Language
Now that you have examined a number of readings and other texts that focus on language, explore one dimension of this issue by synthesizing your own ideas and the texts. You might want to do more research or use readings from other classes as you prepare for the following projects.
To succeed in America—with a number of relatively minor although often highly visible exceptions—it’s important to speak, read, and understand English as most Americans speak it. There’s nothing cruel or unfair in that; it’s just the way it is. And when liberals try to downplay that fact in the name of diversity or multiculturalism . . . they’re cynically appealing to a kind of cultural vanity that almost every one of us possesses. . . . In this case, however, the appeal to cultural vanity is destructive.
Is bilingual education or class instruction and discussion in African American vernacular English (or Ebonics, as it is often called) a viable alternative to conducting classes in standard American English? Write an essay explaining your position.
In classrooms and hallways and on the playground, young people are using inappropriate language more frequently than ever, teachers and principals say. Not only is it coarsening the school climate and social discourse, they say, it is evidence of a decline in language skills. Popular culture has made ugly language acceptable and hip, and many teachers say they only expect things to get uglier.
—Valerie Strauss, “More and More, Kids Say the Foulest Things”
Who does not know another language, does not know his own.
—Johan Wolfgang von Goethe
Languages are the pedigree of nations.
—Samuel Johnson
Language is a city to the building of which every human being brought a stone.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson