Language shapes our identity but doesn’t define who we are. Take a stance on whether you agree or disagree with this statement. Write an argument that supports your position. Make reference to concepts or readings from the course as evidence.
"Language shapes our identity but doesn’t define who we are". As simple as it is to disagree with this statement agree because no matter how foreign your name may sound to others or how different your language dialect is to the norm, language does not entirely define who you are as a whole. It only defines you within a particular group's dialect or language.
By seeing the name Julia Alvarez anybody would assume that the person would be a hispanic woman and assuming is perfectly natural however, concluding someone's whole (note how I bolded whole) identity based upon their name is a wrong and unethical judgment to practice because this action limits the person's identity to their names only and this does not allow the person to show all of what they are not just based on what their names are. In the example of "Names/Nombres" by Julia Alvarez, during her college years Julia was asked where she was from and she simply responded New York since as she supports "After All, I had been born blocks away at Columbia- Presbyterian Hospital". The intriguing part here is that the people follow up with saying "I mean, originally" which Julia then replies with her Family's homeland. Why does she say this? Simply because she knew how with the language of where she was communicating, hearing her name already shaped her as someone from a country within South America. It is not deniable that she has Dominican Republican Origins, yet she has not lived there for most of her life when she was aware AND she was not even born there to begin with, she was born in America and to me America seems her home because not only was she born there but she was also studying and living there at the same time. She just conformed into allowing people's ideas and beliefs shape her identity and instead of saying and supporting (like her inner self is as shown to the readers) that she is born and raised in America, she gave up and decided to go with the flow. After all she gave up trying when "my initial desire to be known by my correct dominican name faded." Deep down she knows her identity is not only determined by her name, but she chooses to let people shape her identity either ways.
The section on the language dialect is different yet similar in some ways to the foreign name. The major difference here is that people tend to strongly assume more and even claim people's identity by their speaking abilities in comparison to their pronunciation of their names. An example of this belief would be in "Mother Tongue" by Amy tan. In this essay, Amy Tan's mother is depicted as an unintelligent person due to the way that the hospital treated her for her lack of english in comparison to when Amy Tan spoke in her "better" english. The hospital assumes that since the mother cannot speak english as good, she is not as intelligent as other people who speak a more sophisticated english and thats why Amy was treated differently than her mother. The way in which Amy shows the reader how her mother may not be as foolish as she is depicted by her language limitations is when she mentions how her mother reads the Forbes report, listens to Wall Street Week and reads Shirley Maclaine's books. I believer her mother is an intelligent person with a limitation of language which brings her intelligence down because of culture beliefs.
"Language shapes our identity but doesn’t define who we are". I could have easily strongly agreed with this statement because I believe languages do not fully determine our potential selfs and who we are as a whole. To me, languages are a limitation if not learned how to become articulate with the language however not being fluent in one language does not make you any less smarter than you were with or without that language. In the end, I think it would be a good thing to show your true self in more than one tongue and to be able to express and show who you are in many ways.
