buyingCultural Sensitivity in Language Use: Is It Really Important
For a long period of time, language was considered as a real gift that offered to people to facilitate their lives and improve communications, but instead of using this gift accordingly, people created some challenges and misunderstandings to make language use more complicated. During the previous investigation based on the articles by Clemetson and Amoja Three Rivers and personal observations, cultural sensitivity was defined as the obstacle created by people themselves in the process of speaking. However, the next research, where the works by Leo and Spring are considered, show that cultural sensitivity may touch upon such concepts like human freedom and the necessity to follow certain speech codes that do not make people immune. As soon as people pay much attention to cultural sensitivity, they face themselves under a threat of being enslaved again, but this time, they are enslaved by their own fears, prejudices, and desire to be politically correct; in other words, if previous researches prove that cultural sensitivity is complicated but important concept in society, the current investigations help to realize that cultural sensitivity is a social threat that has to be destroyed.
People made numerous attempts to strive for their freedom in different spheres of life. Their desire to gain independence was so immense, and achievements were so astonishing that they missed the time, when they made themselves culturally sensitive and created a lot of boundaries for language use. If in the previous two articles, it is said that people find themselves “attacked, abused, oppressed… or enslaved because of racism” (Amoja Three Rivers para.14) so that “black people get a little testy” (Clemetson para.3) when certain words are used to them by white people, therefore, cultural sensitivity is crucial for communication in order to destroy misunderstandings; in the next two works, cultural sensitivity is defined as a boundary for human communication because white people have to follow their speech and define this restriction as an enslavement of their own ideas and thoughts. To destroy the biases created, the experts offer to fight for personal freedom as soon as possible. For example, in Leo’s article, a professor asks students “to express their freedom of speech rights to destroy the display if they wished” (Leo para. 17). Nowadays, people do not accept cultural sensitivity as something that has to be followed and respected. This concept is all about measures that have to be broken in order to gain the desired freedom. So, the question remains to be important: whether cultural sensitivity is something to strive for or against? Two types of investigations offer two different answers.
The measurements in languages are all those “speech codes and anti-harassment codes” (Leo para. 5) that have to be considered by each representative of a particular society. As a result of the research conducted, it becomes clear that modern students, as well as other people, turn out to be “more guarded in their views” (Leo para.6) because of the necessity to be culturally sensitive. Now, the question is not about the options of how to become culturally sensitive but about the real necessity of cultural sensitivity. Is it possible for people to be culturally sensitive without neglecting personal interests and points of view? The answer to this question may help to understand the reasons why cultural sensitivity should not play as huge role in language as it plays now. In fact, the previous research was based on the idea that cultural sensitivity was a crucial aspect in communication, but the recent investigation puts this idea under the question and promotes more thinking on the topic. Cultural sensitivity “runs deeper than replacing one word for another” (Spring 4). It concerns people’s inabilities to express their thoughts as they want, and such obligations bring the society to the headsprings of slavery. The peculiarities of so-called “linguistic slavery” differ from those of the 20th century slavery. Still, the main idea remains to be similar in some way: people are not free to say what they think all the time. Even if each word seems to be the most appropriate in a conversation, it does not presume the fact that the speaker is free from any kind of biases. People have to be eager to forget and neglect the differences between races, genders, cultures, etc. instead of following certain rules and mind the restrictions based on cultural sensitivity. To promote the unity of a society, it is necessary to create the conditions, which are appropriate for everyone.
In general, the issue of cultural sensitivity is interesting for consideration indeed. Different attitude and examples show that there is no one general understanding of cultural sensitivity as it is. People offer different versions, and the real life examples show that it is not always possible to stay culturally sensitive and politically correct at the same time. On one hand, people have to consider the importance of being culturally sensitive to show respect to each part of the society. On the other hand, people suffer from the necessity, to be politically correct and have to neglect their own principles in order to follow the standards set. The analysis of the articles by Leo, Clemetson, Spring, and Amoja Three Rivers helps to understand that the question concerning the necessity of cultural sensitivity in language use remains to be open. Now, it is clear that people have not only to understand that cultural sensitivity defines the level and quality of communication but also think how to stay politically correct and follow personal principles, ideas, and desires at the same time.