Language and Literacy in America - Essay Example

Language and Literacy in America "The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn." -Alvin Toffler Introduction Constant innovation and rebuilding, the so-called "economic progress" and globalization all have led to the emergence of a projected 11 million unrecognized immigrants currently residing in the United States of America. These people have traversed physical and allegorical borders, and in the process, "unlawfully" brought diverse tongues to the other side of the border, 350 of them presently spoken on American soil (Gounari 72). Most of these citizens have exerted effort or are still painstakingly attempting to assimilate a second language - English - so as to survive in a culture that is extremely different from where they came from and to be able to integrate themselves in mainstream American society. Apparently, these citizens have made it a major concern to become "bilinguals," thus, earning themselves the capability of conversing with a bigger group of individuals (and being understood as well), likewise, have access to two differing cultures, two bodies of literature and two world standpoints. For individuals in language-minority communities, preserving their ancestral language provides them "attachment" or a bond to their grandparents and keeps open the choice of experiences that construct cultural recognition and pride, as well as ethnic stability; not to mention the fact that being able to speak other languages in itself possess economic gains, as bilinguals are exceedingly in demand in today's large-scale economic system (Bialystok 429-440; Marinova-Todd, Marshall and Snow 9-34; Reese, Garner, Gallimore and Goldenberg 633-662; Verhoeven 381-415; Wong-Fillmore 323-346). Two narratives representing two tremendously diverse perspectives on the concept of bilingualism in 21st century America - Aria written by Richard Rodriguez and How to Tame a Wild Tongue by Gloria Anzaldua - explicitly depict how language and literacy have become closely interlinked with the nuances of current civilization, the relationship between language and power and how language choices have become powerful tools in making effective arguments and strategically achieving specific effects -- to influence, stir and sway target readers and intended audiences. Analysis Gloria Anzaldua's treatise How to Tame a Wild Tongue illustrates circumstances thatdisclose postulations about the categories or power of individuals based on their employment of language or the types of language applied to them. She further examines and evaluates how English-speaking Americans and more educated Latinos employ their power and language to place Chicano Spanish in disgrace, and hence, Chicanos themselves, as abnormal and mediocre. A classic example for such demeaning acts can be illustrated in one of the writer's past experiences when she was still in grade school, an American classmate shouted at her saying, "If you want to be American, speak American.' If you don't like it, go back to Mexico where you belong" (Anzaldua 77). The writer's language choices also offer enlightening patterns. She asserts thatmore educated Spanish-speakers humiliate "Chicano Spanish" as an illegitimate or bastard foreign language. These discourteous and offensive phrases vigorously express the governing culture's disdain for the said vernacular, their goal of shaming the language and, by insinuation, its speakers as "second-rate" and disgusting. The undignified end product of such language is to make Chicano people so ashamed of their own tongue that, for fear of condemnation, they continue to be "unvoiced" around and among their social "superiors" and sometimes to each other. Moreover, in the said essay, the writer likewise relates the figure of speech linguistic terrorism to the movement. Such phraseology implies the calculatedly threatening, silencing, and scary impact of these assaults on Chicano speech and individuality. A major objective of Anzaldua's word choices is to depict the dominant culture's aim of employing its language as a scepter to turn the Chicano people's language against them and to reduce in importance both the language and the cultural group underneath the social chain of command where they are suppose to hang about mutely in their position. Without doubt, Anzaldua imagines that her well-informed and sophisticate English-speaking readers will have modest and direct experience on the lives and conditions of "border people," the indigent, Indian working class. As it is, the commanding and potent language she used in the essay instigates us into a fearsome and distressed world. On the other hand, Richard Rodriguez, through his composition entitled Aria, puts forward a different outlook but just as insightful - that while our heritage and culture may stay ceaselessly bound to and articulated in our native language, only through the use of the prevailing tongue of our country can we attain a position in the social order that can provide us a feeling that we belong among everyone else and that the only way we can truthfully become a component of such community and fit in is to be knowledgeable and "master" the current and dominant spoken language which is standard English. In an interesting passage from Aria, Rodriguez states, "My awkward childhood does not prove the necessity of bilingual education. My story discloses instead an essential myth of childhood- inevitable pain. If I rehearse here the changes in my private life after my Americanization, it is finally to emphasize the public gain. The loss implies the gain" (Rodriguez 522). Likewise, a chapter in the autobiography entitled "Hunger of Memory," Rodriguez talks about public and private languages and concurs that his accomplishments English made him stand out from his Spanish family and from his culture and at the same time brought him "the belief, the calming assurance that [he] belonged in public." The writer further believes, something which was apparent in the passages of his essay that we as human beings want to feel that we belong; that is it innate in human beings to seek for that niche in society where we are most contented and happy all our lives. Another extract explicitly expresses such sentiment, "The voices of my parents and sister and brother. Their voices insisting: You belong here. We are family members. Related. Special to on another. Listen!" (Rodriguez 517.) Conclusion Without doubt, language choices are made, by the speakers themselves. Nobody should impose on anyone what language or dialect to use in the course of one's existence. To allow or tolerate anyone or any group of people to impose one's language or another or make ethnic groups feel that they are inferior (as do the language they use) only strengthens the ethnocentric prejudice, all too common among dominant clusters, that specific languages are weak and not fit to survive in the contemporary era. As it is, cultivating and fostering different ethnic identities and encouraging English language skills are, definitely of greatest importance. Thus, teachers and the educational institutions should seek ways to integrate both of these aspects into the curriculum. Observably, the English Only policy has taken a toll on the pride and identity of several cultural clusters, isolating them from their roots and from their clans. Being castigated for using their ancestral language which is frequently brought down in their own minds, these people have acknowledged the prevailing society's unfair verdict (Denison 13-22; Crawford n.p.). Bibliography Bialystok, Ellen. 1997. "Effects of Lingualism and Biliteracy on Children's Emerging Concepts of Print." Developmental Psychology 33 (1997):429-440. Crawford, J. Bilingual Education: History, Politics, Theory and Practice. 3rd ed. Los Angeles: Bilingual Educational Services, 1995 Denison, N. "Language Death or Language Suicide" International Journal of the Sociology of Language 12 (1977): 13-22. Goldenberg, Claude. "Making Schools Work for Low-Income Families in the 21st Century." Handbook of Early Literacy Research, ed. Susan Neuman and David Dickinson. New York: Guilford Press, 2001 Gounari, Panayota. "How to Tame a Wild Tongue: Language Rights in the United States." Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge IV (2006): 71-78 Hakuta, K. and D'Andrea, D. "Some Properties of Bilingual Maintenance and Loss in Mexican Background High-School Students. Applied Linguistics 13 (1992):72-99. Marinova-Todd, Stefka, Marshall, Bradford and Snow, Catherine. "Three Misconceptions About Age and Second-Language Learning." TESOL Quarterly 34 (2000): 9-34. Reese, Leslie, Garnier, Helen, Gallimore, Ronald and Goldenberg, Claude. "Longitudinal Analysis of the Antecedents of Emergent Spanish Literacy and Middle-School English Reading Achievement of Spanish-Speaking Stu dents." American Educational Research Journal 37 (2000):633-662. Tabors, Patton and Snow, Catherine. "Young Bilingual Children and Early Literacy Development." Handbook of Early Literacy Research, ed. Susan Neuman and David Dickinson. New York: Guilford Press, 2001 Verhoeven, Ludo. 1994. "Transfer in Bilingual Development." Language Learning 14 (1994):381-415. Wong-Fillmore, Lily. "When Learning a Second Language Means Losing the First." Early Childhood Research Quarterly 6 (1991): 323-346. Essays "Aria" by Richard Rodriguez "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" by Gloria Anzaldua Read More