AC writing task- 10-06-20

Two graphs give different information related to eight professional groups. The bar chart indicates the number of weekly work hours done by the groups while the pie graph illustrates the percentages of people suffering from stress related illness in the different professions given.

In general, business men work the longest among the eight groups while the smallest amount of time is normally worked by lecturers. According to the pie chart, lecturers struggle the most with work-related stress. Although their average working hours is smaller than any other group in the chart, lecturers suffer from the highest level of stress caused by their job.

The bar graph shows that business men and movie producers work the most at about 70 hours and 62 hours per week respectively. At the opposite end of the scale, lecturers work only around 25 hours. Working hours of other professionals varied with doctors, writers, programmers, lawyers and chefs working approximately 52, 46, 35 and 32 hours per week in the name ordered.

The pie graph shows that the professional who has the highest incidence of stress related illnesses is lecturers at 25%. Movie producers and doctors also have high rates with 18% and 15% each. The figures for business men, lawyers, chefs and writers can be grouped into percentages between 11 and 8%. The lowest rate of stress illness is attributed to programmers at only 5%, which is only a fifth the figure for lecturers.

As the world becomes more integrated, the need for common means of communication is becoming more pressing. Inevitably, speakers of minority languages have been under pressure to speak the languages of more dominant groups, both locally and globally. Some people argue that there is nothing that can or should be done to stop this process. I would suggest that the issue merits more careful consideration.

It is true as the balance of power among group of people throughout history has shifted, languages have arisen, changed, and died out. Even once widely-spoken languages, such as Latin, have disappeared. To some extent, therefore, this process may be inevitable. However, there are examples of communities that have managed to preserve and even revive languages under threat. Irish and Scots Gaelic, for example, have been preserved by government policy on education and broadcast media.

There are, indeed, several benefits to preserving minority languages. Retaining the language of a community often means that other forms of culture are maintained: songs, literature and local traditions. These all contribute to the richness and variety of human culture. Moreover, language helps communities to remain cohesive and to have a strong sense of identity. This can help people to be strong in adversity. Where this sense of identity and cohesion has been lost, for example among many indigenous communities in North America, problems can follow: low self-esteem, lack of confidence and loss of initiative.

In short, it is possible and in many cases, desirable, to make the effort to preserve minority languages. This can have benefits both for the minority speech community and for society as a whole in terms of cultural richness.