Abstract

Judging each other became a horrendous habit in our lives. It’s like we get a big chunk of honey out of it and when it’s about living in the US and not knowing the standard American English can make your life a catastrophe. The purpose of the essay is to inform the negative consequences that people with an accent face and that we all should cease the judgment based on individuals accent or dialect.

 

Must End That Judging!

Attention Folks! Let’s stop judging people based on their accent or dialect. We live in a nation where everyone is entitled to be equal and have freedom. In many individuals perspectives, someone who has a non-native accent is not qualified for the things that the native speakers do. They are losing thousands of opportunities, being abused, ignored, and discriminated. However, they are the ones adding a new flavor to the English language. Prejudice people seems to be pessimistic about individuals with an accent not knowing that accent doesn’t define anyone’s level of intelligence.

Negativity in our minds and us judging others by their accent, culture and the way they write, became a bad habit. According to a meme created by MizWeirdo, a white professor who might be teaching a class full of whites and very little minorities, mentioned that “I don’t judge people based on race, creed, colour or gender. I judge people on spelling, grammar, punctuation and sentence structure.” See, this is not okay to judge anyone for anything. The teacher in the meme is implying that it is possible to separate one’s accent from their race. She might be saying that I don’t discriminate anyone by their ethnicity but it’s my job to teach them how to speak and write proper English. Well, if this is the case, she is not really thinking straight here. It’s not easy to separate anyone’s accent since they didn’t grow up speaking the same language. They have their own accent or language that they have learned from their surroundings. Trying to remove their native tongue would go against their will and identity. The way you express yourself shows who are you as an individual. If anyone criticizes for being yourself then they literally discriminating your race. So, she’s saying not judging people by race, but grammar is insane and illustrates racism against certain groups of people with bad English.

As a human being, we should care about each other instead of thinking who is right or wrong. I respect the fact that she mentioned, she doesn’t pay attention to race and gender, however, she contradicted herself with the second sentence by criticizing individuals dialect. Minorities with a dialect are the main victim of facing hassles with the English language because they are being judged all the time for their uniqueness. She completely sounds judgmental and ignorant toward minorities. She could’ve thought twice before spitting out her words because her words can hurt millions of accented people who struggle to speak the SAE. What she is doing to them is that twisting and turning a needle that has already been there. I believe that she is smart enough to understand that individuals who failed to use proper grammar or have dialect weren’t raised learning proper grammar.

By judging someone we don’t get anything significant out of it but to make them feel bad about themselves. Instead of criticizing them, we should let everyone feel comfortable on their own skin. The law doesn’t tolerate discrimination; however, it’s not something that’s going to go away until people like her understand their immorality against minorities who don’t speak or write proper English. Reacting weirdly while someone uses their own language not only can hurt but aggravates them. Therefore, we shouldn’t criticize anyone.

To me learning SAE shouldn’t be mandatory because an individual who grew up speaking a different form of English, they face hard times dealing with their accent. I’m not saying that they can’t fix it, but it wouldn’t be easy, and they should not force themselves. It’s part of their culture, it’s in their blood even though it’s not the best way to communicate with others because people are so judgmental, and they will judge even if a word sounds different. Nowadays, many schools are becoming unpleasant toward minorities as well. According to an article “pupils banned from using slang words at school.” A School known as Harris academy banned students from using slang to make their vocabulary better. I do kind of agree with their purpose for banning slang because everyone judges your whole character by your speech. Banning slang will help them get better jobs and maybe students will sound smarter as they think SAE makes it all. However, slang shouldn’t be an issue since they can express themselves and keep on moving forward without knowing proper English. Judging them based on their dialect is against their identities as I mentioned before. From students’ comments on the article, I found out that most of them are agree with the idea to ban it, but they don’t understand the fact that their dialect is something that can’t be changed in a blink of an eye. It’s funny that the school made this type of silly decision when they can’t ban students from speaking slang outside of the school. Students enjoy most of their life when they are out of school, so few hours in school without slang wouldn’t make that much difference. Also, the school is violating the valuable human rights by preventing students from expressing their own way.  It’s your life and you have the right to speak whatever and however, you want. Nobody has the authority to manipulate your natural rights.

A bilingual individual is more valuable than an individual who speaks only English. Don’t get me wrong we are all important but when it comes to assisting one another, bilingual people are the best. According to Bonfiglio, a writer who wrote an article about the benefits of being bilingual mentioned that “Being bilingual means that there are more job opportunities depending on which languages you speak.” Out of so many authors who only see the negative sides of minorities, he is the one to come up with some positive feelings. Even though prejudice individuals discriminate minorities, but they are one to have various skills. So, for instance, let’s say you work in a store and some customers from your country who has an issue with the English language comes to purchase then you are able to help them since you speak multiple languages. On the other hand, if you only speak English, you would end up losing so many businesses with customers because a good business requires multiple communication skills. Therefore, knowing two languages make you unique and better. You should be proud of it instead of letting yourself down trying to understand why you speak English the way you do. It doesn’t matter how we speak, as long as we can express ourselves, it’s all that matters.

In addition, accented people are adding new things to the English language. Since they have their own way of describing stuff, they make few changes to the language which assisting the language to develop. According to MacNeil “As people evolve and do new things their language will evolve too…. And their new perspective will give them a new way of talking about old things (pg. 35, pg. 1).” I totally agree with MacNeil’s idea because sounding different adds a new flavor to a language and the flavor spreads over time. Some might be afraid of getting contaminated with the flow, but this is something that just improving the language for the better. At the end of the day, we all should embrace that fact that everyone is different and we all something unique to contribute to the world. We should give them a chance to move forward in life and make them as equal as everyone instead of letting them down by describing them as “dumb” which they are not. Therefore, we should respect everyone’s way of using the language and help them feel good about themselves. The way we will have a united society in the United States America.

 

 

Work Cited

 

Bonfiglio, Chontelle.

“10 Amazing Benefits of Being Bilingual,” Bilingualkidspot, 23 May 2017,www.scribd.com/document/391951118/Shah-Waliullah.

MacNeil, Robert

“English belongs to everybody” Wordstruck, January 1st 1989, pg. 35.

“Pupils Banned from Using Slang Words at School – CBBC Newsround.”BBC, BBC, 15 Oct. 2013, www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/24534663.

Weirdo, Miz.

“Confession.” Someecards TV, Someecards,www.someecards.com/usercards/viewcard/MjAxMi1mYzZkNGFiMzAyMThjN2Q2/?tagSlug=confession.

 

Self Reflection

My purpose of the critical analysis essay is to inform that we all should cease the judgment based on individuals accent or dialect. Also, is to argue different perspective of language attitudes by my point of view to convince my audience. The intended audience would be the students, teachers, immigrants and oppressors. I used an online meme and articles to demonstrate the language attitude that was being addressed to prove that judging is not a solution to resolve anything, it’s just taking away our unity from our society. My sources show ignorant, racism, and criticism against minorities who struggles throughout their lives to get along with natives because they are being judged for being who are they are. Oppressors are not letting them feel comfortable on their own skin, they are always talking negative stuff about them.

        By writing this essay, I have acquired a valuable knowledge to argue against authors. I never thought that it would be possible however this assignment showed me every single step to open up my perspective to illustrate that what they have said about someone’s dialect is complete inappropriate and no one should listen to them.

Moreover, what help me the most to write the critical analysis essay is that the charting a text and in class works. The charting a text assisted me to dig under the surface of what the authors are trying to convey to his/her audience. In class work helped me understand the whole assignment since I was a little confused at the beginning.