American values are frequently forced upon students or workers. There are few times, where people look down on people who do not accept the American Way of Life. In “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” Anzaldúa wrote, “So if you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity – I am my language” (Anzaldúa 445). Linguistic identity can be difficult for a bilingual person, being somewhere in-between two different culture is confusing and sometimes uncomfortable. A person can’t simply identify with one or the other because each culture has impacted an individual’s life. Being a bilingual also creates boundaries and limitations because the feeling of being disconnected from the language and culture a person is…
Bilingualism helps to increase the academic and intellectual development of the brain. It is a great ability to assimilate. When in a situation, the brain goes through a workout to resolve an internal conflict. “The key difference between bilinguals and monolinguals may be more basic: a heightened ability to monitor the environment”(Bhattacharjee, 2012). Bilingualism seems that if being bilingual is a simple life hack, then we would all be able to achieve the highest set goal. Being able to withhold more than one language is part of the brain’s executive function. Having to deal with any kind of puzzle even if it is from another country a bilingual has a better chance of solving it. It would be a better opportunity if it was learned at an earlier…
In today’s society, there are over thousands of different languages or dialects speak around the world. And because America is such a diverse country with many individuals capable of speaking two or more languages, they tend to forget the importance of speaking English in America. As an American living in America, it’s not important whether they speak English or not, but what’s important is which language they choose to represent themselves freely.…
Obviously, Talking is the basic human ability that creates communications. Therefore, learning the new language becomes the very first aspect of fitting into a new environment even though the learning process can be troublesome for some people. In his essay “Mute in an English-Only World”, Chang-rae Lee describes the difficulties that his Mom had when they immigrated to America at very first year without fully developed English speaking skill: “I saw every day the exacting price and power of language, especially with my mother, who was an outsider in an English-only world…She often encountered great difficulty whenever she went out” (541). Moreover, language is a part of the culture that becoming more suitable in new environment and being more acceptable by local residents are vastly depend upon learning it. For instance, if those Mexican workers who worked at Framingville could speak better English and explained themselves a bit more, the situation will be shifted at least with some conversations of ironing the problems out, instead of the intense conflicts that took place there. The other way of thinking it is that people often times use national language as a determination of national identity, which means that speaking the same language can actually close the gap between local residents and immigrants. This point…
Supporters of the policy to make English the national language feel that previous generations of immigrants understood that learning English was the catalyst for social integration and economic mobility. It is also what aided immigrants from widely different origins to “melt” into Americans (Critin, Reingold, Walters, & Green, 1990). They also argue that both historical experience and common sense teach that linguistic diversity threatens political cohesion and stability. As written in U.S. News & World Report, “English-only advocates, whose ranks include recent immigrants and social liberals, believe…
I agree with Rodriguez that your heritage will forever remain your identity but it is possible to have multiple identities in a sense of becoming accustomed to wherever you are. You can embrace your new profound identity and in a sense of individualism in order to succeed in life. Bilingual education to me is important because not only does it teach you to speak a universal language in America but also teaches you societal norms. Reason being is that once you’ve learned the proper language, mannerism, and culture you can choose to be the person you want to be. According to a writer at Kars4kids, which is an educational blog for parents, Merle Huerta suggests that “Bilingual education makes kids more adaptable and flexible in a changing environment.” (Huerta). With that being said, being bilingual can have adaptive benefits. The improvements in the cognitive and sensory process from bilingual experience may help students or anyone learning English to better process information in the environment. Furthermore, bilingual education can help train the brain by learning and inhibiting a new language which allows bilingual people to access newly learned vocabulary. In addition to benefits of Bilingual education Matthew Lynch, who is an author of The Call to Teach and editor of The Edvocate, states in his article that bilingual education, “helps remove international language barriers.” (Lynch). Lynch argues that bilingual education has cultural benefits to people learning two languages together. People who come from households that have English as a primary language can lend their language expertise to friends from Spanish-speaking homes, and vice versa. Overall in Rodriguez’s perspective, I understand that what once was his sacred and private language became something almost non-existent to him was abhorrent. Not only was language was changed but also his…
|1. (TCO 1) The awareness of the relationship between an individual and the wider society is referred to as: (Points : 5) |…
In this modern era, majority of the world’s population is characterized as being bilingual. This is in most cases is manifested as a result of cross movement and interactions by people and societies which initiates the need to fit in and survive. The trend is seen as an important emerging perspective as it facilitates cross-cultural communication and positively affects cognitive abilities. Research shows that the bilingual brain can have better attention and task-switching capacities than the monolingual brain. This is manifested due to its developed ability to contain one language while using another.…
In this peer reviewed journal article “A Speech Community Model of Bilingual Education: Educating Latino Newcomers in the USA” written by Ofelia Garcia and Lesley Bartlett the authors find a way to address the current problem of bilingual education in the US. They do so by conducting a qualitative case study at a segregated bilingual high school for Latino newcomers. They base their study off of a community high school in New York by the name of Gregorio Luperon High School. This specific school has a majority of Dominican students in a city with one of the highest drug and…
English as a common ground is so that Americans can understand what is being spoken to each other. Americans should be able to communicate and read any material out in this country without wondering what is being said. Foreigners or non-English speaking citizens are increasingly becoming more segregated, creating poverty- stricken areas. The creation of these areas is due to the language barrier (US-English, 2012). Americans who speak English can find it insulting when other begins to speak to them in another language. Majority of the states have English as their official language. So when a foreigner begins to speak another language or attempt to communicate in English, it could be found offensive because if the same person were to go to their country, it would offensive if you did not speak their language. When living or visiting the United States, it would be safe to assume that everyone spoke English if it were the official language. No one would be insulted, nor would an individual find it hard to communicate with another. Making English the official language of the United States means that the government will be conducting everything solely in English. This includes all public documents, records, legislation and regulations, as well as hearings, official ceremonies and public meetings (US-English, 2012). “This means that everything will be conducted in the English language and that no one will have the right to demand government services in any other language” (ProEnglish, 1994). The government cost of multilingualism is in the hundreds of million dollars. Companies have to spend about 15 to 20 percent of production cost to use in translation services (CalRecycle, 1995). For example, Hospitals have to pay for translators to those who do not speak English. Translators in California are paid $45 to $50 an hour! While…
The multilingualism debate in the United States has two sides; one side advocates for multilingualism in order to embrace different cultures and ideas, while the other side supports an English-only policy to unify the country. Although we are a nation of diversity and some think an English-only policy limits immigrants from being as equally successful as English-speakers and prevents diversity from being present in our country, I disagree. I advocate for an English-only policy in the U.S. because having a common language among all unifies the diverse country together, and allows immigrants to participate democratically and politically, and succeed economically. An English-only policy not only creates a necessary bond, but it also doesn’t limit individuals culturally or nationally because everyone is still free to communicate and…
College students choose shift from minority language to language to majority because of social identity and expanded networks. Identity is the fact of being who or what a person or thing is. Many bilinguals feel pressured from the wider society to speak English. Stigma and prestige are factors that lead to social identity. Several have stopped speaking Spanish because they are afraid of being laughed at. From my personal experience with speaking Spanish here at Western is that we can learn from the people around us. There is not one language that works in every situation but there is a special bond between people who speak similar and share speech patterns. Speech is part of who we are, and bilingual students should be able to speak both equally.…
Revolutionary leaders knew that encouraging the growth of the multilingual population in the United States was vital to maintaining distance from Great Britain. The Founding Fathers sought to respect the minority groups that helped free the nation from the British crown, therefore avoiding instituting an official national language from the Constitution. In fact, around this time many documents were printed in German and French to stimulate political participation among multilingual citizens. But when the political arena of the 1980s fostered bilingual legislation (for example, introducing bilingual schooling and bilingual voting forms), this respect for foreign languages nearly vanished as many citizens took up arms against American-English being challenged.…
Potowski listed makes me question why there is such a huge opposition to bilingualism in the U.S.; the encouragement of monolingualism is obvious, yet there are no apparent benefits that stem from becoming a monolingual country. So, why are people in the U.S. so adamant that everyone who comes here must learn to speak English and only English? Why are other languages met with such distaste? To be direct, I believe that it may be that people in the U.S. are simply ignorant to other culture; as a country, we are “stuck in our ways” and we seemingly ignore the overwhelming evidence of the advantages that stem from bilingual education. Even I was dumbfounded when Potowski mentioned that there are programs where 90% of the school day is taught in Spanish. Nevertheless, because of my newfound knowledge, I sincerely think that the U.S. should consider expanding bilingual education; the research is clear: bilingual education has many advantages that cannot and should not be…
Many immigrants fear bilingual education because it is associated with disadvantage, alienation, and cultural deprivation. Many of them do not want to pass their native language on to their children because they consider English to be more socially and economically valued. (Linton, 2004)…