To Min-Zhang Lu, different launguages, like English, Standard Chinese, and the dialect of Singapore represented different groups of people in her life. The words with which people conveyed their thoughts often said more than the words themself. English words meant that the speaker was a member of her family, a loved one. Standard Chinese words were words of the state. They were spoken in school settings with government officials and propoganda. Shanghai dialect was a spoken badge of servants and workers. Languages kept these things seperate for her. When they overlapped, she became confused.
Mike Rose labled people by their language very similarly to the way Lu did. In "Crossing Boundries," different dialects of American English were clues to the level of education recieved by the speaker. His students were not familiar with rules of Standard Written English because they hadn't had the opportunity to learn the rules. Muddled syntax, poor grammar, and incorrect spelling were the marks of a member of the "educational underclass."
Both Lu and Rose realized that launguage was a sign of upbringing and lifestyle, but not thought. It does not reflect intelligence, ability to reason, or thought process. I felt really sorry for all the people in Rose's story who lost a lot of opportunities because of a bad education, not because they weren't smart.
2 comments:
I totally agree with your thoughts on the essay. In a way both of the writers were trying to convey the message about how language was almost like a sign of ranking inside a culture.
I agree with your response and I like the way you explained it. I also like the way you brought everything together at the end about language and what it was a sign of.
Post a Comment