English 326: Blog #5

Wow! I really enjoyed reading this, and by this I should specify that I read How to Tame a Wild Tongue. Growing up in a middle-class white family in the state of Washington I think I took, and still take, language for granted. The language I speak is not only easily recognized and identified but it is also the language of the mainstream. News anchors talk like me, politicians talk like me, famous actors talk like me. It is strange for me to think that one’s own language could not be accepted and even serve as a source of shame. To think about an entire group of people that feel as if they do not have a place because their own language is viewed as different and inferior is an incredibly disheartening idea. Having a language that is consider in between to “real” languages must be incredibly difficult. Sadly however, it is a fact of life, something that this selection does a good job of looking at.

I’m going to go off on something of a tangent here so I hope you can stay with me. Being a history major I spend a lot of time thinking about conquests. For better or worse, humanity’s story is nearly a constant cycle of one people taking over another people. The players change, the rules change, but the game… the game never does. Whether it’s German and Poland, France and Spain, the British and Native Americans, one group of people conquers another. And when I think about these things I think about events or policies that show how the oppressors dominate over the oppressed. I think about mass killings like the Holocaust, or terrible events like the Trail of Tears, or disgusting institutions like slavery. These issues are incredibly important and they are also flashy: their terrible nature attracts attention. (Colon provides additional explanation by stating that it is the particular vial nature of these events that cause them to be analyzed). They are a spectacle, something we can look at and easily say, “Wow, that was a terrible thing.” They’re clear, they’re recognizable, they are a voice of agony crying out at the top of their lungs. However, drowned out by that cry, is the soft yet ever present sobs of language desecration. We focus on the big things, but in doing so we overlook perhaps a vital aspect of how oppression works. Okay, there’s my little rant, thanks for not changing the channel.   

      

As an educator I clearly don’t want to take away a part of them or make them feel lesser or oppressed. I think by first understanding that language is something very important to someone’s sense of self, one can more tactfully approach the teaching of language. I like the idea of having students have writing journals that they must use throughout the course of the semester, however how they write in that journal is completely up to them. I think this is just one simple way of letting students utilize their own language, but also getting them use to simply writing on a regular basis.

5B: I'm thinking of looking at the Roman Empire and how the role Latin played in the conquest and assimilation of such a large area with many diverse cultures. Here are the three source:

MacMullen, Ramsay. "Provincial Languages in the Roman Empire." The American Journal of Philology 87.1 (1966): 1-17. Web.

Jones, A. H. M. "The Greeks under the Roman Empire." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963): 1-19. Web.

"Language of the Ancient Romans." Ancient Roman Language. Web. 16 Oct. 2016. <http://www.legendsandchronicles.com/ancient-civilizations/ancient-rome/language-of-the-ancient-romans/>.