The argument concerning the use, or the status, or the reality
of black English is rooted in American history and has absolutely nothing to do
with the question which the argument supposes itself to be posing. The argument
has nothing to do with language itself but with the role of language. Language,
incontestably, reveals the speaker. Language; also, far more dubiously, is meant
to define the other --- and, in this case, the other is refusing to be defined
by a language that has never been able to recognize him. People
evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances, or
in order not to be submerged by a reality that they cannot articulate. (And, if
they cannot articulate it, they are submerged.) A Frenchman living in Paris
speaks a subtly and crucially different language from that of the man living in
Marseilles; neither sounds very much like a man living in Quebec; and they would
all have great difficulty in apprehending what the man from Guadeloupe, or
Martinique, is saying, to say nothing of the man from Senegal --- although the
"common" language of all these areas is French. But each has paid, and is
paying, a different price for this "common" language, in which, as it turns out,
they are not saying, and cannot be saying, the same things. They each have very
different realities to articulate, or control. What joins all
languages, and all men, is the necessity to confront life, in order, not
inconceivably, to outwit (智胜) death: The price for this is the acceptance, and
achievement, of one’s temporal identity. So that, for example, though it is not
taught in the schools the south of France still clings to its ancient and
musical Provencal, which resists being described as a "dialect’’. And much of
the tension in the Basque countries, and in Wales, is due to the Basque and
Welsh determination not to allow their languages to be destroyed. This
determination also feeds the flames in Ireland, for among the many indignities
the Irish have been forced to undergo at English hands is the English contempt
for their language. It goes without saying, then, that language
is also a political instrument, means, and proof of power. It is the most vivid
and crucial key to identity: it reveals the private identity, and connects one
with, or divorces one from the larger public, or communal identity: There have
been, and are, times and places, when to speak a certain language could be
dangerous, even fatal Or, one may speak the same language, but in such a way
that one’s antecedents(身世,经历) are revealed, or (one’s hopes) hidden. What does the example of Basque and Welsh illustrate
【参考答案】
Language is also a political instrument,means and proof of p......