Reflection Post: Week #5 and #6

For my third reflection post, I decided to write about one of our required readings that stood out to me the most; Chapter 1 called The History and Origins of Language Policies in Canada which was written by William F. Mackey

One of the sub-readings that was found in this chapter and that stood out to me the most this week was the Sources of Conflict and Accommodation. In this section of Chapter One, he talked about a couple of things in particular that caught my eye, the first one being where he talks about the sources of conflict in regard to race, religion, and language. He introduces this in the first paragraph he explains how conflicts of race and religion up rose because of the conflicts that were associated with language and vice versa (Mackey, 2010).

This is something that I had not thought about but the more I think about it, the more it seems to make sense. From what I hear around me, it is not the cultures and religions that people tend to have a problem with. They do not care what they wear, eat, believe in, etc. Instead, it is the languages that they speak that people tend to pick up on and have issues with. The people will say that they have a hard time understanding what they say, or that they think they do not understand the English language if they have an accent which is where the conflict comes about like Mackey said.

Reference

Mackey, W.F.. (2010). The history and origins of language policies in Canada. Canadian Language Policies in Comparative Perspective. 18-66.