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Language and ethnic identity
Language and ethnic identity
The relationship between language, identity, and ethnicity
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Irving and I sit across from each other at a vintage `60's Formica table, my trusty recorder in hand. He is a black male in his mid 20's who grew up in a region of Atlanta called the "SWAts" (South West Atlanta), for the most part, except for the five years that he spent in a little Georgia town called Hogansville with his grandmother. After high-school, he joined the Army and then went on to college. This is where we are now. Irving and I are both in the same AAVE class, and we discussed some of the topics that have been brought up in that class over a banana and a bowl of cereal. After Irving explained his background to me, which situations in his life he felt had the strongest influence on his idiolect. He had learned his speech style, in part, from his parents (who are both college graduates) from his teachers and from television. The biggest influence, however, was his grandmother. "She was a huge influence, (II.2)" he replied. He went on to say that both she and his grandfather were schoolteachers. This had an enormous impact on the way that he spoke because he was always being corrected by his grandmother for using improper grammar. Although at the time she was retired, Irving's grandmother had been a kindergarten teacher -- so she was accustomed to teaching children Irving's age how to speak. I asked if the types of things that she corrected were AAVE-isms or normal, everyday kid-learning-how-to-speak-isms. "She didn't care what wordage' I used." He went on to say that his grandmother used AAVE so she was not trying to dissuade him from speaking it. She wanted for him to know how to speak correctly so that he could code-shift when necessary. There was even code-shifting within his family. There were some situations wh... ... middle of paper ... ...e be accepted in the larger. This idea not exclusively a group goal, but is even expressed on the individual level as shown in this interview. The language that the individual associates him or herself with seems to play a key role as to which group the individual wishes to belong. Speakers of SE identify with mainstream America, speakers of AAVE with the black culture created in opposition of the mainstream culture. Bi-dialectal people, like Irving, identify with the black culture almost exclusively, but seem to use SE as a tool or "weapon" within the mainstream society. Irving doesn't seem to accept standard English as anything other than a necessity. He doesn't believe that SE is an integral part of himself, but rather an extension of his ability to communicate with others. Standard English really is a weapon to Irving, and a weapon that he wields proficiently.
The two concepts are perhaps the most powerful writing of the sheer burden of African-American in our society. Ever though the story was written many decades ago, many African-American today reflect on how things haven’t changed much over time. Still today American will conceptualize what is “Black” and what is “American”.
The setting was Little Rock, Arkansas, Central High School. 1957 was the year; it was like a major bastion of white segregation in the South because it was ranked among the top high schools in the country. And it was where the elite children of Little Rock attended school. And it was, one believes, the last place they would have wanted black children come. And in order to stay there, get there, and be there, President Eisenhower, indeed intimately had to send soldiers- warriors. September of 1957, we’re really talking about the whole period because in 1954 Brown vs. board of education said, “ Separate is not equal”, and thus began this whole event of the south to integrate, and not to integrate, and this whole almost warring like environment or atmosphere- where in most cases white people said, “ NO, we’re not going to integrate. We don’t care what the Supreme Court says”. And federal court judges said, “ Yes, you will integrate”. And so then e...
Emory Douglas was born and raised in Grand Rapids, Michigan, until 1951 when he and his mother relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area. At the time San Francisco was the hub of African American organizations that arranged events aimed at overthrowing the social injustices within the Bay Area’s black communities. As a minor immersed within the community Douglas became captivated by Charles Wilbert White, an African American social realist artist whom created various monochrome sketches and paintings, “transforming American scenes into iconic modernist narratives.” Not long after, Douglas was incarcerated at the Youth Training School in Ontario, California where he spent countless hours working in the penitentiary’s printery. It was not until the mid-1960’s when Douglas registered in the City College of San Francisco, majoring in commercial art and graphic design. Soon after, Douglas went to a Black Panthers rally, where he encountered Bobby Seale and Huey Newton; during ...
America have a long history of black’s relationship with their fellow white citizens, there’s two authors that dedicated their whole life, fighting for equality for blacks in America. – Audre Lorde and Brent Staples. They both devoted their professional careers outlying their opinions, on how to reduce the hatred towards blacks and other colored. From their contributions they left a huge impression on many academic studies and Americans about the lack of awareness, on race issues that are towards African-American. There’s been countless, of critical evidence that these two prolific writers will always be synonymous to writing great academic papers, after reading and learning about their life experience, from their memoirs.
In Dalton Conley’s memoir “Honky”, written in 2000, Conley talks about his experience of switching schools to a primarily white elementary school. He discusses the major differences between his prior, very diverse school and his new, primarily caucasian school. He focuses on the main topics of race and class, and how they enhanced the differences between these two schools.
To start with, Armstrong’s take on “Black and Blue” – originally written about a dark-skinned woman lamenting her lighter-skin lover’s infidelity – transcends one person’s microhistory and functions to poignantly address racism and its effects on African-American macrohistory (Alger). Through key diction choices, including repetition of the words “old” and “all,” Armstrong describes the omnipresent force that is racism and how it has affected the African-American community for generations (1-2; 3-4). In doing so, the singer transforms a song about infidelity into an anthem that directly comments on whites cheating African Americans out of life. As such, Armstrong’s “Black and Blue” is aimed at uniting an African-A...
Mr. Griffin was a middle age white man who lived with his wife and children. He was not oriented to his family. He decided to pass his own society to the black society. Although this decision might help most of the African Americans, he had to sacrifice his gathering time with his family. “She offered, as her part of the project, her willingness to lead, with our three children, the unsatisfactory family life of a household deprived of husband and father” (Griffin 9). Leaving Mrs. Griffin and his children would deprive them of the care they needed. Even though he was not oriented to his family, he was full of courage. He was willing to discuss topics that people hesitated to talk about, trying new ideas that people were afraid to do. After turning back to his own skin color, he attended most media conferences and also wrote books about what he had gone through. During those interviews, Griffin was very considerate. He requested Wallace, a reporter, to report carefully so that he would not hurt his African American friends. “Please… Don’t mention those names on the air.
After I read the Smitherman's piece, the main argument that Smitherman is trying to tell us is that everyone has their own way of language. There are people with different ethnicity in America. Every communities has their own language and accents, noone should be telling anyone that they have language problem. Not allowing a person to use their language is racism. This is the problem Smitherman is trying to address in his piece of writing. I think by her writing this is to let people know and feel what is going on in the world. Her audience might be the Black American community. She wants the people to know that there is nothing wrong with speaking their own language anywhere and they should be able to speak how they want.
The subject of this paper is Liz, a 52-year old, 1.5 generation female immigrant from Hong Kong. What this means is that she immigrated to the United States when she was a child, around 7-years old (Feliciano Lec. 1/4/2016). As a child of a family that consists of five siblings and two parents that did not speak any English prior to immigrating, the focus of this paper will be on the legal processes that the family went through to become legal immigrants and the various factors that aided in her path towards assimilation.
Interviews are very popular among most individuals especially researchers and scholars as they attempt to obtain information and data from an interviewee. However, there are many factors that influence the interview and which determines its success or failure. Often, the interviewer takes charge of the situation, and they have the sole responsibility of asking the questions while the interviewee provides an explanation or an answer to the question asked. As a result, an interview can be defined as a consultation or a discussion in person through which information and data are exchanged regarding a particular phenomenon event with the intention of establishing the interviewee’s position. It is easy to tell the mood and success of the interview
“By Failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” The great mind of Benjamin Franklin said that and it connects with many aspects of every day life. One that it connects to greatly is communication. Right now my future plans are to become a certified public accountant. “In this job with how global it is becoming you are constantly communicating.” Which was said by Miss Lauren Kolarik. “Communication is very important,” she continues, “in this job you use every type of communication.” There is conversational communication when you are working with your team in auditing a company, there is professional communication when talking with a partner and there is written communication when writing emails to clients and overseas workers. All of these types are important because they all accomplish a different but equally significant aspect of the job. Through the course of the interview, one idea remained constant in every answer, be prepared. In the field of accounting you will be communicating in a conversational, professional and written form. It is crucial you know which type of communication to use and how to vitalize its
Reviewing the previous qualitative studies, the interview has become one of key research approaches (along with field observations and document analysis) for gathering data that is closely conducted by qualitative researchers. (Kvale, 1996; Brinkmann, 2008; Seidman, 2006). As Gubrium & Holstein (2003) suggest that the qualitative interviews are able to assist researchers to investigate the discovery-oriented enquiries and the increased understanding of subjectivities in the researching fields of social science, media, health care, etc.
I was born and raised in Al-Ahsa in the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia. I lived there until I became twenty-three then I moved to Abha in the Southern Province. My family is originally from Al-baha which is also in the Southern Province. I acquired the Arabic Eastern dialect when I was a child to talk to my peers and teachers in Al-Ahsa, however at home I spoke my parents' dialect that (which) is very different from the Eastern Province and from other Southern Province’s dialects. When I was at school I had different social relationships with people from different places in Saudi Arabia that lasts until I graduate from high school. They all speak different dialects and accents; therefore I acquired different pronunciations, different words and different expressions. After my marriage, I moved to Abha. I used to be a teacher and I communicated with wide range of people who have different backgrounds and therefore different cultures. My Eastern dialect did not help to survive in such an environment. So I tried to create a dialect that is more understood by people in Abha. Therefore, living in different regional dialects makes me end up with having a mixture of dialects and accents that makes it hard for the Saudi listener to predict where I am originally from.
Of the five caretakers interviewed, many common perspectives emerged. Four of the interviewees agreed that Calvin’s father, Hans, is the most likely to get a response out of him (H. MacDonald, B.S.C. P.T., personal communication, January 25, 2017; Brooklyn, M.S., Ph.D., personal communication, February 2, 2017; Hans, J.D., LL.M., personal communication, January 29, 2017; J. Bartholemeo, L.P.N., personal communication, February 8, 2017); “He works harder for me when dad is there,” explained MacDonald during her interview (H. MacDonald, B.S.C. P.T., personal communication, January 25, 2017). Similarly, all five agreed that Calvin’s most distinctive feature and the most reliable thing that he does is to demonstrate
Witsel (2003) from the Southern Cross University advanced that teaching at tertiary or any level was rather uncomfortable even when the socioeconomic and cultural background of students are compatible with that of their teachers. Consequently, teachers have the added responsibility of motivating, assessing, negotiating, admonishing as well as teaching. The expert contends that these tasks force teachers to go beyond the call of duty by placing themselves in active relationships with students and the professional responsibilities they execute on a daily basis. Therefore, it becomes complicated when students appear in a classroom with various linguistic backgrounds, learning styles and expectations based on their socioeconomic and cultural development (Witsel, 2003).