PDA (Public Display Of Affection)

Recently,

Public Display of Affection (PDA) has become a popular and debatable issue among Singaporeans due to its uprising ocurrence in public.

Here's a short clip of various PDA examples that was captured by the public.

In this week's coms lesson we have focused on the term perception.

Every individual perceive our surroundings, experience and communication differently.

It is due to the spectre of contrasting perceptions that we have, resulting in dissimilar views and variant actions that becomes a source of generating PDA acts.

In this case, we should ask ourselves...

Should PDA be tolerated in public?

What level of PDA should be accepted and should not be?

Where is the limit to PDA?

Should the government educate our people to behave discretely in public to share the same perception as those that believes PDA is wrong?

Is it wrong to invade people's privacy space by taking pictures or videos about their indiscrete act? By doing so, will it solve the issue?

Personally, I feel that PDA should be tolerated in public as people have their own rights and freedom to do what ever they want as long as they are not breaking the law. However, couples should have a limit to how they can show affection to one another. To me, hugging and kissing is my limit. Further than that is of course not accepted by me as i believe in discretion in public. Discretion is also another form of perception. In this case, both perceptions(PDA & Discretion) are linked to one another. I seriously believe that the government cannot do much about excessive PDA because as i said people have their individual rights. But if we invade their private space by capturing their indiscrete act of PDA in public, it might inform them that our society do not tolerate their actions and it might trigger a change in their perception.

What do you think?

Singlish kills English language

Language has become our basic medium of communication among us. Living in a multi-racial Singapore society, we are being exposed to different languages daily which are English, Malay, Mandarine and Tamil. These are the official languages that are recognised by the Singapore government.

However,

What about Singlish?

Does these words like "Lah", "Loh", "Meh", "Hah", "Siah" seem familar to you?

Should Singlish be made an offical language as well?

Here's a recent short video of a radio teleconversation between our local 98.7fm DJs and a catering auntie.

Personally when i was watching this video, I couldn't stop laughing at their hilarious conversation. Some of the typical Singlish terminology were expressed in this video. If you notice, she loves to use the word "ah" at the end of her sentence. Also, fried rice was pronounced as "Fly Rice" and the coke we drink everyday was pronounced as "Cock".

Yes, Singlish can be at times funny and comical as it adds spice and laughter in our everyday lives. Some even say that Singlish has evolved into a form of identity among Singaporeans.

Nonetheless,

I regard Singlish as a form of Noise in the transactional communication model.

Noise = environment (physical,psychological and social factors that surround and influence communication)

Environment may exert negative and positive influence.

In our case, Singlish has probably become a social stigma in our environment. Most did not consider the detrimental effects it carries and continue to use Singlish excessively in our speech. It not only manipulates our proper usage of English but also degrade our English proficiency.

The Singaporean government currently discourages the use of Singlish in favour of Singapore Standard English as it believes in the need for Singaporeans to be able to effectively communicate with the other English users in the world. The government runs the Speak Good English Movement to emphasise the point.

Are you doing your part?

Welcome :D

Welcome to Matthew's Coms 101 blog 2009.

In my blog, I will be selecting and raising issues that are related to the fundamentals and the works of communication. All comments are warmly welcomed. Thank you.