You are what you say

Languange is a tool with which we can communicate with people. Meanwhile, I think it is also a label, which means the others can roughly know which class of society you are in or how much education you have received through the way you speak.

In China, we know that people always choose to use Putonghua when they give a speech or talk in a formal occasion. Why? It is because that compared with the dialect, Putonghua is more official. You can convey a message to people that you attach importance to them by using Putonghua.

There is a similar rule in English as well. People who are highly educated always pay much attention to their tongue. In some TV dramas, especially some American TV dramas such as Prison Break, I usually notice the big difference between the ways which people of different background use when they are talking to each other. Few gramma mistakes and coarse words can be found from the language used by such people like Michael who have a good education background, while, we may often hear such vulgar things from rude people who lack the education. In addition, I also saw many such cases in Gone With The Wind. The blacks usually don’t pay much attention to they tongue, for example, Mammy drew herself up with dignity,”Ah is free, Miss Scarlett.” However, their white masters always use good tongue. I think Margaret Mitchell wrote her novel like this on purpose, for she might want to show the difference between the blacks and the whites in this way.

So, as a conclusion, we Chinese students who are studying English now should watch our tongue when we are speaking. I find that we often make some simple mistakes, for instance, the tenses of the verbs we use are wrong sometimes. Such mistakes may be not that important for us but, to some extent, they may make others think little of us. That is really something we don't like to see. So, to win others’ respect, we should speak in a respectable way.

JiangXiaoning