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Language and gender relations
Language and gender relations
Language and gender relations
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The communities we are raised in have a large impact on the way we speak, write, and think. More than likely, northerners are more proper and possess better grammar than that of southerners. Is it ignorance to speak incorrectly? Maybe some people do not know “proper grammar”. Or is it simply lethargy? People become set in their ways and as long as they are understood there is no point in communicating appropriately, simplicity is their aim. These inaccuracies in grammar are not subject to a single gender, racial group, or region, but can give a hint to characteristics like social status. Everyone has their share in it. The source of this links to a person’s foundation and/or education. Over generations and the blending of languages hundreds of years ago, peoples’ language has become “incorrect”, but it should not be difficult to correct it. To be able to analyze the source of this one has to start at the foundation. The rules and methods we are taught to be able to read and write are a big factor in determining how proper our grammar is, or our comprehension. I was taught to read, of course, left to right and then comprehend what I read. While reading, the text should be analyzed. Analyzing consists of who, what, when, where, and why. This is also called thinking critically, and how I was influenced to think. When it comes to writing, a sentence needs a subject and verb, parts of speech, etc. Complete sentences come together to form paragraphs and during the writing process a purpose in essential. Though we are taught how to speak, read, write and think properly, it does not mean we always follow through. Vocabulary is my biggest obstacle. Lack of advanced vocabulary in elementary and middle school has made it difficult in colleg... ... middle of paper ... ...ough, is the education and the community the person was brought up in. Improper grammar can also give way to social class. Poor grammar usually hints a low social class. Conclusively, incorrect grammar can be caused by ignorance or lethargy. Are we willing to better our society and fix this grammar problem, though? If we are willing then we could be the beginning of a chain of proper grammar for generations to come. Works Cited Boucher, Cheryl J., Georgina S. Hammock, Selina D. McLaughlin, and Kelsey N. Henry. "Perceptions of Competency as a Function of Accent." Psi Chi Journal of Psychological Research 18.1 (2013): 27-32. Print. Ellis, Dean S. "SPEECH AND SOCIAL STATUS IN AMERICA." Social Forces 45.3 (1967): 431-437. Print. Smitherman, Geneva. "Talkin and Testifyin: The Language of Black America." Waynebook Series 51 (1977): 1-15. Nclive.org. Web.
person will sound” (66-67). In “On Being Told I Don’t Speak Like a Black Person”, Joseph
Encyclopedia of Black America. ed., W. Agustus Low, ass. ed., Virgil A. Clift. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1981.
Geneva Smitherman of the Afro-American Studies department at Harvard University wrote in her paper “God Don’t Never Change”: Black English from a Black Perspective that English scholars and teachers should stop trying to correct “Black English” for being grammatically incorrect and assess the content for intellectual accuracy. She believes that no matter how different the grammar is from “White English”, “black English is still understandable and should be treated as if it is written correctly. Smitherman sites many examples throughout literary history highlighting moments where “Black English” has been battered for being incorrect, most notably using the story of a Wayne State freshman student who had a paper returned to them for being written in “Black English”. The student was told that the paper was grammatically incorrect and needed to be corrected without any further commentary. While Smitherman makes a strong argument for the equal treatment of “Black English” in literature, her writing is full of pathological bias and resentment toward her fellow English scholars causing her thesis to be overshadowed.
Carter G. Woodson: Negro Orators ansd Their Orations (New York, NY, 1925) and The Mind of the Negro (Washington, DC., 1926).
The African-American Years: Chronologies of American History and Experience. Ed. Gabriel Burns Stepto. New York: Charles Scribner 's Sons, 2003.
Brown, Ernest Douglas. "Africanisms in American Culture." JSTOR. University of Illinois Press, n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2014.
West, Cornel and Salzman, Jack. Encyclopedia of African American Culture and History. New York: Schuster and Simon and the trustees of Columbia University Press, 1996.
Black Dialect is used in many stories throughout American history. This dialect represents a time period of freedom. The representation of dialect writing was a “chain” it linked African American’s to a conventional past that was contrived by others (Nicholls 277). The dialectal writings show no concern for racism. The American language is intended to absorb the racial and ethnical differences (Nicholls 279). Its intent is sought for the reader’s attention not only by the storyline itself but by the dialect it uses to draw out the reader’s imagination in the story.
Rose, Arnold. “The Negro in America”. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, Incorporated, 1964. Print
Writing is an important part of everyone’s life, whether we use it in school, in the workplace, as a hobby or in personal communication. It is important to have this skill because it helps us as writers to express feelings and thoughts to other people in a reasonably permanent form. Formal writing forms like essays, research papers, and articles stimulates critically thinking. This helps the writer to learn how to interpret the world around him/her in a meaningful way. In college, professors motivate students to write in a formal, coherent manner, without losing their own voice in the process. Improving your writing skills is important, in every English class that’s the main teaching point; to help students improve their writing skills. Throughout my college experience I have acknowledge that
Wolfram, Walt. (2003). Reexamining the Development of African American English: Evidence from Isolated Communities. Language, 79, 2.
Williams, Michael, W, ED. The African American Encyclopedia Second Edition. Tarrytown, NY: Marshall Cavendish Corporation, 2001. Print. The African American Encyclopedia Vol. 6.
The influence of our inherited cultural and linguistic heritage is perhaps less influential than the cultural and linguistic characteristics of the society we live in. The societal forces of our personal micro-environments largely impact who we are, how we see ourselves, and how we speak.
The American class system is divided into three sets of social categories: upper class, middle class, and lower class. These class divisions are determined based on an individual’s status and power in the society and may also be determined through an individual’s education, occupation, and income. Having a divided society based on social and economic status leads to the formation of different conversational styles. The use of standard or nonstandard English dialects often reflect an individual’s social class and it will vary according to the social group one is categorized. Language is affected by the social structure because individuals will differ from one another in the way an individual speak. Being divided by
First, spelling does not equal grammar. Second, we do use proper grammar every time we speak or write but most of us do not even know it. Every languages have some kind of grammatical machinery, such as nouns, verbs, auxiliaries and agreements Most of us don’t think about it even when we are speaking or talk even in our native languages. Grammar is the reason we know Yoda from star wars talks kind of funny or at least that’s what we think or that we think the French people talk weird...