College Admissions Essay: Language Bridges And Barriers

Language has clearly become a powerful force in many countries where different communities actually want to split apart on the sole basis on the language they speak. An article about Spain’s language diversity explains how people feel so passionate about their native languages that the country had to create autonomous regions for each of the major languages, and people are still fighting to have their language become the dominant dialect (Berdichevsky 276). This is also seen repeatedly in America’s history where immigrants to the country struggle to keep their languages alive. These immigrants realize the important role that language plays in keeping a community together, and many immigrants from the same country will choose to live by each other in America and are resentful when they are forced to learn English. My own great-grandparents chose to live in an Italian neighborhood in Ohio when they first came from Italy so that their culture would not be lost. This allowed my grandma to learn Italian as well as English, and even though she was going to an English school she was still taught the morals of her culture because she was able to talk with the older Italian people who did not speak English. My grandma says that this has helped her throughout life because even though she lives in America she says, “I respect my Italian heritage,” and that it has helped “build my confidence” (12 April 2003).

The growth of English language has increased tremendously over the years and has become the most widely spoken languages in the United States. This observation aims to explore why when moving to the United States, many non-English speakers feel the social pressure to learn English and what difficulties they encounter. After my observation, I found that many feel the need to learn English in order to assimilate into a community, and though straddling two languages is difficult, it opens more opportunities, and language privilege.

“No Habla English”. “21 million people living in the United States cannot speak English. Citizens are not just speaking Spanish, but Chinese and Russian are rising fast.” (U.S. Bureau of Census, 2009) To force a citizen to speak a new language is discrimination. Non-English speaking citizens and immigrants that are without good English skills will fall academically, in the judicial system and when receiving proper medical care.

Noah Davis Dr. White Comp. 2 03/04/15 Fallacies in Immigration Immigration is a large and growing debate in the United States. Many people argue and their arguments are weak due to logical fallacies. Many exist throughout the topic of immigration and weaken their arguments. Sources like the Huffington post and the Council on Foreign Relations are writing about this topic and use these in their articles.

Being a Hispanic student who came from not speaking English at all to writing English essays on a weekly basis, I have learned many things that have helped me cope with the disadvantages that were brought on by my lack of English language skills and the advantages that came with being a bilingual student. When I first came to Canada in 2006, I barely spoke a word of English and had to rely on other people for help. I felt helpless and lost, as my classmates were doing things that I did not understand. Over time, I began to pick up the English language quickly and I started to take risks. I constantly challenged myself to try to speak English whenever possible and this allowed me to catch up to my classmates in writing and speaking by grade 3, which was my

The debate on whether the United States should make English the official language has been raging within the borders of the country for decades. Several bills have been presented to Congress over the years, but have stagnated due to the opposition on either side. Though there would certainly be drawbacks to introducing English as the official language of the United States, there would also be immeasurable benefit. Not only would an official language streamline government processes and reduce government spending, it would also aid the United States by unifying its’ people.

Many people in the United States have a sense of comfort with their own culture and language to the point where they will not abandon those things in order to pick up a new language and lifestyle. In the article named, “Why and When We Speak Spanish in Public,” written by Myriam Marquez, she explains how her family continues to use the Spanish in public in the United States, even though they have lived in the United States for over 40 years. Marquez explains, “For me and most of the bilingual people I know, it’s a matter of respect for our parents and comfort in our cultural roots” (542). People are simply not going to change who they are and where they come from just so they can conform to the normal population of the United States. For the most part, people who come the United States are happy that the country has not implemented a national language law because the people who come here can

Nobody’s born with the language they speak today. Everyone is born with a clean tongue that is transformed to make sounds and words that are native to their homeland and people they were raised by. Language can’t be described as a trait, like the color of your skin or the width of your shoulders. When society discriminates against individuals that speak differently, they are judging them based on how they were raised and how they were taught to speak, people don’t see them as just a person that didn’t have a choice of how they wanted to communicate, and conformed to fit into a puzzle of a whole area of people that sound the same way. I believe that people are molded by experience and adapt to the environment they were placed in. Life is

Many countries have been dehumanized the fellow human beings for language. If one person moves to America, he should know English as a language then only he would be eligible for survival. Other problem is that Americans do not treat them as human beings unless they know their language forgetting the fact that America was also once colonized by the British.

Currently, there are over 6,000 living languages spoken in the world. Even with these many languages spoken, people are still discriminated in America. Language is a part of many cultures and daily life, for example in Amy Tan's "Mother Tongue", Tan says "I've heard other terms used, 'limited English,' for example. But they seem as bad, as if everything is limited, including people's perceptions of the limited English speaker." Language should not be a border where people today are still treated as "broken".

Though America does not have an official language, English is the most spoken language. First, English is the language of the forefathers; those who are the foundation and reason our country is still in existence today. Whenever the Declaration of Independence and The Constitution were written, the Englishmen wrote them in English. Nonetheless, English has been spoken for many, many centuries. To add to that, the English language is what ties the country back to it’s roots. Secondly, knowing the English language does not just stop at ordering food at a restaurant, it is the language that countries use to trade with one another. Immigrants who know English do not have as much trouble ordering food or trying to sell items to other people. English is the native language of the United States; therefore, learning the language should be a requirement.

From the time the Pilgrims landed in this great nation at Plymouth Rock, immigrants have been culturally diverse and have spoken many languages. When the Pilgrims arrived in the New World, they did not know how to communicate with the natives. Through intense study the natives learned the Pilgrims’ language. Even with the common language they were still a melting pot of different culture. Some would say that America has gotten over the language/ cultural barriers and now almost everyone speaks the common language of English, but there are still many immigrants who do not know English. Bilingual education is put into public schools for this reason, so that immigrant children can be assimilated to English gradually. The national language

The language barrier is one of the biggest problems people face when they move to another country. Many immigrants who come from other countries are met with many linguistic challenges that not only impede their control of daily life tasks but also their ability to survive. I believe that it is important for immigrants to speak a national language. If they are unable to speak a national language, they will be unable to function to the fullest and therefore become isolated and disempowered from the community.

Language is universal. People voice their ideas, emotions, and thoughts across to the world through language. Multitudes of people across the country speak a varierty of languages. However, a foreigner is reduced to their native language, and sometimes has difficulties mainstreaming English into their dialect. A native language is a foreigner's blueprint for the world to hear. Native language gives homage to a foreigner's culture and home life. Native tongues open doors for education and job opprutunities. A native tongue is translated in books and plastered on signs across the communites. Imagine if language decreased to just English, and no another language existed. People would mirror each other, and have no idea of diversity. So where

I am going to choose to argue that language should be legislated, since I think this the more difficult side to back up. I personally believe that language should not be legislated because everyone should have the right to speak their preferred tongue whenever and wherever they are, especially in the United States, where such a diverse group of people live. I believe a law legislating language would still allow people to speak their preferred language, but everything else would be in English (this is the way I think the law should be written, so all my arguments will be based off the idea that people will still be able to speak their own specific languages :D).