An accent, according to www.dictionary.com, is defined as “Vocal prominence or emphasis given to a particular syllable, word, or phrase.” Around the world, different cultures have different accents because of their language and the way they say words. In Allison Joseph’s “On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person”, this description is shown. Joseph uses her mother as an example of having an accent and her mother was from Jamaica. In World War I, 250,000 workers from the Caribbean were recruited and 90,000 of them were Jamaican. In addition, after WWI, there were many waves of Jamaican peoples that would come to America. This poem gives background information about the author’s mother and then moves into the authors opinion on …show more content…
Allison Joseph asks many questions in this poem bring a black American and how someone of the black community is expected to speak. Some of these questions include, “Was [she] supposed to sound lazy, / dropping syllables here and there/ not finishing words but/ slurring their final letters/ so each sentence joined/ the next, sliding past the listener?”(34-39), and “Were certain words off limits, / too erudite for someone whose skin/ came with a natural tan?” (40-42). Joseph is showing her opinion in her poem. She, most likely, has had experience with people expecting her to speak like her mother and this is shown in the quote “Why don’t you sound like her, / they’d ask. [She] didn’t sound/ like anyone or anything” (22-24). There are so many questions that the “black” community has that may never be able to be answered and so many conversations that are just waiting to happen that never will happen. Every time one person looks at another person, they make a judgment call whether they mean to or not. There are many stereotypes out there that cause certain people to think a specific way about different people. If someone has a different skin color, they may have a stereotype
This chapter focused mainly on misconceptions and attempting to clarify those misconceptions about accents. In the opinion of linguists, accent is a difficult word to define. This is due to the fact that language has variation therefore when it comes to a person having an accent or not, there is no true technical distinction because every person has different phonological aspects to their way of speaking. However, when forced to define this word, it is described as “a way of speaking” (Lippi-Green, 2012, p.44). Although Lippi- Green identified the difficulty linguists have in distinguishing between accent, dialect, and another language entirely, they were able to construct a loose way of distinguishing. Lippi- Green states that an accent can be determined by difference in phonological features alone, dialect can be determined by difference in syntax, lexicon, and semantics alone, and when all of these aspects are different from the original language it is considered another language entirely (Lippi-Green, 2012).
In the essay if Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What is? by James Baldwin and Mother Tongue by Amy Tan both shows idea of uses of slang and language in different context. In the essay if Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What is? Baldwin states that how language has changed and evolved overtime, Baldwin describes how black English were used as white English, in civil rights movement where blacks were treated as slaves and the used slang language to communicate so that the whites won’t understand. This slang was taken from black language and now everyone uses to make the communication short. In the essay Mother Tongue Tan explains that how language could affect people from different culture. Tan states that how Asian students in America struggle in English. Tan also states that her mother is smart but she couldn’t communicate in English. Tan thinks that’s a big disadvantage for her mother and people coming from different countries cannot show their talent because of their weakness in communication.
Being that their professions are journalism and ministry, John Griffin and Nathan Price are accustomed to the use of words, whether written or spoken, to reach out to others and relay information. Once they cross over into the new territories, their abilities to be heard accurately or at all become difficult. In this new setting, Griffin finds the opportunity to speak to a white person does not present itself because it is preceded by a silent language spoken by whites. He first encounters this silent language outside a "Whites Only" restaurant as he is reading the menu in the window. He says, "I looked up to see the frowns of disapproval that can s...
Chang-Rae Lee’s Native Speaker expresses prominent themes of language and racial identity. Chang-Rae Lee focuses on the struggles that Asian Americans have to face and endure in American society. He illustrates and shows readers throughout the novel of what it really means to be native of America; that true nativity of a person does not simply entail the fact that they are from a certain place, but rather, the fluency of a language verifies one’s defense of where they are native. What is meant by possessing nativity of America would be one’s citizenship and legality of the country. Native Speaker suggests that if one looks different or has the slightest indication that one should have an accent, they will be viewed not as a native of America, but instead as an alien, outsider, and the like. Therefore, Asian Americans and other immigrants feel the need to mask their true identity and imitate the native language as an attempt to fit into the mold that makes up what people would define how a native of America is like. Throughout the novel, Henry Park attempts to mask his Korean accent in hopes to blend in as an American native. Chang-Rae Lee suggests that a person who appears to have an accent is automatically marked as someone who is not native to America. Language directly reveals where a person is native of and people can immediately identify one as an alien, immigrant, or simply, one who is not American. Asian Americans as well as other immigrants feel the need to try and hide their cultural identity in order to be deemed as a native of America in the eyes of others. Since one’s language gives away the place where one is native to, immigrants feel the need to attempt to mask their accents in hopes that they sound fluent ...
In Baldwin 's article If Black English Isn 't A Language Then Tell Me What Is? starting off by telling the readers about French speaking people. He is explaining how different dialects doesn 't mean people aren 't speaking the same language. Going deeper about language saying that it ties into the culture. Give an example of Black Culture and how their expression of English is different. Talking about the phrases like jazz me, baby, sock it to me, and funky; being used that way they weren 't meant to. Finally introducing how the African American culture has been disrespected or ignored. Telling
First of all, I would like to say that the video was very enlightening and also a reminder
“Black, white and brown are merely skin colors. But we attach to them meanings and assumptions, even laws that create enduring social inequality.”(Adelman and Smith 2003). When I first heard this quote in this film, I was not surprised about it. Each human is unique compared to the other; however, we are group together based on uncontrollable physical characteristics. Eyes, hair texture, and skin tone became a way to separate who belongs where. Each group was labeled as having the same traits. African Americans were physically superior, Asians were the more intellectual race, and Indians were the advanced farmers. Certain races became superior to the next and society shaped their hierarchy on what genes you inherited.
When I first viewed the trailer for Dear White People I was more than thrilled. I imagined the film was going to be it was going to be my generations’ version of the Spike Lee Joint School Daze based off of the perverse I viewed, but as I began to watch the movie I realized I was mistaken. Unlike School Daze, a film tailored to a black audience, while the latter is tailored for a broader audience. Dear White People beautifully depicts the different types of black people, how foolish stereotypes are, the struggles college students’ faces in finding themselves, and most importantly, that black empowerment is not the same as black supremacy. While the film has many great attributions it fails show positive relationships that does not involve a
All over the world, race is used by others to assign meaning to the way you look; people will use physical characteristics like: nose shape, eye shape, hair texture and most infamously, skin color to categorize race. Race isn’t a tangible concept, Social Construction Theory determines it’s more of a social idea created by institutions in society, meaning that it is created by society and is constantly changed. The notion of race is perpetuated and conserved, and therefore, must be changed by adjusting society’s preconceptions about race, institution’s structure and laws that are negatively based on race, and how education and awareness about race can create positive change.
Racial profiling within the media can be seen and directed at all races and ethnicities. Although, there are many common ideologies specifically targeting mixed race individuals that are significant due to how ironic they are in demonstrating the repressive and regressive ideologies within our society, through a group that should represent the opposite. Some such ideologies are that of "the dark skin vs. light skin complex", and the importance of the use of physical features to determine ethnicity/character. Commencing with the colour controversy that has emerged within media outlets, such as Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, in order to establish beauty standards based on skin colou, the dispute of light skin versus dark skin is evidentially based off remnants of the racist hierarchy that once existed and was thought to be abolished within Canada(Adekunle & Williams, 2010; "Light Skin Vs. Dark," 2014; "Mixed Race," n.d.; Pears, 2013). Surprisingly, the most prominent group of individuals on the side of light skin would be mixed race people, who through starting this debate are promoting what the cultural unison of their existence had begun to remove(Adekunle & Williams, 2010; "Light Skin Vs. Dark," 2014; "Mixed
... human nature to immediately notice why others are different from oneself and because of this, bigotry and segregation will never truly cease to exist and that manipulation over the human genome will only exacerbate this.
The Education Act of 1870 established the school as a ‘melting pot’ for upper and middle class children and the speech boundary had to be resolved. Thus a uniform accent (Standard speech) was created and pupils who refused to accept this new accent or who could not adapt to this new way of speech were severely punished. Peer pressure was also an issue because the new boy would have to adapt to the new form of speech in order for his peers to accept him or to merely avoid bullies (Chapman 12).
Brathwaite, Edward Kamau. "Creolization in Jamaica." The Post-colonial Studies Reader. Ed. Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin. New York: Routledge, 1995. 202-205.
Part of human nature is judging something by what surrounds it even if it is another human. Think of a community that has every color, every race, every religion, and every kind of person that community however, doesn’t value each other to some point which causes a problem, a problem that we call racism in today’s era, a problem that needs to be eliminated because it allows a gap that shouldn’t exist in our society. Our society must understand that it isn’t okay to discriminate someone for how they look or what they believe in or what color they happen to be, specifically speaking to those who aren’t smart enough to realize that discrimination isn’t making any change for the better nor is it allowing certain groups in the community to advocate
The “English for Speakers of Other Languages” students also recieved extra time and attenion from the teachers. The teachers would even call them over one at a time to her desk (during reading time)and administer evaluations to determine their levels of speech. For both classes the teachers would always made sure to speak in a clear voice, they also would make sure to explain things in greater detail.