Monday, February 14, 2011

Language and motherland

If your native language is English and your home nation is the United States, you might have never thought much about the relationship between a mother-tongue and a motherland. As we discussed in class, Jacques Derrida thinks that there is a kind of psychological relationship between land and language and dissonance can result from prohibitions on use of the native tongue and movement away from the motherland (and language). How do you respond to this given our discussions of Viramontes's novel?
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21 comments:

  1. In Viramontes’s novel, the relationship between the characters and their native language is highly instrumental in altering the ways in which they interact with other characters in the book. This can be seen in the way Petra is fearful and distrustful of the white nurse at the clinic. Obviously, all of the Spanish speaking characters feel a distinct bond with their language. As something that is constant within the ever-changing borders of a migrant worker lifestyle, the Spanish language and the home it represents is cherished by the novel’s characters. The fact that Estrella is bilingual makes her an outsider within her own family, as she is linguistically straddled between two very distinct and separate cultures.

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  2. I think there would be a feeling of detachment if I was forced to not speak English at all if I went to a different country. There is a ton of variation to the English language be it in accent, slang, or whatever and how I speak it is part of who I am and where I grew up.
    Estrella was bilingual, but her mother only spoke Spanish. Estrella seemed unable to really fit in completely anywhere, but she had the ability to mix in with either Spanish or English speaking people. Petra would almost be incapable of surviving on her own in the United States if Estrella wasn't there. Petra and Perfecto never seemed whole being out of the motherland even though they both still spoke their native languauge.

    When one is learning a new languauge, one generally needs to think a little bit differently. The mind set almost has to be geared towards that kind of culture. Dr. Lara-Martinez always threw in a lot of cultural background when teaching Spanish. You can learn the vocabulary of a language, but to really understand the beauty of the language you should get to know the different cultures that go with it.

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  3. I agree with riobonito. To understand the beauty of the language a person should also get to know the culture that he or she is learning. Like Estrella, I am bilingual, but unlike her I dont have the feeling of not fitting in with society. I guess it is more common in todays world for people to know and speak more than one language. My grandparents always have told me that when they were growing up they were forced to speak only english, and because of this they have always felt like a piece of who they are is missing. So Estrella in this novel is very fortunate to be able to speak english, but also to be able to speak the language of her original culture. Language is a very importand aspect of life because it's a way a person can show who they are, and where they come from.

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  4. The novel Under the Feet of Jesus is an extremely poignant example of language being a psychological barrier between groups of people. This point is essentially drawn by the characters of Estrella and her mother, Petra. Petra can only speak Spanish; she feels isolated and perhaps lost in the world that they're stuck in. Estrella however, knows both Spanish and English, and is perhaps the only "hopeful" character in the novel. Despite her surroundings and the despair that her family is currently experiencing, she serves as a guide through the uncertainty of their collective life.

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  5. Although I can understand the point of view that one does not know a culture unless they know the native language, there are also cases where this is not necessarily true. I grew up living overseas in the middle east, and although I never because fully fluent in Arabic, I have always felt more comfortable in the middle east culture than most people. It is understandable to think that a person's language says a lot about them, but one should always realize that this isn't the case all of the time.

    I do believe that Viramontes purposely gave Estrella the gift of being bilingual to emphasize to the reader how difficult it is for some to cope with conflicting cultures when they feel comfortable in both.

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  6. I agree that in order to understand a language, the culture must also be known. Each culture has their own way of saying things, such as slang. If two people speaking the same language, but are from two totally different places, the words may have different meaning, while their literal translation into another language is the same.

    For Estrella, she is able to fit into both cultures, but at the same time, the English speaking culture feels less comfortable because she's an outsider. The mother on the other hand, probably would never feel like she could fit in because she spoke only Spanish.

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  7. I agree with Mr. Derrida that there is a kind of psychological relationship between land and language. Take for instance French. The French language is seen as one of beauty and romance, which is closely reflected in stereotypes of Paris as the city of love. If we were to embark onto a study of language and culture, we would find universally that languages are built around the culture they support, with each region around the world using their own unique dialect of the language.

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  8. America is my home and English my language so I don't know from experience the topic at hand. I do know that with dis use of something it becomes less and less important in day to day life. For example the radio in your car dies and you go an extended period of time without it, you stop noticing the lack of the radio playing. Now when something is prohibited the out come can go one of two ways; the prohibition will be successful and the subject will be phased out, the other option is the subject will become much more appreciated. An example of this is Prohibition in the US, many stopped consuming but the ones who didn't found a way. Prohibition lead to strong up risings in gangs that would either transport or brew the booze themselves and were pretty much only penalized by the small federal government force. I see for many Mexican/Hispanic people today forbade to use their native language that this is one of the given conditions they must cope with to be a part of this country.

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  9. As an immigrant from Russia, I feel as if I can relate to Estrella. My family also came to this country to take advantage of opportunity and to better our lives. While growing up my parent never forced us to speak Russian at home, while they predominately spoke to us in Russian our response were generally in English. This resulted in a half fluency of my birth language, I now can understand Russian with basically no issues, but speaking and reading in Russian are entirely different matter. While I don't feel completely disconnected from my culture, I do feel as if my cultural connection could be mush stronger had I been pushed to be truly fluent in Russian. Language is not absolutely necessary to understand culture, but it does provide sort of cultural enrichment. Russian, for example, is full of contextual understanding and cultural markers that non-native speakers may not completely understand due to the subtle meanings and cultural significance. Language is a marvelously complex thing; communication may be a language’s function, but its character is determined by the history and culture of the people who speak it.

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  10. In my opinion, language and culture are almost one in the same. Many languages do not have similar words for some ideas. For example, there is no actual word that translates to "surrender" in japanese. Their culture doesn't acknowledge the idea so there is no need for a word to express it. Being disconnected with one's native language might lead to some feelings of disconnect with their culture.

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  11. Language is important to the culture that speaks it. Language and culture revolve around each other and perpetuate. To become fully engulfed in a culture a person must speak its' language. In Viramontes' book I would have to say than the most empowered characters in the book were the ones that were Bilingual. Estrella was always a central character to her family; she was never cast out because she could speak English. She also never lost her culture because she could speak Spanish.

    The way that the migrant people kept there culture intact was to re-create there culture everyday. whether at home, in the fields, or at a gathering in the evening they preserved there culture through there language and there interactions.

    I have witnessed a loss in culture through the loss of language. My parents and grandparents were prohibited from speaking Spanish in school. As a result I never learned Spanish even though my grandparents and their siblings mostly spoke Spanish. I couldn't communicate with my great-grandparents so I couldn't learn from the stories that they told.

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  12. The characters in the book by Viramontes want to go home; where that is differs for each character. Perfecto’s home is old Mexico. He speaks only Spanish, and desires to go there. Estrella was born in the USA, but doesn’t know where her “home” is; speaking both Spanish and English, she is torn between two motherlands. Having lived in America and spoken English all my life, I don’t have any experience of this cultural duality. I would suspect that Estella’s environment, the language and people, affected her view of what the motherland is. Would she have a different outlook on what her home is if she hadn’t grown up around the border? I would assume so. Perhaps this proves Derrida’s point regarding the relationship between language and land. Language certainly enhances ones understanding of the customs of a “land.”

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  14. I believe the the connection to language and land are deep. The reason why adults want them and their kids to stay connected to the culture, is because parents live through their children. In order to do that the parent want their kids childhood to be similar to theirs, meaning the children have to go to the motherland and speak the language of their parents. Another reason they want to keep the language is due to translation errors. The differences in language expression can change a stories or and phrases that are what people going to be based their life on.

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  15. I myself would feel extremely alienated if visiting a country or region where the dominate language was not English. In Viramonte's novel its easy to forget that they are speaking Spanish, not English. When taking Alejo to the clinic we see that Estrella is the interpreter between the nurse and her mother and stepfather allowing us to visualize the frustration between Petra and the nurse; Petra probably wondering if her daughter is relaying the information correctly.

    While working at JC Penny's in the past, I noticed that Spanish speaking customers would feel more comfortable having their kids ask the question in English rather than themselves, even though he/she knows the language.

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  16. Junot Diaz opens his work Drown with a comment that is something along the lines of "English is not my native tongue, so even as I write to you now my meaning is lost." That is very loosely quoted but the meaning remains the same; in outward interaction, that is, interaction that occurs in a fashion external from the inner-workings of out mind, language binds and defines us. It is the primary tool of communication and its nuances, obscurities, and implications are what allow us to express ourselves in a genuine manner. Therefore, to be striped of this primary tool and perhaps forced to use another, we loose the mode in which we were accustomed to expressing ourselves, consequently having to adapt to another linguistic architecture which might be completely alien and obtuse to us. If forced into this I could see a myriad of problems relating to identity and the expression of that identity occurring, possibly leading to some form of depression or even a change of self to adapt to this new type of expression.

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  17. Languge is important to everyone's identity. Language is how we communicate and connect to society and other people. It is by language and nationality that we create small understandings of how people are and might act. Should either of these come under some form of attack or are kept from of using native language then there might be a loss of connection with society. This is very speicific to Under the Feet of Jesus. The characters are immigrants and because they are no longer in an area where their language and nationality is common and so therefore they are outsiders and are disconnected to the society they are in.

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  18. Since I haven't read Derrida's statement in context, I can't really say he's right or wrong, but one thing that seems relevant both to the statement by itself and with respect to Estrella's own situation (learning English as well as Spanish) is vaguely analogous to Nabokov's upbringing. Nabokov grew up speaking French and Russian, and soon thereafter learned English. He wrote first in Russian and then, after emigrating to the United States, in English, both with great success. However, this is more than likely a product of his socioeconomic security and attendant eduction, neither of which Estrella was privileged enough to have. Whereas Nabokov inhabited an intellectual world where his multilingual skills were an unusually valuable asset, in Estrella's world her bilingualism only allowed her to serve as an intermediary, the upshot of which was dangerous, difficult, low-paying work for her and her family. Nonetheless, the case of Nabokov seems to counter, to a degree, Derrida's argument as it is stated here.

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  19. Then again, I suppose there was no "prohibition" on Nabokov's native tongue, certainly not in the same way that other languages were sometimes prohibited in American schools. So that pretty well invalidates my previous comment.

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  20. Language, as well as culture, is the product of a group's environment and is also indicative of their values. Consequently, there is a degree of untranslatability between groups from different regions. A person from an arctic region cannot simply talk about snow to someone from a tropical region. As one moves away from their home environment, their language usually becomes less relevant. This often makes the person feel even more alienated. For Estrella's family who only spoke Spanish, this isolated them from American society. For Estrella who spoke both languages, this isolated her from her family.

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  21. The dissonance between land and language is more pronounced when necessity forces you to leave your motherland. It is clear that Perfecto and Petra had to leave their motherland due to necessity. As a result, they perceive the new foreign language and culture as something borrowed. In most cases, they see the new language and culture as a attack on their own identity. This land and language conflict is totally different with someone who willingly leaves his motherland. This individual is more likely to embrace and adopt the new culture as his own. He goes past learning the new language just to survive instead he wants to be a part of the new language and culture.

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