Yes and No Amy Tan

Yes and No by Amy Tan is a very interesting piece, Including many of her personal opinions and experinces. To me this article was meant to send a type of message after she read the New York Times magazine. Maybe that chinese people are not stupid just becuase they tend to nod their heads quite often. Maybe that they are very intelligent people who major in molecular enginering, pre-med or writers as she is. Also in my perspective, in writing this article Amy wanted to say " hey look I am chinese who once struggled with the way I speak but look I am a very successful writer, a bilingual one". However she adds on pages 31 that she worries seemingly about stereotypes, that may be part of the reason there are few chinese in top management positons, in mainstream political roles. She writes her story explaining that although there might not be ways of denouncing a yes and a no the way a questioned is answered appears to capture the point, just as direct and efficient.

In this article Amy is clearly stressed on the way chinese people are viewed. Honestly speaking I would be just as much harrassed. After all it is her heritage that invents and designs most of the top new gadgets, I would advice her to be nothing more but proud. She addresses the way she feels throughout the piece specifically looking at pages 29, she contemplates on which language had the greatest effect on her molding, was it english, chinese or both.

I found it to be somewhat true yet interesting when she quoted from Sapir Whorf hypothesis that "no two languages are similar to be considered as representing the same social reality. I believe where we come from and the languages we speak portrays a big role in our lives, our education and our status. We are viewed the way we speak, our words and sentences tell alot about us.

MY name is Samantha Jagroo

s-Voiceless, alveolar,fricative
ə-
o-
m-voiced,bilabial,nasal
e-
n-voiced,alveolar,nasal
θ-voiceless,dental,fricative
ə-
d3-voiced,palatal,affricative
ə-
g-voiced,velar,stop
r-voiced,alveolar,liquid
u-

On a regualar day people who are common to the english language would pronounce my name the way it is spelled Sa-man-tha, however I did notice that chinese people would pronounce the "man" as "men and the "a" as an "i", so it would then be simentha. Based on what I have learned about phonetics I would conclude that this occurs due to properties of speech as sound. Referring back to chapter 4 and the activity between the trachea and the larynx. The way a chinese person would pronounce a word compared to an english or french speaker will all sound differently. Familiarity with pronouncing words and letters from the english alphabet will be much tougher for a Asian person whom is not acquainted with the way something of the english language should be said.


Most of all I have problems pronouncing people names that I am not use to on an everyday basis. For example Indian,African and Punjabi names are really hard for me to pronounce. The name Anurada (if spelled correctly) is an example; I would pronounce this as spelt, An-u-ra-da but an indian person would make their tongue role on the "r". Another example would be words in biology class, I can never figure it out unless coached sometimes the way it is spelt is totally different from the way it is pronounced. An approach I believe to figuring out the correct pronunciation would be to figure out the place and manner of articulation, the way it is pronounced knowing weather it is a nasal and a stop or a palatal and a dental; would help to someone whom is new to a language or trying to expand their knowledge.

Chapter 5- The sound patterns of language.

In chapter five which is based on the sounds patterns of a language, Yule starts with adding that each individual person will not pronounce a word in a physically identical manner, for example the word "me". He also stated that the humans vocal tract, of a fairly large or a small person wouldn't be of any difference; hence two physcally different people would inevitably have physically different vocal tract only in terms of size and shape (43). The discription of the systems and pattern of speech sounds in a language is called phonology. It is concerned with the abstract set of sounds in a language that allows us to distinguish meaning in the actual physical sounds we say and hear (44). Yule then talks about the meaning-distinguished sound in a language or a phoneme, and how it is compared or different to an allophone, which would only result in a change of pronunciation of the same word (45). Pages forty six talks about minimal pairs and minimal sets. For example teo words such as pat-bat are identical in form this would be a minimal pair. Words however that are differentiated such as feat-fit-fate-fate would be a minimal set.

My most favorable part of this reading was the Elison. In detail it talks about a word efficiency and transcription. For example the word "and" the [d] sound of this word was not included in the transcription or for instance friendship the word [d] is yet not included. This is said to be a sound segment that might be present only in careful pronunciation (49). I can relate to this section because on a bust day trying to get things done, in the sudden appear of a hi or hello I would talk very fast allowing me to pronounce words without care. Like "hi" would more sound like "i" or hows mum, here you will see that my pronunciation of these words will create a new spelling. Also if you would take the time ti notice high school student or must I say the "hip" young people of our society nowadays would speak in a way that wouldn't be considered the normal way of speaking. I would say from experience it is more organized when we talk to our parents or when we've grown up. My sentence wouldn't include howdi-how you do.


Connecting this chapter to my own language is very common. Since in some words we say you sure wont know how to begin spelling it. We speak a very broken english accent although at most some of our words would sound very british english.

To conclude on a questions; I am not understanding the syllables and cluster part of this reading. Far less for the chart below I am looking for a pattern to understanding but it is very confusing for me.

"The Language of the world"

New York City is one of the most popular cities in the world. In 2008 the city estimated population exceeds 8.3 million people and is considered the most densely populated major city in the United States, (Wikipedia.org/wiki/new_york_city). Hence this large diversity of people incorporates many different languages ranging from Hindi, Arabic, Chinese, Cantonese, Spanish, French Italian, Portuguese, Russian, Persian, Urdu, polish, German, and English just to name a few. However, English is the most common language that is spoken here that adds up to approximately 3,929751 in 2000, according to the NYC data, (http://www.baruch.cuny.edu/nycdata). Furthermore since English is the standard language of the United States people are forced to learn it in order to get around from day to day.
I choose to use New York as a major example of the importance of a language, example English, and the importance it brings across not only to me but to everyone; in the workplace, classroom, in the bus, or train, the grocery store, the fish market etc. Without this ability of using a language sure I agree that there are other ways of expressing yourself but being able to be understood without second thought is priceless. I would say that language is almost like a key; a key to understanding, comprehending, reading and writing, expressions of thoughts, emotions and opinions. Today language is such an important part of our lives that plays such a dramatic role. In the way we speak a language it shows who you are, where you came from, identity, status, even education and where you intend ongoing.
Overall, my relationship towards language was always quite simple, since the only language I am familiar with is English. In the past years surrounding myself with the many different types of cultures I could speak another language to “be cool” or Just to know, For example my ancestors are from India and in watching Indian movies I would need to make sure that there are English subtitles in order to understand, this makes me feel mostly left out of what I believe I should be and a part of my culture. Another example would be after migrating to the United States, yes I speak English and they “New Yorkers” speak English yet it was a very different type of the English language, the dialect was very much different. For example my friends would say “budder” pronouncing the “d” more, I was always use to saying “butter”, pronouncing the “t” more. Even thought we both speak English, in living here I also had to change the way I speak, adapt and learn the language that will he lp me get around without getting looked at in a weird way.
One very interesting idea that came to mind in writing this story is why everyone couldn’t be able to speak a language that will be understood in every other state or country you go to, making life a lot easier. They will still be able to carry on with their signature language such as French, Spanish English etc. but the other language would be referred to as “The Language of the World”. I am not very sure that this task will be easy but I will like to explore on this idea. Also it is that children are more likely to learn much easier than an adult, I would like to test this in some way.
In conclusion to my language story, in taking this course I have realized how important it is to speak a language. I would say living in New York it’s not only a blessing to speak any language but the proper English language. Millions and millions of people come to United States each year for a better future, but the first step in getting to any of these dreams is being able to speak the language of this land. It may not seem so important but I have heard of many stories from many people of their struggle which was not knowing where to go and not being able to ask for their directions, because they are unfamiliar with speaking the language. Not being able to buy food is another sad story and upon everything the embarrassment that some would face in even trying, because they mispronounced and misled.