Intended audience: Instructor and Students

The text, “Nobody Mean More To Me Than You And The Future Life Of Willie Jordan,” was written by June Jordan (July 9, 1936 – June 14, 2002), who was a writer, poet, essayist, and educator. Throughout her life, she taught in the City College of New York, Yale University, Sarah Lawrence College, and also taught English at Stony Brook University in New York. She also earned numerous awards, such as the Rockefeller grant for creative writing and a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship. Moreover, the text is a personal essay, which was published by Harvard Educational Review, an academic journal based on opinion and research, in 1988. Her audience members are people who believe that school taught english or White English is the only form of “correct” or “standardized” english and that racism doesn’t exist. Jordan authored this essay in order to address this view and to convince her audience members that Black English is just as “proper” as White English and that racism is still prevalent in modern society. In her essay, she discusses and argues that there is no such thing as “standard” english and also that racist behaviors are still dominant in modern society. In my essay, I will explore how through the use of statistics/ facts and through tones of despondency along with frustration, Jordan aligns her readers and audience members with her views and argument. Understanding these critical aspects of Jordan’s essay is essential as my and her audience members would be able to comprehend the ways in which they are being influenced to adopt a different belief.

In addition to this, Jordan uses statistics and facts in her essay to heighten her credibility, which allow her audience members or readers to trust what she says more. One such fact that she uses is her mention of how “more than thirty-three countries use this tool as a means of ‘intranational communication’.”(Jordan, 161) The “tool” mentioned here refers to the English language. This detail was cited from English Is Spreading, But What Is English?, which is a presentation by S. N. Sridhar, an expert who does ample research in language, and his research has been supported by various agencies, such as the National Science Foundation and also the United States Department of Education. This indicates that the citation is highly credible as the actual author of the detail is supported by renowned organizations. Based on these details, it’s implied that the citation that Jordan utilized is a conclusion based on well done investigation, and thus is a fact. Through the use of such a fact, Jordan hints to her readers that it’s impossible for White English to be “standard English” and for “standard English” to exist, since it’s highly unlikely for all the people of the mentioned countries to follow the exact same grammar rules as White English. By the usage of such a fact from a credible source, Jordan also allows her own credibility to increase as the conclusions she makes are based on this fact. Another way her credibility increases is through her use of statistics. Jordan states how “there are five countries, or 333,746,000 people, for whom this thing called ‘English’ serves as a native tongue.”(Jordan, 161) Through this detail, Jordan also highlights the idea that it would be impossible for a “standardized English” to exist, since then it would mean “333,746,000” people would be following the exact same grammatical rules as White English. This would imply that all these people would be speaking the same english without any sort of variation, which is impractical, therefore allowing the readers to understand that “standardized English” doesn’t subsist. As “standardized English” doesn’t exist, it also hints to the readers that any variation of English, including Black English, can be thought of as “proper” just like White English. The above quote was cited by Jordan using the same previous source, therefore displaying that the statistics is highly reliable and also that the conclusions derived from such statistics by Jordan are also equally trustworthy. Thus, since Jordan’s argument and ideas are based on reliable statistics/ facts that were well researched by a linguistic expert, she appears extremely trustful in what she says, which allow the readers to easily accept her views. 

Moreover, through tones of frustration and despondency, Jordan allows her readers to sympathize with her views and argument. The tone of frustration can be seen in the following quote after she provides the above stated evidence. She states, “Despite our multi-lingual population, and despite the deepening Black and White cleavage within that conglomerate, White standards control our official and popular judgments of verbal proficiency and correct, or incorrect, language skills, including speech.”(Jordan, 161) The repetition of “despite” serves to hint at the growing frustration of Jordan. This frustration is fully evident in the quote as Jordan implies that even though White officials know that White English isn’t in any way “standard” or dominant in the United States, they are still enforcing it in modern society. This tone of frustration allows the readers to see that not only is the enforcement of White English unreasonable, but also that the idea of White English being “standard” or “correct” is illogical, therefore allowing them to sympathize with Jordan and agree that there is no “standard” English. In addition to this, at the end of her own essay, Jordan also includes Willie Jordan’s essay. Willie Jordan was one of the students that the author taught in her English class and he describes in his essay the unjustified death of his brother, Reginald Jordan. In his essay there is a dominating tone of despondency prevalent throughout. One such moment is when he states, “It is not uncommon to find bold-faced coercion and cold-blooded killings of Blacks by South African police for undetermined and/or inadequate reasons.”(Jordan, 168) This quote talks about racism in South Africa. The words “bold-faced coercion” and “cold-blooded killings” exemplify the brutality that People of Color have to face in their homeland and this is later hinted by Willie Jordan to be due to racial differences. The fact that the reasons for killing Blacks are “undetermined” and “inadequate” serves to also imply that they are being killed due to racial differences. The tone of despondency is also highlighted to be present in the above quote as the author has to standby and watch his people die without proper justification. The same tone is also noted in “I find it difficult to talk of true justice when the oppression of my people both at home and abroad attests to the fact that inequality and injustice are serious problems whereby Blacks and Third World people are perpetually shortchanged by society.”(Jordan, 169) The fact that Willie Jordan finds it “difficult to talk of true justice” exemplifies that for the most part, he never experienced people being brought to justice for inflicting pain upon People of Color. As “inequality” and “injustice” are both dominant “at home” and “abroad” demonstrates that Blacks worldwide are subjected to cruelty, and this idea is enhanced by the fact that they are “perpetually shortchanged by society.” All these details exemplify that there is a tone of despondency, since Willie Jordan has to observe other Blacks being subjected to inhumanity globally without any sort of reason. Thus, through the tones of frustration and despondency, Jordan aligns her readers to her argument as they see that it’s unreasonable for the continuation of the idea that White English is “standard English” and that racism doesn’t exist.

Moreover, another author, Amy Tan, also portrays the same idea, that every variation of english should be accepted, through her personal essay “Mother Tongue,” which was published in 1990 by The Threepenny Review. The audience of Amy Tan in this essay are people who prefer White English or school taught English over other forms. Furthermore, Amy Tan was born in 1952 and is an American writer and novelist. Throughout her lifetime, she attended numerous colleges, which includes Linfield College, San Jose City College, San Jose State University, and University of California at Berkeley. Tan also double majored in English and received a Bachelor of Arts and further received a Master of Arts in linguistics. Additionally, she displayed the earlier idea that every variation of english should be accepted through the use of anecdotes. One such anecdote that she utilizes is her description of how her mother was treated due to her “broken” English. She states, “that people in department stores, at banks, and at restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good advice, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her.”(Tan, 2) From the fact that people “did not give her good advice,” “pretended not to understand her,” and “even acted as if they did not hear her,” it’s exemplified that Tan’s mother received unfair treatment due to her English speaking capabilities, which other people deemed to be poor. The fact that Tan’s mother received such treatment without a proper justified cause allows Tan’s readers to sympathize with not only her mother, but also Tan as she had to experience her own mother face such degrading situations. This sympathy allows Tan’s readers to adopt a central message that’s explored in the essay, which is that all variations of English should be welcomed equally and any one form shouldn’t be prioritized over others, since the readers are able to observe that Tan’s mother was treated badly because other people preferred other forms of English that could be understandable over her’s.

Conclusively, June Jordan utilizes statistics/ facts along with varying tones of frustrations and despondency to force readers to agree with her argument and views. The statistics/ facts are used to not only appeal to Logos as Jordan is supporting her argument with facts, but also appeals to Ethos since she increases her credibility as she attains facts from a reliable source. The tones of frustration and despondency are used to appeal to Pathos, as Jordan allows her readers to feel the same illogicality that she and Willie Jordan do as the readers learn of the ways the White power structure exists at the expense of Black English and Black lives. It’s additionally noticeable that Tan also appeals to Pathos as she used personal anecdotes to compel the readers to accept her key message. Through Jordan’s appeal to Logos, Ethos, and Pathos, along with Tan’s appeal to Pathos, their respective audience members are convinced to agree with their ideas and to take a stand against the White Power structure, one way is through not being biased towards any particular English language. 

Work Cited Page:

Jordan, June. “Nobody Mean More To Me Than You And The Future Life Of Willie Jordan.” On Call, Harvard Educational Review, 1988, 160-169, https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/bfe6/7630450fc970228ad4692ea54a3a9a35bff5.pdf. 
Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” The Threepenny Review, 1990, pp. 1-4, http://theessayexperiencefall2013.qwriting.qc.cuny.edu/files/2013/09/Mother-Tongue-by-Amy-Tan.pdf.