Talking Points #2

Rodriguez "Aria"

1. I found this aticle to be really interesting because it discussd issues of bilingualism that I've often wondered about. Things like how your knowledge of the public language benefits your education and to what extent. However I never considered the conflict established between the private and public identities. I wonder how many people I know have these communication rifts between themselves and their parents because of a language barrier, especially one that their parents encouraged. How does this affect their behavior (in private and public)?
2. As the article progressed in its discussion about private and public identities, I came to wonder which one is more important. Obviously both identities are imporant and there will be differing opinions based on pesonal experience, but for the majority which one do people tend to identify with? Richard is reminiscent and sad over his dimishing private identity, but towards the end stresses the importance of his newly established public one (which I found interesting).
3. I felt like this article made me realize how people who are from English speaking households differ in the way they think from those where English is not their primary language. I use myself as an example in explaining this, because language isn't a basis on which I consider my private/public identity. Also, I almost take my English fluency for granted sometimes and often I wish to enhance my public idntity by learning and associating myself with another language such as Italian. I wonder if there is a difference between my desire to obtain fluency in this language and Richard'sneed to obtain fluency in English and what exactly the difference is (on the basis of identity, not for the ease of learning)?