Language with Context

 Carpe Diem! This means seize the day, as many people know even without studying Latin. I took four years of Latin in high school and learned enough to get by in Beginning level Latin at UT. I think there are many problems with the way we are taught a language and the main one being we don't have many outreach programs to give us more of a hands-on learning experience. Once you get to college you do have the privilege to study both the culture and the language at once doing Study Abroad. Doing this international study trip will teach you a language better than you could have ever learned it by sitting in a classroom. My problem with language is that I never really begun to learn and understand language on a deeper level. What I mean by this is that I never looked at the culture and why they use certain words in order to know what they were really saying.


I always saw language surface level. I would read books and take many of them pretty literal until the teacher would explain the metaphor the author was intending at. I remember being in English and being confused on how people could get one sentence to all of the sudden mean ten different things and provide life lessons. I would sit quietly trying to comprehend everything they said and not ever fully understand how they came to that certain conclusion.

I have realized how people can analyze literature and language and that is through studying the context more in depth. As I did a contextual analysis last semester I realized how much I had learned since high school English class. I also began reading a book last semester some might be familiar with called The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer. Tozer is a very well known author and his writing is very deep. I did have trouble understanding everything he said at first but I had to read 2-3 pages each day to not be overwhelmed. I also had to look at the context as to what he was referring to and that strengthened not only my reading but my knowledge of his language use. As I began to open my mind up more and more I realized how deep language really is. I also learned how a definition of a word does not tell you nearly everything about that particular word. This also allowed me to realize that when I see a sentence meaning one thing, someone else may take it to mean another.

The reason we get two separate ideas about the same sentence or word is because of nurture. It all goes back to our environment and how we have been conditioned to learn certain words to mean certain things. I feel like definitions limit you especially learning them at a young age. When you learn what a word means as you're young you just learn the basic word and maybe one or two qualities of it. This in my mind can make you very close-minded. I don't mean close-minded in an extreme negative view but I mean it in a way that you only know certain aspects of a word and forget there's more our there to know.

Learning language on a deeper level has opened my mind up to questioning and being more curious. The more you learn about the context of a language or even a word the more the word can be used and understood. I believe that my mind will never be able to comprehend how our language is unlimited and always changing. I almost feel like my view of society is at a place of learning right now. It's as if the more I learn about language, the less I feel I really know. This in turn effects how I think of society and that's why I'm at a place where I feel I will learn more and language and how it effects culture as I open my mind to learn the context.