The most meaningful takeaway to me has been from Woman
Warrior. The text is of a young Chinese girl who faces the challenge to speak English
when starting school in America. The extract from the novel shows the clear
relationship between the concept of language and power. In this reading, we
come to see that language is power. As the young girl first joins the American
school, she is shy and develops insecurity due to the language and culture barrier.
To start off with culture plays quite a significant role, in the Chinese culture
it is frowned upon for a female to speak boldly and assertively. Yet on the other
hand in the American culture, they believe in the individuals’ rights and
freedom of speech. This caused a clash for the young girl as she knew that in
order for her to be accepted and have power she must alter some of her cultural
ways leading to hybridity in a way where she balance both the American and Chinese
culture in her future.
The girl continuously refers to the Americans as “ghosts” in
a manner that they should be feared or not trusted. Yet she refers to the black
student in her class as Black Ghosts, she admired them due to the fact that
they laughed the loudest and talked to her as if she was as talkative as them.
This sort of linguistic approach towards the Chinese girl made her feel less of
an outsider and making her feel bad every time she didn't speak. Also the young
girl refers to them as the Negro students/ black ghosts show that her intention
is innocent and in no way trying to discriminate them.
When the girls would attend the Chinese school they wouldn't
have the same problem of silence, they would be loud and yell all together yet
when asked by the new teacher to speak aloud, her voice would waver and stutter
like when they are in the American school.
The young girl knows that language is the power which will create her personal identity and as she grows up she sees silence and the lack of speech and language represents weakness which led to her hatred for the “silent girl” and fears that the girl's public image implies her own unpopularity. One day when the girls are alone, she decides to confront the silent girl and tries to make her talk, resulting her to use violence however the girl still refuses to speak. At the end the young Chinese girl ends up crying along with the silent girl, realizing that she is trying to deal with similar fears. Her inability to make the silent girl speak, forces her to come to terms with her own fears associated with language and personal identity and could have made her realize the fact that the girl wont retreat and speak, that she has power and isn’t letting culture and the language of a more dominant class and society get to her, though she would be viewed as being part of a subaltern society.
