outline for a essay

"Students Rights to Their Own Language:"

Name ：Mingming Ma

Course : English 101

Date: 12/11/2014

"Students’ Rights to Their Own Language"

In the article “Students’ Right to Their Own Language”, Jeff Zorn (2010) insisted that dialect Standard English should not be only used by the educated, those in authorities or people belonging to middle class. Jeff says, “Who uses the dialect Standard English?” The authors successively identify as that dialect’s speakers (1) the educated, (2) “those in power in the community,” and (3) the middle class.” One might object here that it’s not fair that African Americans be discriminated because of their race or any other persons due to their background. Standard English should be used by all Americans.

Standard English should be used worldwide by all people with no identifiable group being entitled to using it alone. Tocqueville says, “The tie of language is, perhaps, the strongest and the most durable that can unite mankind”. English words are coined uniformly for all English users ranging from expressions, sentences, clauses, and clusters of paragraphs hence they need to be used uniformly by all people. Jeff wants all people to Standard English equally. To avoid this discrimination, Jeff says, “the distinction between speaking and writing”. He pointed out that the way someone speaks should not be used to attack on his/her personal character.

The education system is the same for all students who end up doing same exam hence they should be subjected to same learning conditions including the English they use. For example, Miss McGuire taught Kenneth Clark to understand the magnificence of an English sentence worrying about their background differences. The textbooks being used for learning are written by the very same authors without any specification for whichever group to read it. . In 1971 a magazine; the magazine of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) stated that all children both American and non-Americans need to be taught Basic English which is nowadays a worldwide language. With all the people from all the races knowing Basic English, it will be easy for people to communicate efficiently and work together in diaspora.

But if this is so that all groups of people in United States should use the same language then there will be no sense of belonging. Cynthia Tucker once said that, “Ebonics Is a Farce That Masks the True Nature of Poverty,” hence it should not be taught in schools in United States. This is a clear indication that Ebonics’ is usually associated with Africans hence we as Americans are separated from them by our fluency in English hence conserving our language. When we Americans being fluent both in speaking and writing Standard English it normally gives us the sense of belonging making us more proud.

It might seem that when the whole world speaks in Standard English as if its civilization but indeed it makes no sense. Some years back by every ethnic group speaking their own language it showed appreciation of one’s culture and respect to your origin. The world has different ethics like, Spanish-speaking, Indian, Appalachian, Asian and immigrant Caucasians ,so in order to preserve these groups we should stick to speaking our vernacular languages.

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