Why The English Language Is Nobody 's Special Property

In The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom, Lisa Delpit and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy have compiled essays from a diverse group of scholars and educators who share a common belief about the potentially harmful power of language and language attitudes on children in the classroom. The authors seek to "explore the links between language and identity, between language and political hierarchy, and between language and cultural conflict" (p. xiv). The book is divided into three sections and includes personal essays, linguistic analysis, case study, and policy analysis, many of which speak to the ongoing debates surrounding Ebonics and the education of African American students.

She states, “White standards of English persist, supreme and unquestioned, in these United States” (124). White english is hardly doubted as the only language accepted in the United States. Jordan acknowledges many of the African American students in her class don’t relate with the language they speak everyday. The class pinpoints their discussion of The Color Purple around the

In this essay, June Jordan primarily focuses on explaining what Black English and how it’s become oppressed by Caucasian Americans throughout the years. Jordan believes African Americans have been raised to modify Black English to Standard English in order to be accepted into the societal and scholarly norms of America. Jordan states early on her essay, “As we learn our way around this environment, either we hide our original word habits,or we completely

With a background affected tremendously by the dark history of African Americans, language has become a significant problem to what the term Black English really means to different people. In If Black Language Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is, James Baldwin attempts to analyze what a language really means and how Black English evolved to fulfill an important role for Americans. Black English sounds proper to blacks, but to whites it may not be a proper use of language. Throughout this essay, Baldwin uses a specific tone and relates to his audience by opening his mind to both emotion and logic while still upholding his credibility. Baldwin tries to persuade the audience to respect the language of Black English using his personal experience. The history of different languages mentioned in the essay is used to help convince the audience of thinking about the term language from a new perspective. Whites and Blacks both may speak the same language, but that does not mean that they understand each other because the language can be spoken in different matters. As Baldwin states, “The white man could not possibly understand, and that, indeed, he cannot understand, until today”. A white man or black man had to be careful about the words they used in front of each other because some words would be considered offensive for one another. Baldwin uses African American language and culture to reveal the impact that the English language Americans use has created.

Speech is often associate with race because some individuals believe that if the person does not sound “educated” enough the person comes from a lower class and was brought up in the so called “ghettos” and this association is often made towards someone that forms part of a minority group. The author illustrates that race is tight up with speech

In the civilized society that everyone lives in today, all languages and culture should be equal. That is the main idea in both Gloria Anzaldua’s essay, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, as well as James Baldwin’s “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?”. The authors in both these texts support their argument in various ways, and in doing so, manages to effectively persuade their audience. The ways that each author approaches their argument is different in their appeals, evidence, and styles. Similarities also exist between the texts of the two authors. The rhetorical strategies that Anzaldua uses makes her argument much stronger than Baldwin’s argument.

Teaching in racially diverse classrooms often leaves educators feeling uncertain about how to proceed and how to respond to historically marginalized students. There is pressure to acknowledge and accept students of color with different perspectives, to diversify the syllabi, be more aware of classroom dynamics, and pay attention to how students of color experience the learning process.

Savan explains how close yet how far apart the White and African American languages really are. She writes about how often black language is now being used in everyday “American talk”(381) by white people. She feels that the media has used so many words of African Americans that these words are now becoming part of “Standard English”(368). Although many words of blacks are becoming extremely accepted by white people the entire black language is not accepted. “December 1996, the Oakland, California, school board approved [a new way of teaching] African American students [in the classroom]’’(Savan 385). The school board approved the method of using ebonomics in several African American populated schools around the Oakland area. This new way of teaching created an uproar with the media and white people. Once again African American people were being scrutinized over their language and were being made fun of again. Many of the same white people/media using black language were mocking African American’s saying “to teach ebonomics [is wrong because blacks would be ignoring] standard english”(Savan 386). This is a very thoughtless statement because if blacks would be able to use their own black language in school it could help them understand the standard english system along with several

“… not all English speakers are privileged equitably in the US. Expressing racist, classist, ableism,

Not all students are given an equal opportunity, especially in the social category race. If a student didn’t view himself white, or viewed as white, he or she wouldn’t receive an education equal to a white student. In the case of Plessy v. Ferguson, the courts ruled that he was not white even though he was seven-eighths white and one-eighth black. Adding to this problem was that a majority of southern states adopted a drop of blood policy, that classified anyone an African, no matter how distant the ancestor. What also was a problem was that all different types of people call themselves all different types of races. Many immigrants from Mexico and Cuba identify themselves as Hispanic, or Latino and Latina, but 87% of Americans born in Cuba and 53% born in Mexico identified themselves as white. Instead of race, many immigrants identify themselves by their countries of origin or world

Reoccurring in many situations, people, specifically students, deal with this first hand in the form of bullying in an educational setting. In his essay, “The Color of Success”, Eric Watts recalls how his fellow black friends would tell him to “stop talking like a white boy!” just because he spoke in “standard English” (Watts). Isolating those who are different, people experience this common and cruel practice among all generations. The act of singling out those who are unalike secures a spot in the characterizing of human nature because it shows the need to discriminate against someone or people and get others to join as well. Communities often treat dissimilar people in a demeaning manner because it justifies their hatred, especially if others join along.

Coming from a diverse community to a predominantly all white community has been a slow transition. I’ve experienced situations where sometimes I question my identity and who I really am. I’ve experience microaggressions within my work environment and my internship at the Boys and Girls club in Mckinleyville. Kids are extraordinary, but are a mirror image of their parents or adult figures present in the household. You can see by the way kids talk to peers or adult figures, treat one another, that there’s an unfair thinking being embedded in their cognitive development. This will affect them in how they go about their day, who they chose to interact with, what they allow to happen and the type of

AAVE is a variation of what is commonly referred to as Standard English, and is predominantly spoken by African American communities across the United States. Unlike many other variations of English, AAVE is not regional so African Americans speak more or less the same way all across the country. These sociolinguistic parallels are because African Americans are “oriented to a sense of ethnic solidarity and nation wide cohesiveness” due to their extensive history of fighting in unity for the same victories (Fought, 2003). The possibility that AAVE

Everyone has a different interpretation of the word, “invention”. However the word is simply defined as; a new device, method of process developed from study and experimentation. An invention is just a mental fabrication; it’s a falsehood (Dictionary.com 2013).1 Although in the essays, “Why I write” by Joan Didion, “Life in a new Language” by Eva Hoffman, and “Basmati Rice: An Essay about Words” by Audrey Thomas, each author has their own view on the English language, how they each began inventing their own writing styles, and also their reasons for why they chose to become writers. These are the three things that make their definitions of invention very particular and their own.

With the development of living standard in society, studying aboard has become more and more popular. Not only because of English as the world language is an agent to connect countries, but also speaking English fluently will be beneficial for the future personal development. In order to study oversea smoothly, the first step is to go through the language--English. Generally speaking, English has been divided into two different types according to the purposes which are English for Academic Purpose (EAP) and General English (GE). It is obvious that EAP teaches the knowledge which will be suitable for a higher education whereas GE is mainly focus on daily communications. Therefore, the teaching style or perhaps teacher’s role in the class is also different. In this essay, the writer will illustrate two different classifications by Harmer and Scrivener, after compare and contrast the two the teacher’s role, the writer will select one of the classification and justify it. Finally, the chosen classification will be put into practice ( justifying with the radios provided).