Friday, January 11, 2008
Linguistic Slander
I didn't do as well as I hoped on the quiz. I probably only got about half of them right. Honestly, I was quite surprised when the answers were revealed. I even caught myself discriminating against these people while I was listening purely by default. I was saying to myself, "Wow this guy sounds weird!" Or something along those lines. My experience with discrimination against dialect is that it occurs worldwide, but in the U.S. we make little if any attempt to listen to or help those with whom we experience this barrier. I served an LDS mission in Honduras, Central America and while I was there it was very different from here in that sense. When I first arrived I spoke very little if any Spanish. Even though I may have sounded "weird" to the Hondurans, they made an attempt to understand me and communicate with me regardless, and by doing so my Spanish improved very quickly. To me, that is the difference between the U.S. and other parts of the world. I also went over to Europe and traveled to 9 different countries over about a 6 week span and had a similar experience there. Maybe the people weren't quite as accepting and helpful, but they would at least listen to what we had to say and/or ask. Many people in the States that are from other countries and have a dialect that differs from that of a Caucasian, are intimidated to speak and improve their English and the dialect in which they speak because of the reaction that they receive when they converse with them. I know that if I were received by the Hondurans in the way that many Caucasians receive others here that I would have had a much different experience and probably wouldn't have ended up speaking Spanish as well as I do. I feel that the people that were discriminated against in the videos that I watched certainly are valid in complaining and being angry about the responses they received when calling. Just because I feel that their complaint is valid doesn't mean that it's going to stop though. Discrimination will always exist here on earth. To many (myself included) it is a sad realization, but it is the honest truth!
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3 comments:
I understood when you spoke of the reverse. When I was to speak swedish around the old swedes that my dad grew up with, I was afraid of offending them with my accent. They too were very open and tried to help me, thrilled that I was trying. I think you're right though, when you say that discrimination will never totally disapear... but it's worth it to try anyway.
You get at the catch 22 immigrants can find themselves in--discrimination for sounding foreign yet few English speakers who really engage and help them. Of course there are other cultures/countries where this happens as well. I've had many latino students talk about the ridicule they receive from uncles/aunts/cousins when they try to speak spanish and make a mistake.
I come from the Czech Republic where I meet many students trying to learn our language. I have never seen any lingustic discrimination. Czech people are usually open to listen especially because we are small country and we love to see other people learning Czech. We appreciate it not discriminate them.
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