The World’s Judgement on Accents

 

You should never judge other people if they don’t know particular English words! Say, for example, you’re talking to someone, whether a native speaker or a foreign English speaker, and you’re using a specific English word that that person doesn’t know. You should never judge them for it because there are around a million words in the English language. Just think about it: there are a million words in the language. Now, the average adult English speaker, if he or she is a native English speaker and they’re well educated, then they might know around twenty-five, thirty thousand words, right? So, just think about the chances of them not knowing some very unknown English word that you’ve just learned and you’re using it, right? The chances are that that person probably doesn’t know that word and even if you think that this scenario whereby you, as a foreigner, say something and a native speaker doesn’t understand it is very unlikely to happen, you are wrong, my friend! I personally faced so many incidents in front of me and it happened to me as well. When someone would use a word I or my friend didn’t understand, people would take that to shock and start acting like they created the whole English language.

They would say “seriously how can you not know this word?”. It puts a person self-esteem down even if the person doesn’t show it. I myself think it’s normal, someone, for example, can be so educated but may not know a word. It’s totally normal, a normal person, in my opinion, would just explain the word and take it in a way that they are helping a fellow person in English.

According to the meme, the teacher doesn’t believe in what Lippi was talking about, in fact, the teacher smiles while saying “I don’t judge people based on their race, creed, color or gender I judge people based on spelling, grammar, pronunciation and sentence structure”.   Most importantly can’t be judged based on the way one writes because that’s their identity, so the teacher is still judging the students. Everyone has different techniques on how to write, everyone has certain trouble when it comes to language and their writing skills. However, if we are looking at this in a teacher’s perspective, I also disagree, because even as a teacher no one has the right to judge any student. The whole point of being a teacher is to teach and improve the weak side of a student. Nothing to judge about, there is something called “constructive criticism” maybe they can use that to help a student, but I don’t believe in putting a student’s self-esteem down because that causes them to just dislike the subject. Simply it all about improving a student’s writing skills, because we all went through difficulties to get to where we are academically. However, in order to grade a paper, it will be judged on the way they put in their ideas, evidenced and the structure of their sentences. It shouldn’t represent who they are because again lots of people find it difficult to express themselves through writing and that can affect them. This meme can be looked at in many different aspects and this is one of them.

However, based on the New York Times article, it is stated that “People still think that there is no problem with being intolerant over the way other people speak,” said Charles Cairns, a professor of linguistics at Queens College and the City University of New York Graduate Center. The meme and the New York Times article come together with similar ideas. “They feel that it’s acceptable to criticize or discriminate against people with non-standard ways of speaking English”.  This is so wrong, who are they to believe such a thing. If they were being discriminated by their accent it would obviously not be acceptable. Then again “everyone has an accent”, people also believe discriminating against someone’s language causes them to go to classes and learn standard English making it seem like they are doing immigrants a favor. As stated in the article, “even though experts say such sentiments amount to bias, immigrants have turned to speech lessons offered by tutors, private companies and colleges”. These experts believe that people having accents are helping out these courses, but what they don’t keep in mind that it must be difficult for them to learn a language to please society.

Additionally, teacher’s duty is to help the students in their difficulties, so they don’t end up with a struggle in the future because of the way they speak, write and represent themselves. Also, for their benefit, it can help them from not getting judged because of their “spelling, grammar, pronunciation and sentence structure”, and getting judged of because of these points led them to be judged of by their race, creed, color or gender. These sources/examples come together to portray the fact that some agree with “standard English” and some disagree with the term. Not just disagree with a term, disagree with being bias towards people who lack in speaking “standard English”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Work cited

“Don’t Judge People Based on Race Creed Colour or Gender L Judge People Based on Spelling

Grammar Punctuation and Sentence Structure Some Ee Cards | Meme on ME.ME.” Me.me, me.me/i/dont-judge-people-based-on-race-creed-colour-or-gender-3197224

Hernandez, Raymond. “When an Accent Becomes an Issue; Immigrants Turn to Speech Classes to.” The New York Times, 2 Mar. 1993