights without thinking , those kind of chara popped out everywhere in the late 80´s and 90´s, a bit tasteless, but does have a good turnaround later on.
Elves are some of the main basis as charachters and storywise, if ur talk about fantasy ofc, and they have a great role in lodoss.It was more than entertaining, it was a very colorful and memorable experience to me that finally i watched lodoss war, till i gonna get the full t.v serie´s, too bad i never saw it aired because it somethinf like Record of lodoss war could fill up lots of today´s fantasy anime that has rushed or weak substance! read more
26 of 26 episodes seen
To begin with is some of the roles of some minor charachters that has been revised from the original ova, but the four knight sabers wich pretty much stay in the same role though i felt that 2 of the 4 knightsabers got a bit of an ´stereotypical cuddly japanese highschoolgirl giggley´type that can e annoying over time.
The story overall was a indirect reboot set in the same setting, different beginning but gave it a more ´extended´storyline and i liked the somewhat dark plotsetting after half of the serie´s.and a more personal inside look a most of the protagonists unlike the ova.
But throuhgout the serie´s there are some factors that fails in this show or rely too much on it.The animation for its time looked quite ok, a 90´s look to the knight sabers and a inproved A.D police look not so much problems there ofc. Musicwise they relyed a bit too much on the action to put the right track into it, as well that it was mostley a repetitive Technolike bouncing music at most of the episode´s. Priss singing here was just not the same to me and the rockmusic was dull to me, nothing compared to the EXPLOSIVE intro of the original Bubblegum crisis and further
. Only at episode 25&26 it went to a right direction and i mean during the explanation of how boomers came to be ( for the time beeing) . Mackey´s role , one of the knight sabers younger brother is revised here from a peeking dirty boy,;) into some sort of émotionless technofreak with no substance whatsoever ): .The boomers on the other hand had a more intelligent look and feel to it, but in the 1987 ova´s they were more bloodthirsty and vicious.
Overall i wished that most of the chara kept the same role, liked the extended storyline but was put off a bit because of the repetitive music over half the serie´s
and , well to me it had its moments but thats it! read more
1 of 1 episodes seen
For the art it was rather ok, u have to see it from a point of having not much money but to make the best out of it, and it was another era ofc that unlike today EVERYTHING was handdrawn, even the background animation of crowded ppl when all hell breaks loose is quite detailed, especially when u see the animation moving towards you, the better it looks frame by frame. U can´t miss the late 1980´s music here ! nicely mixed it during the movie, and i mean during the shootouts and stuff.
Some of the charachters here acted a bit onesided and stereotypical a la 1987! but the main protagonist at least had a more emotional and uplifting role, same for the villian, though he acted more like a hardball.
It was not a dissapointing movie overall, and merely because oldskool anime´s has lots of popculture references and parody´s if u look right, and man oh man it was actionpacked alright. something i would say for a sundaynight with a beer or two .AWESOMETACULAIR
6 of 6 episodes seen
Charachters vilians and heroes all of them had a story to tell and reasoning to do what they do, no brainless talking and needless killing, though once the fight starts blood flows like hell, but it is still with reasoning ±) and ofc the supernatural shadows that protects them that in the manga wich i havent read has a much deeper and darker story than in the anime. It definetly was a purely enjoyable ova serie´s and goddamn, i never regretted it put a hold to it because it jus looked too good. one more thing, this has the kind of violent ending it deserves! man oh man was it worth my money !!!!!! read more
1 of 1 episodes seen
The ´anime master of horror´ Go Nagai ( with respect ofc)
seemed already made a t.v series of devilman in the 1970´s and a movie called Devilman v.s Mazinger Z wich both i never saw aired and over the decades made short horrorstorie´s or ova´s like Violence Jack that was some sort of culthits among older animefans like this one . The story itself to me was quite interesting ( although the 1st 5 min or so with the demonic slaughter intro made me a bit wondering), it was´nt too complex luckely, though it really started to be very dark for me .Animationwise it´s sooo 80´s u can´t miss it with some faults here and there as usual but at parts well made, i like handmade anime its just how u look at it today.Furtheron in the story after some gruesome scene´s some Makai ( demons) turn up to silence the two protagonists and at that point the late 80´s tracks start to kick off, but only for moment, moving on to the last 15 min of the ova. After seeing some good action scene´s and saw the explenation of the story, i remember the bit in the rockdisco where a socalled´ ritual supposed to be held , and that one of the two protagonists wanted to start to kicking it off by slashing everybody for a certain reason ( no i´m not gonna spoil THAT much) and well.... the violence was soo damn filty, soo much red and soo much brutal demonslaughter i almost choked out for a minute and was totally scared afterwards, i hardly slept . i had had first some sort of filthy disgust against akira ( the main person) because WHY had he killed those demons so brutal and inhumane, but seeing the 2nd ova part even how sickminded and terrified i was i understood part of why he turned into a sickening demon, together with the ova series and short movie wich came years later, that are overall softer somewhat. but man oh man did i had a harsh time with ths one, thumbs up read more

domain: hobby


text:
COLUMBIA CITY, Ind. — Auctioneer Nick Cummings, of Schrader Real Estate and Auction Co., Inc. held a farm equipment auction Jan. 4 in Bloomingburg, Ohio.
The highest selling item was a Challenger MT655C MFWD tractor, which sold for $134,000. Other high sellers included a Massey Ferguson 6180 MFWD tractor that went for $30,000 and a McCormick CX105 MFWD tractor that sold for $25,000. A Hoes 6850 trencher brought $22,000.
(Auction Roundup is a free weekly feature offered by Farm and Dairy. Any auctioneer interested in submitting information from a recent farm, household, real estate or antique/collectible auction that was advertised in Farm and Dairy should e-mail email@example.com, fax 330-337-9550 or call 800-837-3419. Auction reports should be brief and are subject to editing based on available space.)
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domain: news


text:
It seemed appropriate this year to feature a theme that kept me close to home, so I give you my A to Z within the small acreage that is Rhode Island. I tried to be creative (you’ll see!) but I hope you learn something about Little Rhody, too. Whether you’ve lived here all your life, grew up within the boundaries, or have never set foot on one of our many beaches, come along for a virtual tour.
Welcome to Hope village! The word ‘Hope’ figures prominently in our little state. It’s our state motto!
There’s a Hope Valley in Rhode Island, too – a village in the town of Hopkinton. And Hope Artiste Village, a mill restoration project in Pawtucket. But today’s feature is the village of Hope, a mill settlement in Scituate. Set along the Pawtuxet River, Hope was alive with industrial activity from the mid-1700s, although these days it’s a quiet little community of residential dwellings.
The cannon pictured above sits in front of the lovely Hope Library on North Road. If you can’t read the engraving, it says: “This cannon was forged in the Hope Furnace Foundry, not far from this site, during our war for independence. On May 4, 1776, Rhode Island declared her independence from Great Britain, two months before the other twelve colonies. It is therefore appropriate that we here today, May 4, 1974, 198 years later, re-dedicate the cannon to the causes of independence and freedom, for which it was originally forged.”
The reference to the Hope Furnace Foundry was an iron furnace, constructed in 1766, after iron ore was discovered nearby the previous year. The factory produced household goods and crude iron, and did receive a contract from the Rhode Island General Assembly to manufacture cannons for use in the American Revolutionary War.
In 1806, the Hope Cotton Factory Company built the textile mill pictured above along the Pawtuxet River. The mill was constructed out of wood, and, in 1844, the buildings burned down and were replaced by a large, four-story stone building. An additional building was added in 1900, and a fifth floor was added to the original stone mill.
The Hope Mill produced textiles until 2007. The last textile manufacturing occupant of the mill was Just-A-Stretch, a weaver of elastic fabrics.
The mill gradually descended into disrepair, and ceilings collapsed after years of vacancy and neglect. In June 2020, a sale of the 38-acre property was finalized. The Hope Mill was sold to Paramount Development, which plans to turn the buildings into a residential compound. The idea was not well received by the residents of Hope, but the Planning Commission approved Paramount’s plan under the low-to-moderate-income housing plan.
The district of Hope was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in August 1995.

domain: history


text:
The Earth's crust, which is Earth's outermost layer, is a thin layer. Comprised of two kinds of crusts, continental and oceanic crusts, it is merely 0.473 percent of Earth's mass. The ocean crust's thickness is around 7 km, while the continental crust's thickness is from 10 to 75 km.
The oceanic crust is made of dense rocks, like basalt, and carries water. The continental crust is made of lighter rocks, like granite, and carries land. The oceanic crust gradually sinks until it eventually enters the Earth's mantle; at the mantle, it melts. Later, as magma, it ascends again in the mid-ocean ridges. This is how Earth gets a new oceanic crust every 200 million years.

domain: geography


Brass Sash Pulley Wheel
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