Pratt: Arts of the Contact Zone

This article was very confusing at first, but after re-reading it, I think I may have somewhat sorted out what Pratt was trying to get at.

Culture and communication go hand in hand. Language is an essential part to create a community and to express one's feelings, thoughts, and ideas. Language doesn't necessairly need to be words, it could be pictures or even facial expressions. Every day people use language in order to speak with their friends, professors, or to write a paper, but most everyone also takes this phenomenon for granted. Communication, let alone the fact that there are languages in which millions of people use, is thought of as commonplace. Thousands of languages have been created, some no longer in use, but so many others used everyday around the world, and all in an effort to be able to get a point across or to share an idea with another person. It is truly an incredible thing once you give it more thought. Without any form of communication, where would our world be today? Many instances and progressions throughout history would probably never have come about. Then again, we probably wouldn't be in the classroom today if language wasn't created and manufactured to suit the needs of human beings.

I think that Mary Louise Pratt really hit the point that culture is extraordinary, but it wouldn't mean anything, nor would it probably exist, if we didn't have some way of sharing our beliefs, feelings, and ideas to one another. Human existence and prosperity lies in the hands of the ability to communicate with a common language within a group of people.