Article Analysis Essay on Language

Introduction

Comparative analysis is used in comparing and contrasting two texts to determine the similarities and differences. This paper provides a comparative study of two different documents. These are Operation Mind Your Language by Pallavi Polanki, and How Does Language Shape The Way You Think, by Lera Boroditsky. This comparative analysis paper focuses on content and rhetorical analysis features used by the authors. This is significant as it will shed light on the differences and similarities between the two articles.

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In the essay Operation Mind Your Language by Pallavi Polanki, she describes the experience of young Afghanis who are training in India to be English teachers. She states that English has become widespread and that speakers who are conversant with it are in high demand as it is their passport to get a job, gain high income and have the opportunity to study abroad. English teachers are however scarce, and thus the government takes the initiative to send a group of students to study in India and be trained as English teachers. How Does Language Shape The Way You Think by Lera Boroditsky is an essay that discusses the effects of language on things that have personal weight on us. She holds that how we think is different due to the language we speak. Language makes us concentrate on those aspects we hold important, and this is different for different spoken languages.

The two selected articles are undoubtedly different in terms of the themes of the content. Lera Boroditsky claims that language shapes how people think regarding colors, space, objects and time. She emphasizes the distinctively human gift of language and asserts its importance to human experience. She looks into whether the language that people speak in different parts of the globe shapes their worldview, the way they live and how they see the world. Her findings demonstrate that people, who speak diverse languages, do think differently and that even flukes of grammar could significantly affect people's worldview and how they see the world (Boroditsky 118).

On the other hand, Pallavi Polanki claims in her text that the Afghanis who are being trained as English-language teachers in India are filled with eagerness and earnestness. The collaboration on teacher education which the government of Afghanistan had with India that sought to address the need for additional English teachers in schools located in area succumbed with conflict in Afghanistan has is the training that the Afghanis are having. The Afghanistan government made an effort aimed at strengthening English departments at teacher training colleges and gave scholarships to students to be trained in India as English teachers.

While the two texts are different in terms of themes in the content, they are similar in that both the authors provide adequate evidence for supporting their claims. For instance in Operation Mind Your Mind, Polanki demonstrates how enthusiastic and eager the students are with their new training in New Delhi, India. She speaks of having a conversation with Abdul Hadi Hamrad, a 21-year-old student, who stated that although he is not fluent in speaking English, he is doing his very best and that he has made tremendous improvement in learning how to speak in English since he was not able to converse in it entirely while he was in Afghanistan (Polanki 169). He also adds onto that by saying that they, the students from Afghan in India, have the mandate to learn English so that they can teach it in their schools once they return to Afghanistan.

Polanki favors logos and uses a lot of official data and logistics in his article to build credibility to convince his audience. At first, he uses an array of facts to demonstrate the cultural background and the profound influence of English on Afghanistan. The first fact is about the history of Afghanistan, with a focus on it as being subjected to terror war. Thirty-one personalities have invaded Afghanistan and brought a substantial linguistic challenge for its government (Polanki 168). The Afghanistan government intends to solve the barriers of communication after witnessing so many cultural invasions by learning English and acts as a solid base for learning this language. Another fact he puts across is the fact that Afghanis begin to use and learn English due to the extensive use of English labels, an essential factor while purchasing products.

Similarly, Lera Boroditsky on How Does Our Language Shape The Way We Think uses data collected from a study at MIT and Stanford University in her labs. Data is collected from various parts of the world including Greece, Indonesia, Aboriginal Australia, Chile, and China. She holds that persons who converse in diverse languages indeed have a different thinking pattern (Boroditsky 118). More so, the coincidence of grammar can remarkably influence our worldview. For instance in Russian, you have to modify the verb to point out gender and tense, in Indonesian there is no need to do so and cannot, in fact, change the verb in effort of marking tense, in English there is need to mark the verb for tense while in Turkish there is the need to incorporate in the verb the means of attaining the information.

Borodistky holds that languages require different things of their speakers. People who believe in cross-linguistic distinction argue against everyone not paying attention to similar elements. In the case that every person did, the thought that it would be effortless to speak and learn other languages would be correct (Boroditsky 120). She holds that gaining knowledge on a language that is new is never easy, mainly that which one is not narrowly associated with those you are conversant with. She attributes this hardship to the fact that one is required to give concentration to distinctions that are new to them - paying attention to different things that are right for that context to gain information that is correct to incorporate in what they say beyond just learning the vocabulary. The Kuuk Thaayorre of Northern Australia for instance use cardinal-direction terms to define space contrary to English where words like left, right, back or forward are used to describe scope to an observer (Boroditsky 121).

Conclusion

In conclusion, Boroditsky and Pollovi have a logical approach and build their arguments on data in their articles to convince their audience on the credibility of their work. Boroditsky researches from all over the world including Greece, Indonesia, Aboriginal Australia, Chile, and China. She uses these findings to conclude that indeed language affects how we think. Pollovi uses logos to illustrate facts about Afghanistan and the need to learn English for the scholars who attend college in India from Afghanistan. The two authors, however, have different themes if content, with Boroditsky centering her study on the effect of language on what the speaks perceive of the world and Pollovi concentrating on the experiences of young scholars from Afghanis in India who are studying English to become English teachers in their realm.

Works Cited

Boroditsky, L. (2009)How Does Language Shape The Way We Think? In M.Brockman (Ed), What's Next?: Dispatches on the Future of Science (pp. 117-129). New York: Vintage Books.

Polanki, P. (2014 )"Operation Mind Your Language". Globalization: a reader for writers (pp.167-171). Edited by Jerskey Maria. Oxford University Press.