responses – Page 4 – E367: Writing and Diversity

Fear of the Language vs. Content

Min-Zhan Lu’s experience with language selection differs greatly from the other examples so far this semester. Opposed to the desire for people to feel comfortable expressing themselves using their native dialect, as a young child Lu was urged to use three different languages. More interestingly, Lu’s home language was the furthest from the native language of the area. The native language, Shanghai, was only to be used with the servants because that was all they could speak and was quickly being replaced with Standard Chinese, which she used in school. Her parents urged Lu to use English because they believed it was the language that would cause the most success.

“My grandmother reminisced constantly about how she had slaved and saved to send my father to a first-rate missionary school. And we were made to understand that it was my father’s fluent English that had opened the door to his success.”
Lu, “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle”

An issue seen in American culture is fear of expression for different cultures in certain areas. It is remarkable that Lu had the same emotions around this issue, but her experience was the exact opposite. A language that was not even her native language became her home language, and then suddenly she was persuaded away from using it anymore. It was fascinating that as soon as Lu grew older, she realized the political climate change. English, once being the language that offered a brighter future, became the language of the “Bourgeois.” It was frowned upon to use anything other than Standard Chinese because of judgement from the “working class.” She felt uncomfortable using English because people would assume she felt more superior. She says, “From then on, I took care not to use English outside home and to conceal my knowledge of English from my new classmates.” This brings up some important questions. Why is it that using a certain language can be met with such strongly opposing cultural opinion, resulting in fear for the speaker or the audience? Why is it the way that something is said is focused on, and not the content of what is being said?

Love in red

Min-Zhan Lu discusses in her piece, “From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle”, the various discourses of language and their impact on her and her writing. Lu begins by sharing her experience with multiple languages and their preferred audiences: Shanghai dialect with her servants, Standard Chinese at school, and English when at home with her family. Her family’s push to learn English was a means to ensure Lu and her sisters were well educated, as well as to keep Lu grounded from the attempts of Communist persuasion being taught at school. Therefore, this language was only to be spoken and practiced at home. While in school, Lu was regularly reinforced on the value of having pride in both the Chinese nation, as well as her political values. These two differing ideologies forced Lu to learn to read and write under certain discourses and for certain audiences. Early on in the piece, Lu shares the connections she finds between her two main languages and yet, how they differ. She brings up a reoccurring theme of “red” between both discourses and how she perceives it.

“One day I would be making a sentence at school: ‘The national flag of China is red.’ The next day I would recite at home, ‘My love is like a red, red rose.’…’Love’ was my love for my mother at home and my love for my ‘motherland’ at school” (Lu pg.439).

This quote was particularly striking to me in that Lu clearly emphasizes a huge parallel between not only her two languages, but the two identities that coincide with them. The word “red” has an entirely different connotation depending on the environment in which it is being taught in. In school, this word embodies the power of China and its pride in their politics. When learning this word in Standard Chinese, one was expected to know that these were the associations that went alongside it. This word in English, however, brought feelings of love and beauty in a sort of softer sense, one in which Lu compares to her mother. I find this one example of how a simple color can take on two entirely different meanings to Lu, yet still in some way show a connection between her two discourses, to encompass entirely Lu’s main argument of the accomplishments that came out of her complex learning experience. Lu is able to successfully and meaningfully bring together two discourses, by comparing them to a love she shares for each of them, while also keeping them separate upon necessary audiences, specifically by keeping those loves separate.

Min-Zhan Lu Response Post (Group B)

In Min-Zhan Lu’s piece From Silence to Words: Writing as Struggle, she talks about her struggles with the use of language in different situations and her family’s struggles during the Cultural Revolution. She tried hard to distinguish her “language of home” and her “language of school”. Lu’s report in school particularly showed the wedge she drove between her two languages. Lu goes on to tell that even her daughter faces a struggle that is a bit more toned down. “ Not long ago, my daughter told me that it bothered her to hear her friend “talk wrong.”” Lu’s daughter had heard her friends and some teachers speaking improperly by saying words like “ain’t”. The daughter’s struggle is smaller in comparison to what her mother went through having to distinguish between her two languages.

I feel that the part where Lu talks about her “language of home” and her “language of school” is very similar to when Barbara Mellix talks about the two different types of english that she speaks at home versus at school. Both of these writers have to distinguish between the language that they are comfortable with and the language they use outside the house.

I can connect to Lu’s piece because of my many years of having taken Italian courses. While I can not speak Italian fluently, I can make small talk and have simple conversations. When I traveled to Italy, I noticed that many people speak english or they speak italian with a different dialect than I was taught. When having a conversation with someone over there, I could not make out much of what he was talking about. I felt very uncomfortable just as Mellix did when having to speak proper english. I also felt that I could relate to Lu’s struggles in differentiation of language because of the amount of times during Italian class that I needed to speak english to ask for confirmation of something. While I did not have difficulties differentiating, I still felt that it was not correct to use english in that class.

Language & Identity

“From Outside, In” is a honest discourse about language’s relationship with identity. Mellix tells the story of her evolution from child to full-fledged academic through literal excerpts of her past writing. During her youth, she became privy to a distinct dichotomy of language in her culture, which she defined as “black English” and “standard English”. She recalls an experience visiting relatives where she observed her parents operate under the unspoken prerequisite of using “standard English”. She describes her parents as “looking small and anxious during those occasions.” Because, as she would go on to reveal later, “The language was not ours, it was something from outside us, something we used for special occasions.” Mellix’ concern about this idea is reiterated during her recollection of her first college class. She wished only to belong, and to understand, but was left with similar feelings as her younger self. She said, “My concern was to sound as if I belonged in a college classroom. But I felt separate from the language – as if it did not and count not belong to me.”

This piece is also a statement on the relationship between language and power. It was disheartening to learn her language caused her feelings on inferiority. She understood her father’s success was somewhat contingent upon his ability to use “standard English”. Furthermore, she understood that if she was to make in an academia, she was going to have to overhaul her understanding of language, and somewhat, part of her identity. The reshaping of her identity caused her feelings of imbalance. In her last paragraph, she says, “To recover balance I had to take on the language of the academy. The language of “others”. And to do that, I had to learn to imagine myself a part of the culture of that language.”

I found this publication to be very worthwhile, it’s a fantastic insight for those who didn’t experience this problem growing up. Personally, I make small shifts in the content of my speech depending on the individual, and these become more obvious in group settings. However, the idea of reorienting my language to the degree she spoke of is foreign to me. This article raised several questions, and ideas for further thought…. How does language infer identity? Can you infer identity from language? Do I lose myself if I assimilate to “their” language? Or is thinking of it as “their” language a deeper issue? How can we measure quality of language when it’s not objective?

Same Animal, Different Beast, One Language

Barbara Mellix’s “From Outside, In” was what I thought to be a very interesting response to a cultural difference that has been taking place in America since the very first slave traders began to bring men and women over to the colonies. She begins immediately by describing the difference between “Black English” and “Standard English.” Mellix explains that how when she is around her immediate nucleic family she feels comfortable to speak in what she considers her native tongue of Black English. When she is at an event involving more distant family members or people that she does not know, she tries her best to speak in Standard English. Interestingly, she notes that her immediate family is always uncomfortable when it comes to speaking Standard English. She goes in to detail about her father speaking when she writes,

“My father was more articulate, more aggressive. He spoke quickly, his words sharp and clear. But he held his proud head higher, a signal that he, too, was uncomfortable.” (Mellix, 259, p 3)

I found this to be a fascinating description because of how uncomfortable and how distinct she believed the difference in the dialects to be. Both parties involved are speaking English and, yet, Mellix and the rest of her family, all of whom know how to use Standard English, seem to be almost wildly uncomfortable when they are not using their “native tongue.” This still goes on today. I have many friends who live in more urban areas than myself and when I visit them, the dialect is different – different words, words being used in other fashions. It is striking how distinct the differences are.

To continue, Mellix goes on to discuss her journey with Standard English in a college classroom when she found herself in an entry-level composition class at the University of Pittsburgh. Barbara Mellix initially describes her experiences in the class as,

“Each experience of writing was like standing naked and revealing my imperfection, my ‘otherness’.” (Mellix 264, p 2)

Quite obviously, Mellix is very comfortable with Standard English and she writes with incredible talent, however, she is very uncomfortable being able to utilize her ability to go back and forth between using Black and Standard English with ease in the early stages of her writing. I believe this to be intriguing because of mastery of the English language in which she writes with. She demonstrates her elite writing talent but has come so far from an entirely different dialect of the English language being able to write and speak as well as she does.

Language and Assimilation

Assimilation is the concept of homogenizing a minority group or culture with the dominant culture. An Immigrant is supposed to, over time, become like those in the society they move to. This could also extend to those who are born into a society and are pressured to stay within the perimeters of the culture that is most rewarded in that society. Assimilation can be debated as a something unifying and natural, or as something culturally genocidal and forced—a means to erase differences and multiculturalism. These arguments can be seen within the use of language as a means of assimilating.

On one hand, language can be unifying—a means for communication and understanding. Language is what connects us to each other—verbal or nonverbal. People who live millions of miles apart can still connect with each other through a shared language. However, a dominant language can be used to weed out minority languages as a means of acculturation. Language and how someone speaks that language is highly tied to someone’s culture and background. In the 19^th and 20^th centuries, the Canadian government forcibly assimilated the indigenous people that lived in the country. Alongside measures to stop traditional marriage practices and spiritual ceremonies, the government also enacted an extensive residential school system to target indigenous children. They were abused, forced into arranged marriages after graduation, and prohibited from speaking their native language. Once a language is targeted and erased, the minority culture can no longer communicate with each other the way they used to and thus cannot relate to their past culture the way they used to.

Today in the United States, there aren’t horror stories of such proportions—hopefully—anymore, but there is an effort and pressure for efficacy in speaking the dominant language—English. This pressure is not directed or dictated formally, but as a means of advancement and “fitting in.” Think of it like joining a new friend group and having to learn what type of humor they have or how they all talk to each other—except on a more communal or national scale. The U.S. doesn’t have an official language, but the dominant language is English and without learning and proficiently speaking or writing can keep many from advancing within the society—either socially, economically, or academically. In Barbara Mellix’s From Outside, In, she spoke about her experience of growing up in a Southern black community and how her family and neighbors spoke “black English”, but when moving out of this community or encountering white Americans—even if they spoke similar to her—steered her away from the vernacular she grew up speaking. She moved to Pittsburgh and had to conform to how that community spoke because she felt she would have been ostracized or possibly punished for her “improper English.” She also makes a points within her piece about how “proper English” is pushed in education.

In America’s education system, the main language that is being taught in classrooms is English—“proper English.” There are Language Immersion programs where children can learn another language aside from English, but the learning revolves around English. Usually math is the secondary language while English is reading and writing. Because of this tie to English and education, there is a subconscious link to believing more proficiency in English, knowing large words and understanding grammatical rules, means someone is more intelligent and educated. Of course, knowing many of languages, being bilingual, could also provide a sense of intelligence and education, but these extra languages are not “useful” in the sense of a dominant culture.

Thinking about education and language led to thinking about the language that dominates Academia and many academic papers. Can language assimilation happen within this sphere as well? Can this concept be applied to this community? Academia is not a dominant culture, but say someone is trying to write a research paper and have it published in a prestigious journal. This person has never written a research paper before on such a level. What would they have to change about their language to be accepted into this culture? Would even a paper written in a language similar to or in “black English” be accepted or taken as seriously as a paper that was bloated with three syllable vocabulary and convoluted grammatical techniques—even if one was more understandable than the more traditional and accepted language? Would you have taken this essay seriously if I wrote in “improper English?”

Keepsake Chest

An object near and dear to my heart happens to be a tattered keepsake chest that I was given as a child. I’ve had it in all of my bedrooms since I can remember. When I first moved from the city to the suburbs I was only three years old and barely remember the transition. But as I got older the chest became the thing that stored my baby blankets, my favorite shirts, (to hide from my sister), and anything that I just didn’t want to share. It was the most personal thing to me. It was the most tangible constant. Through the years I’ve moved about three times, not included a shift from one bedroom in my current house to a larger bedroom.

The old damaged chest has always felt like a necessity. I find that Lambeth’s mindset of beauty within asymmetry or understanding “everything that persists is whole” is incredibly honest and accurately explained. It is also relatable in terms of bond, connection and values. Japanese philosophy known as Wabi Sabi “considers that fallen leaves carry more meaning than those still on the tree” which is why my chest could never be replaced in any way other than a practical sense. It is a reminder that even imperfect things have purpose.

Wabi Sabi as it applies to my life

It’s a simple example, however in all aspects of my life I like to keep a balance of organization and disorganization. My room, for example, will probably appear as a disorganized mess to the outsider looking in, however I like to live life by the moto, “A place for everything and everything in its place.” Just because there is a lot of stuff (everything I own in one small box I call a bedroom) it is cluttered, but it remains organized. My backpack is another good example of this. All of the books are organized by size and everything has a specific place for itself, but once you open up the notebooks it is difficult for the outsider to sort through and understand all the scribbled notes.

I enjoyed the insertion of “wabi sabi” in the article because I had not heard of it before. I enjoy the concept because it “insists upon asymmetry and imperfection,” as Lambeth stated in her article. I consider many things throughout my daily life to have a bit of wabi sabi in them.

Wholeness

Hanging on the wall above my bed one will find a few different frames. All of them are different shapes and sizes. All of them contain a different memory. Though I love each photo encased within the frames, a pleasant memory frozen in time, one remains special in my heart. It sits in a square, white frame. The background is a white cloth. Woven into the cloth is a black cat. My older sister embroidered this piece for me before I left for my freshman college. She made it when she first began learning to embroider so it is not perfect, but I love it. Every time I look at it, it reminds me of my sister and how hard she tries to make me happy.

When Lambeth asks, “What is wholeness?” I am reminded of that little, uneven black cat on my wall. I feel whole when I think about my family and how much they have done for me, even if their attempts are not always perfect.

Imperfections

I remember when I was little, my older sister broke her arm. She had to get a cast and I thought it was the coolest thing. My childhood ignorance prevented me from seeing the pain that she had to go through in order to get the cast. I was just jealous of all the attention she got from it; everyone wanted to sign it. I even went so far as to cut one of the sleeves off one of my shirts to mimic a cast. My mom wasn’t too pleased about that. I found my older sister’s broken arm fascinating, even though it was an imperfection.

“…The grace and balance found in asymmetry,” that Lambeth talks about in her article can be found in everyday life. Some imperfections are more obvious, like a broken bone. Other imperfections are less obvious, like a freckle on your right arm, but not your left. Sometimes you can even seem the imperfections, or asymmetry, like the fact that our left lung is slightly smaller than our right to make room for our hearts. Imperfections are a necessity in life.