Re: Blowing bubbles and language

Lance wrote:


Dr Al*** said: "We have found links between non-language and language
skills in children at a time of very rapid development. We plan to
follow-up this study when the children are older, to find out which
skills give the best indication of later language abilities and
problems.

"We have already examined how much parents talk to their children at
home. Now we are also going to look at parents' levels of education,
and the children's home environments, such as the number of books they
have, to see what influences these have."

Yes, we can see the pleading for more research funds. Where is the surprise, though? We do, indeed, have both verbal and other means of communication.

It might be because it is a Yank study - I'm assuming that it is. My observations yesterday on a children's film might be relevant - or might be interesting ( or maybe even entertaining) I don't know, but I've posted my review below:

I went to see this film last night with my niece. By the measure of her enjoyment it was excellent - she stayed to watch almost the last word of the titles with rapt attention. I noticed, though, that, unlike some other films, she didn't have any comments or questions afterwards which might be a comment on its depth.

The animation gets so much better, so much more quickly these days that it really is amazingly good. The rendering of the creatures was brilliant - even if their design left something to be desired.

The plot was fast and made sense, while the irritating creature, that they seem to have in all animations these days, wasn't that irritating.

It was an odd film in quite a few ways, though. It was Yankocentric to an extraordinary degree - more parochial than usual. It was also written down to the lowest common denominator, almost every sentence included 'like', often used incorrectly even by the standards of the current argot. The dismissive and extraordinarily rude use of the word 'whatever' to indicate an utter contempt for the person's views on a matter was fairly rife. It was interesting to note what a small range of ritualised gestures was used. No character had its own expression (though they were very expressively drawn) they held expressions copied from films and cartoons of the past - it was almost a rigid sign-language it was so strongly circumscribed and lacking in any individuality. This isn't uncommon in Hollywood films generally, but, being a cartoon, it struck me quite strongly - a Martian might be tempted to think that Yanks use a gestural language exclusively with words simply being meaningless noise.


The main obsession of the film, though, was food. Huge amounts were delivered and consumed. All was junk food - the closest to real food were some sausages, and their being cooked on a bbq the closest to real food preparation shown. However, the subject of getting fat never appeared and none of the people were Yank-obese - even the exterminator was simply a plump man. Given the current epidemic of obesity this seemed to me irresponsible, at the least.

That wasn't the only curious moral point. The animals stole the food from the people. This is, of course, what animals do, but, in the film, it was made quite clear that they were morally aware animals and knew that they were stealing and understood the implications of depriving others of their possessions. The tortoise, mindful of this immorality and the related depravity, sought to return the stolen goods. His action, rather than as a pedagogic point being portrayed as heroic, was shown as foolish, slow, old-fashioned and, ultimately, utterly pointless - to the extent that the poor, moral, tortoise apologises for his stupidity! This is not William Brown style small boy naughtiness, it is straightforward Fagin-like contempt for morality. I'm surprised that a children's film should get past film classifiers with such moral turpitude as a message.

So it was an interesting, well made, but ugly film.
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