We Can Be Heroes Analysis

The film ‘We can be heroes: Australian of the Year’ demonstrates languages people use which show a lot about who they are. Languages can reveal about a person’s gender, their educational level and their social status. In this film it gives examples of characters that use their own language to show who they are. For example Daniel Sims, Ja’mie King and Ricky Wong all have their own way of speaking and communicating with others.
Daniel Sims lives in South Australia with his mother, little brothers and sister and also his hearing impaired twin brother, Nathan. Sims family is known to be country side people. Daniel was nominated for Australian of the year for donating one of his eardrums to his near-deaf brother, Nathan. As he doesn’t know sign
language, Daniel uses different methods to talk to Nathan, such as screaming at him. From the language used by Daniel in the film shows a lot about himself, that he has a low level of education by using limited vocabulary, for example, ‘pissed on teacher’s desk.’ He also is influenced by rap culture by naming his dog after Ja-Rule and enjoying rapping and beatboxing with his friends. Daniel uses lexicology in his language by saying ‘35% spastic’ which is not politically correct. Daniel is rude but is unaware of his inappropriate behavior. Therefore Daniel uses his own language which tells us a lot about himself.
Another character in the film ‘Australia of the year’ is Ja’mie King, who lives in New South Wales, but was born in South Africa.
Ja’mie has sponsored many of the Sudanese children for Global Vision, which gave her the National Record. Due to her work of raising money, Global Vision decided to make her the ‘face’ of their organisation. Ja’mie is a popular girl at Hilford Girls’ Grammar School. She and her group of three friends are very superficial, caring only about their looks. For example one of the Sudanese children she sponsored named Sonali. Sonali apparently writes a letter to Ja’mie telling her that she is in Australia and asking Ja’mie to visit her. Ja'mie is sceptical at first but soon realizes that this visit will bring a lot of media attention, so she invites one of her friends along because she ‘is good at taking photos.’ From the language used by Ja’mie in the film shows a lot about her, that she loves fashion for example how she owns a portfolio and is involved in popular culture. She uses lots of morphology language such as ‘povo,’ ‘fugly,’ ‘hottie.’ Which is also the teenage language used these days, as she says ‘I’m sooooo not doing that’ by dragging the word ‘so’ gives the sentence a dramatic feel. She is racist and only thinks about herself to become popular throughout media. Therefore Ja’mie King uses her own language which shows more about who she
is.
Following on with another character in the film is Ricky Wong who is a Chinese physics student who lives in Victoria. This character is largely showing the stereotypical ‘Chinese overachiever.’ He has achieved fame for his work in the laboratory but his passion lies in acting. Ricky’s dream is to become a professional actor. His father however doesn’t want him acting and says that he should complete his physics degree. For example his father says. ‘you have education you have good future’ in saying that he uses syntax in his language, the values of that is education and working hard, in the structure of his sentence he is missing the definite article of the word ‘an.’ From the language used by Ricky Wong it shows a lot about him as he is educated, has a good work ethic and is intelligent. He has a semantic field of acting and he wants be like other young Australians. He also uses syntax in his language as saying ‘onry joking.’ Ricky also uses phonology in his language by emphasising on the sound/letter ‘s.’ In the language that he uses he drops out the sound of the letter ‘t’ for example instead of saying ‘that’s about it’ or ‘but at the time’ he says, ‘that’s abou i’ and ‘bu a the time.’ Therefore Ricky Wong uses his own language to show who he is.
In conclusion it is found out that every individual person has their own language and their own way to express themselves. As it has been shown in many occasions; Daniel Sims, Ja’mie King and Ricky Wong have different identities and languages which show who they really are. It is shown that Daniel is more of an uneducated person compared to Ricky Wong and how Ja’mie is very subbish and uses teenage slang in her language which is also used by Daniel when he talks. This demonstrates that the language a person uses tells us a lot about who they are.