There is a very compelling phenomenon that when one moves to a new place, she will soon recognize that the local people are speaking some dialects. Those dialects may have just slight variances in pronunciations, tones or speed compared to the one she uses in the place from which she comes. However, this difference can incur complex mental activities within this person. Also, this transformation can decide the way by which she perceives the new environment and her experience afterwards. This circumstance may sound familiar because it is a living experience shared by many people. One of the obvious explanations of the occurrence of this process is that speeches developed in different places have diverse styles, which separate people that are not from the same area. After all, it is because people attach meanings and emotions to their hometowns. Speech is a carrier of their relationship with their places. Thus, speech derived from another place stimulates them to realize that they are in the space with which they have no personal connections and then follow the psychological changes. Evidently, speech is one of the many forms of language. Examining other forms of language using, this project will talk about how language influences the relationship between people and their hometown.
The tentative topic of this project is “The Influence of Language on Linking People and Place.” On one hand, language is too important to be ignored. Its flexibility and liquidity give most people the capability of learning and using it. Used on a daily basis (in fact, nearly all the time), it turns to be one of the most powerful tools in the process of human civilization. Therefore, by writing about the process of linguistic-construction of the relationship between place and identity, I intend to provide the audience with a clearer thread of clue on how language helps link we people to places.
On the other hand, language has become too common to be noticed by people. It is the very truth that its contribution to the building of society and culture is influential. However, it is also this situation that makes people tend to forget language’s roles. Different from the ancestors that did not put language in the most prior place as a communication tool, humans today are too used to the everyday usage of language to keep aware of its importance. Thus, it is necessary for the writer to remind the audience how language motivates one to involve in a place and shapes the identity.
The essay will mainly focus on three questions. At the beginning of the essay, I will argue around the question that whether languages make different speakers have different ways of perceiving a place. Borodistky believes that linguistic process “are persuasive in most fundamental domains of thoughts,”(Borodistky 143) While Tuan believes that human speech manipulates the visibility and viability of places. (Tuan 694) And I expect to prove that language influences people’s attitudes towards a place. Moreover, local individuals can build exclusive understanding of their hometown by language, which is not accessible to people from other places. In addition, I will introduce several linguistic forms such as poetry, literature, and ballads. These are the special cultural products of different places. With diverse purposes, they are the records human activities. From them, I expect to find out how they motivate individuals to build personal attachment to their hometowns. In the last part, I will write about how language decides and influences people’s social networks. Language is the necessary tool of communication. Social life is one of the most important aspects of one’s life. People from the same place hold a group of similar qualities and are more likely to gain recognition from each other. I expect to find out language’s effect on their interactions, and how these interactions change their personal understandings and perceptions of their hometowns.
One scholarly source that I found most helpful is Language and the Making of Place written by Yi-fu Tuan. His idea that linguistic-construction is one of the main ways applied by people to turn a “space” into a “place” inspires me to think about how language segregates the local individuals and the outsiders, creating sense of home. Also, after reading his argument that linguistic-construction concerns moral issues, I become interested in whether local people will have different attitudes from strangers in the process of shaping a place’s image, and how these attitudes advance the formation of people’s attachment to a place.
Exploring into the five pieces of scholarship to support my argument makes me engage in the scholarly conversation. I will not only comprehend other scholars’ ideas, but also thinking of them, developing my own argument. As the five pieces of resources are not talking about the exactly same topic, I have to compare and contrast their key ideas and find out the connections among them. This is very different from the persuasive essay that I wrote in my first-year writing class. I need to consider the resources more critically, while this can help me generate new ways of arguing about my thesis. I believe that by undergoing this process my essay will not only be informative, but also inspiring to the audience and encourages them to reflect on the theme.
Annotated Bibliography
Tan, Amy. "Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan." Mother Tongue, by Amy Tan. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Sept. 2014.
Amy Tan writes about the experience of her mother who received unequal treatment due to her incapability of oral language skills. This condition hindered her from engaging in the American community.
Tuan, Yifu. Language and the Making of Place: A Narrative Descriptive Approach. Madison: Department of Geography, U of Wisconsin, Madison, n.d. Print.
Tuan points out that language plays an important role in transforming space to place. This process can be very subjective and concerns moral issues. I will use this source to support my idea that people’s linguistic-construction process of their hometowns differ from the process of other places and the reason of it.
Tuan, Yi-fu. "Space and Place." Google Books. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Sept. 2014.
This article argues that space and place are two different definitions. Space is only a physical existence while place is attached with emotion and specific meanings. Space can turn to place. This idea helps me build the argument that the variances of dialects can in fact influence people’s perception of space and place.
Course Document from Blackboard: Where Are You From? Notions of Identity & Place, “Rhode Island” Jhumpa Lahiri
Lahiri talks about her own immigration experience from London to Rhode Island. Her statements and description illuminate the idea that place and space different. My focus will be on the comparison between her own emotion and condition as an immigrant and those of her parents.
Course Document from Blackboard: How Our Languages Shape the Way We Think, Boroditsky
Boroditsky talks about the idea that different language speakers have diverse ways of thinking and perceiving the world. Speaking another language also means thinking in a different way. I will integrate this point to prove that how language ties one’s identity to her hometown.