University of California Irvine What Does It Mean to Know a Language Discussion Please do peer review for these two essays. 250 per each. Write them separa

University of California Irvine What Does It Mean to Know a Language Discussion Please do peer review for these two essays. 250 per each. Write them separately.

1. The student’s argument (focus on their ideas and organization, not grammar, punctuation, or style)

2. The student’s use of multi-modal evidence

*Need a refresher on multi-modal composition? Scan through this article (Links to an external site.) for an excellent example of multi-modal evidence in use*

Since Week 1 you have been composing multi-modal posts that use visual artifacts (images, videos, hyperlinks, etc.) to engage your readers in various topics. Ideally multi-modal writing does more than decorate your writing, offering instead additional types of evidence, introduces new arguments, or paths to original sources and background context. 1.
What does it mean to know a language? Better yet, is there a specific way that can be
considered the right or perfect way to know and speak a language? People in the United
States from different states have a difference in opinion in what it means to know and speak
the English language. As such, there is a diverse opinion in what it means to know English.
American English is considered the best as far as English language use is concerned, but what
is surprising is the degree of polarisation that goes into the difference of opinion in what is
considered correct use of the language. What this means is that English language use in the
United States is, more often than not, subjective rather than the belief that knowing English
is an objective practice or straight-forward truth. As such, on paper, English language use in
America is considered uniform or the same throughout the country and across states;
however, in reality, knowing and using the English language is made a subjective experience
as a result of social, economic, and political reasons.
In the case of the use of English language in the United States, the presence of small
ethnic groups like Spanish speaking people, influence the way the native English users know
it through social practices like intermarriages. According to Tlou Prosper Hellen in the
reading, “An Analysis of How Language Contact Influenced Changes in Address Norms: The
Case of Tshivenḓa in Zimbabwe,” she writes, “Ethnic groups living in close proximity often
interact in ways that produce language change” (2018). Ethnic intermarriage between those
who speak English and those who are not predominantly English speakers and present in the
US usually come together and this normally has a dramatic effect on how English is used in
the country. The thing that makes this unique is the fact that this naturally takes place in
certain states, like in Texas where there are large Spanish speaking individuals. Other states
have other ethnic influences that go a long way to shape how the natives, with whom they
interact, use the English language. If not through intermarriage, the mere presence of these
ethnic groups still have an influence in the way the natives use the language via the
introduction of their native language accents. In other words, a Spanish-speaking person will
not speak English in the same form and syntax as a native speaker would, which brings forth
different variants in such things as pronunciation of different words, which becomes adopted
by other people, primary of which are the natives.
Knowing how to use the English language in the US is a factor of how well young
ethnic minds synthesize the language in the learning process. In the reading “The Influence
of Teacher Power on English Language Learners’ Self-Perceptions of Learner
Empowerment,” authors Abel Diaz, Kathryn Cochran, and Nancy Karlin write, “Referent,
expert, and reward power were desired by both groups with ELLs perceiving significantly
lower levels of expert power. For non-ELLs, legitimate and coercive power negatively
contributed to empowerment. Similarly, ELLs were negatively affected by coercive power
and perceived significantly higher levels of legitimate power” (2016). The referent refers to
those teachers who enforce the use of building relationships among students, while the
expert and reward power teachers use their expertise and positive reinforcement to nurture
young minds into using the English language, respectively. Those who use these techniques
overlook such things as ethnicity and race differences as they understand that these factors
are important when it comes to learning English. The one important aspect of English is that
it is not enclosed for a specific type of person. Instead, it is meant for all. As such, knowing
English in the US encompasses all these elements and the kind of nurturing individuals
receive in school. Otherwise, dissuading American youth from using English in their natural
accents would discourage them from learning the language in the first place. In short,
knowledge of a particular language should take into account all the different ethnic groups of
the US, not just one group’s input.
The United States’ prevalence and ready availability of non-native speakers who are
ready to speak the English language evoke different reactions on native speakers and other
non-native speakers due to their first language accents. The picture below illustrates this
perceived reaction where accent meets English language use as a secondary language where
different accents breed new pronunciations of English words which sometimes have harsh
interpretations on the native speakers. In other words, they are rated severely, which makes
the victims be referred to as incompetent when it comes to using the English language in
practical situations. However, there is not one true definition of what it means to speak
American English due to the prevalence of a myriad people of different ethnic background
who come to learn English as a second language. Already there are preconceived notions
concerning the second language, which in this case, is the English Language. Since the first
language accents have already made the speaker proficient as a speaker, there is no second
thought in borrowing from the first language accent when it comes to speaking English as a
second language. It is this borrowing into the English language that makes the use of accents
to adopt quite a negative interpretation among native speakers. While some think that there
is a predetermined correct way to speak English, the fact that such factors as accent
familiarity varies makes the issue of knowing a language quite complex.
In conclusion, generally, English language use in the US is considered to be uniform
across the country, while in reality, there are sharp differences in its use as a result of
political, economic, and social influences. As a result of these influences, English language is
different from one state to the next due to the presence of dissimilar altering factors. All
these factors prove that the knowledge concerning any particular language is not so much
whether it is objective, but rather a question of what defines how a particular person who
speaks English, for instance, speaks that language along with the assessment of the various
factors that he or she is exposed to that makes his manner of language use, particularly
different from that of someone else’.
References
Diaz, A., Cochran, K., & Karlin, N. (2016). The Influence of Teacher Power on English
Language Learners’ Self-Perceptions of Learner Empowerment. College Teaching, 64(4),
158–167. https://doi-org.sbcc.idm.oclc.org/10.1080/87567555.2015.1126801
Hellen, T. P. (2018). An Analysis of How Language Contact Influenced Changes in Address
Norms: The Case of Tshivenḓa in Zimbabwe. Journal of Pan African Studies, 12(3), 32–45.
2.
As someone that is in a major that deals heavily with information systems and computers, it
seemed interesting for me to look at language from a perspective that dealt with humans
applying their understanding of language to these computers themselves. It would make a
great deal of sense for a true language program, like that of programmed artificial
intelligence, to be representative of the most practical interpretations of meaning in
“knowing a language”. The Turing test is commonly known as the test that has a human
subject fooled into thinking that they are actually speaking to another human being when
they are not; it is the design of the passing “AI” program that reveals the meaning behind
knowing a language, because convincing human language is the core goal.
Pondering on these same thoughts was someone at the center of these advancements in
artificial intelligence, Terry Winograd, a professor at Stanford University. In his 1980 paper,
“What Does It Mean to Understand Language” he touches on a great deal of how his work in
artificial intelligence has directly influenced his own understanding of language and what
the true role of these programs should be for the future. He talks about his early work at MIT
in the 1970s with a program named SHRDLU, an artificial intelligence that consisted of
dialog with a robot arm that was on a table of toys, that was pretty convincing but lacked a
kind of background understanding that would inspire his future work (Winograd, 1980, p.
216). It was the background knowledge, the understood context of a conversation that could
truly make a truly intelligent artificial intelligence program. One example he gives of
something that humans could easily understand with natural context is the text: “Tommy
had just been given a new set of blocks. He was opening the box when he saw Jimmy coming
in.” (Winograd, 1980, p. 215). A computer might not understand why the box shows up
there in the second sentence because it is not aware of the greater context and background of
just what a box can do, like holding toys, but humans easily can.
The power behind context is something that Winograd argues is something that makes up
the foundation of in the roles of communication, to cause action or interpret things, for
instance (1980). Winograd argues that agreeing to a future meeting through conversation is a
linguistic action of commitment, but if the meeting changed locations and you don’t show
up, that promise would still not be broken because there is a greater context that argues for a
rational understanding of the nature of agreement in the first place (1980, p. 230). There is a
near infinite number of assumptions that have to be made in everyday conversation, most of
these coming from actually occupying the world as a real “being” and this is why Winograd
argues to instead treat the future of cognitive science as a means to help everyday human
functions and not to program computers to do things that are “intelligent” (1980, p.238).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW5la8ZZJCE (Links to an external site.)
Terry Winograd speaking on his career, heavily focusing on his pioneering in humancomputer interaction.
This radical form of thinking when it comes to artificial intelligence would make Winograd
the first deserter of the world of artificial intelligence, instead believing that true intelligence
was “not a matter of pattern recognition and processing data; it involved being and existing”
(Fisher, 2017, para. 7). The concept of intelligence when it comes to humans is something
that I feel is very intertwined with language and what it means to really know it. So much of
language is something that comes from being in a place and experiencing it, physically or
emotionally. Growing up in a local language community, for instance, is something that gives
a person the ability to understand all the near infinite assumptions that Winograd was
having problems programming into his programs, and that just might be for specific things
that come up in that community. Verbal language is uniquely human and it is fittingly so
intertwined with humanity’s unique intelligence.
Although Winograd would adopt a new branch of understanding when it came to humans
and computers, just his perspective on the role of technology in our lives is something that is,
again, reflective of humanity itself. In this short video, he comments that technology has
never developed within a vacuum, something that no human themselves has really done
(Winograd, 2017). His concept of intelligence being so confined to reality is something that
makes this discussion on language so relevant to technology itself. Technology simply cannot
be some intelligent being that communicates its existence through our language, instead it
has actually become its own giant influence on language, having a similar effect to people as
location, nationality, and community. The internet is the most glaringly obvious example of
a mode of technology, taking in all the characteristics of humans themselves knowingly and
unknowingly, that is affecting how people talk and sense themselves. A person’s favorite
memes are now having just as large of an effect on a person’s vocabulary as the neighborhood
that they grew up in. Winograd is correct in saying that programs and technology cannot
truly be real in the sense that they are truly intelligent like humans, it is the very real
interactions that humans have with the world that truly affects their language, and
nowadays, technology runs this world.
References
Colorado College. (2017, June 30). Faces of Innovation: Terry Winograd ‘66 [Video].
Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oW5la8ZZJCE (Links to an external site.)
Fisher, L. (2017, January 03). Siri, Who Is Terry Winograd? Retrieved July 15, 2020,
from https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Siri-Who-Is-TerryWinograd?gko=8513c (Links to an external site.)
Winograd, T. (1980). What Does it Mean to Understand Language? Cognitive Science, 4(3),
209-241. doi:10.1207/s15516709cog0403_1

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