The contemporary reader gary goshgarian pdf

xxii • Preface

containing useful thematic and biographical information, as well as clues to writing strategies. Each is followed by a series of review questions, "Thinking Critically," covering both thematic and rhetorical strategies as well as engaging writing assign- ments and other exercises.

Visuals

Recognizing the importance of visual communication, the 13th edition of Explor- ing Language includes updated visuals. In addition to the nine photographic chap- ter openers, we have added cartoons, print ads, comic strips, posters, sign language charts, photographs, and more. Following each visual are "Thinking Critically" questions, directing students to analyze the "language" of the images-the messages and commentary projected from the designs and layouts . Each chapter includes an editorial cartoon designed to connect to a current issue as well as the chapter' s theme.

Instructor's Manual

The Instructor 's Manual, which is available to adopters, includes suggested responses to selected questions in the text. The Instructor's Manual also identifies questions that are particularly good for in-class discussion or collaborative student work and provides recommendations for additional online research.

Acknowledgments

Many people behind the scenes are, at the very least, deserving of thanks and acknowledgment for their help with this 13th edition. It is impossible to thank all of them, but there are some for whose help I am particularly grateful. I would like, first, to thank those instructors who answered lengthy questionnaires on the effectiveness of the essays and supplied many helpful comments and sugges- tions: Wendy Crawford, Camden County College; Miriam Gershow, University of Oregon; Philip Hu, Cerritos College; Martin W. Sharp, Rowan University ; Judith Stanley, Alverno College; Lori White, Los Angeles Pierce College. To all the instructors and students who have used Exploring Language over the past 12 edi- tions, I am very grateful.

A very special thanks to Kathryn Goodfellow for her enormous assistance in locating material, writing the apparatus, and putting together the Instructor's Man- ual under tight deadlines. My thanks also to Amy Trumbull for her help in securing permissions for the text. Finally to the people of Longman publishers, especially my editor Suzanne Phelps Chambers and her assistant Laney Whitt, and my devel- opmental editor Anne Leung, thank you for your continuing support, understand- ing, and enthusiasm throughout the production process of this edition.

-Gary Goshgarian

Introduction: Thinking and Reading Critically

What Is Critical Thinking? Whenever you read a magazine article, newspaper editorial, or a piece of advertis- ing and find yourself questioning the claims of the authors, you are exercising the basics of critical thinking. Instead of taking what you read at face value, you look beneath the surface of words and think about their meaning and significance. And you ask the authors questions such as:

• What did you mean by that? • Can you back up that statement? • How do you define that term? • How did you draw that conclusion? • Do all the experts agree? • Is this evidence dated? • So what? • What is your point? • Why do we need to know this?

You make statements such as:

• That's not true. • You're contradicting yourself. • I see your point, but I don't agree. • That's not a good choice of words . • You're jumping to conclusions. • Good point. I never thought of that. • That was nicely stated. • This is an extreme view.

Whether conscious or unconscious, such responses indicate that you are think- ing critically about what you read. You weigh claims, ask for definitions, evaluate information, look for proof, question assumptions, and make judgments. In short, you process another person's words, instead of just mindlessly scanning them.

Why Read Critically? When you read critically, you think critically. And that means instead of simply ac- cepting what is written on a page, you separate yourself from the text and decide for yourself what is or is not important or logical or right. And you do so because you

1

2 • Introduction: Thinking and Reading Critically

bring to your reading your own perspective, experience, education, and personal values, as well as your powers of comprehension and analysis.

Critical reading is an active process of discovery . You discover an author's view on a subject; you enter a dialogue with the author; you discover the strengths and weaknesses of the author's thesis or argument; and you decide if you agree or disagree with the author's views. The end result is that you have a better un- derstanding of the issue and the author. By asking questions of the author and analyzing where the author stands with respect to other experiences or views on the issue- including your own-you actively enter a dialogue or a debate. You seek out the truth on your own instead of accepting at face value what somebody else says.

In reality, that is how truth and meaning are achieved: through interplay. Experience teaches us that knowledge and truth are not static entities but are the by-products of struggle and dialogue-of asking tough questions. We witness this phenomenon all the time, re-created in the media through dialogue and con- flict. We have recognized it over the years as a force of social change. Consider, for example, how our culture has changed its attitudes with regard to race and its concepts of success, kinship, social groups, and class since the 1950s. Per- haps the most obvious example regards gender: were it not for people questioning old rigid conventions, most women would still be bound to the laundry and the kitchen stove.

The point is that critical reading is an active and reactive process-one that sharpens your focus on a subject and your ability to absorb information and ideas while encouraging you to question accepted norms, views, and myths. And that is both healthy and laudable, for it is the basis of social evolution.

Critical reading also helps you become a better writer, because critical read- ing is the first step to critical writing. Good writers look at another's writing the way a carpenter looks at a house: they study the fine details and how those details connect and create the whole. Likewise, they consider the particular slants and strategies of appeal. Good writers always have a clear sense of their audience- their ·readers' racial makeup, gender, and educational background; their political and/or religious persuasions; their values, prejudices, and assumptions about life; and so forth. Knowing one's audience helps writers determine nearly every aspect of the writing process: the kind of language to use; the writing style (casual or for- mal, humorous or serious, technical or philosophical); the particular slant to take (appealing to the readers' reason, emotions, ethics, or a combination of these); what emphasis to give the essay; the type of evidence to offer; and the kinds of authorities to cite.

It is the same with critical reading. The better you become at analyzing and reacting to another's written work, the better you will analyze and react to your own. You will ask yourself: Is my analysis logical? Do my points come across clearly? Are my examples solid enough? Is this the best wording? Is my conclusion persuasive? Do I have a clear sense of my audience? What appeal strategy did I take-to logic, emotions, or ethics? In short, critical reading will help you to evalu- ate your own writing, thereby making you both a better reader and a better writer.

How to Read Critically • 3

While you may already employ many strategies of critical reading, here are some techniques to make you an even better critical reader.

How to Read Critically To help you read critically, use these six proven basic steps:

o Keep a journal on what you read. o Annotate what you read. o Outline what you read. o Summarize what you read. o Question what you read. o Analyze what you read.

To demonstrate just how these techniques work, let us apply them to a sample essay. Reprinted here is the essay "Let Them Die" by Kenan Malik, published in Prospect magazine, in November 2000. I chose this piece because, like all selec- tions in this book, it addresses an interesting contemporary language issue, because it is accessible, and because the author raises some provocative questions about current linguistic campaigns to preserve vanishing languages, languages such as Eyak, spoken by only one living human being, rapidly disappearing, because the last speaker herself is dying.

There are around 6,000 languages in the world today. Shortly there will be one less. Eighty-one-year-old Marie Smith Jones is the last living speaker of Eyak, an Alaskan language. When she dies, so will her language. Over the past few decades a huge number of languages have died in this fashion. When Ned Madrell died on the Isle of Man in 197 4, he also took the ancient Manx language to the grave. The death in 1992 of Tefvic Escenc, a farmer from the Turkish village of Haci Osman, killed off Ubykh, a language once spoken in the northern Caucasus. Laura died in 1990, the last speaker of a Native American tongue, Wappo. Six years later another Native American language, Catawba, passed away with the death of Carlos Westez, more popularly known as Red Thunder.

2 At least half of the world's 6,000 languages are expected to disappear over the next century; some pessimists suggest that by the year 3000 just 600 lan- guages will be left. According to the American Summer Institute of Linguistics, there are 51 languages with only one speaker left-28 of them in Australia alone. A further 500 languages are spoken by fewer than 100 speakers, and another 1,500 by fewer than 1,000 speakers. Most will be lucky to survive the next decade. Such accelerated disappearance has galvanized in'to action an increasingly vocal campaign to preserve "linguistic diversity." In an obituary to Carlos Westez, the writer Peter Popham warned that "when a language dies" we lose "the possibil- ity of a unique way of perceiving and describing the world." Despairing of the "impact of a homogenizing monoculture upon our way of life," Popham worried about the "spread of English carried by American culture, delivered by Japanese technology and the hegemony of a few great transnational languages: Chinese,

4 • Introduction: Thinking and Reading Critically

Spanish, Russian, Hindi." The linguist David Crystal echoed these sentiments in a Prospect essay last year. "We should care about dying languages," he argued, "for the same reason that we care when a species of animal or plant dies. It reduces the diversity of our planet."

a Now a new book, Vanishing Voices, by the anthropologist Daniel Nettle and linguist Suzanne Romaine, links the campaign to preserve languages to the cam- paign for fundamental human rights, and for the protection of minority groups, in the face of what they regard as aggressive globalization and cultural imperialism. "Linguistic diversity," they argue, "is a benchmark of cultural diversity." Lan- guage death "is symptomatic of cultural death: a way of life disappears with the death of a language." "Every people," Nettle and Romaine conclude, "has a right to their own language, to preserve it as a cultural resource, and to transmit it to their children."

Campaigners for linguistic diversity portray themselves as liberal defenders of minority rights, protecting the vulnerable against the nasty forces of global capi- talism. Beneath the surface rhetoric, however, their campaign has much more in common with reactionary, backward-looking visions, such as William Hague's campaign to "save the pound" as a unique expression of British identity, or Roger Scruton 's paean to a lost Englishness. All seek to preserve the unpreservable, and all are possessed of an impossibly nostalgic view of what constitutes a culture or a "way of life."

The whole point of a language is to enable communication. As the renowned Mexican historian and translator Miguel Leon-Portilla has put it, "In order to sur- vive, a language must have a function." A language spoken by one person, or even a few hundred, is not a language at all. It is a private conceit, like a child's secret code. It is, of course, enriching to learn other languages and delve into other cul- tures. But it is enriching not because different languages and cultures are unique, but because making contact across barriers of language and culture allows us to expand our own horizons and become more universal in our outlook.

In bemoaning "cultural homogenization," campaigners for linguistic diver- sity fail to understand what makes a culture dynamic and responsive. It is not the fracturing of the world with as many different tongues as possible; it is rather the overcoming of barriers to social interaction. The more universally we can commu- nicate, the more dynamic our cultures will be, because the more they will be open to new ways of thinking and doing. It is not being parochial to believe that were more people to speak English-or Chinese, Spanish, Russian, or Hindi- the better it would be. The real chauvinists are surely those who warn darkly of the spread of "American culture" and "Japanese technology."

At the core of the preservers' argument is the belief that a particular language is linked to a particular way of life and a particular vision of the world. "Each lan- guage has its own window on the world," write Nettle and Romaine. "Every lan- guage is a living museum, a monument to every culture it has been vehicle to." It's an idea that derives from nineteenth century Romantic notions of cultural differ- ence. "Each nation speaks in the manner it thinks," wrote the German critic and poet Johann Gottfried von Herder, "and thinks in the manner it speaks." For Herder, the

How to Read Critically • 5

nature of a people was expressed through its volksgeist-the unchanging spirit of a people. Language was particularly crucial to the delineation of a people, because "in it dwell the entire world of tradition, history, religion, principles of existence; its whole heart and soul."

a The human capacity for language certainly shapes our ways of thinking. But particular languages almost certainly do not. Most linguists have long since given up on the idea that people's perceptions of the world, and the kinds of concepts they hold, is constrained by the particular language they speak. The idea that French speakers view the world differently from English speakers, because they speak French, is clearly absurd. It is even more absurd to imagine that all French speakers have a common view of the world, thanks to a common language.

But if the Romantic idea of language has little influence, the Romantic idea of human differences certainly does. The belief that different peoples have unique ways of understanding the world became, in the nineteenth century, the basis of a racial view of the world. Herder 's volksgeist developed into the notion of ra- cial makeup, an unchanging substance, the foundation of all physical appearance and mental potential, and the basis for division and difference within humankind. Today, biological notions of racial difference have fallen into disfavor, largely as a result of the experience of Nazism and the Holocaust. But while racial sci- ence has been discredited, racial thinking has not. It has simply been re-expressed in cultural rather than biological terms. Cultural pluralism has refashioned the idea of race for the post-Holocaust world, with its claim that diversity is good in itself and that humanity can be parceled up into discrete groups, each with its own particular way of life, mode of expression, and unique "window upon the world."

10 The contemporary argument for the preservation of linguistic diversity, liber- ally framed though it may be, draws on the same philosophy that gave rise to ideas of racial difference. That is why the arguments of Popham, Crystal, Nettle, and Romaine, on this issue if not on anything else, would have found favor with the late Enoch Powell. "Every society, every nation is unique," he wrote. "It has its own past, its own story, its own memories, its own ways, its own languages or ways of speaking, its own--dare I use the word-culture." Language preservers may. be act- ing on the best of intentions, but they are treading on dangerous ground, and they carry with them some unpalatable fellow-travellers.

11 The linguistic campaigners' debt to Romanticism has left them, like most multiculturalists, with a thoroughly confused notion of rights. When Nettle and Romaine suggest, in Vanishing Voices, that "the right of people to exist, to prac- tice and produce their own language and culture, should be inalienable," they are conflating two kinds of rights-individual rights and group rights. An individual certainly has the right to speak whatever language he or she wants, and to engage in whatever cultural practices they wish to in private. But it is not incumbent on anyone to listen to them, nor to provide resources for the preservation of either their language or their culture. The reason that Eyak will soon be extinct is not because Marie Smith Jones has been denied her rights, but because no one else wants to, or is capable of, speaking the language. This· might be tragic for Marie

6 • Introduction: Thinking and Reading Critically

Smith Jones-and frustrating for professional linguists-but it is not a question of rights. Neither a culture, nor a way of life, nor yet a language, has a God-given "right to exist."

12 Language campaigners also confuse political oppression and the loss of cul- tural identity. Some groups-such as Turkish Kurds-are banned from using their language as part of a wider campaign by the Turkish state to deny Kurds their rights . But most languages die out, not because they are suppressed, but because native speakers yearn for a better life. Speaking a language such as English, French, or Spanish, and discarding traditional habits, can open up new worlds and is often a ticket to modernity. But it is modernity itself of which Nettle and Romaine dis- approve. They want the peoples of the Third World, and minority groups in the West, to follow "local ways of life" and pursue "traditional knowledge" rather than receive a "Western education." This is tantamount to saying that such people should live a marginal life, excluded from the modern mainstream to which the rest of us belong. There is nothing noble or authentic about local ways of life; they are often simply degrading and backbreaking. "Nobody can suppose that it is not more ben- eficial for a Breton or a Basque to be a member of the French nationality, admitted on equal terms to all the privileges of French citizenship ... than to sulk on his own rocks, without participation or interest in the general movement of the world." So wrote John Stuart Mill more than a century ago. It would have astonished him that in the twenty-first century there are those who think that sulking on your own rock is a state worth preserving.

13 What if half the world's languages are on the verge of extinction? Let them die in peace.

Keep a Journal on What You Read

Unlike writing an essay or a paper, keeping a journal is a personal exploration in which you develop your own ideas without set rules. It is a process of recording impressions and exploring feelings and ideas. It is an opportunity to write without restrictions and without judgment. You do not have to worry about breaking the rules-because in a journal, anything goes.

Reserve a special notebook just for your journal-not one that you use for class notes or homework. Also, date your entries and include the titles of the articles to which you are responding. Eventually, by the end of the semester, you should have a substantial number of pages to review so you can see how your ideas and writing style have developed over time.

What do you include in your journal? Although it may serve as a means to understanding an essay you are assigned, you are not required to write only about the essay itself. Perhaps the piece reminds you of something in your personal ex- perience. Maybe it triggered an opinion you did not know you had. Or perhaps it prompted you to explore a particular phrase or idea presented by the author.

Some students may find keeping a journal difficult because it is so personal. They may feel as if they are exposing their feelings too much. Or they may feel uncomfortable thinking that someone else-a teacher or another student-may read

How to Read Critically • 7

their writing. But such apprehensions shouldn't prevent you, or any other students, from exploring your impressions and feelings. Just do not share anything highly personal with your teachers or classmates. You may even consider keeping two journals-one for class and one for personal use.

Reprinted here is one student's journal entry on our sample essay, "Let Them Die," by Kenan Malik:

When I read the title of this piece, "Let Them Die," I thought I was about to

read an article dealing with euthanasia. Of human beings that is. Of course the

piece deals with linguistic rather than human death. The opening paragraph was so

dramatic that I was immediately drawn in as I heard of the imminent demise of so

many Languages. My gut reaction was "Sure, we should protect these languages."

It would be such a cultural loss if any ancient language were allowed to simply

vanish and along with it the history, Lifestyle and values of a people. But Kenan

really made me think. He made me see how what he called "the romantic idea

of language" could really mask backward thinking. Encouraging certain people

of minority cultures whether in the Third World or the West to stick to their old

language and traditions in reality might relegate them to a primitive lifestyle and

deny them access to modern life through education and new technologies. Is that

really fair? Just because linguists think they should continue speaking their dying

Language? I have to think about this more.

Annotate What You Read

It is a good idea to underline (or highlight) key passages and make marginal notes when reading an essay. (If you do not own the publication in which the essay ap- pears, or choose not to mark it up, it is a good idea to make a photocopy of the piece and annotate that.) I recommend annotating on the second or third reading, once you have gotten a handle on the essay's general ideas.

There are no specific guidelines for annotation. Use whatever technique suits you best, but keep in mind that in annotating a piece of writing, you are engaging in a dialogue with the author. As in any meaningful dialogue, you may hear things you may not have known, things that may be interesting and exciting to you, things that you may agree or disagree with, or things that give you cause to ponder. The other side of the dialogue, of course, is your response. In annotating a piece of writ- ing, that response takes the form of underlining (or highlighting) key passages and jotting down comments in the margin. Such comments can take the form of full sentences or some shorthand codes. Sometimes "Why?" or "True" or "NO!" will be enough to help you respond to a writer's position or claim. If you come across

8 • Introduction: Thinking and Reading Critically

a word or reference that is unfamiliar to you, underline or circle it. Once you have located the main thesis statement or claim, highlight or underline it and jot down "Claim" or "Thesis" in the margin.

Below is the Malik essay reproduced in its entirety with sample annotations.

There are around 6,000 languages in the world today. Shortly there will be one less . Eighty-one- year-old Marie Smith Jones is the last living speaker of Eyak, an Alaskan language. When she dies, so will her language. Over the past few decades a huge num- ber of languages have died in this fashion . When Ned Madrell died on the Isle of Man in 1974, he also took the ancient Manx language to the grave. The death in 1992 of Tefvic Escenc, a farmer from the Turkish village of Haci Osman, killed off Ubykh, a language once spoken in the northern Caucasus. Laura Somersal died in 1990, the last speaker of a Native American tongue, Wappo. Six years later another Native American language, Catawba, passed away with the death of Carlos Westez, more popularly known as Red Thunder.

2 At least half of the world's 6,000 languages are

6ffe.dive. u.se, of s-to.. -as -1:0;

expected to disappear over the next century; some pessimists suggest that by the year 3000 just 600 languages will be left. According to the American Summer Institute of Linguistics, there are 51 lan- guages with only one speaker left-28 of them in Australia alone. A further 500 languages are spoken by fewer than 100 speakers, and another 1,500 by fewer than 1,000 speakers. Most will be lucky to survive the next decade. Such accelerated disap- pearance has galvanized into action an increasingly vocal campaign to preserveGinguistic diversity)~ In an obituary to Carlos Westez, the writer Peter \ Popham warned that "when a language dies" we LO-bel lose "the possibility of a unique way of perceiving 01/

5 -t

and describing the world." Despairing of the "im- 11'1 t/11ert pact of a homogenizing monoculture upon our way of life," Popham worried about the "spread of Eng- lish carried by American culture, delivered by Japa- nese technology and the hegemony of a few great transnational languages: Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Hindi." The linguist David Crystal echoed these sentiments in a Prospect essay last year. "We should care about dying languages," he argued, "for the

3

How to Read Critically • 9

same reason that we care when a species of animal or plant dies. It reduces the diversity of our planet."

Now a new book, Vanishing Voices, by the an- thropologist Daniel Nettle and linguist Suzanne Ro- maine, links the campaign to preserve languages to the campaign for fundamental human rights, and for the protection of minority groups, in the face of what they regard as aggressive globalisation and cultural imperi- alism. "Linguistic diversity," they argue, "is a bench-

O.SSUMt -the,se, o.:re, txptrts ~it fLe./d

mark of cultural diversity." Language death Cre.d~b/e, "is symptomatic of cultural death: a way of life ~e.rte.roJ~ia.-ticrt~ disappears with the death of a language." "Every people," Nettle and Romaine conclude, "has a right to their own language, to preserve it as a cultural resource, and to transmit it to their children."

Campaigners for linguistic diversity portray themselves as liberal defenders of minority rights, protecting the vulnerable against the nasty forces of global capitalism. Beneath the surface rhetoric, however, their campaign has much more in common with reactionary, backward-looking visions, such as William Hague's campaign to "save the pound" as a unique expression of British identity, or Roger Scru- !on's paean to a lost Englishness.fAll seek to preserve the unpreservable, and all are possessed of an impos- sibly nostalgic view of what constitutes a culture or a ~way of life.'J

The whole point of a language is to enable com- munication. As the renowned Mexican historian and translator Miguel Leon-Portilla has put it, "In order to survive, a language must have a function ." Alan- guage spoken by one person, or even a few hundred, is not a language at all. It is a private conceit like a child's secret code. It is, of course, enriching to learn other languages and delve into other cultures. But it is enriching not because different languages and cultures are unique, but because making contact across barriers of language and culture allows us to expand our own horizons and become more universal in our outlook.

In bemoaning "cultural homogenization," cam- paigners for linguistic diversity fail to understand what makes a culture dynamic and responsive. It is not the fracturing of the world with as many differ- ent tongues as possible; it is rather the overcoming of barriers to social interaction. The more universally

So.:rc.as -!:U. {one,

LOOk Uf -the,se, LAA1po.L

I\'1GU.ft ideo-

keJf c./aiM

rut-thor's bUts~

10 • Introduction: Thinking and Reading Critically

we can communicate, the more dynamic our cultures will be, because the more they will be open to new ways of thinking and doing. It is not being parochial to believe that were more people to speak English- or Chinese. Spanish. Russian or Hindi-the better it would be. The real chauvinists are surely those who warn darkly of the spread of "American culture" and "Japanese technology."

7 At the core of the preservers' argument is the be- lief that a particular language is linked to a particular way of life and a particular vision of the world. "Each language has its own window on the world," write Nettle and Romaine. "Every language is a living museum, a monument to every culture it has been vehicle to ." It ' s an idea that derives from nineteenth century Romantic notions of cultural difference. "Each nation speaks in the manner it thinks," wrote the German critic and poet Johann Gottfried von Herder, "and thinks in the manner it speaks." For Herder, the nature of a people was expressed through its volksgeist-the unchanging spirit of a people. Language was particularly crucial to the delineation of a people, because "in it dwell the entire world of tradition, history, religion, principles of existence; its whole heart and soul."

Malik 's wtderly~na ~SUII'tp-tiort

A~atn a1:es wsehe dts~ree wd:h

LOOk up vOrt Herder

a The human capacity for language certainly shapes ~ our ways of thinking. But particular languages almost ~o~d . . certainly do not. Most linguists have long since given dt.s·tw.:tLort up on the idea that people's perceptions of the world, and the kinds of concepts they hold, is constrained by the particular language they speak. The idea that French speakers view the world differently from English speakers, because they speak French, is clearly absurd. It is even more absurd to imagine that all French speakers have a common view of the world, thanks to a common language.

But if the Romantic idea of language has little influence, the Romantic idea of human differences certainly does. The belief that different peoples have unique ways of understanding the world became, in the nineteenth century, the basis of a racial view of the world. Herder's volksgeist developed into the no- tion of racial makeup, an unchanging substance, the foundation of all physical appearance and mental

~ Do all /~n~ULS-ts ~ree here?

How to Read Critically • 11

potential, and the basis for division and difference within humankind. Today, biological notions of racial difference have fallen into disfavor, largely as a result of the experience of Nazism and the Holocaust. But while racial science has been discredited, racial think- ing has not. It has simply been re-expressed in cultural rather than biological terms. Cultural pluralism has refashioned the idea of race for the post-Holocaust world, with its claim that diversity is good in itself and that humanity can be parceled up into discrete groups, each with its own particular way of life, mode of expression, and unique "window upon the world."

10 The contemporary argument for the preservation of linguistic diversity. liberally framed though it may be. draws on the same philosophy that gave rise to ideas of racial difference. That is why the arguments of Popham, Crystal, Nettle, and Romaine, on this issue if not on anything else, would have found favor with the late Enoch Powell. "Every society, every nation is unique," he wrote. "It has its own past, its own story, its own memories, its own ways, its own languages or ways of speaking, its own-dare I use the word-culture." Language preservers may be act- ing on the best of intentions, but they are treading on dangerous ground, and they carry with them some unpalatable fellow-travellers .

11 The linguistic campaigners' debt to Romanti- cism has left them, like most multiculturalists, with a thoroughly confused notion of rights. When Nettle and Romaine suggest, in Vanishing Voices, that "the right of people to exist, to practice and produce their own language and culture, should be inalienable," they are conflating two kinds of rights-individual rights and group rights. An individual certainly has the right to speak whatever language he or she wants, and to engage in whatever cultural practices they wish to in private. But it is not incumbent on anyone to listen to them, nor to provide resources for the preservation of either their language or their culture. The reason that Eyak will soon be extinct is not because Marie Smith Jones has been denied her rights, but because no one else wants to, or is capable of, speaking the language. This might be tragic for Marie Smith Jones-and frustrating for professional linguists- but it is not a question of

Matn ideo..

I never Mo.de -t:J.u.s (.(/ri./U.(. -tiort

"aatrl . d~SM~SS~ve -tone

6ood d~s-tinc. -tion

12 • Introduction: Thinking and Reading Critically

rights. Neither a culture. nor a way of life. nor yet a language. has a God-given "right to exist."

12 Language campaigners also confuse political oppression and the loss of cultural identity. Some ~ groups- such as Turkish Kurds- are banned from using their language as part of a wider campaign by the Turkish state to deny Kurds their rights. But most languages die out, not because they are suppressed, but because native speakers yearn for a better life. Speaking a language such as English, French, or Spanish, and discarding traditional habits, can open up new worlds and is often a ticket to modernity. But it is modernity itself of which Nettle and Romaine disap- prove. They want the peoples of the Third World, and minority groups in the West, to follow "local ways of life" and pursue "traditional knowledge" rather than receive a "Western education." This is tantamount to ~ saying that such people should live a marginal life, excluded from the modern mainstream to which the rest of us belong. There is nothing noble or authentic about local ways of life; they are often simply degrading and backbreaking. "Nobody can suppose that it is not more beneficial for a Breton or a Basque to be a member of the French nationality, admitted on equal terms to all the privileges of French citizenship .. . than to sulk on his own rocks, without participa- tion or interest in the general movement of the world." So wrote John Stuart Mill more than a century ago. It would have astonished him that in the twenty-first century there are those who think that sulking on your own rock is a state worth preserving.

13 What if half the world's languages are on the verge of extinction? Let them die in peace.

Outline What You Read

wtderiy~it~ a.ssl.(j\1p-tion

tJo-t dearly ex.pl ruite4

Very . persWAS~ve

!11~Dro.b/e

c.lJrtuusion

Briefly outlining an essay is a good way to see how writers structure their ideas. When you physically diagram the thesis statement, claims, and the supporting evi- dence, you can better assess the quality of the writing and decide how convincing it is. You may already be familiar with detailed, formal essay outlines in which struc- ture is broken down into main ideas and subsections. However, a brief and concise breakdown of an essay' s components provides a basic outline. Simply jot down a

How to Read Critically • 13

one-sentence summary of each paragraph. Sometimes brief paragraphs elaborating the same point can be lumped together:

• Point 1 • Point 2 • Point 3 • Point 4 • Point 5 • Point 6, etc.

Even though such outlines may seem rather primitive, they demonstrate at a glance how the various parts of an essay are connected-that is, the organization and sequence of ideas.

Below is a sentence outline of "Let Them Die":

Point 1: Many ancient languages will die as their last living speakers pass on .

Point 2: It is anticipated that over the next century, half of the world's 6,000

languages will disappear and with them the possibilities of understanding the world

in a unique way.

Point 3: Some anthropologists argue that to preserve a language is essential to

preserving human rights. If a language dies, according to some anthropologists, a

culture and the way of life of a people also dies.

~Supporters of linguistic diversity claim they protect minority groups

from cultural imperialism. But Malik claims that, in fact, their vision is backward-

looking and seeks to preserve the unpreservable .

~Since language is meant to enable communication, says Malik, a

language spoken by one person or just a few is not really a language. Rather, it is

like a private code or child's game.

Point 6: Cultural homogenization by which fewer languages are spoken by

greater numbers of people is actually a good thing, Malik thinks, as it enhances

communication and thereby produces more dynamic cultures.

Point 7: In paragraphs 7 and 8, Malik rejects the idea that a particular

language means that the thinking of the people who speak it is actually shaped by

the language. Rather he says language allows us to speak but does not shape the

views and values that we hold.

14 • Introduction: Thinking and Reading Critically

Point 8: Malik points out that romanticizing human differences and claiming

that different groups of people think and feel differently than other groups of

people depending on the language they speak is similar to the notions of racial

differences held by the Nazis. Racial stereotyping is simply being replaced by

cultural stereotyping.

~Those who argue for the preservation of linguistic diversity have good

intentions but are "treading on dangerous ground."

Point 10: Contrary to linguistic campaigners, Malik argues no culture or

language has a God-given right to exist. Although individuals have the right to

choose to speak a language, no one is obligated to listen to them or is obligated to

see that the language is preserved.

Point 11: Some linguists who argue that peoples of the Third World and

minority groups in the West should follow traditional ways of life are actually

relegating these people to a marginal life, excluded from modern society and its

benefits.

Point 12: Malik says, let those languages on the verge of extinction die.

At this point, you should have a fairly good grasp of the author's stand on the issue. Now let us analyze Malik's essay in its parts and as a whole.

Summarize What You Read

Summarizing is perhaps the most important technique to develop for understand- ing and evaluating what you read. This means boiling the essay down to its main points. In your journal or notebook, try to write a brief (about 100 words) synopsis of the reading in your own words. Note the claim or thesis of the discussion (or ar- gument) and the chief supporting points. It is important to write these points down, rather than to highlight them passively with a pen or pencil, because the act of jot- ting down a summary helps you absorb the argument.

Now let us return to our sample essay. The following brief paragraph is a stu- dent summary of Malik's essay. To avoid plagiarism, the author's words are para- phrased, not copied. At times, it may be impossible to avoid using the author's own words in a summary, but if you do, remember to use quotation marks .

Kenan Malik's article addresses the problem of what to do about vanishing

languages. He rejects the arguments of linguistic preservationists. Preservationists

argue that when a language dies, a culture dies and that modern globalization

How to Read Critically • 15

is eradicating ancient traditions and values that have a fundamental right to

continue to exist. Malik argues that the loss of language is a natural, irreversible

progression. He further argues that, in fact, globalization and with it fewer

languages shared by more people actually enhances communication and human

well-being. Malik argues that by trying to force minority groups, whether they be

in the Third World or in the West, to hang on to ancient languages spoken only

by a few, linguistic preservationists are in fact relegating these people to a life

devoid of the benefits of mainstream culture and, in a sense, freezing them in an

outmoded culture.

Although this paragraph seems to do a fairly good job of summarizing Malik's essay, it is difficult to reduce an essay to a hundred words. So, do not be too dis- couraged when trying to summarize a reading on your own.

Question What You Read

Although we break down critical reading into discrete steps, these steps will naturally overlap in the actual process. While reading the essay by Kenan Ma- lik, you were simultaneously summarizing and evaluating Malik's points in your head, perhaps adding your own ideas or even arguing with him. If something strikes you as particularly interesting or insightful, make a mental note. Like- wise, if something rubs you the wrong way, argue back. For beginning writers, a good strategy is to convert that automatic mental response into actual note taking.

In your journal (or, as suggested earlier, in the margins of the text), question and challenge the writer. Jot down any points in the essay that do not measure up to your expectations or personal views. Note anything you are skeptical about. Write down any questions you have about the claims, views, or evidence. If some point or conclusion seems forced or unfounded, record it and briefly explain why. The more skeptical and questioning you are, the better a reader you are. Likewise, note what features of the essay impressed you-outstanding points, interesting wording, clever or amusing phrases or allusions, particular references, the general structure of the piece. Record what you learn from the reading and what aspects of the issue you would like to explore.

Of course, you may not feel qualified to pass judgment on an author's views, especially if that author is a professional writer or an expert on a particular sub- ject. Sometimes the issue discussed might be too technical, or you may not feel informed enough to make critical evaluations. Sometimes a personal narrative may focus on experiences completely alien to you. Nonetheless, you are an intelligent person with an instinct to determine if the writing impresses you or if an argument is sound, logical , and convincing. What you can do in such instances- and another

16 • Introduction: Thinking and Reading Critically

good habit to get into-is think of other views on the issue. If you have read or heard of experiences different from the author's or arguments with opposing views, jot them down. Even if you have not, the essay should contain some inference or reference to alternate experiences or opposing views (if it is an argument) from which you could draw a counterposition.

Let us return to Malik's essay, which, technically, is an argument. Although it is theoretically possible to question or comment on every sentence in the piece, let us select a couple of key points that may have struck you as presumptuous, over- stated, or inconsistent with your own experience.

Paragraphs 1-4: Malik spent the first four paragraphs of the essay summarizing

the impending loss of languages and quoting the reactions of language

preservationists, leading the reader to think this would be a pro-preservationist

piece. It is a real attention-getter when Malik suddenly states, "All seek to preserve

the unpreservable, and all are possessed of an impossibly nostalgic view of what

constitutes a culture or a 'way of life."' I had expected him to be sympathetic about

the loss of language.

Paragraph 4: Malik's tone is dismissive when he refers to the attempts of

campaigners for linguistic diversity to protect "the vulnerable against the nasty

forces of global capitalism" and later compares the campaign with "reactionary,

backward-looking visions, such as William Hague's campaign to 'save the pound."'

Will his sarcastic tone work for or against him? Gives him a superior air.

Paragraph 5: Malik makes preserving a disappearing language sound rather silly

when he says, "A language spoken by one person, or even a few hundred, is not a

language at all. It is a private conceit, like a child's secret code." I do not think

I agree with that. Why would it not be a language if it enables communication?

Paragraph 8: Malik makes an interesting point when he says, "The idea that

French speakers view the world differently from English speakers, because they speak

French, is clearly absurd." But maybe you could argue that they in fact do see the

world differently. Malik does not prove or disprove his statement. He just makes it.

Paragraph 10: I would like to hear the response of Popham, Crystal, Nettle, and

Romaine to Malik's charge that their attitude to language preservation links them

with biological notions of racial difference propagated by the Nazis. Is this not a

stretch?

How to Read Critically • 17

Paragraph 12: Malik seems to gloss over language suppression used as a tool

to deny a group their rights as in the case of the Kurds and the Turks. Does this

example not prove how powerful language is in terms of conveying a culture and a

value system?

Paragraph 12: Hard to deny Malik's point in this paragraph about the

benefits of modernization. His charge that Nettle and Romaine's views about

language preservation are such that Third World peoples and minority groups in

the West would live marginalized lives makes one stop and think. In linguistic

preservationists' view, are we asking these people to live in a time capsule and let

the 21st c.entury pass them by?

Analyze What You Read

To analyze something means breaking it down into its components, examining those components closely and evaluating their significance, and determining how they relate as a whole. In part, you already did this by briefly outlining the essay. But there is more, because analyzing what you read involves interpreting and evaluat- ing the points of a discussion or argument as well as its presentation-that is, its language and structure. Ultimately, analyzing an essay after establishing its gist will help you understand what may not be evident at first. A closer examination of the author's words takes you beneath the surface and sharpens your understanding of the issue at hand.

Although there is no set procedure for analyzing a piece of prose, here are some specific questions you should raise when reading an essay, especially one that is trying to sway you to its view:

• What kind of audience is the author addressing?

• What are the author's assumptions about his audience?

• What are the author's purposes and intentions?

• How well does the author accomplish those purposes?

• How convincing is the evidence presented? Is it sufficient and specific? Relevant?

Reliable? Current? Slanted?

• How good are the sources of the evidence used? Were they based. on personal

experience, scientific data, or outside authorities?

• Does the author address opposing views on the issue?

• Is the author persuasive in his or her perspective?

18 • Introduction: Thinking and Reading Critically

What Kind of Audience Is Being Addressed?

Before the first word is written, a good writer considers the makeup of his or her audience- that is, its age group, gender, ethnic and racial makeup, educational background, and socioeconomic status. Also considered are the values, prejudices, and assumptions of the readers, as well as their political and religious persuasions. Some writers, including several in this book, write for a target audience-readers who share the same interests, opinions, and prejudices. For example, many of the essays in Chapter 9, "Political Wordplay," were written for people familiar with current events and issues. Other writers write for a general audience. Although general audiences consist of very different people with diversified backgrounds, expectations, and standards, think of them as the people who read Time, News- week, and your local newspaper; that is, people whose average age is 35, whose educational level is high school plus two years of college, who make up the vast middle class of America, who politically stand in the middle of the road, and whose racial and ethnic origins span the world. You can assume they are generally informed about what is going on in the country, that they have a good comprehen- sion of language and a sense of humor, and that they are willing to listen to new ideas.

Kenan Malik's essay appeared in Prospect, a publication with a reputation as a highly intellectual magazine of current affairs and cultural debate. The publication describes its readership as mature, educated, affluent, and discerning. Many of the readers are professionally accomplished and intellectually curious. A closer look at Malik' s essay tells us more:

• The language sounds like the essay is written for an educated audience with, most

likely, a college education.

• The tone suggests that he is appealing to a conservative audience-people who

might sympathize with Malik's idea that the attempt to preserve minority languages

on the verge of extinction is a rather futile and fruitless endeavor.

• Malik makes references to and assumes his reader is, if not familiar with, at least

interested in, the writings of linguists such as Suzanne Romaine, anthropologists

such as Daniel Nettle, and historians such as Miguel Leon-Portilla. He also makes

references to the German critic and poet Johann von Herder and to John Stuart Mill.

He makes references to historical events such as the Holocaust, the oppression of

Turkish Kurds today, and to the separatist movements past and present of the

Bretons and the Basques. He expects his audience to know some world history.

• Malik addresses readers who would be interested in an argument calling for some

knowledge of language, philosophy, as well as history.