I was satisfied when I
posed as 'Ukranianexpert' and laboured all through to produce a horrible piece of post and did manage to elicit some responses with varying degrees of perspectives. Truth be told, I am undertaking a Masters dissertation(Linguistics) and I had posed in an attempt to obtain data for my thesis(I have done so in several forums and I must thank those who contributed for helping me with my research).
The gist of my thesis is that the internet is producing a variety of written English that is syntactically equivalent to spoken English and thus influenced by the cultural sphere inhabited by the user of this interesting variety of English.
Crucially though, I'd want to assume that this site is patronized by both ESL and EFL persons with strategic interests in writing and buying 'custom written' essays. However, one thing that struck me is an ongoing war of posts between ESL and EFL posters with the former being maligned for 'cheating' customers and, generally, providing poor services -specifically through deployment of sub-standard English.
Well, as an English teacher in China(though I am currently in California for my masters), I must emphasise that English as a language is very dynamic and context specific especially when it comes to specific socio-cultural ecosystems.
The notion of Standard English language is quite absurd as, literally and practically, there is nothing like standard English(Crystal 1997?). As a native citizen of UK, I have had the privilege of interacting-both orally and textually- with varieties of English language and a key observation I have made is that English and culture are inseparable; For example, a speaker from, say, Nigeria will communicate the same point as a speaker from India BUT use completely different linguistic devices to communicate.
Well, it is no doubt that EFL and ESL who acquired English language at the critical level(roughly age 9 as per my research) can speak/writer better English than ESL who acquired the language only later in life. Hence, to me it'd appear quite an uphill task for ESL who have only interacted with the Language sporadically to research and produce quality writing. HOWEVER, that doesn't mean that an ESL cannot produce a quality piece of writing- it does happen but must be fuelled by extensive interaction with the language in both oral and written contexts. Practice perfects.
I am also dismayed that students' laziness has fueled a big industry where custom papers are sold for 'research purposes' but I'd bet my life that no student can spend upwards of $500 for a paper and fails to hand it in as his/her own.
All in all, I thank all who contributed to my posts and...wait----a rule for researching and using internet data states that one can use data from any website provided that such data is a) publicly archived b) doesn't expose the identity of the author and c) there is no any rule on the website stating that data cannot be used without permission of the publisher.
So guys cheer up!
Mary Williams
