How Language Determines Your Education

Q: How is our understanding of culture and society constructed through and by language?

A: In the novel, The Great Gatsby, people are defined and placed in different classes in society depending on how they speak and with how much intelligence in exemplified in their everyday speech. Language is one form of how to identify someones intelligence and how and where they were raised. Each character in the story is looked upon in society in his class partly because of the way people relate to each other and converse with those around him.

Based on the way words are spoken you are able to determine which part of the country or which country that specific person was raised and educated. People from different parts of the country have developed different forms of saying words and spellings as well. Education takes a big part in the way people speak to each other as well. People with a higher education will use more vocabulary and more proper English that someone with less education who will tend to use more slang words. The way people talk, speak to each other, and write are definite ways to be able to distinguish where someone was raised and was educated.