bell hooks, "The Language of Power"

“The Language of Power” by bell hooks is one of the stories I have read in the topic language and power. Although there are many stories within the topic, I found that this book contains many interesting fact about language and its power.

One thing I found quite interesting is that when bell hooks states “I know that it is not the English language that hurts me, but what the oppressors do with it”. This particular sentence makes me think that before English language became worldwide, many people were oppressed, forced and exploited. The English language itself does not have anything to deal with colonization, or negative attitude seen during that time. I see that English language was just a tool which, perhaps unfortunately, was used by oppressors to force and enslave people; and hence, its positive values were overcome.  When being forced while living within a place containing various kinds of people, people had to struggle in order to live and communicate. Manipulating and mixing language is the only choice for slave because if you do not sacrifice, you will not be able to live and escape. This is relevant to another sentence by bell hooks “So, if you want to really hurt me, take badly about my language”.  I think that language is not only a tool used to communicate, but it also contains cultural and religion values, history, and most importantly identity. Changing or manipulating language means the deviation of your identity because your identity relies on it. Referring to her statement, talking badly about language can really hurt people because it means that your nation, identity and culture are insulted. Identity is what most people proud of, since it shows everything from fundamental. I think I have never seen people accept or agree when their language is insulted.

Another point I found interesting in this story is that enslaved African used and manipulated English to the language of resistance. It is surprising that changing some part of word would create significant impact on its meaning such as no one to nobody resulting in richer meaning. It shows that people can do everything in order to gain and acquire more power. Knowing language and having ability to speak creates a lot of power because they will be able communicate between slave. Even though the structure of language did not change, I see that making new word is a great idea. Nowadays, although we are not in the era of colonization, new words are made due to the change of society. Things have changed and created, which society has to keep the same pace with development. I come with my idea that changing language or adding words does not mean insult to the language anymore, since everything needs change.

Relationship between language, gender, and power

In the following link contains the article about "Minnesota police offers shot after city council meeting".

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/jan/27/minneapolis-police-shooting-city-council-meeting

There is some relationship between language, gender and power in this particular article. Looking at the heading "Minnesota (police officers) shot after city council meeting", it uses "police officers" instead of pointing into specific information such as policeman or policewoman meaning that the article does not have any bias to either man or woman, or does not want to reveal specific gender of wounded police since it might cause further conflict. Using the word "police officer" also means that the author does not oppress any genders. The following sentence states that "......returned fire and killed the (gunman)...". The use of the word "gunman" has specific gender-identification explained through language, which means that the convict was male. Meanwhile, if the article stated the word "gunwoman", which is rarely to be seen,  it would imply that the convict is female meaning that the detail might oppress female in some way since sometimes it is not appropriate to expose female conducting horrible deed. Reading along the article, the author still uses the same neutral word relating to victims meaning that author does not want to reveal specific information. It shows that he/she is trying to keep his/her piece neutral.

Linguistic Imperialism

First of all "Imperialism" is a policy of extending the rule or authority of an empire or nation over foreign countries, or acquiring and holding colonies and dependencies; according to dictionary. Linked to education, imperialism has significant effects both in positive and negative way. For positive way, countries or community colonized by the dominant country will be able to gather more knowledge from the immigrants. The standard quality of  education system will be heightened up which will open a wider opportunity for students to study various subject branches. Students who are studying in the system will have a wider view of the world around them because information collected into the education system comes from different places that might have different perspective or cognition. Different perspective or cognition means that when they meet the same dispute or arguement, more knowledge will be created since everyone has different interpretation and imagination. One of the best thing of being colonized is that people tend to use the same language which is easier to communicate and exchange personal ideas. Coming back to education system, the graduated students will provide good quality services or works into the community which will, eventually, increase life-quality, income, or health. Furthermore essential services will be provided in the community since people have enough knowledge and satisfactory profession, such as doctor, lawyer, or teacher, in order to produce needed service. Community , especially with lower quality life, will benefit from being colonized because immigrants will bring knowledge in order to teach native the way of using their resources efficiently creating higher income-rate and increasing quality of life. However, being colonized means using new language or, moreover, losing dialect which will lead to the loss of indigenous knowledge. Since every place has their way of living which includes the use of herbs, tools, or machine. Gathering new education system or knowledge from immigrant means that native will have to abandon uniques techniques, language, or cultural value. Crucially, language and cultural value might extinct eventually. Nevertheless, being colonized was a potential way of getting new knowledge and better education quality in past. Since living in modern era where social networking is spreading conprehensively, people have opportunity to learn and study through electronic device which means that being colonized is not the best way of getting high-standard education anymore.

Paper #1 Text # 2

This text is a descriptive text from the website because it mostly tells the background information of food crisis in Sahel region of West and Central Africa before saying what Oxfam international itself is doing in order to help people living within the area. The aim of the text is to review significant problem occurring by saying the people’s daily life living which should be treated.The people who mostly will interested in this specific topic are local, operation related to humanity or people who have faced the same problem because they would have a lot of concern and sympathy to support Oxfam in order to help people.

Looking at the content and picture, the text is mostly about the people in Sahel region of West and Central Africa who are facing food crisis in the past years. A lot of people do not have enough food and water to live because of many factors including climate and scarce resources that heightens up the food prices. Therefore, Oxfam international claims that they are helping, preventing and trying to supply food and resources for people living in the area. The message that the author is trying to build the sympathy emotion and convey is the long-term food crisis in Africa, having been infecting and killing people for many year, which need to be taken into account. Therefore, the author is trying to mention the goodness of Oxfam international by saying its operation within the area in order to hook the emotional and concerning readers.

The tone of the text is sympathetic because it is about food crisis, which have been affecting people’s life for many years, resulting to the illness, struggling and death of African people. The atmosphere is sad and gloomy because a lot of people are dying, however; there is still some happiness within this atmosphere because Oxfam international is in its helping and supporting operation which might cure the problems.

Within the text, Oxfam international’s perspective is objective from its data receiving for many years. It can be seen by the use of “According to national early warning systems…..” and “Recent reports said….” that it is not biased or made by themselves in order to make this website trustable. The ideological standpoint in this text is not obvious, however, it gives some sense of helping and providing the people who do not have or have less. The ideological can be obvious in the sense of sharing. The repetition of Oxfam in the last paragraph emphasizes the fact that they are actually helping these people, not the other organization. It can also be said that Oxfam international is stepping and actually helping without any doubt because it uses first person or specific pronoun in order to hook and create some emotional sense relating to Oxfam to the reader. The paragraph structure used in this text is trying to build up emotion and ideas of struggling people. The use of image of local riding sad-looking donkey at the beginning of the text including the catchphrase “Food Crisis in Sahel” creates sympathetic impression to the readers. The dry ground and probably bright sunlight (because of the shadow) also creates the sense of shortages of water and foods that African people are struggling with. The structure of this text is providing from background information to specific data. The first bold paragraph is hooking and creating curious emotion for the readers to find out more about the situation because it uses specific data such as “12 million people……are facing a food crisis…” and imperative emotional word such as “we hope…”. The following paragraph provides basic information about food crisis, however, it also tells consequences, such as “……provides an opportunity to avoid the mistake of the pass”, if this problem does not take into account which this particular is hooking the readers into the emotion of caring. Moving to the subheading, it mostly talks and goes in depth to the specific data which builds up more sympathetic emotion because of the use of number such as “5.4 million people”. The use of paragraph-ending has significant emotional touch to the readers who are actually concerning to this problem because “2.4 million people don’t have always enough to eat” shows that these people really need to be helped. Coming to the last subheading, all of the sympathy emotional makes Oxfam international looks very good and helpful because it is the only organization mentioned in this text. Therefore, if this organization is gathering donation, people who are really concerning about this problem will definitely donate for them since there are only what Oxfam is trying to help African people in the last subheading. It shows only its goodness including the use of repetition of Oxfam is emphasizing that Oxfam is the best one.