Sarah Travis
ENGWR 101
Inst. Kronzer
13 Sept 2014
Reflective Essay
Language has fatal consequences, from my own personal experience, when working in healthcare, speaking unprofessionally can cause me to be terminated, although it may be challenging to change the way you speak a language, you just have to deal with what the employer wants from you or you will lose your job. According to James Baldwin, language “is the most vivid and crucial key to identity: It reveals the private identity, and connects one with, or divorces one from, the larger, public, or communal identity. There have been, and are, times and places, when to speak a certain language could be dangerous, even fatal” (650). Baldwin explains that there is a time and place that certain language should be speaking because language has fatal consequences. I agree with Baldwin, there is a time and place for everything. I also agree that language can be dangerous, even fatal.
In James Baldwin’s essay, “If Black English Isn’t a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?” Baldwin confronts the topic of “Black Language.” Baldwin states, “Language incontestably, reveals the speaker” (Baldwin, 648). The language one speaks can say a lot about a person. People may speak the same language, but it is always going to be different based off where the speaker comes from, what type of person the speaker is, what the speaker does as their career, and what the speaker has experienced in their life. Baldwin states that his argument has “nothing to do with language itself but with the role of language” (648). Language is key to communication; it allows people to exude their perspective on things. In Amy Tan’s essay, “Mother Tongue,” Tan emphasizes that we speak different languages unconsciously and that we are categorized by the way we speak. I agree with Tan, we speak different languages without being aware at times and this