Pronouns

What function does language have? What role does it play? Can language reflect an individual or even a culture? Can slight changes in diction completely change the meaning? Through history, language has always been the central focus of communication; however, it also entails a factor of influence in the daily lives of not just individuals, but also societies, cultures and communities. In their essays, both, George Orwell and Gloria Anzaldúa, explore language and how it is changing and defining…

In her book entitled "Whistling Vivaldi", Claude M Steele formulates a concept called identity contingencies. In his book, he defines that identity contingency is the situation where you are affected by your identity. He says that "This book is about what my colleagues and I call identity contingencies- the things you have to deal with in a situation because you have a given social identity, because you are old, young, gay, a white male, a women, black, Latino, politically conservative or…

alludes to the fact that the Cold War is continued due to the wall’s presence. Through his use of the words “fear” and “pain” he conveys the feelings of the Soviets with their negative and scared attitude towards the situation at hand. He uses the pronoun “I” to show that he personally understands the feelings of the Soviets. He also uses “I” to show that he will make sure that the United States will aide them in tearing down the war and dealing with the direct consequences of doing so. He uses…

Thomas Paine writes powerfully about the upcoming revolution through his pamphlets to defend the necessity of the war against Britain. Paine explains his position for the war through hypophora, personal anecdotes, references to religion, and shifting pronouns. He speaks out to all the men of Philadelphia who question the purpose of the war, or the necessity, and to any Tory who may come across his pamphlet in order to allow the men to understand and convince them of why he believes that…

society a common strategy to gain authority and power is to dehumanize, denigrate and to make a person or group feel less cofident. The pronouns ”girl”, ”woman”, ”female” etc are frequently used and referred to in a condescending way, for example to claim that someone is a bad runner: ”you run like a girl” or a bad driver ”you drive like a woman”. The use of female pronouns to critize someone makes these words diminishing, marginalizing and in some occasions offensive. Languages are one of the…

“violates” her greatest duty by “urging” this crime and, thus, is at the center of its execution (Klein 168). Feeling the slightest inklings of regret, she begins by preemptively separating herself from the average person by using the demonstrative pronoun, “that.” Attempting to fortify this separation, the Lady tries to contrast the effect of alcohol on others, “drunk,” with alcohol’s effect on her, “bold”; however, these two effects are nearly one and the same. This weak contrast cannot…

service talked about the concept of Tikkun Olam. The speaker asked us all to pray about how we would fulfill our own visions of this concept. Most notably, in the prayer book there were sections where portions of the prayer were replaced with different pronouns for god besides “he”. In addition there was even a section for nonbelievers that I read after the service. The section started out with a quote from Albert Einstein and recited a prayer about science and how everything is…

when she quotes the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, saying that women already have the right to vote since it states it in there. Of course Anthony’s strongest counter-argument is when she points out that there are only masculine pronouns used thus women don’t have to obey any laws or be…

suffering from hypothermia. On the other hand, Heaney’s poem is an illustration of uniform identity in the adversity of “fear”, characterised with the destruction a powerful storm causes to an island. “Exposure” makes use of first person plural pronouns- “us” “our” “we”-…

Benjamin Banneker in his letter to Thomas Jefferson, argues that slavery is a great injustice. Banneker supports his argument by highlighting the hypocrisy of the United States and its official documents. The author writes in a respectful, yet critical tone for Thomas Jefferson. The author’s purpose is to convince Jefferson that his views are unjust and inequitable so that slaves can receive the rights and the equality they deserve. In order for Jefferson to convince him of his narrow minded and…