The Linguists

-

How can language empower or oppress people?

The documentary 'The Linguists' explores disappearing languages throughout the world. They travel to Siberia, India and Bolivia to learn about fading languages that once use to be. In Siberia, they discover the language Chulym, in India the language Sora and in Bolivia the language Kallawaya. When watching the documentary, I found that languages can both oppress and empower individuals and groups of people. The people who considered themselves more powerful were the people who spoke the dominant language of the area. An example of this would be from the Siberian section of the video. The Russians oppressed the Siberians who spoke Chulym as they considered this a "gutter language" and looked down upon it. They Russified the areas and people who spoke Chulym which was a factor of why Chulym started to die out. Another example of how language can empower and oppress people would be the people who spoke Sora. They all came from villages in remote areas where there was no proper education. This would force them to send their children to schools in the more popular cities. This compelled the children to speak the dominant language of the city causing their native language speaker to decrease. People who speak a more dominant language feel they have the power to oppress people who speak languages that are fading because they believe they have the upper hand. Dominant languages such as English are usually used more nationwide and internationally. The groups of people who speak dying languages have minimal benefits speaking their native tongue as it is not used for international or nationwide purposes.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Gender Advertisement

-
Image
Advertisement 1: In this poster, it is clear to see the stereotypical gender advertisement differences. Even though the ad looks almost exactly the same, as both the male and female are dressed in formal clothes, both are holding sandwiches in their hands and both posters have the same big slogan on the front, there are major differences. First of all, the sandwich the woman is holding the significantly smaller than what the male is holding in his hand. Below the big letters on the male poster, there are smaller letters stating that "It's the SMART thing to do", whereas on the woman's poster it says "It's a PRETTY quick thing to do". Both are trying to deliver the same message of preventing the public from littering but using different words to express their concern. Both the posters are targeted at both females and males but the female poster is possibly targeting the opposite gender, as she has her hair all done professionally, is wearing red lipst...
Read more

All About Me

-
Pt. 1 - Me  I'm Natasha and I share a birthday with Isaac Newton. I personally think I have the cutest, (and naughty-est) dogs ever, (I believe every dog owner thinks their dogs are the best). My mom sometimes says it feels like she has five kids, my brother, my dad, my two dogs and me. I am from South Africa but I was born and raised in Abu Dhabi, so I've basically been here my whole life. I love playing football, (aka soccer), and this year it's my second year playing football. I would consider myself a very adventurous person, I've gone down the longest zip line in the world which I consider a huge accomplishment since I was extremely nervous. I'm also obsessed with the ocean, I think its one of the most beautiful things on earth. I care a lot about animals and being from South Africa I see loads of wild animals every year and help my aunt who is a vet, treat some of the animals. I was a pescatarian for 3 years mostly just because I never liked meat that mu...
Read more

Wallace Vs. Hurston

-
David Foster Wallace's speech, This is Water , was a brilliant commencement speech he had written for the class of 2005 of Kenyon College. The speech ended up being his most famous piece, having addressed a reality that no one concentrates on. The speech focuses on the theory of self-centeredness. Wallace believes that there is a reality of self-centeredness so real, that no one ever considers it. He starts off his speech with a short story of how an old fish, swimming by two younger fish says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?". The water is an analogy for the self-centeredness, and the young fish, for the people. People are in a rush every single day of their lives, they do not realize that although they are the center of their own universe, they are not the center of anyone else's. Without saying it, Wallace wants readers and listeners to focus on living in the moment and being aware of the present and your surroundings. Another great author who focuses on li...
Read more