Tuesday, September 1, 2009
“Ovuh Dyuh” Inquiry: Beitzel
This opening chapter essentially serves as an introduction to the issue of linguistic insecurity and the muddled sense of identity one experiences as a result of the loss of one’s native language. The narrator feels conflicted by her mother’s desire to raise a daughter who is capable of becoming a prominent figure in society by learning the British English of the imperialistic regime and her own desire to feel comfortable communicating with her peers. It is not until the narrator has graduated from secondary school that she is able to balance her Trinidadian language and the formal English that has pervaded all public forums. It took a great sense of will upon the part of the narrator to embrace the British English language that had previously ostracized her from her people and left her feeling that she had betrayed her culture only to be plagued by feelings of insecurity. This passage has caused me to speculate why colonists are motivated to strip the subjugated people of their native language. Perhaps, they feel it would cause separation among those being oppressed or that it would expedite the process of proselytization. I also find it intriguing that even after Trinidad had gained its independence that it retained the language of those who had previously stifled Trinidad and its culture. I am also compelled by the idea that translation is debilitating for the speaker “the act of translation cooling the passion of the thought” (12).It is unfortunate that the narrator and those individuals like her were unable to express themselves as freely and concretely as they desired. I am left with the sobering reality that every individual uses language as a means to be understood, but in the case of the narrator when the pressure to conform to a “master discourse” impresses itself upon her she is left voiceless (12).
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In the second chapter of The Skin That We Speak the narrator Ernie Smith provides an argument to the idea that one loses their identity from conforming to a more powerful language. He seems to look at language in a descriptivist style where only the act of communication is important. He describes his conforming to the "proper" standard english as a means of survival not necessarily in the board room or the classroom but on the streets trying to hustle. Smith saw his unique cultural background not as a hinderance but as an opportunity to communicate with as many people from as many different backgrounds as he wished to. Smith also delves into the idea of imperialistic conquest of all the facets of a conquered peoples culture, but makes no hypothesis as to why it occurs. I would go as far to speculate that it can't be defined in a generalization but each individual encounter of one language being considered higher than the other, even after a country successfully emancipates itself, must be examined to the point of singular human interactions. If one could possibly arrive at an overview of cultural conquest one would find that sometimes it is out of necessity, sometimes it is out of love and a desire for all to be homogenous or at peace, and sometimes it is out of ethnocentricity or hatred (of course they are probably a mixture of all these reasons plus a mixture of every emotion or attitude in the human psyche).
ReplyDeleteYour question of "why colonists are motivated to strip the subjugated people of their native language" is a profound one. The question itself as well as your answer highlights the dynamics of power that are at the heart of issues of language.
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