Writing Sample 3

Throughout the course, we have studied various dialects found within the United States, and the extensive details signifying those dialects. We have considered the social implications of dialects within their region as well as in relation to the state as a whole. Yet for my final research paper, I was concerned as to how various social groups interact together in one region as opposed to their individual and native regions. For my final research paper, I will be analyzing Clint Eastwood’s contemporary film Gran Torino, and will be researching the overall interactions and implications of the Hmong, Central American, African American, and Italian American dialects which are present in the film.
Walt Kowalski serves as the film’s protagonist and thus projects a great deal of opinionated prejudice against the Hmong neighbors next door. An elderly Ford factory retiree and Vietnam veteran, Walt harbors resentment towards Asians due to his hardened experiences. The heart of this film resides in the contrast between the bitter old Walt and the vulnerable, charming neighbor kids Tao and Sue. As Walt indicates, little is known of the recently-immigrated Hmong people and their culture. Hmong immigrants first began to move in the late 1970s to mid-1980’s due to religious relocation efforts from Thai refugee camps by the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services and the United States Catholic Conference. Many social services and schools were unprepared to handle the mass influx of immigrants when the Hmong arrived, and so the families in the movie that invaded Walt’s formally-white suburban neighborhood was quite an accurate detail along with his unreceptive response to their presence. As Christin DePouw comments in his article Familiar Foreign: Hmong American Students Engaging & Resisting American, the Hmong people were a “’preliterate’ society that was completely unfamiliar with modern life.” (DePouw, p. 4.) This only contributed to the American sense of inferiority of this new culture. Yet, strong family and educational values along with a solid work ethic (as Tao later demonstrates) are portrayed clearly in the film to conduct a noble perspective of the new immigrants. Today nearly one million people speak Hmong, “canonical monosyllable language: most words are one syllable long, there is little or no affixation, and syllable boundaries are clearly marked.” (Mills, p. 3.) Limited range in syllable structure between CV, CVV, or CVC provide for distribution of vowels and dipthongs, and syllable codas [n] and [nj] are the only ones allowed. Mills also adds that “a striking feature of this system is that stops, affricates, fricatives, laterals, and nasals all have contrasting aspirated and unaspirated series.” (Mills, p. 4.) High vowels are also pronounced with an anticipated raise of the tongue, which North American English speakers do not demonstrate. In addition, the Hmong language contains six vowels when open syllables are used that go as follows: a high i and low E front unrounded, a mid and low a back or central unrounded, and a high u, low for back rounded. Non-low vowels are replaced by mid-high dipthongs.
Such speech characteristics of the Hmong people set Walt off from understanding – or, wanting to understand – their ways. The main reason behind his complete and utter resentment is his anger towards change in a world where is still very much stuck in the 1950’s. His world has changed, and quite simply, Walt has not. As a Vietnam War veteran, Walt continues to identify with themes and notions of the past that have since evolved. This difference in ideals across generations and even within the same generations can be viewed in the scene where Clint is standing out in his front lawn, cursing at a Hmong woman about his age next door while she curses back in her native language, and each literally spit tobacco at one another. Up to this point in the film, this is the only interaction they have with one another. But when Tao’s mother forces him to become and indentured worker for Walt after attempting to steal his 1972 Ford Gran Torino, he is forced to interact and become more tolerant of their differences. This, however, does not come easy for Walt.
The vulnerability of Tao and Sue along with their gentle patience allows for an acquaintance to become established. Had the kids been like their gangster cousins or grandmother, yelling back insults in response to racial slurs such as “gook, chink, jungle people, egg roll”, and “zipper head.” One detail that truly demonstrates the depth of Walt’s racism goes along the line of his “jungle people” term when he refuses to call Tao by his real name and calls him “Toad” instead. By using Toad, Walt degrades him not only in race, but in species as well, from a human being down to an amphibian. In spite of this insult, Tao remains calm, stating at one point, “Go ahead. I don't care if you insult me and say racist things. I'll take it.” This attitude is essential in making the movie function as a transformative story.
The next mile-marker in the film is in a scene where Walt is driving through a broken-down neighborhood and sees Sue, cornered and harassed by a gang of African American teenagers. In African American Vernacular English, a distinguishing feature is often the reduction and clipping of word endings. For instance, final consonants are reduced when the consonant cluster shares voicing ([-nd] in hand, [-sk] in desk, not [lt] in belt or [ns] in fence). Clusters within a monomorphemic word are also often reduced ([st] in mist, not missed), and in unstressed syllables, where [st] would be removed in breakfast but not fast. Other features of African American Vernacular English include: hapology and deletion of words in unstressed syllables, final cluster reduction, metathesis of the final /s/ and stop clusters, backing in /str/ clusters, the deletion of /r/ in initial clusters before rounded vowels; the deletion of /j/ in clusters before /u/ for features involving clusters; vocalization of the postvocalic and syllabic /l/, the deletion of /l/ before tautosyllabic labial consonant, and the derhoticization or deletion of vocalic and postvocalic /r/ in features involving liquids; the monopthongization of /ax/ in open syllables and before nasals or voiced abstruents, the tense/lax merger of front vowels before tautosyllabic /l/ , and the merger of /x/ and /E/ before syllable-final nasals for features involving vowels and dipthongs; final consonant deletion or abstruent devoicing for consonants; the labialization of interdental fricatives in fricative features; and the stress shifts of the first syllable of selected words for prosodic features (Pollock, p. 49.) All of these features contribute to what the African American Vernacular English is composed of today, and is prevalent in the gangsters’ speech as they threaten Sue as well as Walt once he interfers.
Upon rescuing Sue, Walt continues to work closely with Tao every day to work off his debt. The third kind of vernacular to analyze is Walt’s Italian American barber, his confidant and long-time colleague. It is this man who assists Walt in “manning-up” Tao, who contains no backbone and is easily influenced by pretty much anyone (in an earlier scene, Tao is shown washing dishes in the kitchen of his house because his sister told him to while his grandmother remarks on how submissive he is, like a woman). Tao learns in the barber shop scene that being a man, according to Walt and the barber, consists of racism, sexism, and misogyny. They berate their wives for sake of conversation, and refer to each other with racial slurs as though they are terms of endearment. Simply put, Walt and his Italian American barber get along quite well. The most defining features in the resonance of the faded, Americanized Italian accent demonstrated here is the dependence on short syllable structures to differentiate between long and short vowels (Tosi, p. 254.) Five unstressed vowels ([i], [e], [o], and [u]) and seven stressed vowels ([i], [e], [E], [a], [ ], [o], and [u]) compose the Italian phonological system. Mid-high to mid-low vowels /e/, /E/, / /, / /, and /o/ are varied depending on what vowels the speaker uses and are usually neutral. There are nearly two dozen consonant sounds that can be made and may be long or short.
Upon enlightening Tao with a new vocabulary and fashioning him into a man, Walt leaves his barber friend and the two continue doing chores at neighbor’s houses to work off Tao’s debt. Walt serves as the fourth and final vernacular to be analyzed here, the North American English. Although his ethnicity is Polish, he has become so Americanized that he leaves no traces of it, and for that purpose I will categorize him under North American English to contrast his patterns with those of the Hmong, African American, and Italian American. Flap pronunciations and placements of /d/ and /t/ are the most prevalent indicator of a North American English Vernacular, which vary greatly from sociolinguistic factors (Eddington, p. 245.) Eddington explains, “The notion that syllables are organized into prosodic units called feet is central to flapping.” (Eddington, p. 245.) The stress of flapping follows vowel quality, and depends on the vowel in which it follows, but usually with those of primary or secondary stress. Eddington summarizes that The generalization that emerges is that flaps appear followed by [ə, ɪ, i, ɚ], and [1 ], while [th] is most frequent preceding [ε, ej, c, aj, ɑ, æ] and [u]. However, there is not enough data to determine how the vowels [ow, ʊ, æw], and [ cj] pattern.” (Eddington, p. 249.)
The major distinctions of each vernacular are vastly different, from limited range of syllable structure, high vowels, unaspirated and limited dipthongs of the Hmong dialect, to the final consonant reductions, monopthongizations, fricative use, and the tense/lax merger of front vowels before tautosyllabics (to name a few) in the African American Vernacular English, to the short syllable structures, 21 consonant sounds, and short/long or stressed/unstressed vowels of the Italian American, and finally the tongue flapping prior to /d/ and /t/ vowels in the North American Vernacular. These differences are vast and account for the rich sound of the speech in Gran Torino.
As Walt becomes more familiar with these differences in language and culture, he finds himself befriending his Hmong neighbors and inadvertently serving as a father figure for the fatherless Tao. His care for these people becomes obvious when Tao’s gangster cousins do a drive-by on his house and shower bullets through the front windows. Panicked, Walt darts across his once-segregated lawn to ensure everyone is alright when the family realizes that Sue is nowhere to be found. Assuming she is still over at a friend’s house, the mother dials the friend, to hear no answer. Finally she emerges up the front steps in complete shock, badly battered and bruised from the rape of the Hmong gang. Walt realizes at this point that this family will never know peace as long as the gang is around, and that something must be done. For the first time in his life, he seeks out the Reverend from his wife’s funeral, and has confession at church. At first the audience is left to assume that he is turning to his Vietnam instincts and will gun down the gang to eliminate them from his neighbors’ lives. This serves as a major turning point for both character development of Walt as well as the plot, as he can finally look past his prejudices and become involved in something bigger than his differences. The unrest he experienced for so many years following the Vietnam war have finally come to an end, and he is about to feel redemption for not only his soul, but the innocent souls of his Hmong neighbors as well.
Walt appears to be making preparations for the climactic finish of the threatening gangsters as he tidies up the house and leaves his retriever Daisy with Tao for safekeeping with strict instructions for Tao not to accompany him, which serves to be challenging as Tao has undergone a character development as well and seeks vengeance on the men who threatened his family and assaulted his sister. Finally, he has something to stand for instead of drifting aimlessly taking orders from everyone except his own conscience. Yet Walt insists on confronting the gang alone, and as desired enters their front lawn solo. The gang watches him wearily from inside the house, apprehensive to his visit, and acts in a completely astounding and unprecedented manner next. As Walt reaches the inside of his coat pocket for a lighter, they open fire and kill him instantly. This shocking and unexpected ending gives Walt redemption, ending him in the same manner he used to end many Vietnamese soldiers. Sue and Tao taught him peace, understanding, patience, and acceptance of something he was formally so set on hating. The old dog learns new tricks, so to speak, and he sacrifices his life for the welfare and prosperity of people who had more potential than him at the end of his years. The final scene of the movie shows Tao driving the Gran Torino he once attempted to steal from Walt during his gang initiation, with Daisy panting in the front seat. This offers closure and peace of mind to the audience as they grasp the importance of opening one’s heart and mind to the acceptance of others and their language.





















BIBLIOGRAPHY:
- Eddington, David; Elzinga, Dirk. The Phonetic Context of American English Flapping: Quantitative Evidence. Brigham Young University. 2008.
-Pollock, Karen E. Meredith; Linette Hinton. Phonetic Transcription of African American Vernacular English. The University of Memphis. 1993.
-Tosi, Arturo. The Language Situation in Italy. ©2004 A. Tosi CURRENT ISSUES IN LANGUAGE PLANNING Vol. 5, No. 3, 2004.
-Mills, Carl; Strecker, David. Dipthongization, Syllable Structure, and the Feature High in Hmu. Kansas Working Papers in Linguistics, Vol. 13. 1988.
-Gran Torino Script. January 2009. http://www.imsdb.com/Movie%20Scripts/Gran%20Torino%20Script.html