Importance of Language free essay sample

In the story, â€Å"From a Native Daughter†, by Haunani-Kay Trask talks about herself, and how the history of the people and their culture of Hawaii means to her. She has learned stories over time from her parents and ancestors of how things were before her, so she has a lot of knowledge about the history and culture of the people before her. She is very vocal in her voice and wants people who aren’t native from Hawaii to learn the truth about the history of the culture of Hawaii. If Black English isn’t a language, then tell me, what is? In James Baldwin article, Baldwin wants people to understand that all English is the same, it’s just different by the way we speak it. The argument has nothing to do with language itself, but with the role of language. The role of language is an important thing because it describes the way of how you may speak. We will write a custom essay sample on Importance of Language or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page When you begin to learn the language of your parents, you start to pick up some of the ways that your parent’s speak. Once you learn your parent’s ways of speaking, you start to learn your how the role of your language describes to others how you speak and the way you speak it. The way you learn to speak your language describes the role of the language in your society that you live in. As you read on, I will begin to compare Trask’s ideas about her language and culture, while including the thoughts of Baldwin’s language. Trask has a strong sense of language and knows how to use the language of her ancestors to apply it to today’s society. She says, †I learned the first of these stories from speaking with my mother and father. I learned the second from books. By the time I left for college, the books had won out over my parents especially since I spent four long years in a missionary boarding school for Hawaiian children†. After reading this quote from Trask, you can see that she has been learning the language and culture of her ancestors. She uses the language of her ancestors by remembering the stories that her parents and grandmother taught her. She is very passionate about the history of her people, and wants everyone to know the difference of what historians describe as their history of Hawaii. In Baldwin’s article, Baldwin says to us how language can also be used as a sense of  power. â€Å"People evolve a language in order to describe and control their situation. What joins all languages is the necessity to confront life†, says Baldwin. In a society of people, the people of the group use language to communicate with other societies. The people within your society uses their language to describe what could be going on, or how things are going. Language within your society reveals how and why the speaker talks. The more confident and more vocal the speaker is, the speaker will have a stronger sense of language. As time goes on, you begin to see that language is evolved in ordered to communicate with other societies. Using the language that you learn at a young age can shows us the background of how you learned your language. Trask says, â€Å"language is a form of knowing by itself; a people’s way of thinking and feeling is revealed in music†. When recording artistes write a song, they use the language that they learned to write a song. As they add in the sounds into the song, it is the way they are feeling that gives us the mood of the song. In Baldwin’s point of view, he is describing how by vocalizing yourself creates an image of who you are and where your from. By having a strong sense of language reveals the private identity, and can be used to connect larger and more public identity. As you begin to vocalize yourself, an image of who you are is created. When you have an image created, people begin to use that image to visualize you. Trask definitely is able to be very vocal and knows how to get her points out into the open. Since Trask is also vocal, she can create an image for herself, and have an image for native Hawaiians and their history and culture. The image that Trask wants for her people is an image of a strong community that will not back down from any prejudiced comments. Trask wants people to learn the truth about the culture and history of her native people of Hawaii. She wants the history to be factual instead of fictional. In one of her speech Trask says, â€Å"Our story remains unwritten. It rests within the culture, which is inseparable from the land. To know this is to know our history. To write this is to write of the land and the people who are born from her†. In this quote, you can see that she is trying to emphasize that the history that we have taken is by people who  have visited the land. She would rather want historians to write down the actually history of Hawaiians from the native people who have lived there. In one Baldwin’s point of views, he talks about how language can also be used as a sense of power. If a certain person is smart enough and understands his own language, then that person can use that language to convince other people into believing what they believe. When you have the ability to persuade people, then you begin to build a sense of power that is hard to break. Understanding your own language can help you with communicating with other people, understanding other people, and learning from other people. Trask definitely has this sense of power because she is able to communicate with other people, and communicate with them by telling them the history of culture of Hawaiians without forgetting any details. In conclusion, some of the ideas of language are similar between Trask and Baldwin. In both Baldwin and Trask’s articles, they have a self image of persuading other into believing what they believe is the truth. Baldwin wants people to understand that all English is the same, it’s just different by the way we speak it. Trask wants people to understand that traditions in culture are the backbone in your development of language. The thing that connects these two writers is that both believe that language is the way people communicate to each other to get their ideas out in the open. Importance Of Language free essay sample We change the way we talk to smaller children and the way we talk at ark. Language is so important that we tend to overlook how we essentially use it for everything. Data Language is important in every aspect of our lives because it allows people to communicate in a manner that enables the sharing of common ideas (Education. Com, 2013). Language helps shape a persons identity (Totally, 2008). Language is the basis of transmitting knowledge (Dry. Minivan, 2006). Language is used to express feelings and in signs, gestures, symbols, and sounds.We change our language depending on who we talk to and where we are talking. Example: at work, to children,etc. (Bauer, Laurie 2003). Learning engage will help a persons vocabulary and expand knowledge. Explanation We use language to communicate, express our feelings to others and to ask questions. Language is so specific to humans that it Separates us from all other living beings. We will write a custom essay sample on Importance Of Language or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page We use language by combining words to create meaning. There are currently over six thousand language schemes used around the world (Davits, J. A. 2009).Without being able to express or say how we feel, we wouldnt be able to interact with one another. Signs and symbols are another important aspect of language. For example, a stop sign yields us to stop and smoke usually indicates that there is a fire. Sounds are a language that include a police car, a fire truck or helicopter that help us indicate what they are. We distinguish and name objects to identify and to understand what things are and what they represent. Language helps shapes ones identity by the type of language they are taught growing up and the ethical background they are raised with. Each and every persons culture is different and reflects how we speak, our accent and the wide variety or range of words we use. Our parents choose to teach us what they want us to learn, whether it be one or two languages or more, and our accent reflects how they sound. When we use language, we do so as individuals with social histories (Rooter, 1989). Gender, social class, religion and race all have an impact on our language. For example, we are born as male or female and into a distinct income level that defines us as poor, middle class or upper class.Also, we may be born as Christians, Jews, Muslims, or with some other religious affiliation and thus take on individual identities ascribed to us by our particular religious association (Ochs, 1996). As there are many reasons for language, knowledge is one of the most important. Without language, knowledge would not exist. We need language to understand and to learn and thus we gain knowledge. We take the knowledge we have learned and pass it on to one another, go to school to learn and are taught many things including English and the proper uses of it. Vocabulary is central to English language teaching because without sufficient vocabulary students cannot understand others or express their own ideas (Wilkins, 1972). Without grammar, very little can be conveyed and without vocabulary nothing can be conveyed. Particularly, as students develop greater fluency and expression in English, it is significant for them to acquire more reductive vocabulary knowledge and to develop their own personal vocabulary learning strategies (Lewis, 1993). Every time we speak, we give our listeners information about who we are and where we come from. When we use language we do so as individuals with social history. Our histories are defined in part by our membership in a range of social groups into which we are born such as gender, social class, religion and race. For example, we are born as female or male and into a distinct income level that defines us as poor, middle class or upper class. Likewise, we may be born as Christians, Muslims, Jews or with some other religious affiliation. Thus, we take on individual identities ascribed by us or a particular religious association.Consequences/Conclusion In Conclusion, Language can be said to be a non-argumentative topic. It is proven that without language we would not be able to express our feelings, communicate with one another or be able to learn and retain knowledge. Thus, we could not argue without language. Language shapes who each individual is and which culture they come from. Language is used as signs and symbols. Without these signs and symbols, we wouldnt have stop signs or now that smoke is a sign of fire. Language is the reason why we call each and every object what it is.