Maribel Peralta

Hybrid assignment

10/18/2015

ENG 2850/KTA

In the Discourse on logic of language by M. Phillips there is a message being sent across to inform us about the determinability that language had on the lives of slaves. It sends a very impactful message across because as we see while reading the Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass we see how language played its part in the mystification of slavery. Back then slaves where not allowed or even taught how to read and write, this kept them oppressed and under the power of the white man. This poem is very informative in the sense that it keeps on repeating the following melodious line “English is a foreign language … anguish…father tongue”. This brought to me the idea that she might be saying this to indicate how slaves where exposed to listen and understand another language that was not originally their own. And of course they have no mother tongue because as mentioned in (Douglass, 1) “…before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it…” Stating the practice of severing that human connection between mother and child and replacing it with the brutal image of owner and property. In the poem Phillip manipulated the sounds of words making it more musical. When there is no more language to describe what it is the message is delivering she replaces words with personal information. This is also done in the novel. Before Frederick understood the language he would hear the slaves sing and it would be seen as a joyful act from the master in charge of them but after he understood he saw that this was more of a out cry for help and that these melodies revealed the deepest sentiments of the slaves. I really enjoyed when Phillips incorporated actual studies such as the one done by Dr. Broker on the size of the brain and how that proved intelligence. And how if the slave where caught speaking they would be severely punished. All of these where methods to keep institutionalizes racism in the minds of the slaveholders. By saying that because the size of the brain in African American was different there of than that of the white man it gave them the validity to his false assumptions. In (Douglass, 15) when Demby is shot in the head the excuse that was given to the slave master was also another example of the torture these slaves had to endure because of the institutionalized racism build in the system of these slaveholders. It states (Douglass, 15) “if one of the slaves refused to be corrected, and escaped with his life, the other slaves would soon copy his example; the result would be, the freedom of the slaves, and the enslavement of the whites.” This was a huge fear on behalf of the white population because the slaves did outnumber them by a lot. The detachment though from having any type of connection with anyone was really what kept him or her oppressed for so long though. I noticed this soon after I was reaching the ending of the novel, (Douglass 55) “It caused me more pain than anything else in the whole transaction. I was ready for anything rather than separation.” This message is also embodied into the message of the poem in the multiple choices that questions the use of the tongue, is it to taste, a form of speech, or an organ of oppression? I believe Frederick notice the mystification of the human language as a for to dehumanized the slave culture. When he learned to read this was a time of revelation for him that set the motion for his path to freedom.