Having begun this semester engaged in our course topic of inquiry: “The Politics of Language,” I’ve indulged in studies of language and its relation to us, whether positive or negative. Throughout this course, I’ve explored topics related to languages, such as language and family, language and accents, and many others that my classmates chose. Many course materials help to extenuate and improve me as a writer; taking the five materials I’ve worked on this semester has led me to express my thinking on paper. 

At the beginning of the semester, we studied and read personal stories from individuals, like Amy Tan, SafwatSaleem, June Jordan, and more. Each with personal and individualized situations, but ends up related to one topic, language. It usually pertains to the negative kind. From these personal stories, I examined how attitude linguistic standards empower and oppress language users. An example came when Amy Tan discusses her mother’s situation and how her broken English affected the way she was being treated. Just because Tan’s mother spoke a form of English that’s different from standard English resulted in her mother, “used to have [her] call people on the phone to pretend [she] was [ her mother]”(Tan, page 78). I talked about how lignitic standard oppresses and negatively affects those with broken English. As I explain and examined further in my phase 2 essay “Language Discrimination”, “Languages don’t just exist in one form or language; they come in many forms and should all be accepted by everyone. Everyone shouldn’t be oppressed because they speak English differently or poorly”(44-46). Reading her work helped me to pinpoint that standards that are placed on English will hinder and affect those with broken English detrimentally. 

My first assignment from this course led me to the opportunity to “Explore and analyze, in writing and reading, a variety of genres and rhetorical situations”. I have written an essay detailing the rhetorical situations used by different writers and even a speaker. For his English class, Langston Hughes composed a poem demonstrating rhetorical strategies. As Hughes uses ethos in his essay, he creates a sense of trustworthiness and credibility in his readers by giving brief background information that seems sincere and by providing knowledge about himself that we get to know about him. Besides his inclusion of Rhetorical Appeals, he included personification, anaphora, and alliteration. He uses personification from his very first line, “Go home and write”(2). Hughes was told to go home and write a page for his homework, but the way it was written was like the words and page were speaking it, removing the meaning from his professor and just the words on the page itself. Also, he uses alliteration, words used in succession or beginning with the same sound, “hear, Harlem, I hear”(18) in his poem. By doing this he emphasizes the meaning behind his essay, language, and education.

Phase 3, the research argument essay,  relied on using sources. From it, I used journal articles, and library databases, and scoured the internet to use those sources for my essay topic, accent discrimination. For example, I found a blog by Burruezolaw “Speaking English at Work Language and Accent Discrimination” to explain how accent affects people in the workplace and how it enforces inequality in the workforce. By using this I was able to strengthen my topic by including summaries, analysis, synthesis, and argumentation. I summarized the key points about the sources I chose. Written discussions of ideas, a synthesis, to compare different sources and how their relations to each other analysis of each source and how it supports my argument that accent discrimination negatively affects people, affecting them in the workplace because of human psychology. 

Lastly, I was able to practice the systematic application of citation conventions. Having used various sources in my research essay, I needed to cite and give credit to them. I learned to properly cite my sources. Previously I talked about a blog from Burruezolaw, I cited, “Burruezolaw. “Speak English at Work! Language and Accent Discrimination.” Burruezo – Workplace Law, 29 April. 2016, burruezolaw.com/speak-english-at-work-language-and-accent-discrimination/#:~:text=For%20many%20employees%2C%20English%20is%20not%20their%20first,an%20accent%2C%20or%20are%20not%20proficient%20in%20English” in it article format. This topic taught me the correct way of citing the source I used in my essay. 

In the end, I am now equipped with valuable knowledge and insight into the art of writing. With these skills I have learned, I plan to incorporate these into my future. No matter what, I gained so many useful tips and strategies that I hadn’t had before. As a result of my learning, I learned that our attitudes toward language have a profound impact on society. Even though we can’t change everyone’s attitude toward people with accents, we can raise awareness about this issue so that equal opportunities can be created in the workplace and others can assist those who have been discriminated against. Even those this task is nearly impossible, it is imperative that we spread the word about this topic and learn more about it.