12/27/2019 0 Comments Importance of Tolerance in a Community“What is Tolerance? It is the consequence of humanity. We are all formed of frailty and error; let us pardon reciprocally each other’s folly-that is the first law of nature. †(Voltaire, Philosophical Dictionary, pg. 206) Tolerance is showing respect to others by appreciating others and allowing them to live. Individuals have different religions, opinions, practices and attitudes. Tolerance is about accepting other people’s lifestyle or beliefs without being judgmental. It contributes to a universal peace.Unfortunately, too much suffering is nurtured in this world due to lack of tolerance. Moreover, one should ask if tolerance should have a limit particularly when it goes against moral values. Tolerance contributes in making a society stable. Without it, there would be no progression and no peace. In a society where different religious groups reside, it is essential. Every person is called to respect others’ practices and appreciate their contribution to a multi-racial community. Tolerance brings more justice, more equality and less racism. All people are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and they should not be discriminated against because of their nationality, ethnicity, religion, race, gender, political opinions, wealth or property. †(Universal Declaration of Human Rights, United Nations, 1948). However, there is a high degree of intolerance for example between Israeli Jews and Palestinians. They are killing in the name of identity, statehood and religion. For the economy of a community to flourish, tolerance must play an important role at the workplace.Higher productivity can be achieved if colleagues work together while understanding each other. A modern system of management keeps fighting and bullying away. The employer and the employee respect each other on the basic principle of tolerance. Tolerance at the workplace means respecting the attitude and practices of another person. Co-workers can feel more at ease with each other and concentrate on their work. People may do the same thing in different ways or hold opposing attitudes. Furthermore, employees should be able to accept the policies and laws of the workplace and by being tolerant this can be achieved.Tolerance at workplace therefore reduces frustration and improves happiness. Tolerance should also reside in families. It starts with the wife and the husband who afterwards show it towards the children. The modern family is a refuge from the problems of life. It is based on love and tolerance. Without tolerance in the parent-child relationship, there would be a lack of understanding. Furthermore, intolerance between wife and husband can lead to domestic violence. There would be too much tension in a home if tolerance was not practiced. It is an essential component in relationships.A better atmosphere prevails within bonds when it is present. Parents therefore should be able to teach tolerance to their children, for them to learn to be open to differences. In politics, tolerance plays a major function. Political tolerance is a key principle of democracy. It leads to better governance where genuine democracy prevails. Tolerance fosters democratic values as people have the right to voice their opinion. Criticism can be beneficial as tolerance helps us to accept others views. As a result, the opposition system can freely disapprove a government’s decisions and propose alternatives.Politicians should be able accept and respect the basic rights of persons and groups whose opinion differ from theirs. All citizens, including political leaders, have the responsibility to put political tolerance into practice by words and actions. For an individual to integrate in a community, he or she must be tolerant with himself or herself. He or she must know how to live with others. We cannot expect everyone to think alike. To live in peace and harmony, one must show respect for oneself and for others. One must accept others as they are and tolerance is the key to it.It is a way of life and it contributes to self-happiness and happiness for everyone. In addition, by showing tolerance to other, one gives an example of this virtue to his surroundings. Thus, one should include tolerance as one of his or her basic principle of life. However, as almost everything in life, tolerance has a limit. There are so many evils in society that cannot be encouraged such as drug consumption and trafficking, corruption, favoritism, violence and all sorts of crimes. “Tolerance ends where harm begins. †Tolerance is meant for the worthy, to fight for human rights and aim for peace; not to encourage injustice and harm.Severe sanctions need to be taken against illegal affairs and unmoral practices. Definitely tolerance has its place in every field of life. It makes relationships smoother, allows freedom of expression and freedom of opinion. For the economy, it contributes to a higher productivity. It can also contribute to one’s happiness. It implies that one should accept differences of opinion and settle disputes peacefully. Countries can achieve peace and harmony through this basic principle of life. Tolerance is a basic principle of life that everyone should have. Nevertheless, we ought not to tolerate unjust practices.
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12/19/2019 0 Comments Gender Speech Community EssayAbstract This research paper will focus on the human language. Human language is extremely significant for all peoples. My main topic for this paper is how we use and develop language, the production of language, language acquisition and the importance of the critical period. Chomsky, Skinner, and Whorf all had various theories on language but all had one major thing in common, which was the significance of language. Regardless of when or how language is developed; it is essential to have living in environment where every one using language to talk, learn and receive knowledge. The Ways in Which People Use and Develop Language and The Effects it May Have on a Person If a person does not develop oral language this will affect the way in which people communicate with other people. From birth throughout their lives time people are taught the uses of language and create a way of communication. Language is the main component for all humans. “The use of language-the communication of information through symbols arranged according to systematic rules-is a central cognitive ability, one that is indispensable for us to communicate with one another†(Stapel & Semin, 2007; Hoff; 2008; Resiberg). Language is essential to how we communicate, think, and understand the world. Without language our ability to convey information, obtain knowledge and cooperate with others would be hindered. This paper looks at Chomsky, Benjamin Lee Whorf and B.J. Skinners theories on language acquisition and why language it is so important to have and what could happen to a person if he/she were isolated from society. In order to comprehend how language is created and relates to thought, we first need to know that the basic structure of language is grammar. Grammar is a set of rules that clarifies how our thoughts can be articulated. There are three main elements that go with grammar; they are phonology, syntax, and semantics. Phonology is the study of the smallest unit of speech called phonemes. Phonemes are the way we use sounds to form words and produce meaning. Syntax deals with how words and phrases can be united to form sentences and semantic rules allow us to express meanings to words. Feldman, Robert S. (2011). Although many people may have a hard time explaining the meanings of these words, we all subconsciously use grammar every day in a linguistic way! Language starts during infancy from three months through one-year- old. Children begin to make insignificant speech like sounds that is called babble. In the textbook Feldman, Robert S. (2011) stated that while babbling, they produce, at one time or another, any of the sounds found in all languages, not just the one to which are exposed. Even deaf children demonstrate their own form of babbling, who are incapable to hear, yet who are exposed to sign language from birth babble in their own way. In the same textbook I stated before Feldman, Robert S. (2011); indicates that babies’ babbling imitates the precise language being spoken in the infant’s environment which focuses more on the pitch and tone of the person talking to the child. As the baby gets older, he or she starts to specialize in the language that they were exposed to from birth. To support what I am saying I read an article called Language and Brain Development “Jump Start†copyright United Feature Syndicate stated that “a child is introduced to language virtually at the moment of birth. Children do not require explicit language instruction, but they do need exposure to language in order to develop normally. Children who do not receive linguistic input during their formative years do not achieve native like grammatical competence.†There were three theorists that had their own speculation on language acquisition but intertwined with my thesis. Let us begin with Noam Chomsky. Chomsky was a very well- known linguist. He believes that human brains have a language acquisition device that we are inborn with. All children are born with a universal grammar that makes them amenable to the common features of language because of this hard-wired background in grammar; children easily pick up a language when they are exposed to its particular grammar. Http://www.brighthubeducation.com/language-learning-tips/71728-noam-chomsky-language-acquisition-theories/. Basically Chomsky believed that all children develop language around the same age and all develop language skills rapidly and naturally. The next theorist was Benjamin Lee Whorf. Whorf’s theory is that children will learn language skills through interaction with others rather than obtain the knowledge involuntarily. He was recognized for his study that focused on a person’s thinking skills, how their ideas and expressions all depend on language. He anticipated a theory called “linguistic relativity.†This theory determines the way people think. In other words ““we think in terms of words or other symbols, and they are required as a precondition for a human to form an idea—or, at least, to express the idea to others. Although thinking involves mental manipulation of reality, it is heavily dependent upon words or other symbols.†Bergman. Jerry (Benjamin Lee Whorf: An Early Supporter of Creationism). My last theorist was B.F. Skinner. Skinner thought language is attained through standards of conditioning, association, imitation and, reinforcement. The difference from Chomsky and Skinner one believed he or she is born with language where Skinner believed that people have to be taught how to speak by some one’s language acquisition. All three theorists have their own assumptions on language acquisition. Chomsky believes we are born with the skills for language. Skinner believes children is learn through imitation that focuses on behavior and Whorf thought language was developed by interaction with peers rather than being born with it. The one major factor that they all share is the importance of language from birth. If children are deprived of language from the start they will suffer drastically, which proves my statement in the beginning; which was, children who are isolated from language and communication from the early ages will deal with major effects when they are older. A major period that some theorists believe is crucial for language development is called the critical period, which can cause many effects in learning language. From the article “Introduction Brain and Language†explained what the critical-age hypothesis was. This theory believes language is organically based and the capacity to learn your inhabitant language develops from birth to middle childhood. Subsequent to this period, the attainment of grammar is complicated for most people and never fully grasped. Children who are not exposed of language during this critical period will have a difficult time overcoming this deficit. This concept can be proved to be true in humans and other species. 22. Introduction Brain and Language gave an example of ducklings. For instance, from nine to twenty-one months after hatching, ducks will follow the first moving object they see regardless if it is a duck or not. This behavior did not come subconsciously but from an “external teaching, or intensive practice.†Other examples of the critical period that is strongly associated to language learning is the critical period in certain songbirds, e.g., zebra finches or white crowned sparrows (Marler, 1970). For children there have been cases that support this theory. For instance, there was a young boy who was isolated from society also known as the “wild†child. In the film produced by Francois Truffaut “The Wild Child†was based on a young boy named Victor. It was determined that he was left in forest and survived shockingly. (Language and Brain Development 23.) In the YouTube documentary we learned that Victor was not capable to speak or recognize language. He was brought to Paris where he was first put into a deaf school, but after Francois Truffaut observes Victor he believes he can hear and can be educated. After a while, Victor begins to gain some kind of language from being in society. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dA2W0SwIwY). Another perfect example that supports the conjecture of the critical period is a girl named Genie. Genie as well as Victor was a wild child. Genie was abused and isolated from all society from eighteen months to about fourteen years of age. Genie was restricted to a small room under terrible conditions and received minimal to none of human contact. Genie was not able to talk or knew any language at all. (Language and Brain Development 23) said “this linguistic inability could simply be caused by the fact that these children received no linguistic input, showing that language acquisition, though an innate, neurologically based ability, must be triggered by input from the environment.†Like Victor, Genie learned some kind of language but lacked “grammatical structure.†Possessing language is essential to have living in a society. Without language you would not be able to communicate, give, and receive knowledge. For instance Genie; in (Introduction Brain and Language) said “The cases of Genie and other isolated children, as well as deaf late learners of ASL, show that children cannot fully acquire language unless they are exposed to it within the critical period—a biologically determined window of opportunity during which time the brain is prepared to develop language.†People use and develop language in their lives and it is important to have developed it in an early age. References Feldman, Robert S. (2011). Essentials of Understanding Psychology “Jump Start†copyright . United Feature Syndicate. Reprinted with permission. Introduction Brain and Language http://suite101.com/article/how-we-learn-language-a158847 Aitchinson, Jean (1976). The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. London: Hutchinson & Co. http://www.healthofchildren.com/L/Language-Development.html http://www.icr.org/article/6391/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dA2W0SwIwY
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