Caroline Ladd

Professor Jan Rieman

English 1102-026

April 28th, 2011

Inquiry Paper- Talk Back

Dr. Rieman,

When I was reading your first comment about you disagreeing with my

statement, thinking that it is not accurate to say that Coello’s view is that of the

average American, I was thinking to myself about my statement, and my viewpoint

began to change as well. Who really is to say what the definition of the average

American is? When I stated that Coello’s viewpoint was that of the average

American, it was very own personal opinion.

I will have to do some more research on the differing opinons on the subject,

and how they vary in different regions of the United States because in my research it

did not cover why it was like that. If I had to guess, I would have to say it would have

to go back history of the United States. Also, in politics the East and the South tend

to be very republican and conservative, and the Western part of the country tends to

be very democratic and liberal. But with that said, I don’t know if that is why the

opinons are like that or not.

In your comment where I used the word dialect instead of languages, you are

right. I did not look up the meaning of the work dialect before using it, but I thought

I knew the correct meaning of the word. Obviously I was wrong, sorry! I do think

that if we have two languages in common, Spanish and English, then it would
improve the communication of our country. I also think that if we expected them to

learn Spanish, then they would expect us to learn English as well.

I am currently making an effort to learn Spanish. In high school I took

Spanish 1, 2, and 3. Now in college I am in Spanish 1 this semester, and I will be

taking Spanish 2 next semester. Even though those are the only language

requirements I have for my major, I plan on taking more because I hope to study

abroad before I graduate.

Like I said in my paper, I don’t know how our country would decide to make

this change happen, even more so than it already is. I found out that Canada is

considered a bilingual country, and they speak both English and French. This

happened because of the 1960 Official Language Act. I don’t know the exact details

of the act, but maybe the United States could mimic them in a way, and reference to

them if we decided to make the it mandatory to learn Spanish and English.

Thank you for all your comments!

Sincerely,

Caroline Ladd