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Language and social class relationship
The relationship between language and society
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The Role of Language in Creating and Reinforcing Social Distinctions Such as Class, Ethnicity, and Gender
It is said in a myth that people were once trying to build a giant
latter to heaven so God made them all diverse by making portions of
the people look different and speak different language. The now
diverse people of earth felt annoyed and human nature took its ugly
toll and separation and distinctions were made, they all scatter
throughout the world. God did this so that the people would not be
able to communicate therefore not be able to build the great ladder
that was threatening heaven. This myth is probably not the truth but
it does have a purpose in showing how a change in language and
appearance can make up an entire different type of human. It can be
said that there isn’t an exact translation from one language to
another so there is a loss of meanings in translation. This can lead
to another distinction; religion is the main distinction and separator
of people. Language caused all of these separations within people...
In Schooltalk: Rethinking What We Say About - and to - Students Every Day, Mica Pollock provides readers with fact-based information to “flip the script” of the misrepresentation of students in the education setting. Pollock demonstrates how race, gender, and ethnic labels can be detrimental to student achievement. She, then, dives in to 600 years of myths regarding social race labels and how they continue to affect humans today. By correcting race, gender, and ethnicity label myths in our minds, we can effectively advocate for these students. To conclude the book, Pollock focuses on how to devise a plan to correct our own misconceptions and foster a supportive environment for diverse students. Throughout
Lisa Delpit’s book, “The Skin We Speak”, talked about language and culture, and how it relates to the classroom. How we speak gives people hits as to where we are from and what culture we are a part of. Unfortunately there are also negative stereotypes that come with certain language variations. There is an “unfounded belief that the language of low income groups in rural or urban industrial areas is somehow structurally “impoverished” or “simpler” than Standard English” (Delpit 71). The United States is made of people from various cultures and speak many different variations of languages. As teachers we must be aware of some of the prejudices we may have about language and culture.
Collins further talks about economic, cultural, and specifically linguistic reproduction. linguistic capital is a more specific form of capital. It refers to the role of language and class in social reproduction. This concept was originally coined by Basil Bernstein, who argued that “the experience of work process reinforces kinds of family role relations, themselves realized as discursive identities that are carried by ‘elaborated’ and ‘restricted’ codes” (39). We saw this in the 1960s; poor African Americans performed inadequately in school because they were culturally or linguistically deprived. Not only is race a determining factor in the social reproduction of inequality, but it is a combination of how facets of our identity intersect with changing values and norms of our society.
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 today’s society we measure people by the way they appear to us. Within the first five seconds of meeting someone, we will come to a decision whether or not the person acts in the “proper” way society approves of. This misleads people into behaving and acting in ways they normally wouldn’t to fit into what society deems as the right way to behave. When someone decides to reject the “proper” way they become alienated from their peers/society. In almost every area of life be it work, school, or the community, people create an idea of a person based on how they appear to us. We neglect to see the person for who they really are. We are expected to behave accordingly to the box we are placed in whether it be based on our sexuality, sex, race or our cultural background, and when we refuse to accept this, we become rejected, cast off. This leads me to believe that the majority of social issues society faces, would be solved with the abolishment of tyranny: “Any harsh discipline or oppression.” (Collins English Dictionary - Complete & unabridged 10th edition)
In many circles of the world, various groups of people distinguish themselves from one another through religion, language, culture, and sometimes gender. People also develop stereotypes about a particular group of people in order to identify them. However, most of the time, these stereotypes hold true for only some members of a group. Sometimes, these stereotypes are just plain misconceptions that do not even apply to the group it claims to. Stereotypes are placed on people because it is a way to easily identify what type of person or ethnicity an individual is. At one point in time, these stereotypes may have been true; however, in today’s modern society, most of these stereotypes are outdated and false, which leads them to turn into misconceptions. Usually, stereotypes are utilized to humiliate and degrade the person or group; they also do not provide any beneficial outcomes. Stereotypes focus on how a particular group acts because of the radical ideas and actions of the few, how a particular group looks, or how that group is physically lacking in some way. These stereotypes often lead to conflicts because the group does not appreciate the way it is being perceived. Seldom are the stereotypes placed on a group of people truthful and accurate. Some hardly even apply to the particular group people it claims to. It is true that how people are perceived has a big impact on how other individuals interact with them; however, people are not perceiving these groups correctly.
“…Race, gender, and social class play a key role in why stereotypes and inequality are so challenging to erase (Gender & Society).” How a person sees others should not be determined by what he or she assumes to know about them based on stereotypes. Even the way we impose a racial interpretation on someone draws on traditional customs that reflect both gender and race. Overall, it is astonishing how consistent the design of ethnic fluency are within societal expectations about what other people do, and even what we anticipate from women compared to that of men. Ultimately, race and gender can put individuals at odds with social expectations.
Maltz, Daniel N., and Ruth A. Borker. "A Cultural Approach To Male-Female Miscommunication." In Language and Social Identity. Edited by John J. Gumperz. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1982, pp. 196-216.
Broadly speaking, race is seen or is assumed to be a biologically driven set of boundaries that group and categorize people according to phenotypical similarities (e.g. skin color) (Pinderhughes, 1989; Root, 1998). The categorical classification of race can be traced back to the 16th century Linnaen system of human “races” where each race was believed to be of a distinct type or subspecies that included separate gene pools (Omi & Winant, 1994; Spickard, 1992; Smedley & Smedley, 2005). Race in the U.S. initially began as a general categorizing term, interchangeable with such terms as “type” or “species”. Over time, race began to morph into a term specifically referring to groups of people living in North America (i.e. European “Whites”, Native American “Indians”, and African “Negroes”). Race represented a new way to illustrate human difference as well as a way to socially structure society (Smedley & Smedley, 2005).
...ground or where they are located in the world, it is ignorant to put these differences up as a way to distinguish one people from another, or to say that one race has greater hierarchal significance than another. These constructions provide insight into how people have come to see one another and can also help to see ways through which avoiding racism in modern society may one day be possible.
In the publication Language and social identity by John J. Gumperz, a professor of anthropology at the University of California, Berkeley, Gumperez discusses communicative characteristics of modern society and the way in which they correspond to societal and ethical elements of identity by accumulating research on interactive communication between ethnographically differing groups. He states, “The study of language as interactional discourse demonstrates that these parameters are not constants that can be taken for granted but are communicatively produced. Therefore to understand issues of identity and how they affect and are affected by social , political, and ethnic divisions we need to gain insights into the communicative processes by which they arise,” (Gumperz 1). Language is the voice in which identity is spoken. Without it, the separations of identity he discusses in this publication would be unclear and disconnected as language is the element that guides them all together in a palpable
Throughout the Race, Ethnicity, Class and Gender class, we discussed about race, ethnicity, class and gender and how they are involved in our lives today. I read different articles under each of the topics in the class, answered questions and discussed them in our follow-up class the week after. In each of our discussions, I’ve learned something new. Everywhere I go race, ethnicity, class and gender are all around me and there’s nothing I can do to change it, just accept it. Some people don’t know the difference between race and ethnicity, but I do. Race is biology and ethnicity is culture. Race is your physical appearance like what you look like such as skin color, your DNA, etc., and ethnicity is your language such as Spanish, Chinese, French, etc.
Our capacity as human beings to acquire and express complex methods of communication has been one of the biggest driving forces of humanity’s success. These complex linguistic systems are what we know as language. Language gives us a method of expressing concepts, emotions, and ideas in a varied way which sets us apart from all other animals. Language and gender is an area of sociolinguistics and related fields which attempt to define the differences in language related to gender, and what the inferences of these differences may be.
The book An Intorduction of Sociolinguistics is an outstanding introductary book in the field of sociolinguistics. It encompasses a wide range of language issues. In chapter 13, Wardhaugh provides a good insight to the relationship between language and gender. He explains gender differences of language-in-use with concise examples. Wardhaugh riases questions about sexist language and guides readers to look closer at how people use language differently because of their own gender in daily life. According to the Whorfian hypothesis, which indicates that the way people use language reflects their thoughts, different genders adapt different communication strategies.
The use of language can be seen to correlate with the views of society. The words used to describe groups and the tone associated is a hindrance to the acceptance of all the ways people are grouped. Prejudice can be stereotypes or terms used that society did not first recognize as discrimination or hate. The words spoken can have a greater impact than once believed. The ability to vocalize these words can be permanent through social media and has a negative impact on society. Social media shows that women are grouped with unwanted characteristics. The message that language can have towards the ability of women is taught in schools. The discrimination learned through schools can affect women in their area of employment and society. The inability