College Admissions Essay - A Willingness to Overcome Differences
I have a fledgling friendship with Amalia, a Spanish speaking woman. Amalia is not fluent with english, and my Spanish is wobbly and crude. So we get together whenever possible to practice each other's native tongue, half an hour of Spanish, half an hour of English.
When we first started meeting, I saw a forbidding wall of words that I thought had to come down if a bond of friendship was to grow. The words that bring me such exhilaration and such rousing exchanges of ideas in English turned ornery and cantankerous in Spanish. Talking to Amalia, I was careful to bring up topics that I thought my Spanish could handle without too many searches through the dictionary Amalia and I kept between us like a life vest we had to share. Despite that, I often found myself staring at a wall of words, stranded in a maze, with the right words eluding me, defying me, mocking me from where they hid. The words turned me into a blushing, stammering nitwit. I used exaggerated hand gestures and facial expressions. I got gender and number wrong much of the time, unaccustomed as I was to having to think about that in English.
I was embarrassed by my strong American accent and by the mistakes I made. When I tried to tell Amalia that I had eaten fried eggs that morning, she had to gently tell me that I was referring to male anatomy. I referred to elderly people in a degrading way. When I thought I was calling a male friend "embarrassed," I was saying that he was "pregnant".
Such is the wily nature of words. Still, I decided to earn my livelihood with words because I'm enamored of them, in awe of them. I'm usually a humble person near the bottom of the food chain, but words wield...
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...a and I even though objects, ideas, and feelings are expressed with different words in our respective tongues. I learned that words aren't just representational, though they are that too, but that they can also be catalysts. They can influence human interaction, even when the thing they represent is not clear or, more to the point, at precisely that time.
With Amalia and I, the words impelled us toward each other. The bond grew out of a mutual determination to knock down the language barrier, not from its having been diminished. Our act of tackling words signaled to each of us that the other was a person who wished barriers between people to be gone, not reinforced.
We grew close because of the language barrier, not in spite of it. The edifice of words was the bond. I'd mistaken its true form. It wasn't a wall; it was a bridge. And now we've met in the middle.
The mighty river flows through the mountains with liquidity and nurture providing life for all those who wish to take a sip from it. Yet the river is powerful in its own force destroying even the largest rocks, crumbling them into small pieces. People may be able to stop the river for a short time or even dry it up but the water always comes back in one form or another, every dam is bound to fail. Some people have been able to harness the power of the river, redirecting the mighty water making it flow in constructive ways. Similar to the river, language is influential. Its true power is not seen by the naked eye but by those who study it, those who use it as their ally in a war of linguistics. In Martin Luther King Jr.’s letter, Birmingham City Jail he is able to use all three rhetorical appeals to prove that demonstrations lead to negotiations and benefit for both sides of an argument.
Words hold great power and when used correctly can influence what people believe and how they act.
In the work of Amy Tan’s “Mother’s Tongue” she provides a look into how she adapted her language to assimilate into American culture. She made changes to her language because her mother heavily relied on her for translation. She was the voice of her mother, relaying information in standard English to those who were unable to understand her mother’s broken english. She tells about her mother’s broken english and its impact on her communication to those outside their culture. Her mothers broken english limited others’ perception of her intelligence, and even her own perception of her mother was scewed: Tan said, “I know this for a fact, because when I was growing up, my mothers ‘limited’ English limited my perception of her. I was ashamed of her English. I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (419) The use of standard english was a critical component to Tan’s assimilation into American culture. Standard English was an element she acquired to help her mother but more importantly is was an element that helped in her gain success as a writer. Tan changed her ‘Englishes’ (family talk) to include standard English that she had learnt in school and through books, the forms of English that she did not use at home with her mother. (417-418) Tan realized the ch...
When I finished reading a piece of ‘How to tame a wild tongue’, I went on a journey to recall if I had a similar situation. In the reading Anzaldua implies that her language has been alienated through constant heat from both sides (English and Spanish), through this quarrel emerged a new language that was neither English nor Spanish “but both” (Anzaldua, 77). The journey – proves Anzaldua’s point - recalled past events that clearly pointed that what I speak is neither English nor Spanish but a variation of both. This occurred to me when I would talk to friends, I would include words that were officially incorrect in English or Spanish, but they were a part of my culture. For instance, when I would speak to my friends, we would use certain
Language has the power to influence and reshape our thoughts and actions. In Anthem, by Ayn Rand, there is a society which controls the language of everyone in it. Under the World Council, everyone is to follow the many rules put in place and no one even tries to break them. There is no “I” in their language, there is only “we”. With the power to influence and reshape people, language has a big impact on our thoughts and actions.
Frances, S. (2012). Sex work and the law: A critical analysis of four policy approaches to adult prostitution . Thinking about justice: a book of readings (pp. 190-220). Halifax, N.S.: Fernwood Pub..
From this perspective, for immigrants learning the language of the host country is a tool to develop a net of useful social contacts. Cristina Rodriguez states that in addition to its role in developing social bonds, the language use assists with preserving a multilingual en...
Cheech Marin’s film, Born in East L.A., spotlights many key issues brought upon mainly by immigration. This comedic production hits the hearts to many because while it may be humorous, it is also a reality to hundreds of thousands of people worldwide and so it hits close to home to many. Immigration is the main topic of this motion picture, but I want to focus on one subdivision of it only; language. The linguistic barriers in between a border is evident in the movie and especially a reality in our world.
English is an invisible gate. Immigrants are the outsiders. And native speakers are the gatekeepers. Whether the gate is wide open to welcome the broken English speakers depends on their perceptions. Sadly, most of the times, the gate is shut tight, like the case of Tan’s mother as she discusses in her essay, "the mother tongue." People treat her mother with attitudes because of her improper English before they get to know her. Tan sympathizes for her mother as well as other immigrants. Tan, once embarrassed by her mother, now begins her writing journal through a brand-new kaleidoscope. She sees the beauty behind the "broken" English, even though it is different. Tan combines repetition, cause and effect, and exemplification to emphasize her belief that there are more than one proper way (proper English) to communicate with each other. Tan hopes her audience to understand that the power of language- “the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth”- purposes to connect societies, cultures, and individuals, rather than to rank our intelligence.
The author’s diction heightens the confusion and difficulties the English language evokes, as her simple method of communication progressively becomes more complicated. Words are “sifting” around solely as “vocabulary words” it becomes difficult for her to connect and understand this “closed” language. The author learned Spanish during her childhood through past memories and experiences which helped her form a closer knit bond to the language as a whole; however, English does not root any deep connections for her causing her to doubt the importance of words. The negative connotation when she refers to vocabulary words and closed is due to the fact that she is frustrated with her inability to communicate exactly what she perceives as they are not connected to experiences. Similarly, the language seems “frail” and essentially “bottled up” as she is unable to express her thoughts in a manner other than exclusive “translations”. Unlike Spanish, English seems to have a complicated and confusing aspect tied to it where the author is feels trapped because she cannot convey her emotions or relate to it culturally. The repetitions of these words that have a negative connotation draw out the significance behind communication and the true value of connecting to a culture. Overall, the dictio...
...f South African language and culture, acknowledgement of the racial oppression in South Africa, past and present, that it was wrong and positive action is required to make it right, and finally that all South Africans are legitimate and enjoy full moral equality (“About – DA”). In order for all this to be possible, the state must ensure it does not compromise the freedom of the individual (“About – DA”).
Around the 1970s, due to South Africa’s internal contradictions with its economy and people, the Apartheid began its slow demise. Soon the united nation began to take notice of South Africa and began to get involved. With South Africa now in the spot light, Prime Minister P.W Botha left office due to his belief that he had failed to keep order in the country. After the reassignment of P.W Botha, F.W Klerk had taken office. The final stage of the demise of the Apartheid began when Klerk lifted the ban off the ANC and other African political parties. The last blow was the release of Nelson Mandela after 27 years in prison. Now that South Africa’s hope was out of prison he continued to ...
Then the article connects to how fraternal polyandry is similar to nineteenth century marriage in England. Even though they are similar, Tibetan “believe that in this way fraternal polyandry reduces risk of fission, monogamous marriage among brother need to necessarily precipitate the division of family estate” (“When Brothers Share a Wife”). Then the article goes into how the author of this article, Melvyn C. Goldstein, asked the Tibetan people on why they marry this way. Some said it makes the family more stable and other said that is keeps conflict from affecting
Tan has proven herself a master of rhetorical appeals as well as proving her point, that language can have drastic affects on the users. She has judged and been judged by her language, and has seen her mother disrespected because of how she speaks. Speech is important, as it is used as a tool to determine the limitations of your thoughts.
Words can be beautiful, destructive, and manipulative. Language is central to all our lives, and arguably the cultural tool that sets humans apart from any other species. Language enables us to express our wishes, feelings, likes, dislikes, and ideas; it can be a symbolic function. Language also plays a role in how we affect other people, and how we make others feel, achieved just by our choice of words. By observing the language and the behavior of other people, one is provided with valuable information about personality type. If one listens closely they can better understand a friend’s temperament. By paying close attention to others, how they speak, how they dress, and facial expressions, we can better understand the wants of those around as and how they function as a person. The play Othello is full of rich dialogue with characters speaking eloquently and exquisitely to one another, “Yet I 'll not shed her blood, Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow, And smooth as monumental