Language Use in Family and in Society
The magazine article “Language Use in Family and in Society,” published in the September 1999 issue of English Journal, written by Lee Thomas and Linh Cao, shows how language use can affect a family and the society. Both authors came together to write an article dealing with language in the home and in society, trying to reach a specific audience and purpose. The structure used was of both of the author’s styles and both authors used rhetorical appeals. Both authors wrote that having two or more languages in a family could cause separation and pain because the family looses the ability to communicate.
Lee Thomas is a linguistics teacher at the University of Nevada, Reno. He probably can speak at least one other language than English, if not more. He probably writes many articles dealing with language use. He cares about language use and its affects in the family and in the society. He knows what he is talking about probably from first hand experience. I am determining all of this because he is a linguistics teacher and he probably would not be writing this article if he did not speak another language other than English. Linh Cao is an English teacher at Sparks High School, Sparks, Nevada. She speaks four languages including English. Most of the time she uses English, except when around her parents and grandparents. She also cares about language use and its affects in the family and in the society. I am determining all of this because in the article her family is the one that is used for examples and because if she did not care about language use than she would not have written this article. The targeted audience is teachers and families, to help th...
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...ildren cannot talk to them. In the conclusion, the authors wrote that families feel frustrated, confused, and isolated. In the beginning, Linh Cao said, “…Because language and culture so separate us, placing us in our own worlds, both of which are filled with loneliness, loss, and great emotional and psychological pain.”
In conclusion, it can be said that families who speak many different languages in the home have problems communicating because of the generation gap in language. The parents and grandparents do not know how to communicate with their children because they have limited vocabulary in the language that their child mainly speaks. The society needs to take in the fact that not everyone has to be the same or talk the same as everyone else. The authors of the article “Language Use in Family and in Society” made this point very clear.
At the age of 15, Eliezer Wiesel and his family were placed into concentration camps in Auschwitz. Wiesel accompanied his family for most of the time in the camps. He parted from his mother and sister Tzipora early in life and lived with his father during the years of the Holocaust. During his time in the concentration camps, Wiesel endured tons of pain. When he first reached the concentration camp Eliezer Wiesel witnessed the most disturbing thing. Tons of babies were being thrown into the air and shot to death. “As they marched closer and closer to the ditch, Eliezer decided that rather then let himself be thrown into the fire, he would try to break away and throw himself against the electrified fence that surrounded the camp.” (Pariser 23) It was at that point that Elie and his father knew that they were going to experience the worst years of their life. On April 11, 1945, the two were free from the concentration camp. He was silent for many years and chose not to speak of his suffering. Eventually he spoke and made a pact that he would never be silent again. Eliezer Wiesel stated, "And that is why I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation.” (Pariser 40) And Mr. Wiesel wasn’t.
Most people who grow up with a foreign language spoken in there house grow up with an advantage in society. This advantage can only occur once the individual learning that foreign language also learns the dominant language spoken in that country. Once both of these languages are learned and mastered, the individual has now placed them se...
René Descartes was a good student; he got good grades and was liked by his teachers but was often ill. This sometimes took a toll on his studies. So ill that he was given permission to stay in bed until the afternoon because he was just too, sick and did not have it in him to get out and go to class. People say he would not get out of bed until past 11 everyday and that was on a good day. While at Boarding School, he studied rhetoric, logic, and the mathematical arts, which meant he also studied music and astronomy, and other intense studies that were stepping-stones for him to become a philosopher and effected his beliefs and ideas. After he left Boarding School in December of 1616, he went and got baccalaureate in law at the University of Poitiers four years later. During this period in his life, there are rumors that he snapped and had a nervous breakdown. However, there is no tru...
In the work of Amy Tan’s “Mother’s Tongue” she provides a look into how she adapted her language to assimilate into American culture. She made changes to her language because her mother heavily relied on her for translation. She was the voice of her mother, relaying information in standard English to those who were unable to understand her mother’s broken english. She tells about her mother’s broken english and its impact on her communication to those outside their culture. Her mothers broken english limited others’ perception of her intelligence, and even her own perception of her mother was scewed: Tan said, “I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mothers ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (419) The use of standard english was a critical component to Tan’s assimilation into American culture. Standard English was an element she acquired to help her mother but more importantly is was an element that helped in her gain success as a writer. Tan changed her ‘Englishes’ (family talk) to include standard English that she had learnt in school and through books, the forms of English that she did not use at home with her mother. (417-418) Tan realized the ch...
The Holocaust was the execution of 11 million Jews, during the span of 1933 - 1945. Elie Wiesel’s dreadful experience, has provoked him to wright Night, a memoir to his involvement with the Auschwitz concentration camp. Elie Wiesel was sent to Auschwitz, where Nazi’s beat him, and where he and his family was forced to endure labor. Elie’s traumatizing experience with the Holocaust, has altered his relationship with God, and his view on torture.
Imagine witnessing infants getting tossed in the air and getting used as targets for the soldiers to shoot at. Imagine being constantly beaten and ordered around every day. Many jews experienced this and lived with the conditions. The holocaust was a deliberate killing of the Jews. Elie Wiesel was one of those people witnessing the infants getting tossed in the air and being constantly beaten down by German soldiers. He witnessed hundreds of people dying if it was from getting shot, burned, the gas chamber, etc. Elie explains his experience in many different forms, for example, he wrote a book called “Night” sharing his point of view.
...bout judgement. When he wrote his book there were 40 paradoxes. Since only eight have survived we cannot ever know the full extent of Zeno’s knowledge but his life alone shows he was a man of vast knowledge. Zeno made many friendships in his life and is even said to have met Plato and Sacrotes. This is doubtable due to chronology of the lives of the three, but if this happened Zeno had many credible people to look up to and to converse with. Plato alone is an amazing person to get the opportunity to meet. Also, as i have stated before Zeno is said to have wrote his paradoxes in the defense of his friend Parmenides after other philosophers were trying to knock down his word. Zeno may have been a controversial man after he wrote his paradoxes, but he was well educated and well spoken. Zeno is most definitely a man to be seen as a role model in the world of mathematics.
Food was sparse and living too close to water courses may have resulted in unwelcome predatory visitors.
Through the Holocaust, Elie learned that silence is not an answer to oppression. At first, he couldn’t believe the cruelty and pain the Nazis were inflicting. He said, “’I could not believe that human beings were being burned in our times; the world would never tolerate such crimes,’” (Page 33, Night). Then, Elie came to realize the world was staying silent. He saw that people were suffering and dying, and all of humankind backed away in fear or indifference. Seeing this happen in the time he was at the camp made
Imagine a parent walking into what looks like a conference room. A sheet of paper waits on a table with numerous questions many people wish they had control over. Options such as hair color, skin color, personality traits and other physical appearances are mapped out across the page. When the questions are filled out, a baby appears as he or she was described moments before. The baby is the picture of health, and looks perfect in every way. This scenario seems only to exist in a dream, however, the option to design a child has already become a reality in the near future. Parents may approach a similar scenario every day in the future as if choosing a child’s characteristics were a normal way of life. The use of genetic engineering should not give parents the choice to design their child because of the act of humans belittling and “playing” God, the ethics involved in interfering with human lives, and the dangers of manipulating human genes.
English is an invisible gate. Immigrants are the outsiders. And native speakers are the gatekeepers. Whether the gate is wide open to welcome the broken English speakers depends on their perceptions. Sadly, most of the times, the gate is shut tight, like the case of Tan’s mother as she discusses in her essay, "the mother tongue." People treat her mother with attitudes because of her improper English before they get to know her. Tan sympathizes for her mother as well as other immigrants. Tan, once embarrassed by her mother, now begins her writing journal through a brand-new kaleidoscope. She sees the beauty behind the "broken" English, even though it is different. Tan combines repetition, cause and effect, and exemplification to emphasize her belief that there are more than one proper way (proper English) to communicate with each other. Tan hopes her audience to understand that the power of language- “the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth”- purposes to connect societies, cultures, and individuals, rather than to rank our intelligence.
...xpressing her Chinese culture. Mastering a second language allows her to articulate her and her mother’s thoughts; it is a foundation for her pride and a foundation to express herself. For Gloria Anzaldua, instead of choosing one language over the other, she chose a mix of the two and fights for it. She realized the value of her language when she lost it and now treasures it. The kind of Spanish she speaks is neither English nor Spanish, but both. It is overflowing with culture from Medieval Spain, France, Germany, etc., just from the origins of the words. It is her pride and a representation of herself, fighting and living. In conclusion, in addition to Lera Boroditsky’s article proving that the structure of language affects how we think, the articles by Eric Liu, Amy Tan, and Gloria Anzaldua show how language is a foundation for a person’s culture, pride, and self.
One of the greatest, most selfless women in the history of the Holocaust passed away on Monday, May 12th of 2008. A kindhearted Polish woman, she helped 2,500 infants and children escape from the Warsaw Ghetto (Snopes, par. 2) while working undercover as a health worker (Irena Sendler, par. 2). Irena Sendler was an admirable woman who was able to discover children in the Warsaw Ghetto, sneak them out and get them to safety.
.... People wanted to hear what he had to say. People respected him as a person and his knowledge so much that Queen Christina of Sweden wanted to know what he knew. Sadly she wanted the study sessions to be held at five a.m. These study sessions eventually led to his death in 1650 of pneumonia. He probably could’ve lived a lot longer and had a bigger influence of more people if he didn’t die in 1650. As a mathematician he invented and perfected analytical geometry. As a scientist he told everyone about light reflection and refraction. He also talked about space, the moon, the stars and Earth. As a philosopher he inspired people he never even knew with his wise sayings. He gave people a new view on how everything worked. He described the mind being separate from matter simply because it could think. He was truly a great thinker and a great influence to everyone today.
Zeno was quite the philosophical quiz master. He baffled many of the greatest philosophers like Aristotle with his brainteasers and paradoxes. Zeno accomplished what he set out to do during his time. If Zeno had the information available today about space and time possibilities of making more complex and baffling paradoxes could have been a reality. Unfortunately for Zeno, he is not alive today to see how his paradoxes lasted or to offer refutes and possible answers to answers made by todays scientists and great thinkers.