Philosophy
Jerry Seinfeld brought a cigar store Indian and everybody is astonished. Elaine doesn’t want to read the card. It says that they should bury the hatchet and smoke the peace pipe. Elaine’s friend who is of Native American descent excuses herself and goes. Jerry begins to make fun with the statue. Wynona is a Native American. He invites her out for dinner to apologize and asks a random man in the street about the location of a certain Chinese restaurant. The man turns out to be Chines and gets offended. After that he is careful about each word that he uses in conversation. Jerry and Wynona begin dating. In the last scene he wanted to use the word “Indian giver”, but Wynona got really mad.
It is obvious that there is much cultural sensitivity to be taken into consideration when living in a multicultural country. This clip is using humor to depict the inappropriate language which can offend certain groups of people who are in a minority in a certain country. In this case it is Native Americans and Chinese people. The case about Native Americans is that the country was originally theirs, so they have all right to be offended when Americans call them primitive even if not on purpose. There are particular phrases which are not laudable and include different names of Native American people.
Individual ethics and values are important for being able to treat other people with respect. “Being aware of our own and others’ communication styles, and being able to adjust our style to fit a specific situation, can go a long way in improving communication and facilitating effective critical thinking” (Boss, 2015, p. 81). It is important to understand one’s own personal values in order to be able to appreciate the values of other people as well. America is a multicultural country and the differences between cultures are visible more than in some other countries with less diversity. People have to use politically correct terms so that they don’t hurt the feelings of others.
References
Boss, J. (2015). Think: Critical thinking and logic skills for everyday life (Third ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Seinfeld - Natuve American (Full Scene). (2011, July 29). In YouTube.
Assessing Emotive Language
In three to five sentences per scenario, discuss the rhetorical device(s) or type of emotive language found in each of the following passages. Be sure to discuss what point the writer/speaker is trying to make by using these devices or language.
1. Joe is between jobs. He has an interview later in the week.
The speaker is trying to say that Joe is unemployed at the moment, but to make it sound better, he adds the fact that he will have a job interview during the following few days, so that it is not in question that he will get another job. It is only a matter of time and that is why he is “between the jobs”. The speaker is using euphemism in this case.
2. Those tree-hugging hippies are more concerned about the snail darter than they are with people’s jobs and families.
The speaker is using sarcasm to point out that a something insignificant such as the snail darter is more important for some people than the economy of the country and the family. This language is appropriate in this case because it is not very offensive for the environmentalists. However, the term hippies is labeling those people and that is not very polite in everyday communication.
3. “Reader: Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” (Mark Twain)
Mark Twain is using irony to point out to the fact that he believes that the members of the Congress are idiots. That is not a nice thing to say, especially publicly. However, Mark is an artist, a writer and he gives himself artistic freedom of expression.
4. Child: Where’s Fido?
Parent: He’s in doggie heaven.
Parents are using metaphor to tell their child that the dog passed away. It is a good choice because the child will believe that the pet is in a nice happier place. Children are at the same time sensitive and adaptable to change, but the concept of death is something they are not familiar with.
5. Management ordered security guards to take steps to reduce inventory shrinkage.
Management is using figurative language to make security guards pay more attention to the inventory. Some inventory is missing and the management wants to prevent that from happening in the future. That is why they are warning the security guards to be more observant.
