Research & Exploratory Essay
Racism and Linguistic Discrimination
Racism is a crisis that we bump into everyday. It can be seen in the news or it is even witnessed up in person. Either or, there is always one thing in common: superiority. There is always that one race that believes that they are better than the other because of their background. Being superior by race is one factor, but can they also be superior by language? An individual’s use of language can cause different stares in society and most likely they would be treated differently. Within communities, language discrimination creates violence, either verbal or physical. Linguistic discrimination and racism have a connection due to the different use of language and race, having judgments of their person’s social status and wealth. These judgments can then lead them to unjustified actions. Violence is an action that people feel like it is the right way to protect their language and their community. The English language is not well spoken by all, which makes Americans or the Whites to cause a scene or just disrespect another person, making them feel inferior to them. Making them feel authority, they judge mostly immigrants, based on their appearance and how well they can speak the language. When non-Americans do not speak the proper form of English, they feel like they are being made fun of which makes them do actions to keep their language. For example, nowadays, slang is seen as an “improper” form of English and it is viewed differently within society because it is mostly used within a certain race, or within different social groups. Then, violence is included in the picture. Language discrimination is one of the many factors in society that causes violence. I intend to use class texts, peer-reviewed academic sources, and outside sources as evidence to support my claim. Various sources, such as Daniel Silva’s Language and Violence, Mary Louise Pratt’s article “Violence and Language”, June Jordan’ course text of “”Nobody Moean More to Me Than You And the Future Life of Willie Jordan”, Robert MacNeil’s “English Belongs to Everybody”, and “Thinking About Linguistic Discrimination” by Jonathan Pool, share a connection between the topic of language and violence.
There are negative consequences between both language and violence. These consequences include physical violence and the loss of an innocent individual just because they were speaking in their own language. In her article “Violence and Language” (2011), author and award winner Mary Louise Pratt assert that violence is always accompanied by language, and torture. By supplying information about the connection between language and violence and their consequences, Pratt builds her claims about torture being one of the outcomes between language and violence. In June Jordan’s personal essay, “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You And the Future Life of Willie Jordan” (1988), asserts that in society, there is many forms of English and they are not as respected as Standard English because of its origins. Jordan backs up this claim with analyzing the Black English used in the U.S and acknowledging the positive and negative effects to those who speak Black English. Jordan talks about accepting and recognizing other languages in order to not experience racism. Pratt acknowledges that these consequences can lead to torture and Jordan extends her perspective by describing torture as murder. In her article Pratt states, “When violence occurs, it seems to rely much of the time on a discursive accompaniment that assigns the violence its meaning. Such verbal framing marks the social character of violence… So even though violence might erupt when dialogue stops, language is usually there as an accompaniment to violence. This is also true in the case of torture” (Pratt 1). Violence can be physical or verbal. Either way, Pratt describes this violence as torture or a bad outcome of our actions. Jordan includes, “Furthermore, I believe that one of the three cases may have occurred in this incident. First, Reggie’s death may have been the desired outcome of the police officer’s action, in which case the killing was premeditated. Or, it was a case of mistaken identity, which clarifies the fact that the two officers who killed my brother and their commanding parties are all grossly incompetent. Or, both of the above cases are correct, i.e, Reggie’s murders intended to kill him and the Police Department behaved insubordinately” (373). Speaking Black English within a community got an innocent son, and brother murdered by White police officers being in the wrong place, in the wrong time. [Jordan including Reggie’s murder is an example how other forms language are not taken seriously by others and are looked as inferior. Just like racism, linguistic discrimination is a situation that is not going away and it is still going on within us. Many Standard English people declare themselves as superior to the rest of the many languages spoken here in the U.S, that makes them disrespect other identities.
However, in the United States, many people are having superiority of their identities, denying that there are many languages spoken other than English. They are prejudice against the different languages, that they don’t understand that they all deserve to be respected. In his memoir, “English Belongs to Everybody” (1989), author Robert MacNeil, retired journalist and news anchor, asserts that people shouldn’t assume onto one set of rules and suggests that there are changes in English that society have to comprehend. He backs up his claim by doing the following: first, he introduces the anxiety being spread about the English language and how it is changing; next he supports his claim by pointing out grammatical errors in Shakespeare’s work and how those errors were accepted in Shakespeare’s time but maybe not today in this era; lastly, he includes how the media has been negatively controlling language as propaganda. In “Thinking about Linguistic Discrimination” Jonathan Pool complicates MacNeil’s ideas. Pool addresses the ideas of other authors and discussing the problems of redefining linguistic discrimination. MacNeil explains the mentality of society of isolating themselves from everyone else that don’t speak their language and Pool argues that society have to learn to accept these other languages and treat them equally. MacNeil states, “The English-speaking peoples have defeated all efforts to build fences around their language, to defer to an academy on what was permissible English and what not” (MacNeil, 193). The English language is held up to a standard that no one meets and with the increasing number of immigrants, there are more speakers of non-Standard English. People go under a certain set of rules when it comes to speaking English. And these rules shouldn’t exist. Pool includes “It is assumed to be either impossible or unreasonably costly for a multilingual country or organization to promote, use, and recognize all its languages to the same degree” (Pool, 1). Americans and Standard English speakers look down on and disrespect other languages because of the change that it is going to make in society. Linguistic discrimination can has been going on long enough to not accept the different languages as equal to English. Being superior from race causes linguistic discrimination based on the different social groups that we have in society. From the years that these sources are written and published, linguistic discrimination is a problem that we are still facing and has to change.
Linguistic discrimination can create violence that is either verbal or physical, but either way, it makes them feel like they don’t belong. Novelist and journalist, Daniel Silva, in his book, Language and Violence, published in 2017, addresses the topic of linguistic violence and argues that there is a connection between language and violence. Silva points out the problem of violence in language in order to demonstrate the relationship between physical and linguistic violence. Joshua Rivas, a student who studied history at Fresno State, claims that the government should not decide and force immigrants to only speak English in the United States. Silva states, “As victims of racism, misogyny or homophobia commonly report, being violated by words or physical acts is an experience that may make us feel disoriented” (1). Just as racism, linguistic discrimination and prejudice people, make others not feel equal because of their identity or how they speak the English language. Many, such as immigrants, can relate to and experience a type of violence that can make them feel discriminated. Rivas says, “I didn’t recognize the language that he was speaking but I do know that the attacker was claiming that English was the number one language in America and he kept telling the old man and his family to leave the country” (1). Many experiences like these can happen. It is not like we can change who we are so we can be considered equal. Each person has a story behind their background and identity, that we are proud of and we shouldn’t be discriminated by it. Silva compares discrimination against people with different genders or sexuality with individuals that don’t fit in into the English society. They can be discriminated with insults or with physical violence. With Rivas’s comment, he extends Silva’s quote and opinion by providing a personal experience as well as an example. Linguistic discrimination mostly happens to people that are from different backgrounds who speak non-Standard English. Within society, linguistic discrimination causes disrespectful violence because of ethnocentrism.
In conclusion, linguistic discrimination is a factor that causes violence in society. Such authors as Silva, Pratt, Jordan, MacNeil, and Pool argue that the English language is changing, and it has t be accepted that way that each individual speaks it. Silva argues in his book that there is a connection between linguistic discrimination and violence. Pratt claims that violence is always accompanied with language as well as torture. Jordan talks about a personal experience and claims to accept the different form of English that has brought upon within the different social groups. MacNeil argues that no matter what form of the English language you speak in, whether it is “broken”, Black English, etc., it belongs to everyone no matter what social group we’re in. Finally, Pool in his article discusses that linguistic discrimination is awfully wrong. Most of these sources were all written in the late 1990’s, which show that linguistic discrimination is an issue that has been happening in the past and it is still happening here today within the United States. This issue happens to splits up society apart by creating violence with one another and we all have to recognize and accept. However, others may say that linguistic discrimination isn’t the factor that causes violence. Violence might just be something we see in video games, but not in our everyday lives until it appears in the news. It can be caused within strangers, colleagues, or even between friends. In fact, violence can be both verbal and physical such as aggression. There are different arguments, some brief, others that are major right from the beginning, and some that start briefly that become major. Either way, it becomes and creates hatred from one individual to another, even if they’re from the same or different genders. That is where society splits apart. It would all start with a minor misunderstanding. With its connection to violence, linguistic discrimination is a factor that stays hidden between the conflicts and the violence. Within language and violence there are negative effects and consequences. Because of these consequences, all forms of the English language have to be respected.
Works Cited
Jordan, June. “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You And the Future Life of Willie Jordan.” Harvard Educational Review, vol. 58, no.3, 1988, pp 363-375.
MacNeil, Robert. “English Belongs to Everybody”. Wordstruck. Viking, 1989.
Pool, Jonathan. “Thinking about Linguistic Discrimination.” Language Problems and Language Planning, vol. 11, no. 1, 1987, pp. 3–21., doi:10.1075/lplp.11.1.02poo.
Pratt, Mary Louise. “Violence and Language.” Social Text, 2011, socialtextjournal.org/periscope_article/violence_and_language_-_mary_louise_pratt/.
Rivas, Joshua. “Linguistic Discrimination: Speak English by Force or by Choice?” The Colligian, 2017, collegian.csufresno.edu/2017/12/11/linguistic-discrimination-speak-english-by-force-or-by-choice/#.XcXG_ZpKjD5.
Silva, Daniel N. Language and Violence: Pragmatic Perspectives. John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2017.
