I believe people use language as a form of discrimination on a regular basis. Whether you consider yourself a prescriptivist or a descriptivist, you probably have, at some time, judged people based upon the way they use language. Prescriptivists may judge people because of the way they misuse "standard" language, while descriptivists' judgments may lie in the way others do not progress with language changes. Either way, we experience evaluation from others regarding the way we use language.
Language variations can be a great way to express one's identity. Teenagers often use slang to identify themselves as individuals, different from the older generations. However, language discrimination is often used in a much more harmful way. For example, after African-Americans were given the right to vote many states/districts used tests for voters containing language which most African-Americans were not able to understand. Therefore, they couldn't pass the tests, and were not allowed to vote. This form of language discrimination was not beneficial to America, and is an embarrassement to our country's history.
In conclusion, we all use language to discriminate, at least apolitically. However, political language discrimination can be very detrimental to our society.
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2 comments:
This was really good. I thought the example of the discrimination with the voting tests was a very original idea.
This one is great! It brings to mind the realization of ways in which discrimination has been used, using language differences. The ways which blacks were discriminated against is not necessarily something that anyone would prefer to be remembered by.
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