Language in Our Lives
Have you ever wondered who taught you to talk the way you do? People learn to talk and express themselves everyday of their lives. Starting from the day you were born you used language or some form of it to communicate with those around you. As a baby you usually show your displeasure with your new surroundings by crying, and if you don’t the doctor will make sure you do. Everyday we express our point of view to others in some form of language. Whether it is through verbal communication, written discourse or through body language, you can tell if a person is upset, angry, or happy. We as human beings don’t realize how much language has to do with our lives. How can you determine if one of your friends is angry with you? Is there a different tone to their voice? Do they have a stern look on their face? Of course they do, your friend feels the need to express their anger to you by these different forms of language. Where do we learn to use these different forms of language? How are our uses of these languages shaped? The three main contributing factors to how we express ourselves through language come from our schooling, our friends, and most of all from our families.
Going to school can teach you many things, even more than you can imagine. Who would know that in school you could actually learn a whole new vocabulary? This never seen before vocabulary will only come out in writing and besides that will be hidden deep among the depths of your subconscious. Truly, school can teach you more than just random information. Schooling has a huge affect on language you use in a daily basis. The only place where I was ever taught that the way in which I spoke was wrong. When I look back at the time consuming vocabulary work and the never-ending readings, I now realize how I benefited from them. I may not me the best writer, but I do have a plethora of words to share. Where do you think you learned that you’re not doing good you’re doing well, and who taught you that a coma should be placed here, or that you shouldn’t end a sentence with a preposition, without these helpful teachings I don’t know where we would be at.
My Growth as a Writer Most of us write in some form every day, so you would expect that most of us would be well practiced and pretty good at writing. I read and write all the time; I have taken several college courses and nearly all of them require writing in some form. However, before taking this class, not only was I not a good writer, I knew I wasn’t a good writer. Now I am not saying that I am ready to write my first novel, but I am certainly more confident in turning in my college papers. The content of this course and the style of teaching was incredibly beneficial to me.
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.” –Nelson Mandela. Some people say that change is a bad thing, and some say that change is a blessing. Change is what makes us human. It is what enables us to grow wiser and stronger, and it is also what allows us to love, hate, and grow. I have grown so much since I have started the eighth grade in ways that I love, and ways that I have not yet recognized. I have learned and changed greatly throughout mathematics, science, and history, but I have learned the most about writing properly. Throughout the year, I have changed and recognized my strengths and weaknesses as a writer, my strategies and my progression, and what has caused change and the change to come.
During week one of EDC131 we learned that the way in which we use language to communicate can vary depending on the context. We also learned that there are many different forms of communication this includes writing, talking, and signing/ gestures. In learning both of these communications it became clear that communication is more than just speaking and that we use language to express many different emotions. Things such as opinions, beliefs, wishes, threats, commands, promises, and many others are also expressed through language and can change meaning if context is changed. This will later be helpful with my education and future career. (Original)
There are two forms of languages; public and private. The "private" language only spoken with family and close intimate relationships. The "public" language used in society, work, and school. Both of these help form two identities, that help us connect and communicate with one another. In the essay “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan and also in the article “Speech Communities” by Paul Roberts ,we will see how both private and public language demonstrate how we view, and grow from each language.
One quote that stood out to me was “I was struggling to express increasingly complex ideas, and I couldn’t get the language straight: words, as in my second sentence on tragedy, piled up like cars in a serial wreck” (2). This reminds me of when my parents would always tell me to keep writing during my younger stages. Sometimes, through my essays I would give up because the words that are in my head wouldn’t spill out. So, I would become stuck and would consistently ask for help. I literally felt like I was stuck behind traffic, and couldn’t get out until an hour later. However, one good point brought up by Bailey was “I believe that school writing and personal writing are completely different, where school writing can be right or wrong but person writing can be anything without any consequence.” I feel like school writing can play a big role in how one may decided to use their words. If there’s a big essay due; there is a high chance that expressing high complexed ideas would be a lot more harder; than through personal writing because the ‘A’ is a lot more important than actually understanding the context. Another quote I agreed with was, “developing writes will grow… if they are able to write for people who are willing to sit with them and help them as they struggle to write about difficult things” (2). This goes along with my
People use language as a material object. Language is social in nature and language helps people to convey a message. Language is how humans communicate with each other. Language empowers, language makes the person’s needs known and language expresses what the person wants people to do. Language is how people interact and language makes a person’s identity, emotions and opinions known. Language helps a child to make sense of their world. Language helps older children to interact and belong to a group, Language also helps a child to understand the field, tenor and mode in situations, so that the child can critically evaluate and organize the
The article titled “Language Use in Family and in Society” written by Lee Thomas and Linh Cao, is about how language can affect a single family in a terrible way. Thomas teaches linguistics at the University of Nevada, Reno, and Cao is an English teacher at Sparks High School located in Sparks, Nevada. Cao has much background information on the topic because she herself is part of the family discussed in this essay. Their concern with a language barrier is that it leads to confusion and frustration within the family. They give examples of families becoming more distant due to miscommunication and their sense of loss. Imagine trying to speak with your mother and only understanding half of what she says. Sure you would get the idea, but what if you needed to respond with emotions and feelings that weren’t understood? This article gives you a better sense of acceptance to the many dialects in the world today. Rhetorical appeals called Pathos and Ethos were used in order to convince the readers that communication is an important part of a family. By using a problem / solution argument, this article presents a problem and suggests a solution.
We all have the a gift of speaking and perceiving languages. Whether it is sound or soundless we use language to communicate with one another.There are many ways to approach someone when it comes to the word choice you use to communicate. Many languages contain different forms in where they can be comprehended. The readings “Does Your Language Shape How You Think?” by Guy Deutscher and “Lost in Translation” by Lera Boroditsky, discuss how the languages we speak can shape the way we think, and the way we perceive things differ from the aspects of language. In general, I agree with the position these both authors take, languages we speak do shape the way we think through grammatical structures, language of space and orientation, and time.
The high development of languages around the world is arguably humanity’s most remarkable feat. Without it, we would be not much better off than monkeys or gorillas. Whether seeking to persuade, to inform, to express emotions, to question, to transmit ideas, or even to deliver masterpieces in verse or prosaic, people use language in order to communicate effectively in ways that are simply too arduous to quantify. Language, furthermore, is also not limited to just writing or word of mouth, for it also is used in other fashions, such as codes. Smoke signals, body language, computer programs, as well as Morse and flag are just some examples. Since a person’s language, is essentially inherited, based on their birthplace, due to society’s standards, it is, at times, taken for
The development of language is essential for children in order to effectively communicate, express emotions, relay ideas and connect with others in a meaningful way. Communication through language involves verbal, non-verbal, and para-verbal elements (Windle & Warren, 1999). The verbal element of language is the oldest form of communication and it can therefore be argued that it is the most important (Gee & Hayes, 2011). Verbal language relates to oral communication, using words, crying or making sounds in order to communicate. Non-verbal language is also an important means of communication, however this is a much newer form (Sampson, as cited by Gee & Hayes, 2011). Non-verbal communication consists of writing, signs, symbols, body language
Languages are continually changing and developing, and these changes occur in many different ways and for a variety of reasons. Language change is detectable to some extent in all languages, and ‘similar paths of change’ can be recognised in numerous unrelated languages (Bybee, 2015, p. 139). Since users of language all over the world have ‘the same mental processes’ and ‘use communication for the same or very similar ends’ (Bybee, 2015, p. 1), similar changes occur on the same linguistic aspects, and in many cases these changes produce similar results in multiple languages. However, language change is limited by the function it performs. Languages must be learnt to such an extent which allows communication between the generation above and below one’s own (McMahon, 1994, p. 5). Hence language change is a gradual, lethargic process, as only small changes in
Language is like a blooming flower in adversity – they are the most rare and beautiful of them all as it struggles to express itself. It blooms and flourishes in strength, awe, and passion as the riches of thought is imbibed from the seed and into a finished beauty. For others, a non-native person speaking in a language that they are not familiar with sprouts out like a weed – the way its thorns can puncture sympathy and comprehensibility. Amy Tan, however, addresses the nature of talk as being unique under its own conditions. In Tan's “Mother Tongue”, she discusses how her mother's incoherent language is “broken” and “limited” as compared to other native English speakers. When focusing on Amy Tan, she grows noticeably embarrassed with her mother's lack of acuteness in the language, which then influences Tan to “prove her mastery over the English language.” However, she soon learns from herself and -- most importantly -- her mother that a language's purpose is to capture a person's “intent, passion, imagery, and rhythm of speech and nature of thought.” With such an enticing elegance...
In her article, How Does Our Language Shape the Way We Think, Lera Boroditsky (2009) explains how the results of her experiments support the idea that the structure of language shapes the way we think. In one of her experiments, she found that English speakers would place cards showing temporal progression in temporal order from left to right, Hebrew speakers would place them right to left, and that the Kuuk Thaayorre would place them from east to west. This shows that the written language affects how time is represented to them. In another one of her experiments, she asked German and Spanish speakers to describe some items and found that the masculinity or femininity of the noun in their respective languages affects how it is ultimately described. This can also be seen in how artists represent the human form of abstract entities like death. Boroditsky concludes that “Language is central to our experience of being human, and the languages we speak profoundly shape the way we think, the way we see the world, the way we live our lives.” (Core reader p. 49) I would like to add that language is also the foundation of a person’s culture, pride, and self by exploring articles written by Eric Liu, Amy Tan, and Gloria Anzaldua.
Language is a part of our everyday lives, and we can describe the meaning of language in many ways. As suggested in Gee and Hayes (2011, p.6 ) people can view language as something in our minds or something existing in our world in the form of speech, audio recordings, and writings or we can view language as a way of communicating with a group of people. Language can be used to express our emotions, make sense of our mental and abstract thoughts and assists us in communicating with others around us. Language is of vital importance for children to enable them to succeed in school and everyday life. Everyone uses both oral and written language. Language developed as a common ability amongst human beings with the change
As we find ourselves surrounded by many diverse people we come to the realization that we need words to communicate. Language helps us express how we feel, explaining