How Pronoun Choice Reflect Historical Moments and Political Views (Essay Sample)

Student’s Name Professor’s Name Subject DD MM YYYY How Pronoun Choice Reflect Historical Moments and Political Views History can be analyzed using different tools. One such tool is the grammar used when referring to the historical event. From the grammatical choices, it is possible to tell whether the historical event was good or bad. This paper narrows down grammar analysis to focus on pronouns only. First discussed is how pronouns shape the views on political issues. The importance of pronouns in political events is then emphasized by focussing on the speech of Arturo Rodriguez the president of United Farm Workers of America (UFW). Pronouns can be altered to make a political view either desirable or not. The use of the first-person pronoun ‘we’ has the effect of making a political view more sensible. The reason for this is that the public becomes invested in the political concept in question. ‘We’ is an inclusive pronoun that creates a sense of collective and shared responsibility. Presidential candidates are notorious for using ‘we’ to make their ideas sound patriotic (Hamdaoui 99). People also use the pronoun ‘we’ to associate themselves with victories in historical events. Americans, for example, talk about world war II events with statements like ‘we defeated Hitler’ (Lyons 70). Such statements are used by Americans irrespective of whether or not they fought in the second world war. On the other hand, third-person pronouns are used to discredit political views. The most used third-person pronouns are ‘they’ and ‘them’. Both are exclusion pronouns intended to associate a given theory with a different group of people. In history, third-person pronouns are used to victimize a group whose actions had negative consequences. In World war II events, the Nazis are referred to as the ‘they’ (Lyons 200). In ordinary society politics, ‘they’ and ‘them’ refer to the opponent team that holds the opposite belief. Political figures use ‘they’ over and over to solidify their support base. Often, the use of ‘they’ cultivated deep hatred for the opponent team. A good case study on the use of pronouns to alter a political view is found in the speeches of Arturo Rodriguez. Rodriguez is the president of the United Farm Workers of America (UFW) (Flores 38). Rodriguez is vocal about protecting the rights of farmworkers especially those who are immigrants from Mexico. Arturo has on more than one occasion referred to the American public as being hypocritical. This is because the public refers to the immigrants as ‘them’ yet these same immigrants are responsible for putting food on their table. The public, in this case, uses the third person pronoun to paint the immigrants as evil people. The reality is that the immigrants are the once who were lied to by the American agribusiness industry. They are promised good working conditions only to be paid low wages. Ironically, Rodriguez also refers to the South American immigrants using the third person pronoun ‘them’. The reason for this is that Rodriguez is also an American. He was born in San Antonio, Texas and he lives in Keene, New Hampshire (Flores 5...