Abstract:

In this essay, we focused on a single topic based on an idea/assumption about language and talk about it in detail and how it impacted us. The topic that I picked was the myth and the accepted belief that accents make you dumb, despite your ability to actually speak English. The reason why I picked it was because of the fact that my parents are immigrants and speak English with accents. Most of the time, due to their exposure to the language, immigrants have accents when speaking English.

Researched Critical Analysis Essay:

Cover Letter:

In my essay, one of my rhetorical strategies used was the use of my personal experiences; I talked about how I was a child of immigrants and how both of my parents had accents when they speak English. This idea of having accents and how it affects you being seen to the rest of the world really affected me because I saw my parents differently because of the fact they had accents. However, I began to make sense of it, by coming to understand multiple things, such as English being a complex language for foreigners to understand with its colloquialisms and pronunciation of words. I also mentioned how their jobs really affected that ability for them to speak English with an accent and how it affected them both very differently. I tried using my main source and example, Amy Tan and basing my experience off of hers. I think that by showing other people your experience and placing them in your shoes, we can come to an understanding and get rid of myths that are more harmful than helpful to our society. By doing this I tried to impact the readers’ minds and emotions by telling them the story and also showing them that English is a really complex language with many different kinds of people around the world speaking it, to think that one should speak with no accent is crazy. I think that I went in depth with the different sources that I used, which is good. While writing this essay, I sort of changed what I was trying to say, my main focus at first was discrimination and then it became about accent and how they are perceived. In the end, I think I did good in switching the topic as I connected more to the accent one.

 

Kevin Ramirez

Language & Literacy

Miller & Nagales

11/26/18

 

Critical Research Analysis Essay

 

A language myth is something that is largely known and shared by either culture, society, and/or the media which is shown or told repeatedly by them. One of the most negatively impactful myths is the idea that if a person speaks with an accent, despite how good their English might be, they are considered less intelligent and are told that their English must change. This is obviously untrue because for the majority of the time, someone can be completely understood with just a slight accent, and the way that someone talks doesn’t measure their intelligence. Even a person using a high-level vocabulary doesn’t necessarily mean that they are intelligent, as anyone can use fancy words, it’s all about using them correctly. The Standard Language ideology is responsible for most of this thinking, which states that there is only one way to speak properly: The Standard way. Any other way of speaking, different accents and dialects, are not right and must be changed immediately or spoken elsewhere. This is ideology flatters pretty quickly when one realizes that people from all over the world, the English-speaking world specifically, and even the country speaks with different accents. People in the Northeastern region speak way differently than people from the South and people from the South sound way different than people from the Midwest. To be even more specific, even certain people have their own way of talking too, their own idiolect. So, to have this idea of, “People can only speak in the Standard form” is ridiculous. People, however, don’t know about this, as SL ideology has become so ingrained into society and our psyche that we can’t tell when we are being discriminatory towards other people and the way that they talk. and discriminate and make assumptions about people’s intelligence or their background.

One of the other major group, that suffers discrimination against their accents and is something that relates to me, is immigrants. For years, because of their inability to speak English or speaking English with an accent, immigrants from all over have been discriminated from either getting jobs or homes, getting proper service and even being taken seriously. One instance where we see this, is in author Amy Tan’s essay/speech Mother Tongue. In the essay, Tan talks about instances where her mother and her talk in a form of English that to others would seem “broken” to other English. Tan’s mother talks in this form of English, but the way that she speaks doesn’t reflect how much she understands and at what level. Amy Tan describes, “my mother’s expressive command of English belies how much she actually understands. She reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week, converses daily with her stockbroker, reads al of Shirley McLaine’s books with ease – all kinds of things I can’t begin to understand.” (Tan) However, she talks about the time where her mother had to go check her CAT scan at the hospital, but because of her accent, the nurses and doctors dismissed her, telling her to come next time for an appointment as they had lost them, not explaining it anymore. “And when the doctor finally called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect English – lo and behold – we had assurances that the CAT scan would be found, promises that a conference call on Monday would be held, and apologies for any suffering my mother had gone through for a most regrettable mistake.” It’s clear that people who speak with accents are treated much differently than people who don’t have accents as seen by the examples that Amy Tan showed us about her life. I think most children of immigrants can relate to this as their parents and them go something like this, in some cases being their mouth in an English-speaking world.

Immigrants who either speak English with an accent or can’t speak English at all are less intelligent by fluent English speakers, as due to the SL ideology. Is it really hard for them to learn English? Some people, mainly people who are xenophobic, use the excuse that if immigrants want to stay in this country, they have to learn English. You can sort of understand where they are coming from, English is the de facto official language of the US, with almost all native-born speakers speaking it as a first language or at least a second language, and the language of education and government is English. So obviously, if they want to stay here, they should know English. The thing is though, most immigrants do know to a large extent English and all of them do try to learn English, it’s just that 1. Languages in general are very difficult to learn, 2. Immigrants tend to stay in communities that have other immigrants, so in reality there is no need for them to learn an advanced level of English or learn any vernacular and 3. Most immigrants, like any person in a foreign country, to learn a language takes time, especially if someone is much older, but they try to learn. I have experienced some of this; I have always wondered why my father had less fluent English than my mother. My father has been in America for about 27 years now, but when he speaks in English he speaks with a heavy southern Mexican accent and sometimes he uses Spanish words when speaking English. My mother on the other hand has much more fluent English than my father, being able to hold on full conversations (with some difficulty sometimes) with native speakers. Both of them took ESL classes in CCNY, however it seems as though my father barely picked up on anything. I used to think that father was simply not trying hard enough to learn English, being in the States for nearly half of his adult life, it seemed as though he had come to America a couple months ago. But you see, my father works in a restaurant, where his bosses can speak to him in Spanish and most of his coworkers are Mexican or Latino. He has been working in environments like that since he got here. My mother on the other hand, had bosses who spoke only English or at least made her speak mostly English. She still has bosses who speak to her in English as her job requires her to have good communication with them. So naturally, after all these years their English is on different levels. I better understand that now. However, most immigrants who come to this country are told that they must speak English, or that they should leave by people who don’t want them in this country. Sarah Palin, when referring to Jeb Bush’s ability to speak Spanish, said on television “…if you wanna be in America, […] speak American…” as if to say that those who don’t speak English aren’t American despite their ability to articulate or how long they’ve been living in the US. I think that people have to understand this fact, people from all over the world will have different accents based on what their native languages are, and that people who are from different parts of America speak English differently, but it’s all English the same.

Throughout American history, we have seen this treatment towards immigrant, by considering that their accents are something that makes them less intelligent. By telling people that the way they speak is wrong or that if they want to be part of this country, they have to speak a certain way, we exclude those people who don’t fit the criteria of being “standard.” As someone who has family who are immigrants with accents, I find it hard to believe that some people still have these thoughts and beliefs. If we could show people this, the idea that there are many different ways to speak English as people from all over the world and all over the country speak English, then this myth proposed by society and media can become something that when we hear it, we scoff at.

 

Works Cited:

Bauer, Laurie, and Peter Trudgill. Language Myths. Penguin Books, 2007.

CNN, Source: “Sarah Palin Tells Immigrants to the US to ‘Speak American’ – Video.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 7 Sept. 2015, www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2015/sep/07/sarah-palin-tells-immigrants-to-the-us-to-speak-american-video.

“Immigrants Do Not Need to Speak English before They Arrive.” The Economist, The Economist Newspaper, 3 Aug. 2017, www.economist.com/democracy-in-america/2017/08/03/immigrants-do-not-need-to-speak-english-before-they-arrive.

Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.”

Self- Reflection:

I think this essay related to me the most, due to the fact that it affected people that I knew the most. Also, I didn’t know until I researched and better understood that I shared some of these beliefs. However, I tried changing those beliefs because it made it seem as I was superior than those who spoke with an accent, which isn’t true. Especially because of the fact that my parents both speak English with accents, and I don’t want them to think that they are inferior because of the fact that they speak English with accents. I wanted to educate the people who either thought this way explicitly or implicitly.