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The native language of any person, regardless of nationality or social status, is an integral part that forms their personality. Comprehension of the first language for a child is associated with an acquaintance with the basic ideas about the world and basic moral concepts. In addition, the native language is the primary way not only to perceive speech but also to pronounce it, that is, language is perhaps the primary way of self-expression. However, in the context of multiculturalism and the transnational perspective along which a part of humanity is moving, the native language can come into conflict with new social conditions. Knowledge of several languages allows for imagining a picture of the world more and discovering more than one predetermined place.
For a detailed consideration of the influence of language knowledge on a person, it is required to involve the perspectives of the two authors, significantly different in their cultural backgrounds but possessing a similar attitude toward the power of language. Writer David Foster Wallace begins his essay with an assertion of the internal confrontation of political forces that are seen in published and replicated dictionaries of the English language. It is claimed that conservative and liberal ideas about the world order and vision of the global future clash in modern English.
Language in contemporary realities emerges as a space of struggle between worldviews and ideologies, which represent a true national identity differently. Wallace speaks of the impossibility of perceiving a text or language really objectively since “an act of interpretation is always somewhat biased, i.e., informed by the interpreter’s particular ideology” (47). Therefore, thinking within the framework of one language is not enough for a more open and free perception of the world. However, there is an opportunity to look at the problem of one language from a multinational perspective.
In her essay “The Domestication of the Wild Tongue,” Anzaldua addresses the problem of preserving original identity from a transnational perspective. By citing numerous examples, the author shows to what extent the desire to standardize the English dialect in migrant children can distort their perception. Learning a new language and its clear fixation is aimed at supplanting the original freer ideas about the dialect. In other words, the domination of one, supposedly the only correct language, over others can change and limit the human psyche and freedom. “How patient we seem, how very patient,” says the author of her social group adapting to survival in America by speaking in a unique mixed dialect (Anzaldua 54). The existence of knowledge and the freedom to use it is, on the contrary, capable of creating a new, freer identity.
Thus, the preservation of the native language is a condition for the preservation of one’s original personality. Deformed under the pressure of the need to speak a new language, human thought is forced to become more wounded in its rights. At the same time, the knowledge of other languages should not necessarily imply their oppression of personality. On the contrary, several languages open up more freedom in expressing oneself and give a more precise opportunity for self-expression as well as self-knowledge.
Works Cited
Anzaldua, Gloria E. “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Borderlands La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Aunt Lute Books, 1987, pp. 53-64.
Wallace, David Foster. “Tense Present: Democracy, English, and the Wars over Usage.” Harper’s Magazine, vol. 302, no. 1811, 2001, pp. 39-58.
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