Language & Society

1. What information did you find interesting in the article you chose?  Why?
• The information that I found interesting was when "Ms." took root.  The reason I found this interesting was because I never realized that "Ms." was not used at one point in time.  I assumed it was always either Mr., Mrs., Ms., or Miss.  In my job when we address a female customer primarily in a letter we are to address them as Ms. because we do not know if this person is married, widowed, divorced or single.
2. What did you learn that you did not previously know?
• I realize as Americans everyone may or may not speak English as their first language, but I did not realize that many African Americans use a language known as Black English or Ebonics.  I was not surprised as I read further in the article that many non-African Americans who live in the inner cities speak this language as well.  It would make sense to me considering they would be exposed to this language everyday.
3. What information did you find fascinating and wanted to learn more about?
• I found it fascinating to learn that bilingual schooling was more common practice in the 19th century, but the students were not given the tools to learn English and more than half dropped out.  I feel it is a shame that immigrants are losing their native language and they should have minority language rights. On the flip side, I do feel that if they are immigrating to America then English should become their primary language. 
4. How will you use this new information in the future? Where? How?
• Even thou English has been adopted by many as the official language we need to keep in mind that not all Americans speak English or can speak English fluently.  I can use this information everyday at my job.  Since I work in a call center I deal with customers from all over the United States.  There are customers I can understand with ease, while there are others that have a heavy southern or foreign accent that I may need them to repeat what they are telling me.  I have to keep in mind that I cannot make stereotypes about the other person on the phone and judge them because they have an accent.