For about three weeks now we have been working to answer the question “What is language of
Power?” It is my job with the different texts we have been reading and even self-experiences to find out
what all these things have in common about language and come to a conclusion on what “Language of
Power” is. “Language of Power” is the power of language in one’s life and how and how one uses
language in and out of their culture comfort zone. Language or “The Power of Language” is a big part of
anyone’s life. Most people control subconsciously how they talk depending who they are around, which
is called code switching. Language and culture is what makes one unique to others and it is something
that should be cherished and kept throughout generations, but that isn’t always the case. Language
affects the exchange of power among individuals and groups in culture, business, and travel. Language
of power is very important in anyone’s life. Without it there are many things that we not only wouldn’t
know how to do, but couldn’t do.
Language is very important in one’s life and culture. First, “the power” of language affects you
in life. You don’t have to realize it, but mostly everyone code switches. Code switching is seen in the
writer Sandra Cisneros, who wrote House on Mango Street. Her character in “No Speak English” is from
Mexico and has recently immigrated to America. However, she doesn’t speak English, and stays inside
her house all day, scared to come out. At the beginning of the story it seemed as if the lady in the story
might have been very mean and rude. By the end of the story its easy to tell that she was depressed and
didn’t really have a way to actually communicate with people in the neighborhood. It seemed that she
didn’t want America to change her so she’ll always have that piece of her home and culture, which is the
Spanish language. The story says, “She sits all day by the window and plays the Spanish radio show and
sings all the homesick songs about her country in a voice that sounds like a seagull” (Cisneros, 1984).
Anything this character says is in “broken” English; however, we know Cisneros knows how to write in
Standard English. Therefore, the author can code switch depending on if she is trying to create a
character or if she is trying to communicate with people in an academic way. A second example of code
switching is seen with the author Amy Tan. In her speech “Mother Tongue,” she writes about the
different Englishes she uses depending on who she is speaking to. Her purpose in giving this speech was
to get out her opinion on language. I would think that language was a big part of her life being that she
was Chinese. Chinese was what she was used to in her home, but she grew up with English in the
outside world. A quote from her speech is, “Just last week, I was walking down the street with my
mother, and I again found myself conscious of the English I was using, the English I do use with her”
(Tan). There, she realized that she was code switching. Both of these authors show how language has
power over one’s culture and life because both characters are not primarily English-speaking and have a
diverse way of communication.
Your culture and language is what makes you who you are. If we all were the same, there would
be more cons than pros. Being that different people, places and cultures speak differently, there are
some things that are just about the same for everyone, all around the world. In a Cajun folktale called
“The Theft of Honey” it said, “This tale is African in origin but universal in its humor and insight.”
(Reneaux, 1992) That is an example of how we are different but yet, the same. The theme of that
folktale was about not being “greedy” but knowing how to share with others who have less. That is
something that anyone could take and use in life, but the way they get it across is unique to Cajuns. In
“Mother Tongue” people noticed that Amy Tan was different from others in school because of her
language. In “Mother Tongue” it says, “And this makes me think that there are other Asian-American
students whose English spoken in the home might also be described as "broken" or "limited." And
perhaps they also have teachers who are steering them away from writing and into math and science,
which is what happened to me.” (Tan) So, because of her speech others found her “limited” to certain
subjects in school which was subjects like science and math because of her “speech which some found
“limited” they figured that a career in something that has to do with “English” or “language arts”
wouldn’t be good for her. This ideally wouldn’t look like it due to her culture and language. If she would
have let those people steer her away, she would have missed out on a lot of opportunities. That people
or kids that are primarily English would have. So there are some advantages and disadvantages to being
different.
Language affects the exchange of power by travel, business or the loss of cultures. When traveling, if
you only know one language and that language isn’t the language people speak in the place you are
traveling too, you are “over powered” if you don’t know how to speak to the people you are around,
you are very limited on the things you can do. With business language is very important also. Because
we have to communicate with other regions to trade or work together, language being communication,
is a big part. And, there have been many small cultures in time that were important not so much to
everyone as a whole but definitely important to someone and because they might have been over
powered by bigger cultures, they tend to lose their language which is a part of their culture. When taken
over, the bigger cultures put the children in school, teach them their religions and language to make
them their own and overtime, the whole culture is lost. In the article “Revitalizing Native Cultures” it
says, “When the Europeans arrived to the North American continent, there were hundreds of languages
spoken. In 1995, there were only 175 that were still being spoken, and only 20 of them were being
taught to children within the Native community. We don’t even know what weve lost. Our best guess is
that 200 to 300 languages have disappeared without a trace.” (PBS, 2006). That quote just backed up
what I had already said about how cultures and languages become lost. And all these different things
like culture, business, trading and traveling are ways that language of power affects exchange of power.
I have a lot of different cultures within me being that I am Filipino, Yugoslavian, German and
African American but I don’t practice speaking any other language other than English and depending on
who I am around, a bit of Ebonics. But I have had a Spanish one class in middle school and my teacher
was Puerto Rican. Spanish happens to have many different dialects depending on where you are. In that
class, we watched videos on the different dialects and my teacher would try to mimic them but because
she was from Puerto Rico and spoke with a Puerto Rican dialect or accent, it never really sound right.
Like when she spoke English, which she was pretty good at, some words wouldn’t come out right and
were hard to understand. But because she knew both English and Spanish, she had the power to teach
others. Language of power could stretch out to many different ways but over all I feel that no matter
what you are using the saying “Language of Power” for, it has to do with knowing how language has
power over one’s life and how that person uses that power of language.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Cisneros, S. (1984). No Speak English. In S. Cisneros, House on Mango Street. New York: Arte Publico.
PBS. (2006). Revitalizing Native Cultures. Indian Country Diaries, 1.
Reneaux, J. J. (1992). Cajun Folktales. Little Rock: August House, Inc.
Tan, A. (n.d.). Mother Tongue. Retrieved 11 28, 2012, from Course: P.K. Yonge: 9th Grade English
Language Arts 12-13: http://online.education.ufl.edu/mod/resource/view.php?id=32558