The Power of Launguage

The Power of Language

If I say that I am currently employed with a major petroleum distribution center, you may think that I am a highly qualified person making limitless amounts of money. However, I am using the power of language to merely say that I work at a gas station making minimum wage. Great historical figures throughout history have used the power of language, the ability to use words to their advantage, to inspire people to unite under one common cause and to change the world.

Some of the most influential writers are those who appear in Language Awareness. Helen Keller was unable to hear and unable to see but came through her inabilities and inspired others to succeed. Malcolm X inspired African Americans throughout the US to see past their situation and rise above their diversities. Lastly, there is David Raymond, a dyslexic child who nonetheless became an affluent writer. Language has the power to change a single person, to the whole world.

Writing, what does it take? The ability to put sounds together, to make words, and to complete thoughts. It almost seems unfeasible to me that some one who cannot hear or cannot see would be able to write. For example, Helen Keller did not know the sound sounds that words made until one special lady gave her the power of language. That person, Annie Sullivan, showed her the power of language goes beyond words but also into actions. Sullivan was able to teach Keller how to write without sound, but by feeling and touching. One morning Sullivan came to Helen and gave her, her favorite doll to play with. As she was playing with it her teacher spelled "doll" in her hand. Helen was intrigued by these hand movements and then started to repeat them. By doing this she learned her first word. She became such an inspiration to so many people because she had such an impossible handicap to overcome. Many people with disabilities still look up to her because she used language to tell her story. She has changed millions of lives because of her power of language.

Malcolm X had the authority over the power of language. He writes, "Many who hear me today somewhere in person, or those who read something I said, will think I went to school far beyond the eighth grade." The reason that Malcolm X was capable to get so many believers to follow his convictions was because he knew how to command rhetoric. The impressions people got from him were due entirely to his studies of the dictionary while he was in prison. As he wrote his first letters to the Mayor of Boston, to the Governor of Massachusetts, and to Harry S. Truman, he realized that he could not get his thoughts onto his letters.