Structuring an Argumentative Essay on Language and Identity
You are writing an argumentative essay in Bengali for school assessment on the prompt: "আঞ্চলিক ভাষা সংরক্ষণ করা উচিত" (Regional languages should be preserved). You have 500 words and 50 minutes. Your notes contain: a statistic that several regional languages have fewer than 10,000 speakers; a personal anecdote about your grandmother speaking a regional dialect; a counter-argument that standard Bengali unifies the nation; and a quotation from a linguist about language loss. In your first draft you spend 200 words on the anecdote, present the counter-argument only in the final sentence, and conclude with "তাই আমাদের উচিত আঞ্চলিক ভাষা সংরক্ষণ করা" without linking back to your evidence.
1. Diagnose the structural problems in the draft and propose a revised plan with word allocations.
Read the worked answer
Problems:
- Proportion. The anecdote takes 200 of 500 words (40%) but is illustrative, not evidential. It crowds out the statistic and the linguist's quotation, which are the strongest supports.
- Counter-argument placement. Introducing the counter-argument only in the final sentence means it is never answered; the essay asserts rather than argues. An argumentative essay must engage the opposing view and rebut it.
- Conclusion. "তাই আমাদের উচিত..." restates the thesis without tying back to the evidence, so the essay ends with assertion rather than reasoned closure.
Revised plan (500 words):
- Introduction with thesis: 60 words.
- Argument 1: statistic on endangered regional languages + explanation of why loss matters: 120 words.
- Argument 2: linguist's quotation, interpreted and linked to the thesis: 100 words.
- Counter-argument (standard Bengali unifies the nation) stated fairly: 70 words.
- Rebuttal (unity and diversity are compatible; preservation does not require abandoning standard Bengali): 90 words.
- Conclusion returning to the statistic and quotation: 60 words. The anecdote can be compressed to one sentence within the introduction or argument 1.
2. Write the rebuttal paragraph in Bengali (about 90 words) that answers the counter-argument fairly without caricaturing it.
Read the worked answer
প্রতিপক্ষের যুক্তি হলো, একক প্রমিত বাংলা জাতীয় ঐক্যের ভিত্তি; আঞ্চলিক ভাষার প্রসার সেই ঐক্য দুর্বল করতে পারে। এই আশঙ্কা সম্পূর্ণ ভিত্তিহীন নয়, কারণ ভাষাগত বিভাজনকে কখনও কখনও রাজনৈতিকভাবে ব্যবহার করা হয়েছে। তবে সংরক্ষণ মানে প্রমিত বাংলাকে প্রতিস্থাপন করা নয়; দুটি ভাষা পাশাপাশি বেঁচে থাকতে পারে। যে শিশু পরিবারে আঞ্চলিক ভাষায় কথা বলে এবং বিদ্যালয়ে প্রমিত বাংলা শেখে, সে উভয় ভাষাতেই দক্ষ হয়ে ওঠে। বরং আঞ্চলিক ভাষা হারালে আমরা ইতিহাস ও লোকসাহিত্যের এক অমূল্য ভান্ডার হারাব, যা জাতীয় ঐক্যকে দুর্বল করে না, সমৃদ্ধ করে।
(Approximate rendering: The opponent argues that a single standard Bengali is the basis of national unity and that promoting regional languages may weaken it. This fear is not entirely baseless, since linguistic divisions have sometimes been exploited politically. But preservation does not mean replacing standard Bengali; the two can coexist. A child who speaks a regional language at home and learns standard Bengali at school becomes competent in both. Rather, losing regional languages would cost us a priceless store of history and folk literature, which enriches rather than weakens national unity.)
The paragraph states the counter-argument in its strongest form, concedes its partial validity, then rebuts by distinguishing preservation from replacement and by reframing the effect on unity.