The effect of language and power on identity (Takeaway from the discussion on Woman Warrior and How To Tame A Wild Tongue)

Social identity is one's sense of self as a member of a social group. This is shaped largely by the cultural identity of a person, which is one's sense of how their culture affects their actions and their personal identity. 

In the text 'Women Warrior', the author describes how she was silent when she was a little kid. How she did not feel confident while talking, but felt better when she was reading, shows how she was conforming to the stereotype of the 'shy little Asian girl'. But soon, as she started meeting different people, like the 'black ghosts' and the 'ghost teachers', she became a bit more outgoing. In sixth grade, the author describes how she was flustered when she met another girl who was very quiet. She went after the quiet girl everywhere, and tried to talk to her. The author was angry at the fact that the little girl never talked. Here, we can she how the outlook, and hence the identity of the author changed. As the author grew up, her personal identity started to change. She started to discover herself, and it quickly grew up on her. This change in personal identity overcame her cultural identity, which led to a change in her social identity. This was only possible since she knew English, which shows the relation between language, power and identity. How she tried to instil the same change in the little girl is described to great length in the passage.

"How to Tame a Wild Tongue" is a description of how the author feels oppressed due to the fact that she did not connect with either of the languages: English or Spanish. During her childhood, she was taught in school that Spanish was a bad language. She was forced to speak English, which she conformed to then, since she did not understand much. After that, later in her life, she was discriminated in the Spanish community itself because she spoke in Chicano. Chicano was thought of as bad Spanish, hence her perception of her personal identity changed when she spoke Chicano. Chicano made the author feel like she was not as important in society, and lowered her self-esteem, as was the case with a lot of Chicano speakers. But as the author grew, she realised how important Chicano was to her and people who spoke it. She says in the passage how she will no longer feel ashamed of existing. This shows us how the change in perception of the authors personal and cultural identity by herself led to a creation of a new social identity.

What is interesting is how personal identity isn't permanent in the above cases, and is largely affected by the power of the oppressors language. Social and cultural identity all depend on the perception of the culture and oneself. We can see that language and power lead to varying perceptions of the social,personal and cultural identity in the two texts, which ultimately impacts the master identity of a person.

Linguistic imperialism in the post-colonial anglophone world. (Specific focus on education)

The world as we know today runs on languages. Everyone speaks languages, from Arabic to Chinese to Afrikaans. But in the modern post-colonial world, the prowess of English as a language is undeniable. English is as common a medium of transferring information as you will come across. It is visible in many facets of peoples lives all around the world, from the economy they depend on to the the various forms of entertainment. But English has had the most lasting impact in one field: Education.
English is the most prevalent in Education. All of the top universities in the world have English as their medium of instruction. Universities like MIT, Stanford and Oxbridge have requirements for proficiency in English. If an applicant who qualifies for admission is not admitted, it is most probably because their proficiency in English as a language. The existence of tests that grade the level of proficiency of a person in English reveals to us the power that English has had since the Colonial period.
Since education is a stepping stone for anyone's life, English might establish itself as more important than the persons native tongue. This might have bad implications for the native tongue of that certain someone, which my lead to loss of culture. The fact that this is actually happening just reveals to us how much power English has maintained throughout the years.
But the real problem comes to surface when we realise that even the best educational institutions in a country whose native language is not English, have English as a medium of instruction. Yes, some might have courses in native languages as well. but it is a rare occurrence. Some even require a certain proficiency in English that is demonstrated through tests. This is a huge problem, as a lot of educators and students are killing their own culture without realising it.
For example, in India, even though there are many languages, the medium of instruction of the best education system is English. The best universities in India, like the IIT's have an English medium of instruction. This although does not look as bad, until we realise that India has around 780 languages. Courses in these universities do not have any of these 780 languages as their medium of instruction! Even the best universities in the states where native tongues are prevalent, English is still prevalent as a medium of instruction! This shows the massive linguistic power English has had to this day in India.
Even though receiving education through an English medium is efficient for the world as it helps in unifying people of different cultures, it has an immense impact on the way people think about their own culture. Given that not a lot of people will stop speaking in their native tongues, a small portion still will. This small portion, as time progresses might become large. It may even become larger until  it results in the extinction of the language, and even threaten the existence of a culture itself.

Paper 1 Analysis (Text #2 in the Paper 1 Booklet)

The given text informs the audience of the food crisis in the Sahel region of South Africa, and enumerates the steps that Oxfam is taking to reduce this deficit of food. At least this is what the article looks like it's trying to convey on the surface. But on closer investigation, it turns out to be a persuasive piece that tries to publicise Oxfam. We will now analyse how this article tries to persuade the reader, starting with the analysis of the target audience and its real purpose.

The main purpose of this article, as stated above is to spread the word about the work of Oxfam on the scarcity of food in Africa. Since Oxfam is an organisation that runs massively on donations, it can be said that the real purpose of this persuasive piece is to bring in more donations. This leads us to discovering the real target audience: the rich and/or philanthropic people of today. This is seen by the  use of 'we' and 'investing' in the sentence 'By investing in longer term interventions to reduce people's vulnerability to external shocks, we can work to break the hunger crisis in Sahel.' Prospective Oxfam workers and curious readers are also targeted here, but the main motive here is to popularise Oxfam and hence bring in more resources. How the content does this is addressed in the following paragraph.

The piece starts off by introducing the problem, which is the risk of the up and coming food crisis in the Sahel region of Africa. It gives statistics regarding the number of people who are at a risk of facing a food crisis, and compares them with the numbers from previous years, then explaining why they are acting early on the issue. The situation in Sahel is then explained in great detail along with some alarming statistics, followed by the steps Oxfam are planning to take to address the situation in specific countries. The text is concluded through the statement that preventing future crisis would require action to address the root causes and provide long-term support to the vulnerable groups.
Here, the key idea is informing people about the situation in Africa, along with how it requires early action. This theme of acting early to address the root cause helps in developing the tone immensely.

Being informative, this article also has an urgent tone. This is strongly reflected in the language used.
Necessity to take immediate action is shown in the diction of the introductory paragraphs, which leads to a development in an urgent tone. Some examples are phrases like '..enabling action months earlier than in previous crises...' and '... investing now in earlier and cost-effective solutions...'. Information is presented to the reader in the form of crude statistical numbers, which ensures that information gets across to the viewer without breaking urgency in the text. By using phrases like '... we can work to break the hunger cycle in the Sahel.' and '...vulnerable populations can be protected from the worst impacts...', Oxfam wants to plant the seeds of confidence that even some action by the reader can help to address the situation in Africa. In the few paragraphs that follow the introduction, it describes the dark situation in Africa. Phrases like 'low rainfall',  'poor harvests' and 'lack of pasture' paint a bleak picture in the viewer's head. This sad tone alerts the reader and helps in developing the overall urgent mood. The statistics are then given, ensuring that the urgent tone is not overlooked. After this, Oxfam states what they are doing to address this situation and what they want to do, which leads to the development of an urgent and philanthropic mood. The development of the tone in this text is one reason for its effectiveness. The eager tone in the introductory paragraphs, coupled with the you can tone in the body, and the informative conclusion all leads to creating an urgent, philanthropic and positive mood.

This text uses literary devices, namely ethos, pathos and logos to a large effect which are scattered throughout the text. First off, logos, which is appeal to logic, is used in this text as a lot of statistics are given to persuade the reader to support Oxfam's efforts. For example, the text starts off with the statistic that 12 million people across West and Central Africa are facing a food crisis. This statistic makes the reader visualise the region as one with many food problems, hence supporting Oxfam's main purpose of raking in donations. Statistics like these lie throughout the text, to stiffen the reader's understanding of the magnitude of problems in the Sahel region of Africa. Most of the statistics are presented in percentage format, which makes it easier to show the drastic need for addressing the issue.
Pathos, which is appeal to emotion, is also used widely. For example, the personal pronoun 'we' is used in the following way: '...we can work to break the hunger cycle...', which prompts the reader to take some action regarding the issue. But if the reader doesn't do it, he will feel guilty, which is exactly what the article wants to achieve. Pathos is also coupled with logos to provide a drastic impact, which is made further lasting due to the fact that it is in one of the final sentences. The line '... provide longer-term support for the poorest people in a region where 300000 children die from malnutrition related diseases in a non-crisis year.' is very effective. It plays with the readers emotions, implicitly stating that if you don't help, 300,000 children will die every year. This coupled with the statistic that 300000 children die every year due to food scarcity creates a lasting impact on the reader, due to which the reader will feel more obliged to help than otherwise.
Pathos is effectively used as well, as Oxfam establishes itself by stating the steps it is taking, and the steps it is planning to take. In the text, it is stated that Oxfam have started a co-op vegetable gardens program for 1300 women. Also, it states how it has already started helping the vulnerable groups across the Gorgol and Brakhna regions already. These statements further support Oxfam in establishing itself as an effective charity, which will in turn persuade the reader to help them in some way.
The text also uses imagery to a certain effect, with phrases like 'low water levels', 'lack of pasture' and 'high food prices', which paint a picture of poverty and uncertainty for the future. This also helps in appealing to the readers emotion, as they would find it compelling to do something to address the issue.

The structure of this text also plays a part in its effectiveness. It starts off with a picture of a very thin person on the back of a horse, captioned 'Sahel region of West and Central Africa may face a serious flood crisis in 2012'. The image of the thin person gives the reader an impression of what they are about to read. The by-line here is:" The humanitarian response must tackle the underlying cause of crises like this to prevent them from recurring." Before the reader even starts reading the text, they know that it is about the response to the food crisis in Sahel, which makes it more effective than it would have been otherwise. In addition to that, the text is divided into sub-divisions and further into very brief paragraphs, which makes it easier for the reader to skim through the text. The briefness of the paragraphs may also keep the attention of the reader, as not everyone in todays world likes reading long texts, which they have to do since they intend to gather more resources. The first paragraph is in bold, which states a lot of crucial statistics about this particular situation. Making it bold captures the attention of the reader for a longer period of time. These statistics will also be at the back of their mind while they go through the article, reinforcing why they should take action to address this situation.

After analysing this text in depth, we have now found out how Oxfam tries to persuade its readers carefully through the language used. The strong appeal to people, careful development of tone and effective creation of mood, and finally the structure of this text makes it persuade with ease. Hence, we see how the real purpose behind this article is not only to inform people about this dark situation, but also how they should take action to address it: by helping the effective charity, Oxfam.