Final Reflection

Self-Knowledge
1. I have found myself to be a much more than I had expected natural and learned writer.
2. As a writer, I feel that I have learned a great deal about theses and topic sentences throughout this semester.
5. At the beginning of the semester, I felt much less focused and structured than now at the end.
6. Even through all of this, I feel that there is much more to learn on style and technique.

Content Knowledge
1. I grappled with the thesis and topic sentences, but I did learn about these quite a bit too.
3. People can care about the same things that I care about.
4. People are idiots, and idiocy is what evolves language.

Rhetorical Knowledge
2. People can be very judgmental, so you have to be careful when you use the word you.
3. I need to be aware of how my audience will react to what I am writing.

Critical Knowledge
3. I appreciate all feedback, especially feedback that will be helpful and constructive from someone that is and accomplished writer. Peers can be disappointing and unhelpful when looking for constructive criticism, so I was not enthused about it.
4. For my persuasive paper, near the end I finally started to tailor it to a specific audience, do i would have liked more time.
5. Again, thesis and topic sentences were challenging and helpful.
8. Writing will be helpful in every class, and knowing how it all works is very helpful for future reference.
9. My favorite part of class was the comradery that the class held. My least favorite parts were free-writing and peer review. I can sort of see how free-writing might be helpful for others, but peer review is just silly as no one really participates as they should. "Oh, what a nice paper! I really like it!" So less free-writing and less peer review would be awesome.

Synthesis Reflection

I think that the most important thing I gained from this is being able to put two things, ideas that have little to do with each other beyond the main theme, and turn them into a working idea of my own. I now know what a synthesis essay is. The process is useful in many things even beyond writing. I can use this process quite a bit for research in many areas of school.

This essay had some hard points in it. The hardest of them all for myself, though, was when I needed to put personal attachment into the paper at the beginning. I did eventually get a good introduction, but the problem of inputting personal attachment still bothers me as far as these papers go. I just do not have a strong personal investment to bring through, but that may be an okay thing to help with not biasing the papers.

I do not remember having this “aha” feeling. Maybe the closest feeling was when I read the “Global English” paper. It had some important aspects that I was not considering that would make a big impact on my view on the subject. The language does change, and we will not stop it. Whether we can stop the change is irrelevant. Evolution is a factor in the language’s change. This “aha” moment is not so much part of the paper, but it was important to make a strong ethos in my paper. Everyone else, apparently, was already thinking it, so I would need to notice this view in order to be fair in my points.

Analysis of Synthesis Sources

David Rohde is a professional writer and journalist for The Christian Science Monitor magazine. His article seems to be written to a general audience, not conforming to any one side. He shows this by including different viewpoints on the subject that supported his purpose: “Alan Firth, a linguist at the University of Aalborg in Denmark,” multiculturalists, “Tom McArthur, editor of the Oxford Companion to the English Language,” linguists in general, and many others. The purpose is to give educational information. We can see this through the medium it is presented in: PBS.org; PBS is often used as an informative service for the public. There is not much to say for his motivational occasion, but he did seem to be slightly annoyed at the differences between English in its traditional form and English in any other way. His angle of vision seems somewhat clouded to the subject in that he thinks that the change is not able to be stopped, although this may be true. It focuses on the changes that are caused by the spread of English. The article was logical, but it was also somewhat uncoordinated in its examples and focus; for example, the article has a part right at the beginning that was about the multiculturalists and does not return to it until the end. The author was fair to see other viewpoints, but it may have been nice to see a side that was in favor of the language changing. The appeal to emotion seemed absent, but sometimes that depends on the reader. The examples were clear and vivid enough to get a picture of what the spread was doing. The “hardware” example, for instance, was put in an understandable way. The values of the author were unclear; he used others’ opinions to shape the article. This led me to think that the article was more of a research paper.

George Orwell is a well-known author and wrote many books including the popular 1984. In his essay, he was writing to other professional writers and authors. He said, “The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English … is full of bad habits that spread by imitation…” (par. 2). That suggests that the essay’s purpose is to be inspirational and persuasive in order to reverse a few of the problems that come with the change of language. The political uses of the language after World War II must have frustrated him enough to write this essay. After all, one of his examples in his essay was, “I believe in killing off your opponents when you can get good results by doing so” (par. 13). His angle of vision is determined to stop the degradation in language. Although it is an old essay it still holds some important principles to notice about the change or degradation in language. The points are logically backed up, and the essay is well-structured and thought out. The author is very knowledgeable about the subject; this is visible in how, throughout the essay, Orwell used many diverse examples that showed his intentions plainly. The appeal to emotion is most prominent in the part about the politics. For example, he says, “Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification.” (par. 13) This may be a simple example, if you want it to be, but it clearly has emotional investment in it to show Orwell’s feeling on the matter. The appeal to values is also there because the ideas were important; Orwell even points out, “…if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought” (par. 15).  The corruption of thought should be a concern to everyone. I share a lot of the values that Orwell does in this essay, but my own ideas differ with his when his main point is to use simpler language. Today’s complications are often the simplicity itself. I think the appeal to emotion was of the most help for me to understand the problem that we face in the decadence of language.

Summaries of synthesis sources

Global English

This article, called “Global English,” was written by David Rohde and is available to read on PBS.org. Its purpose is to show how the English language is spreading through the world, and the changes that the spread brings to the language. Rohde says that the English purists blame America for this degradation but proves this to be false by showing that the degradation is caused by outside influence on the language. The article starts off by presenting new words that have sprung up around the world showing how the language is changing. The change is presented as a problem that needs to be kept up with in this quote: “The Oxford English Dictionary [is] struggling to keep up with the ‘morphing’ of the mother tongue.” It is changing much more rapidly because there are so many more people using it. When non-native speakers talk to each other, they make up words and idioms to suit their needs. The three types of English that linguists see are original, pidgin, and broken Englishes. People who use these other Englishes are not aware of the meanings of words beyond their common uses. He uses “hardware” as an example of one of the words that have more than one meaning. It lacks use of some of those meanings so those meanings are lost. The English language is also used for trade throughout the world and, therefore, has a great deal more value as a language than the others. This makes English a language that is important to have spread, and thus Rohde says, “The spread of English can’t be halted.” This also means that the change cannot be halted.

Rohde looks on the other side of the matter and states that some people see the English language crushing the other languages by invading and taking over as the main dialect. Multi-culturists are trying to stop the spread of English. They say that English could commit linguistic genocide or “linguicide,” meaning that the other languages will die because no one speaks it anymore. They also say that the people have a right to the language they use, and that the English language is infringing on that right. 

Politics and the English Language 

George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” was originally published in the journal Horizon in 1948. It depicts the degradation of the English language and the political uses of that degradation. Orwell began by showing five examples of poor English (par. 3). All of these quotes had the main problem he was writing against, which was, as he put it, “The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not” (par. 4). Several dying metaphors, pretentious words, and other things were listed as language to avoid (pars. 5-8). These expressed the problem clearly. Orwell used a verse from Ecclesiastes and a modern English version of the verse (par. 9) to show the readers the confusion and lack of imagery of today’s English.

George Orwell went on to say, “… political writing is bad writing” (par. 12). The political agendas are clouded by complex language. The people may not understand the laws or the details about war and after war situations. He said, “… if thought corrupts language, language can also corrupt thought” (par. 15), meaning that the people reading confused language will become confused. This was to present the awareness of the effects bad writing can have. Orwell asserted that everyone has the potential to commit these errors in language (par. 15), but this could be reversible with determination (par. 16). He ended by sharing six guidelines (par. 17) that can help the average political and non-political authors avoid bad writing.

Works Cited

Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” Horizon April 1946: 252-265. Print.

Rohde, David. “Global English.” PBS: Global American; The Christian Science Monitor. 2003. Web. 18 October 2015.

Exploratory Essay

“The English language is in a bad way.” This quote from George Orwell sums up my opinion on the subject. We can see this in just about everything, from television to the Internet to books to everyday conversation. I am irked every time I see or hear a word (literally) misused, or a word (weird) or phrase (I know, right?) that has no meaning used so often that it seems like you are swimming in the sewage of the language. These are examples of how the language changes. “Weird”, for example, was a word used habitually some decades ago. Now it is a word we use normally, again. We all know that change happens to language, but what are the causes and effects of the changes, and can the changes be stopped?

George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language” was what started my thought process on this topic. He explains in detail the problems that he saw and heard. Ambiguous words, words that no one knows the meaning of because they were too uncommon, words and phrases that are so old no one knows what they mean, and generally complex language are all used to confuse, according to Orwell. At least they were when Orwell wrote this. Orwell’s audience seems to be other professional authors and writers. He believed that the decay is reversible. “The point is that the process is reversible. Modern English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble” (par. 2). The point is clearly stated and identified by Orwell. Now, because this article was made in 1946, we can see how the world has or has not changed in the past seventy years. Politicians were the main abusers in his time, but now we can see how this problem is in just about everything: politics, law, science, art, music, etc. Now, admittedly, if you are a specialist in one of these areas, you know the language. But say you are an art major that loves science, and you get a lawsuit against you. You may have no idea what to do. What even is a lawsuit? All you know is that you need a lawyer who knows the language. These effects of poor use of English are frequent in everyday life. Although I enjoyed Orwell’s article, I have to find some newer sources that can identify the changes we are dealing with today.

Looking for new sources on my own at the library, I found a newspaper article, “Media and the Degradation of Language” by Michael F. Curtin. This would not be one of my first choices in using sources, despite its name. Whenever we hear the words “bad language” we do not think of the poor uses of language; we think of profanity. Profanity is the degradation in Curtin’s view; and, although it might seem like that is irreversible, he says, “…there is reason for optimism” (3). He compares it to three similarly disgusting habits: littering, drunk driving, and public smoking. He says that all of these were stopped by public determination to end them. Be that as it may, all of these were stopped not only by public determination but also by laws, and although profanity may be a similar problem, it has one subtle difference: it is protected by the freedom of speech. It cannot have a law made against it. This article seems to be written to the older generation that is worried about all the profanity going around. It is about encouragement; to encourage the parents not to worry and to encourage them to take a stand against the profanity: make it a big deal. Curtin uses his three examples to provide a relatable standpoint that his audience would remember. Overall, I think this was more helpful than I would like to give it credit for: it helped me understand that profanity is part of the degradation in language, maybe even a cause thereof. But even with this, his logic falls apart in its argument that this change will be stopped. The examples he gives are just different enough from profanity that they are not a suitable metaphor.

Still at the library, someone offered a book called Eats, Shoots and Leaves by Lynne Truss for a source. Truss shows how the language is degenerating in the way we use punctuation. Sometimes we get excited about punctuation, so much so that we overuse it. Even though we want to use punctuation correctly and not just forget about it, we use it so poorly that it changes the meaning of what we write. The purpose of language is, after all, to communicate what we mean to say; and, if we cannot do that, what is the point in it? Truss believes that proper writing can be achieved by proper education. She points out instances that, with her audience, would be relatable and possibly humorous because of the relation to everyday life. The audience are “Grammar Nazis” in everything, people who want so badly to correct others’ punctuation and misspellings that they are criticized when they do so. Such uses of emotion are great for capturing attention, but when she tries to educate the readers, it seems to me to be useless. The audience already knows what she is trying to teach. Maybe it would be more helpful if the introduction did not say, “… [Example] ‘Come inside… for CD’s VIDEO’S DVD’s and BOOK’S.’ If this satanic sprinkling of redundant apostrophes causes you no little gasp of horror or quickening of pulse, you should probably put down this book at once” (6). In reality the people who are not offended by this punctuation are exactly the audience she is trying to educate with the book after the introduction. Truss seems to think that this particular “change” in the English language is fixable, and I agree. Punctuation, no matter how much it is misused, will be a part of a formula in writing. Misusing a formula will only get you into trouble, so it will not become an English-affecting change.

When I was away from the library I searched on Google for “language degradation.” One of the sources I found was called “Global English” on PBS.org by David Rohde. It showed me how the language is not just degrading inside the borders of native speakers but also outside. This article was interesting because not only does it say that the degradation is caused by foreigners trying to learn English to have a common language, it also alludes that this spread is not stoppable. This is a bit of a struggle for me because I have always thought that it was stoppable and that it was altogether a bad thing. If everyone in the world spoke one language it would unite the world in a way it has not been since the Tower of Babel. We could finally put aside differences because we could converse easily and clearly in one tongue. Maybe this spread of English is not a bad thing, even with the problems it brings for the language. The changes in the language are obviously problematic though. At this point you would still have more than one language. You would have High English, which would be the language you and I know. Then you would have the lower English, which would be the pidgin Englishes that are already popping up around the globe. You would also have a trade English, which is the broken English that people everyplace are using right now to talk commerce and trade. This would be worse than splitting up peoples by different languages. This source was a little less biased than the others, and it had a more informative standpoint. Rohde said “the spread of English can’t be halted.” This really took a different opinion than the others. I was thinking that it would be possible to stop the change if we actually tried. But now, the option is open for not being able to stop it even if we try.

The previous source got me thinking, so I decided to look for more along the same lines and found an article on PBS.org by Walt Wolfram called “The Truth about Change.” This was fairly similar in audience and purpose to the “Global English” article, but was a bit more opinionated on the subject of change. “The only language not in a perpetual state of flux is a dead language” according to Wolfram. He thinks that the change is natural and acceptable. Change in language is one of those things that is different all over the world. Although the changes have side effects, they are not all that problematic. The main changes start small and insignificant and subtly move into the language unnoticed. Another thing the article said was that the media is not responsible for the change, the society is. The change does not happen from television or from impersonal celebrities who want change to happen; it happens when friends say things and you want to be like them. This was informative, but it did not have a lot of meaning to most of it. The last part of it was not even useful to me. It seems to me that the article was more of a stance in impartiality towards the subject saying that change just is, rather than pointing out the problems with it.

After reading all these sources I have come to think that the problem of change in language is not stoppable, but we should do something about it still. The articles that were against stopping the change were not so actively against it as they were just stating fact. The ones for stopping change, or rather reversing the changes that have already happened, are coming up with clever and reasonable plans to stop it; but, as time shows, the language will not stop changing. Perhaps instead of trying to stop the change we should shape it: mold it into something we want it to be.

Works Cited

Curtin, Michael F. "Media and the Degradation of Language." Vital Speeches of the Day 72. 20/21 (2006) p578-580. August 2006: Speech.

Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” Horizon April 1946: 252-265. Print.

Rohde, David. “Global English.” PBS: Global American; The Christian Science Monitor. 2003. Web. 18 October 2015.

Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. New York: Gotham, 2006. Print.

Wolfram, Walt. “The Truth about Change.” PBS: Language Change. Web. 24 October 2015.

Sources Cited

Works Cited

Curtin, Michael F. "Media and the Degradation of Language." Vital Speeches of the Day 72. 20/21 (2006) p578-580. August 2006: Speech.

McWhorter, John. Doing our own thing: The degradation of language and music and why we should, like, care. Random House, 2011.

Orwell, George. “Politics and the English Language.” Horizon April 1946: 252-265. Print.

Rohde, David. “Global English.” PBS: Global American; The Christian Science Monitor. 2003. Web. 18 October 2015.

Truss, Lynne. Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation. New York: Gotham, 2006. Print.

Summary and Response Reflection

I think the most important thing I learned from this is the response, which will be very useful in the future for analyzing things. Analyzing things rhetorically can help you see what a thing is saying, no matter what it is. I learned about the thesis and topic sentences, which will help me greatly with several things in writing, especially in school. Starting early seemed to help with getting a good paper written, and since it is a good idea anyway, I’ll be trying to do that in the rest of the semester. I struggled with the thesis and topic sentences most, but I think that problem is solved. I will try to use outlines a bit more because that will help with the structure which, in turn, will help with the thesis and topic sentences. Overall, the assignment was a good one because it helped me learn, which is what I want from school.

“All there is to thinking… is seeing something noticeable, which makes you see something you weren’t noticing, which makes you see something which isn’t even visible.” Honestly, this does not make sense to me, but I will roll with it. You have to look for the things that stand out to see what is hidden, right? The rhetorical response makes you do just that: look for what the author does with rhetoric and analyze it for the details. As for Orwell’s piece, I did not notice how deep it went. Maybe I only scratched the surface. In any case, I can see how reading rhetorically and analyzing therewith can help you find detail in places you might not expect.