Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1191, Living on the Fringes of Society.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1191.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Hey, it's the Star Wars edition.
Because everyone knows I played Chewbacca in the original movie.
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This episode is a dialogue between Donald and and Carla about living on the fringes of society.
Let's get started.
Why do those teenagers have to dress like that?
Don't they want to fit in?
Maybe they feel marginalized and they're showing their feelings of alienation through their clothes.
That's just a bunch of psychobabble.
Nobody is treating them like second-class citizens.
They're choosing to set themselves apart to make themselves outcasts.
Maybe they don't feel they have the same access and privileges that other people do because of social class, religious beliefs or other factors.
What if they doubt they'd be accepted?
That's ridiculous.
Would you want one of them as your neighbor?
Well, I, well... I think I've proved my point.
This episode is called Living on the Fringes, F-R-I-N-G-E-S, of Society.
The Fringes of Society refers to the people who are not accepted as normal members of the community or who, for a variety of reasons, don't feel like they're part of a community or a society, a group of people.
Carla begins our dialogue by asking, why do those teenagers have to dress like that?
Don't they want to fit in?
To fit F-I-T in is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to be similar to the people around you, to be accepted by the people around you and feel comfortable with others.
Donald says, maybe they feel marginalized and they're showing their feelings of alienation through their clothes or through their clothing.
To be marginalized.
M-A-R-G-I-N-A-L-I-Z-E-D is to be treated as though you were unimportant or not necessary for a given group.
The verb to marginalize someone means to treat them in a way that makes them feel unimportant.
It's a word mostly used in politics and sociology more than in everyday conversation.
Alienation, A-L-I-E-N, A-T-I-O-N, is a feeling of not belonging or feeling part of a group.
Donald thinks that maybe these teenagers are dressing so differently from others because they don't feel like they're part of the group.
They have feelings of alienation.
Notice that that word alienation has the word alien inside of it.
Alien is what we might use to describe a person from another country, a foreigner.
We might also describe a being from another planet if such beings exist as being aliens.
E.T. from the movie of the 1970s was an alien.
He was from another planet.
My neighbor, I believe, is an alien.
I think he's from Mars.
Yeah, seriously.
Anyway, Carla says to Donald, that's just a bunch of psychobabble.
A bunch of is an informal way of saying a lot of psychobabble.
P-S-Y-C-H-O-B-A-B-B-L-E refers to terms or words that people use that come from psychology or psychotherapy but that don't really mean anything or that are not used very accurately by non-psychologists.
It's what we might call a derogatory term.
It's an insulting term to describe the way someone is using language inaccurately.
Carla says nobody is treating them, meaning these teenagers, like second-class citizens.
Second class citizens refers to people who are not perhaps respected or treated the way they should be.
It might also refer to a group of people who are discriminated against in a given society or culture because of the way they look or because of who they are.
But Carla says these teenagers are not being treated like second class citizens.
She continues, they're choosing to set themselves apart, to make themselves outcasts.
To set yourself apart means to do something or say something that makes you seem different from other people.
To make yourself an outcast O-U-T-C-A-S-T is to make yourself so different from other people that other people don't accept you, that other people reject you.
An outcast is a person not accepted or rejected by people in a given community or society.
Donald says maybe they don't feel they have the same access and privileges that other people do because of social class, religious beliefs or other factors.
Access, A-C-C-E-S-S, is the ability to get something, is the ability to be able to obtain something.
Privilege P-R-I-V-I-L-E-G-E refers to some advantage that you have over other people, often something that Perhaps you don't earn but are given because of circumstances or situations that have nothing to do with how smart you are or how hard you worked.
That's usually how the word is used nowadays.
If someone talks about a person's privileges...
He's talking about things that person has that he didn't have to work for, or perhaps didn't have to earn.
He got them just because of his parents or the place in which he was born.
Donald talks about social class and religious beliefs.
Social S-O-C-I-A-L class refers to the group of people you belong to based on how much money you make.
In the United States, we sometimes talk about the upper class, referring to rich people, the middle class, referring to people who are neither rich nor poor, and the lower class or the working class people, who are usually poor.
The term social class might refer not just perhaps, to how much money you make, but also to the certain kinds of values or the certain kind of culture that people in your class or in your group might have.
Religious beliefs refer to the things that you believe in terms of God and the existence of a higher or supernatural being.
People around the world have different religious beliefs and sometimes these religious beliefs may cause problems with those in the community who don't share those beliefs.
Carla says, however, nobody is shunning them.
To shun, S-H-U-N, someone is to reject or ignore someone.
It might include even not talking to the person or allowing the person into your house.
Carla continues, they again referring to the teenagers.
We described what we mean by the fringes of society earlier.
They need to stop making themselves conspicuous and integrate into society.
To be conspicuous, C-O-N-S-P-I-C-U-O-U-S, is to be easily noticed, to stand out, to be obvious.
The teenagers, by dressing differently, are conspicuous.
Everyone notices them.
Carlos says instead they should integrate, I-N-T-E-G-R-A-T-E, into society.
To integrate means to combine two things together so that they become one unit or one group.
Donald says, what if they doubt they'd be accepted?
To be accepted means to be welcomed, to be appreciated as a member of a group.
Carla says, that's ridiculous, meaning that's silly.
Donald says, would you want one of them as your neighbor?
In other words, he's asking Carla if she would accept one of these teenagers living next door to her being her neighbor.
Carla doesn't answer right away.
She says, well, I, well, you can tell the answer is no.
Donald then says, I think I've proved my point.
To prove what?
P-R-O-V-E.
Your point P-O-I-N-T is to demonstrate that what you just said is true, that what you just said is correct.
To prove your point is to provide evidence that shows that what you are saying is true.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Why do those teenagers have to dress like that?
Don't they want to fit in?
Maybe they feel marginalized and they're showing their feelings of alienation through their clothes.
That's just a bunch of psychobabble.
Nobody is treating them like second-class citizens.
They're choosing to set themselves apart, to make themselves outcasts.
Maybe they don't feel they have the same access and privileges that other people do because of social class, religious beliefs or other factors.
Nobody is shunning them.
They choose to live on the fringe of society.
They need to stop making themselves conspicuous and integrate into society.
What if they doubt they'd be accepted?
That's ridiculous.
Would you want one of them as your neighbor?
Well, I... well... I think I've proved my point.
Our scriptwriter never uses psychobabble in her scripts.
Thank you, Dr. Lucy Say, for your wonderful scriptwriting.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
