Meditation at Lagunitas

Robert Hass in Meditation at Lagunitas expresses the loss of language as somewhat of a helpful thing. Robert could not empress the way he felt about the woman he loved, solely with the language we have. “I felt a violent wonder at her presence like a thirst for salt, for my childhood river,” he says, after talking about making love to a woman, this is how he remembered. Hass did not remember by words that were said, he associated the feeling he got from this woman with the feelings he got from fishing as a young man. In this instance the loss of language was what was best for this situation. Had Hass used actual language, the feelings would not be the same, language would have deprived him. Yes, Hass used language to explain his feelings to us, but his initial feelings did not come from language. Earlier on in the poem, Hass talks about how language is old, “All the new thinking is about loss in this it resembles all the old thinking,” and thinking about language is just looking at the past.

For Ildefonso however, the loss of language did not affect him until after he acquired language. Ildefonso was content with his life, not knowing what language was, he communicated with his deaf peers just as if nothing was different, because to them, nothing was different. It was not until years later that the loss of language affected Ildefonso. After learning actual language and being able to communicate with non-deaf people, he realized he could no longer communicate the way he had with other deaf people. His language was lost, gone forever. However, Ildefonso did not seem too upset about this loss; he felt that though he lost a language, he gained a much more beneficial language and the ability to understand and actually communicate with others around him.

Meditations at Langunitas

After reading 'Meditations at Langunitas' I understood the point that Robert Hass was trying to make, that a word has a deeper meaning of what it actually represents. For example the word "blackberry" he repeats it a couple of times in the poem, to the audience we are just picturing a sweet, little fruit. To Hass it is much bigger than that. We've talked about this in class before, how we all picture/think of different things for the same word. 

In the first couple of stanzas Hass has a feeling of "grief" and talks about "loss." In line twenty-three Hass says "it hardly had to do with her. Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances." From my understanding I believe that he is saying that you must lose something in order to move on. In line three he says "the idea, for example, that each particular erases the luminous clarity of a general idea." This also relates to Ildefonso and his situation. He was deaf for twenty-seven years and did not know it. He didn't know that language existed. Once he started learning language he became more aware of what was going on in the world. Just like Hass lost something so did Ildefonso, he lost his friends (who were also unable to speak) and found himself and a new community to belong to. 

Towards the end of the poem the whole mood shifts completely. Hass begins to have memories of this woman he used to be with and his feelings towards her. "But I remember so much, the way her hands dismantled bread." Personally, I think Robert Hass succeeded at effectively communicating. He made his feeling of grief clear by the way he spoke about his love for this woman. Although each individual may have a different definition of a certain word we can all make clear of what they mean.

Meditation at Langunitas

Communication is a part of our everyday life. We communicate when we want to tell a waiter what we want or tell our friends how we feel. There are times, however, that communication wasn’t clear or understood as the speaker intended. In such instances communication was not effective. Language plays a key role in determining whether or not communication is effective.

Language is personal and serves as a label for individual experiences. Take for instance a tree. This tree you see in your head is probably one you’ve always seen whenever someone has mentioned the word ‘tree’. In this case the word tree serves as a label for something you have experienced or witnessed whether it be in person or through some other visual form of representation. Robert Hass explores this idea in depth in his poem Meditation at Langunitas. He states, “Because there is in this world no one thing to which the bramble of blackberry corresponds, a word is elegy to what it signifies.” By this he means that there is not a single blackberry that matches the image of the blackberry that pops up in his mind when he hears the word. In this case language has served as a personal label for a blackberry.

Now imagine two people are in a heated argument on what the perfect blackberry should look like. One states that all blackberries are big and juicy, the other argues that they are small and lumpy. Since both persons have different visual experiences for the word blackberry language becomes a barrier for communication. There are ways to avoid this barrier. One way is to avoid describing the specifics of what you visualize and describe objects in a more general sense. Both people can conclude that blackberries are purple. In conclusion, it is possible for language to serve as a barrier for communication. If you want to see how effective your communication is with others, be sure to check your language!

Meditation at Lagunitas

Language by its very definition can’t be unsuccessful because it was made to be just as elastic as the thoughts we want to communicate are. Toni Morrison disapproves language that is “unyielding”. “Unyielding” language is language used by governments that is intended to control or suppress people, since it was made to not change.  Morrison says language is supposed to yield. Many older people make fun of what language is now, shortened, casual-ized. But Morrison would say that this is what language is supposed to do. It is supposed to yield to change so we can communicate our thoughts that we are having in the present. Language was successful for Ildefonso. Before learning language, Ildefonso’s only way to communicate was through a time consuming process of repeating what his friends act out. Years later, he describes the time he did not know language as a dark period of his life. While he was communicating before, he was not able to communicate in an effective way or on a deeper level. Ildefonso could not communicate feelings, or thoughts by acting them out, he could only act out actions. Language allowed Ildefonso to communicate with people outside his friend group in a way known universally (sign language) which allowed him to think on a deeper level since he could conceptualize what he was thinking with language. Language was successful for Gloria Anzaldua in a different way. Language allowed Anazaldua to form her identity as mestiza. She associated parts of herself to the languages she spoke (Standard English, Working class English, Standard Spanish etc.…). Not only was she able to communicate with these languages, but communicate who she was by using them. Language is used for more reasons that asking “what time is it?” “Where is this building?” “What time does this start?” It is used for “How are you?” “Are you feeling alright?” “How can I help you?” Yes, we can communicate without language, but we aren’t able to speak to each other effectively. We wouldn’t be able to effectively tell people our feelings, about our lives, what news we’ve heard, things we do everyday.

Meditation at Langunitas: The Importance of Language

  There should be a point in time where we need to reflect on the effectiveness of language and realize how it affects us in our day to day lives. Language is a vital tool that we use in our everyday lives. It assists us in our survival. Through language one can virtually convey their ideas in a better manner. Babies use language to let their care provider know what they need. For example, when they cry or yell, this is an indicator to their parent’s or whoever is around that they need attention or that something is wrong. They may not be using real words, but they are using communication. Also, language is a very primitive concept. When people think of the time of Neanderthals or cavemen, we tend to generally think of hairy hunter-gathers sitting next to a fire in an eerie cave holding spears, while grunting and pointing in order to interact with each other. Even though uttering complete sentences, was beyond their mental capacity, they still had a method of communicating with each other even if it was through the use of gestures and groaning. Deaf people or people who can’t speak turn to the use of sign language, which is a system of visual gestures that are used to communicate with other individuals.

  

   On the other hand, there have been numerous instances where failure of language has presented itself. In Meditation at Lagunitas, Hass tries to allow the reader to see that language can sometimes fail to clearly represent ideas-- he believes that words sometimes paint a picture of something in it's perfect state rather than the actual thing. Another thing, after listening to the podcast about a man named Ildefanso, who never acquired the meaning of language and who didn’t know it existed for 27 years was trapped in a dark time in his life-- he wasn’t even aware of sign language and survived by imitating others while observing them. After learning how to use sign language he perceived the world differently and attached a system of symbols to the words and objects he learned. For example, after learning the word “window” and actually seeing the window, he was able to associate a symbol with it in his mind and look at it differently. When Susan Schaller attempts to ask him what life was like before he learned how to sign, either he doesn’t want to talk about it or describes it as being a dismal time in his life. Thus, without language, life would be arduous for us and it would be more difficult to create relationships with people, convey ideas, tell people how we feel, and get our messages across. In The Cosmpolitan Tongue: The University of Language by John McWhorter, the linguistic author discusses the extinction and death of languages over the course of time partly due the expansion of English and how it has traveled to different people of different cultures. In paragraph 5, the author writes, “This accounted for the melancholy tone, for example, of the obituaries for the Eyak language of southern Alaska last year when it’s last speaker died. Even though one language dies, eventually that group of people takes on a new language, perhaps English. The issues surrounding the idea of language are important for us to know and without knowing about them, we tend to take it for granted and fail to realize how important language is in our everyday lives. 

Meditation of Lagunitas?

    I think that the success of language to effectively communicate varies. For instance, in the poem, “Meditation at Lagunitas”, Hass discusses the relationship between language, reality, and truth. He states how “new thinking is about loss” and how “it resembles all the old thinking” (ln. 1-2). The way I interpret what I understand from this will definitely differ from others, but this is my understanding of it— modern day life is a “reflection” of the past. This means that the more we think about “loss”, the more it resembles the “past” because it is something we are coming back to over and over again like learning history. For instance, social inequality still exists in our country. We still live in a country where the color of our skin defines our rights. This is a reflection of the past; it may not be accurately represented but it is still happening. In this situation, language would not be very effective if we were trying to make society progress.

     However, Anzaldua’s way to communicate was effective for me because it was written in Spanish and English. I was able to understand how Spanish is important to her because she saw her language as an identification of who she is. I may not identify myself the same way as she does but I do understand where she is coming from. We live in a world where English is the dominant language so being able to be fluent in English would have obviously been necessary but being able to read an article that is different from the ordinary articles was something different. For instance, McWhorter believes that if languages were to die off we’d be more united as a country but there would not be any diversity. McWhorter effectively sends out his message through his English but personally, it was not a success for me because it is basic for me to read an article in nothing but English.

Meditation at Lagunitas

After reading Robert Hass’ poem, Meditation at Lagunitas I feel that in order to have effective communication you need to have failure of language.  The reason for failure is that not everyone uses the same type of language in the same content as each other.  It can easily be said that language causes us to misunderstand the world.  Robert Hass states that “The idea, for example, that each particular erases the luminosity clarity of the general idea” which in other words is saying that what people see as “real” things actually differ amongst all people because their perception of the word is different due to the appearance of things.  For example when we talked about the word “table” in class, everyone had a different image in their head when they thought of that word.  Hass also claims that words we use, don't really refer to real things but rather to things that have been lost, “Longing, we say, because desire is full of endless distances.” This can compare to the loss of language of Ildefonso who didn't even know language existed.  To effectively communicate, there needs to be flaws in language because not everyone is going to agree on the same idea or perception of a word.  People take in language differently and speak it out differently as well which explains why there are at least five-hundred different languages.  I am more then positive that if we looked into each language there is even a different language inside of a language.  Earlier in the poem Robert said that words we use don't refer to real things, but to thins lost and now at the end of the poem he is saying that after you say it more then once “blackberry, blackberry, blackberry” it starts to be a word with meaning.  Poet Robert Hass would be able to agree with the idea of the need for failure of language in his poem, Meditation at Lagunitas due to the fact failure of language amounts people refer to different ideas of words.  

Anzaldúa and McWhorter

Anzaldua would disagree with John McWhorter. She believes when a language dies the whole culture and its identity perishes with it as well. Language, to her, is one of the characteristics that make a culture stand out so when it dies out the culture dies as well and the group disperse and vanish. On the other hand, John McWhorter believes differently, that when a language is lost people come together, not drift apart. I agree with McWhorter to an extent.Yes, when a language dies the culture eventually fades out with it. I see it as there are more positives to language dying then negatives. For example, by reading John McWhorter’s essay he taught me about geographic separation. He used the word “disgusting”, displaying that people pronounce the word differently and those different variations of the pronunciation has divided the people but also connected people just because they pronounce a word the same. This shows our diversity and also because of geographic separation new words will form. Making discover new languages over time, replacing the old ones that died off. Eventually people will add these new words to their language thus connected them. That’s why I believe language dying isn't necessarily a bad thing because I think new language is forming and bringing us together little do we know.

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No, Anzald would not agree with the notion that the cultural diffusion that kills languages is a good thing. She deeply believes that when cultures mix the minority is singled out and forced to conform to the social norm, whatever that may be. Her experiences as a child, and being forced to reject her culture made her very protective of the loss of culture in society. I can't say I blame her she really took offense to the rejection of her native tongue asa child. She even specifically said that taking about her language or culture badly was the one of the easiest ways to anger her. Although if she wasn't so biased she would see that Mcwhorter is right or at the very least its not a "bad" thing. The more cultures that cross paths the more educated we become, not just of the people but a way of life. Its a way for us too enjoy somthing you might not even be exposed to otherwise, it also would help make people more culturally sensetive to avoid instances where someone could be ridiculed for their culture. Lastly even though the language itself might suffer the experiences people would gain from interacting with each other would be much more valuable in its own way than any particular way of speech that may be lost. Mcwhorter stated that the relatively unused languages eventually would die out just because of lack of use, so these benefits far outweigh the cultural loss that in some cases is inevitable.

John McWhorter vs. Anzaldua

John McWhorter believes that when language dies, it brings people together,and language death is good however, Anzaldua would not agree with this notion. She takes great pride in her language and where she comes from because it is a part of her and if her language were to die off so would a part of her. Whereas McWhorter thinks it's easier to have a universal language because you don't have languages within languages for example, "Iraqi Arabic is actually one of several "dialects" of Arabic(429)". By having different languages in the world it creates diversity and culture so were not all the same. If we have just 1 language that existed imagine how boring that would be? I am glad we have so many different languages because it shows how unique each individual person is. Language has certain beauty about it the way different pronunciations and syllables roll off a persons tongue. Not to mention the history behind it and how it connects a community with something as simple as language. Furthermore, I do not think that Anzaldua would agree with McWhorter's beliefs because they contradict each other's belief of language. I believe in Anzaldua's statement about language showing who you are and where you came from.

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            I think they would disagree because John McWhorter believes that when language dies that means that people are coming together and that's a good thing. Anzaldua believes that everybody is their language and if you take your language away you are taking away your ethnic identity. For example , in How to Tame A Wild Tongue Anzaldua says that, "Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity - I am my language." From this example we can see that, Anzaldua believes that your language is you and if you take that away then who are you?

            I believe that we should keep different languages and cultures alive because that how we keep this world diverse . That's how we get different foods and materials for our everyday usage. Most of our products we use to eat or entertain  ourselves with are  from another country. If this world becomes down to one language then the world is going to be boring and everybody going to start to look and act like each other. A lot of  products we have are going to start to diminish and the economy is going to fall. For example cruises, the companies that run the organization are going to go out of business because nobody is going to want on a cruise to a place is the same to where they live. People take cruises to go see different islands and do things they don't do on a daily basis.

McWhorter v Anzaldúa

In McWhorters's essay, he states that when a language dies, it is a sign of people coming together. However, I do not believe that Anzaldúa would agree with him. Anzaldúa valued language and its many dialects, and the sacredness  and importance of them believing her own language as well of those of others to be unique. She also believes that language should be preserved. Given this information, it is doubtful she would agree with McWhorter in this situation. McWhorter argues that the death of language shows the people coming together through globalization and assimilating into society. He argues that when language dies so does its culture, but a culture meanwhile does not necessarily need language to survive, which his something Anzaldúa would also disagree with as she believed language dialects and culture were very much linked together.
Personally, I find myself leaning to and agreeing with McWhorter. A language dying does not mean the end of a culture, rather I can see how it brings people together. For example, my family on my father's side is from Mexico. Before moving to the United States they spoke a very distinct Mexican Spanish. However when they moved to the border town of Eagle Pass, they began to speak a Tex-Mex dialect of Spanish which allowed them to get along and communicate better with the people there. By speaking Tex-Mex, they were able to develop friendships and establish connections in order to get jobs and eventually become part of the community. We can see from this example, that although Mexican Spanish is still very much spoken to this day, allowing oneself to assimilate and conform to a new language is beneficial in bringing people together.    

John McWhorter

If John McWhorter and Gloria Anzaldúa were to have a conversation on the importance of language and how it effects the people, they would definitely disagree with one another. McWhorter’s thesis concludes that he feels that when a language dies, it is not the death of a culture but it is a step in uniting all cultures internationally. For example, he stated that, “The main loss when a language dies is not cultural but aesthetic”. He feels that a language does represent a culture but it is not the only thing. The language is only an underlying representation to its history, beauty and the people that it represents. In Anzaldúa’s reflection, she spoke of how her language has been oppressed since she was a child, as well as through adulthood. ” Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity - I am my language. Until I can take pride in my language, I cannot take pride in myself,” she pointed out that language is the same as self-identification. In multiple instances, Anzaldúa described herself feeling attacked and ashamed for who she is because of how people would attempt to oppress her language. For example, while she was attending a university, she was required to take more classes regarding speech because of her heritage and native tongue or when she was at school speaking with a nun who misinterpreted her Spanish for talking back, resulting in her wrists being smacked by a ruler. The oppression of her language left her feeling confused as to who she is. McWhorter who said, “What makes the potential death of a language all the more emotionally charged is the belief that if a language dies, a cultural worldview will die with it,” which is what Anzaldúa disagrees with for she feels this is what truly represents a person.

        In this essay John McHorter believes that when language dies it can be an understanding of the idea of people coming together, a representation of society uniting toward one common language. He states; “At the end of the day, language death is, ironically, a symptom of people coming together.” In my opinion, McHorter’s views on language differs from Anzaldua’s view in that in “How to tame a wild tongue,” she views language as such a big part of someone’s culture that I hardly believe that she would see the death of language as people coming together. For example, Anzaldua writes of the many different variations of types of the Spanish language the people form to better suit the changes in their society, and the way in which they evolve as society changes, so it seems that Anzaldua believes that languages actually grows and changes as people grow and change, or “come together”. In McHorter’s essay, the death of language is a representation of people coming together while in Anzaldua’s essay, the growth and expansion of languages is a representation of people coming together.  Therefore, although both authors agree that language is of great importance, their viewpoints on the way society affects it differ.