How often have you been convinced to learn a language because of a lecture, discussion, or favorable advice? The ability to learn and use a new language is a challenge that many have experienced throughout their life, whether in education or in their private lives. Today, English is becoming the universal language of the world. It is the base language of the internet, box office entertainment, and popular music. Translating technologies have improved vastly and will become almost perfect in time for the near future. Due to these conditions, John McWhorter begs the question, “[why] should we learn a foreign language?” In the TED talk performed by professor John McWhorter, he attempts to influence and encourage a physical and digital rhetorical audience of the benefits received after developing a new tongue. He accomplishes the persuasion through his use of overpowering credibility, informative demonstrations, and proper medium. We have all been given advice in our lives. Advice from family, friends, and fierce educators, yet, despite what we force ourselves to believe, the educators are usually who successfully get their message across. This is precisely the case with McWhorter. McWhorter is an accredited linguistics professor at Cornell University and a TED talk veteran who keeps coming back with more interesting, intellectual, and inspiring topics of discussion. He is recognized in the world of education and because of these reasons, he establishes a concrete and
In David Bartholomae’s “Inventing the University,” he argues that professors at universities should not expect incoming students to adopt the language of the University at an early stage (406) because of how difficult the discourse is. When students start their academic career at the university, they all start at the “commonplace” and as “basic writers” (405), which means students start at the same place because they are not expected to know the language that the university speaks in (406). Due to being in such a new and advanced community, students start writing what the audience (usually their professors) wants to hear rather than what they want to write. One way Bartholomae strengthens his argument is by providing student examples, one of
In her text, “Cognition, Convention and Certainty,” Patricia Bizzell describes the writing process through both inner-directed and outer-directed theories in order to illustrate that the writing process is infirmed by both student’s natural thought processes and their discourse community She uses her text to explain both theories, and to argue for the implementation of a new pedagogy focused on discourse analysis. First, Bizzell introduces the inner –directed theory, which seeks to discover the writing processes through the universal and fundamental structure of language. Conversely, she explains that the outer-directed theory instead argues that the individual’s discourse community does not teach a generalized form of language but rather the
355-356. Project MUSE, muse.jhu.edu/article/2777.) She eventually goes to University of Texas to become a speech pathologist. After taking a couple of English classes, specifically “History of the English Language” and “American English”, her views changed. Lanehart realizes taking these classes that “Bad English” is so much more than
In this essay excerpt Rodriguez had to give up speaking the comfortable language of Spanish at home and had to begin practicing English. Even though Rodriguez was disinclined to give up speaking Spanish and practicing English, whenever he was at school and spoke in English, his fellow classmate actually understood him. Rodriguez states, “One day in school, I raised my hand to volunteer an answer to a questions. I spoke out in a loud voice and I did not think it remarkable when the entire class understood.” By Rodriguez changing his language, he was more easily understood by his classmates.
The Students of today are presented with an important and necessary challenge to understand the art of articulation. Northrop Fry’s written piece “don’t you Think its time to start thinking” provides an educational read and expresses the great importance education plays in developing the ability to critically think and articulate. The ability to articulate is devalued by young people, who feel that it hinders one’s ability to be the accepted. Youth’s would rather hide among the masses failing to understand the strength of individuality and having a sense of identity. Lacking the ability to articulate can hampers one’s ability to understand and genuinely think exposing ones self to the dangers of inarticulateness, Through examination of the
Mr. Young is passionate about his belief that teaching US Standard English as an anchor is a threat to people who he refers to as “multiculturals” (Young 111). It is interesting to observe that he uses his first vernacular to express himself, but uses the rules of US Standard English to write it with. This use of his preferred language made the article difficult to read, and understand unless the reader was very familiar with that dialect. His dedication to his opinion came across to this reader as extremely aggressive in tone.
By providing Mrs. Tan’s speech, Tan demonstrates to her readers how her mother’s English is not perfect in a grammatical sense, but it is understandable. The audience gets the impression that Tan’s mother speaks in “broken” English, but it is understandable at what is she trying to say. As well as having a greater understanding on how Tan felt angry when some people labeled Mrs. Tan unworthy to listen to because she had difficulty speaking English.
In Spanish Lessons by Christine Marin, encountered a similar obstacle in which not only her education and language were being tested, but her ability of not being able to communicate with others is what made her want to empower and strengthen her knowledge. In her essay, “Homemade Education”, Christine Marin describes how her difficulty in communicating with customers was a struggle because she was not able to respond back in her native tongue, which was Spanish. This made her want to improve her ability of communicating and practiced the language even more (161). Both Malcolm X and Marin similarities demonstrate that there is always a solution to
John White of North Florida University, in his excerpt "The Cyclical Rhetoric of Educational Reform and the Rationalization of a Failed Zeitgeist" White can be quoted with "Understanding the role of language in a reform movement is imperative to gaining a true understanding of the ideology of that movement". (White). The knowledge of rhetoric can help in determining the outcome of society. Students learning rhetoric as early as high school will aid in paving the modern cultural path.
Instead of initially stating her race, gender, or other aspects that can possibly make others biased of her character, she immediately asserts her credibility while revealing to be at par with the general audience. Furthermore, she utilizes ethos by making a connection with the audience. She addresses the reader, “So you’ll have some idea what this talk I heard sounds like, I’ll quote what my mother said during a recent conversation”(179). Tan establishes a common ground with the audience, using second person to make her story seem more personal. Not only does this capture the audience’s attention more, but it also engages us in a welcoming conversation on accepting broken English rather than presenting a simple persuasive essay.
This, consequently, qualified me for a spot in my elementary school’s ESL program, which was implemented into my class schedule. Only a seven year old at the time, I recall sitting amongst a small group of ten students, whose diverse ethnic backgrounds spanned three
Fortunately, Richard had encouraging teachers jumpstarted his English learning curriculum so he would be better equip to interact within his community. As he started becoming more and more fluent in English, his native Spanish language started to drift. Richard began to realize that the connection at home slowly dwindled away as he was increasing his English speaking at school. Richard began to sense a lack of safety in his own home. His involvement in public conversation; using his newly learned language, effected his life so much to the point where he had to choose between
Abstract: Language is the medium by which one’s psychological experiences, emotions and imaginations can be recreated in the minds of the reader or listener. Through ages language has been the vehicle with which humans have communicated ideas to each other. Language has not only the power to heal and to comfort but also to retrieve the suppressed experiences of an individual from the past. This paper seeks to discuss Toni Morrison’s novel A Mercy as a text that explores the common language uncommonly well in using it as a double edged sword.
I will do so, by highlighting the idea of dialectal density that is discussed in the article. I will also use this article to support my claim that dialect awareness is essential within the education system. Garrity, April W., and Oetting, Janna B. "Auxiliary BE Production by African American English-Speaking Children with and without Specific Language Impairment. " Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 53.5 (2010): 1307-320. Print.
He states examples of why speaking English is important and says that speaking English fluently is the “key to upward mobility in the United States.” Lazear concludes that a way