...In Robert MacNeil’s insightful essay that accompanies his documentary “Do You Speak American,” he discusses the ongoing war on vocal language, and presents his readers with arguments from both a “Prescriptivist” and “Descriptivist” point of view. MacNeil ultimately sides with the latter and persuades his audience of Americans reluctant to language-change to accept, or at least recognize regional dialects other than their own. He uses historical illustrations to show how language has changed in the past, expert opinions to validate his arguments, and appeals to pride to his American audience. MacNeil uses these rhetorical choices to effectively persuade his audience of reluctant Americans to at least acknowledge, if not accept, other ways of speaking English in America. Since much of MacNeil’s argument is about how language has changed in the past to become more diverse by region, using historical illustrations is an effective way to show how language has always been evolving. By referring to instances in the past where language changed for the better, MacNeil can persuade his reluctant audience to change because it is not a new idea and has worked before and therefore can work again. For example...
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...Asian, and Native Americans. All of the ethnic groups are different when it comes to things such as education, poverty, religion and politics. However, at the same time a lot of the groups populate the same states, but stay away from almost the same states. To begin with I will start with the different education rates from groups. African American ethnic groups have a relatively high education rate from what they were in the 1900’s with three point nine million (3.9 million) going to college. I broke down Asian American to three...
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...true Spanish, and was living in a place that spoke English. She was talking about how Chicano Spanish changed from place to place. This form of language is like a lower level of Spanish. Everyday she was criticized for the way she talked, and she took it to heart. Just because people speak a language different ways, does not mean they are any less a part of that culture. This whole article is about recognizing the Chicano culture as being legitimate. That it is something to be proud of. A big argument in our American culture is whether American is English or English is American. There is no fact of this matter there is only many different opinions. My personal opinion is that English is American. When America was founded, it was Great Britain who settled the land and formed colonies. Great Britain spoke English. That is why I think the English is American. America is often known as the “melting pot,” because so many people from different cultures moved here to start a better life. Because there are so many different cultures, there are many different languages. In the world, there are many different cultures, and many different variations of those cultures. Some of them may speak a little differently or live their life a little differently. But no matter how they live, language can be a key factor in how they are treated by the other variations of that culture. Language can be the one thing that a person is judged by. No matter what other attributes that person...
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...Hispanic American Diversity ETH/125 Cultural Diversity For the assignment due this week I have had to do some research on Hispanic groups and learn more about their culture and more. In the following the political, social, economic, religious, and familial conventions or statuses will be discussed shortly about the Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and ………… Mexican Americans are one of the fastest growing groups in the United States and for this reason they should be able to have a powerful say in politics. However when it comes to politics and more specifically voting, they just don’t have a voice very loud just yet. Although they due play a larger role in the southwestern states than other parts of the country since this is where the vast majority live. This is in part due to the fact that many are either younger Americans or just not U.S. citizens yet. Socially and familial conventions the Mexican Americans still in generally hold different thoughts and lifestyles than that of the majority of U.S. citizens. The core groups of Mexican Americans hold strong ties to family and even extended family is just as important as immediate. Woman are greatly respected and loved but still considered secondary when it comes to their husbands who are seen as the authority figure for the family. They typically very large families and everyone is kept very close. Catholicism is the religion that the vast...
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...confuse some native English speakers, as it is a shortcut (English) term or literal translation from Filipino words/phrases, which is not popularly known/accepted by some. It is a speech pattern commonly used by Filipinos when speaking English. This is English spoken using the Filipino speech pattern. Filipinos speak English using English words but think in terms of using their first language in context and structure resulting to a kind of English that is seemingly unintelligible. Objectives : * To define FILIPINISM/FILIPINOISM * To be familiar with the common FILIPINISM that we use. * To be able to avoid FILIPINISM in our sentence construction and verbal communication. * Speaking fluent English efficiently and effectively. Filipinism is not wrong nor is it a bastardization of English. In the call center industry, however, Filipinism needs to be avoided because the great majority of the clients of multinational call center companies are Americans. And Filipinism might obstruct understanding during communications, which is apparently a critical aspect of the call center operations. Thus, Filipinism must be avoided as part of the effort to speak American and English words or phrases resulting from the literal translation of Filipinos of English terms. They may not be necessarily grammatically...
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...“Gatekeeping is an exercise of authority ..”(PBS).As a African American Female.I was raised to “speak right” ,and as I said before white is right in society.I know me saying this right now is petty or you may even see me as a different person,but I’ll rather be real with you then misguide you in this place we call world.I can recall a time when I called Wal-mart to check the status of my application.” Hi this is Doria Lee , I am calling to check the status of my application I applied for three weeks ago”:.SAE yea that was me.Many people may find this “fake” or “not being true to myself”, but I'm just trying to make a way for myself. “Embracing “proper english” unlocks an intellectual feast”(Standard.Co) .This quote says it all honestly.If you are not aware of when to code switch or how to code switch you will just be another outsider of the gatekeeping...
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...Khalid Al Mansuri Dr. Davidson LING 513 October 16, 2014 Outline I. Topic Gender and Number Agreement in the Oral Production of L1 Arabic Among Bilingual Arab-Americans. II. Thesis Statement This study investigates Arabic heritage speakers’ knowledge of gender and number agreement and concord morphology in two syntactic contexts; subject-verb agreement and noun-adjective agreement. Additionally, how does their dominant language (English) may affect the correct usage of gender and number agreement in the two syntactic contexts. III. Hypothesis There is a negative influence of the dominant language (English) on the mastering gender and number agreement in Arabic among bilingual Arab-Americans. IV. Methodology A. Participants: Ten participants (Bilingual Arab-Americans). B. Data Collection Two tasks: 1. Oral-production task: includes the description of 10 pictures via PowerPoint. The purpose of this task is to produce examples of subject-verb agreement in Arabic as the following: a. human-singular masculine. b. human- singular feminine. c. human- plural masculine. d. human- plural feminine. 2. The second task is: Demonstrate and compare these pictures; each picture has contrastive adjectives, For example, happy/sad. Five pairs-pictures. The purpose of this task is to elicit examples of noun-adjective agreement in Arabic as the following: a. human-singular...
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...There are many types and forms of communication such as body language, hand gestures, brail, pictures, language, and sound. All of which allows the user to get some point across. The idea behind each one is to allow somebody else to understand what you need him or her to understand. Thus conveying a point or idea is paramount to understanding others. Unfortunately there are limitations in such deliverance of information. Namely the user and recipient must understand the type of communication. If one does not know how to deliver or receive then we develop a form of miscommunication. Naturally the user or recipient has to improvise and develop a quick understanding of the form. Unfortunately with such a speculation, the understanding is very ambiguous and arbitrary. The user may mean one thing and the recipient might think the complete opposite. In a country as diverse as America, there are many walks of life present. There are communities with almost every imaginable ethnicity, and other areas that are solely one type of race. The segregation makes it difficult at times to communicate with others. The issue is further complicated due to the cultural factor. Some cultures excel at making custom idiomatic expressions, such as Americans. Other Asian cultures may excel in gestural expressions. Lastly sound is an important issue since certain languages or types of communications rely on distinct sounds that others cannot mimic. These three factors: segregation of communities, cultural...
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...Sam Wiggins 12/1/15 English 101 Prompt 4 I believe the United States should have an official language. There are too many languages and cultures here, and people should start to learn the English language in order to live here. When you go to other Countries you have to learn the language, why not here as well? It really doesn't make sense. A person’s culture is something that does not depend on the language you speak to a store clerk! If you wish to live in the United States accept that. We are a country that welcomes people’s diversity but we have taught English in our schools from the get go. There needs to be some give and take. If you speak another language in your home or when conversing with family or friends then because you live in America, that is your choice, but we are a united country and one of the things that keeps us together despite our differences is our ability to communicate with each other. The United States is a melting pot. How do we "melt" into one country if we have different languages and thus language barriers among us? In order to be united, we need to have a common way to understand one another. This does not mean that each culture should not be able to practice his/her own cultural traditions. In fact, the common language will allow us to share our own origins with one another. A common language allows the "melting" in our melting pot of a nation. Many of the arguments I've read against having English as the official language can be re-construed...
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...Pathos Positioned Research Paper: Language Identified with Race and Minority “I Don’t Speak White” Written by Kendra Alexander Your language is your identity; the way you speak depends on your environment and the people surrounding you. Race and ethnicity are not huge factors in the way one expresses themselves. While some associate certain slang verbiage with the African American race, each ethnicity and race have their own “slang” or abbreviations they use. The way we communicate within our social groups connects us to one another. Edward Sapir, in Language: an Introduction to the Study of Speech, stated “Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations.” Every culture creates their own language, they find a way to clarify themselves amongst each group, whom is to say one language is better than the other. Negative connotations can be placed on the way one speaks due to their background, or ethnicity. If a minority person speaks “well”, along with these negative race connotations, the person is then seen as acting as though they are the “superior” race. Language can connect us, but it can also segregate our defined cultures. Language and behavior tend to be associated with race, class, and popularity. The connotations of language and race create the “acting white” phenomenon showing that basic stereotypes still exist unrealized or unnoticed, and not only affect social aspects of a person’s life but...
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...Identity Paper 27 October 2014 First Generation American-Mexican I am a first generation American-Mexican, I was born and raised in Northern California; Santa Rosa, CA., it is about one-hour from San Francisco, California. It is a place filled with various cultures from many different cultural background, customs, and traditions. The majority of individuals living Northern California are from Mexico as it borders the United States. While, growing up my school had a few American-Mexican: Chicano population, with the majority Caucasians and Asian. My school had few African-Americans. As a youth, I sought to grow up and assimilate into the American culture while maintain my cultural identity. As my identity makes me who I am today, and someone I am not. As I grew older, I learned what made the United States different amongst other nations as it was the melting-pot of various cultures from all around the world, in which made it unique from other countries. Furthermore, at Santa Rosa Junior College challenged my mentality to keep an open mind of others, in which I was blind, but each day at school meeting new people, and engaging in conversation with individuals asking them, various questions of what they wanted to do, what was their major, and what gave them passion to keep studying. I had to readjust my ideals about higher education. Higher education has help me find my identity, through knowledge. As I hold on to my customs and traditions that my parents have bestowed...
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...Plan I strong believe that everyone want to be better one, but how to make an improvement plan is an important issue for us. For me, I want to speak English better, work out better, and write a resume better. In my opinion, I think a good mentor and a good plan are very important, because a good mentor can give the best advice to us, and a good plan can track our improvements. Otherwise, from the article “How to play your strengths” I got that to know yourself better is important too, because before you find the best plan to fit you, you should to know what is your strengths and weakness, then you can use your strengths to control your weakness, so you can overcome your weakness easier. In addition, the Reflected Best Self exercise is a perfect tool to know yourself better. Anyway, I will use this exercise to reach my all goals. For my first goal, I want to speak English better, this is my biggest goal. Actually I have been United Stated for almost four years, but my speaking is still not good, and I feel hard to communicate with American sometimes. Otherwise, I really want to know more information about U.S. And if I do some business with some customers who speak English in the future, so fluent English is very important to me. Therefore I have to improve my speaking, and then I can know what I want to know via communication with American, and success in business with international customers. For my second goal, I want to work out better. I have been working out for two years...
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...Why Born This Way ‘I look nothing like her, nothing’. This was said by a ten-year-old Asian American boy and “her” referred his mother. This young boy’s name is Ken Liu. Now he is a famous science-fiction writer, who won both 2012 Hugo Award and 2011 Nebula Award for Best Short Story. When he was young, he was puzzled by a words-----“chink face”. Because of his face, he had to take a lot of unfair judgments from others and mocks from his peers. Therefore, Ken hated his mother who was born in China and married with his American father through an introduction service in China (his father “had picked his mom out of a catalog”). There were also problems behind the face itself. Ken’s mother could not speak English, which made Ken do not even want to talk with her. However, after his mother tried a lot to learn how to speak English, Ken did not want to talk with her neither because his mother’s “accent and broken sentences embarrassed him”. Then for many years, he almost never talked to his mother again. Many second-generation immigrants have the same experience with Ken Liu due to their special culture background. There are so much unavoidable conflict between the second-generation immigrants and their parents. Parents and teenagers in the immigrant families have different goals and concerns in their lives in United States. Dr. Vappu Tyyskä, a Associate Professor at Ryerson UniversityFirst doing many research about intergenerational relations, named these two group of people as...
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...A man walks into a gas station to ask for driving directions. It's clear to the attendant that the man is having trouble articulating his words as he speaks a foreign accent. The attendant listens impatiently and starts to look away, less than a minute later the attendant answers the man in a slow and booming voice; laughing between some words here and there and mockingly impersonating the man's pronunciation and timbre. The man, looking surprised, says thank you and leaves the store. The scene described here illustrates one of many personal observations I've made throughout my life about the influence of language on perception. Misunderstanding and ignorance about cultural differences give rise to a malignant social disease, that those who speak a foreign language e.g. "broken English" are considered to be inferior. It's a well known fact that we feel most comfortable around those who are similar to us, and the way we speak alters the perceptions of those around. It's not just the quality of our speech, but also what we speak. For example,someone who speaks British English with perfect clarity is deemed by many to be more intelligent than the average person, while someone who speaks imperfect Nigerian English is automatically assumed to be ignorant. Both are speaking English, both are able to communicate with each other and the rest of us, so why is it that one is associated with intellectual prowess and the other intellectual fallacy? Part of the answer lies in our social...
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...Complex Systems in Education CSE ESSAYS COURSE Complex Course on Writing English and American Essays for Advanced Students English Language Programs Division Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs Writing 2 United States Information Agency, Washington, D. C. 1999 2 3 How to Use this Complex Course Частные уроки Английского Языка 387-1231 MIND Speaks to MIND – Selected American Essays 4 Preface Some years ago, a visitor to our office, a professor of English at a large foreign university, asked if the English Language Programs Division had published a book of American essays for foreign students – especially students at the advanced level. Having to respond in the negative, I was, nonetheless, “intrigued” by the idea of a collection of essays that would form a source of stimulating ideas or thoughts that could be thoroughly examined in the EFL classroom, discussed and debated in free conversation, and perhaps, ultimately, lead to a significant growth in the exchange of information between cultures – via the printed page. From this rationale, then, there issues an explanation for the title, Mind Speaks to Mind, which itself is an “exchange of information” between the editor and Edward Hoagland in his essay, “On Essays”! And, readers are encouraged to study this essay first as a type of guideline concerning the nature/purpose of the essay. It is found on page 26. For ease of reference, the essays are presented in alphabetical order according...
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