Prejudice is everywhere. Prejudice is a kind of mindset. When we see a person and think he is a bad man, this is prejudice. When we need to express prejudice against someone, language can be used for it. Language is a tool of prejudice and makes us feel abusive. This essay will discuss the importance of language that focuses on the topic of prejudice.
Prejudice starts to affect people when they are children. In “Challenging Language Prejudice in the Classroom,” Walt Wolfram uses Marilyn S. Rosenthal’s experiment to tell us that “The children in the experiment ranged from ages 3 through 5. Children acquire attitudes about language differences early and these attitudes quickly become entrenched” (27). This experiment shows that young children decide that Standard American English is nice, and they do not like African-American English. Children accept information from adults, and when “Adults use words such as ‘right,’ ‘wrong,’ ‘correct,’ and ‘incorrect’ to label speech” (28). Children will learn to label other people or groups.
In Firoozeh Dumas’ essay “The ‘F Word,’ ” she shows that adults teach how not to respect others:
My cousin’s name, Farbod, means “Greatness.” When he moved to America, all the kids called him “Farthead.” My brother Farshid (“He Who Enlightens”) became “Fartshit.” The name of my friend Neggar means “Beloved,” although it can be more accurately translated as “She Whose Name Almost Incites Riots.” Her brother Arash (“Giver”) initially couldn’t understand why every time he’d say his name, people would laugh and ask him if it itched. (Dumas 351)
Children learn fast, they learn all that they see and hear. They will use bad language that they hear from adults to label others who they do not like. Since Dumas’ family and friends are immigrants from Iran, American children changed their names and laughed at them. Even though children do not know the meaning of prejudice, they still do it what they learn from adults.
Most people do not like other races, and language is the best weapon to attack others. In “Language: With Malice Aforethought: The Language of Prejudice,” Jonathon Green says “It's not just sticks and stones: words can hurt you too” (92). Worlds become a weapon and can be used in racial discrimination. People use language to make “the hardcore material, nakedly abusive” (92). How people use language hurt others and make people feel separate.
Most countries prejudice against to black men except Africa. Black men are also called Negro, Gordon Allport in his “The Language of Prejudice” explains:
The word Negro comes from the Latin niger meaning black. In point of fact, no Negro has black complexion, but by comparison with other blonder stocks, he has come to be known as a ‘black men.’ Unfortunately black in the English language is a word having a preponderance of sinister connotations: the outlook is black, blackball, blackguard, black-hearted, black death, blacklist, black-mail, Black Hand. (328)
In the United States, black men live with white men; however, the status of blacks and whites are completely different. In Brent Staples’ “Black Men and Public Space,” people think he is “a mugger, a rapist, or worse” (347) and fear him when Staple walks at night. He feels “surprised, embarrassed, and dismayed” (347). He understood what she was thinking and that she was afraid.
By Jonathon Green’s “Language: With Malice Aforethought: The Language of Prejudice” French have many different negative names as black men:
For exemplary transnationality, one need look no further than the French synonymity with syphilis: aside from such Anglicisms as ‘the Frenchman’, the ‘French gout’, the ‘French pig’ and the ‘malady of France’ (not to mention ‘knocked with a French faggot-stick’, i.e. ‘poxed’), the Danes and Norwegians refer to ‘Franzoser’ (the French-man) and ‘den franske syge’ (the French disease). In Poland it is ‘franca’ (once more ‘the Frenchman’), while in Russia ‘frantzukaya bo liezn’ means the French