《55 Successful Harvard Law School Essays》精读系列 4：从方言研究到why law

律政留学

关于《55 Successful Harvard Law School Essays》精读系列的介绍可参考：《55 Successful Harvard Law School Essays》精读系列 1：移民申请者。Why law是很多申请者在他们的PS中都无法回避的一个部分，但是几乎通篇都是why law的PS并不算常见，写得出彩的就更是凤毛麟角了，让我们一起来看一看这篇PS和三位老师的评论。

PS

SARAH HYMAN

Famous for little except their smoked salmon, ponies, and the Fair Isle sweater pattern, the Shetland Islands are not the sort of place one often hears about. Perched in the North Sea halfway between Scotland and Norway, the Shetlands belong to Scotland thanks to a dowry from Christian I of Norway in 1468. Since the time of the Vikings, a Norse language had been spoken in Shetland; the handover to Scotland, however, spelled doom for this fringe Scandinavian tongue known as Norn. As Scots English became the language of government and church, there was little need for the increasingly dated and old-fashioned Norn. I never would have heard of Norn if it were not for a single line of a linguistics article I read during the spring of my junior year, in my private tutorial with Professor Jay Jasanoff. The article mentioned in passing that the current dialect of the Shetland Islands was in fact Scots English mixed with a heavy infusion of Norn, whose last speakers died in the eighteenth century. Intrigued by this exotic combination of English and Norse, I wondered about the current status of the Shetland dialect and how much of it consisted of remnants from the Norn era. Always up for an academic scavenger hunt, I began, with the approval and guidance of Professor Jasanoff, to scour Harvard’s libraries for all they held on the Shetlands and their strange amalgamation of Norse and Scots.

Especially intriguing to me and unusual for a spoken vernacular, the Shetland dialect, as I discovered, had been used without self-consciousness by generations of Shetlanders in both casual and formal social settings. The twentieth century, however, heralded the discovery of oil in the North Sea; consequently, both money and nonnative workers flowed into the Shetlands, the latter of which pushed the Shetland dialect along a path toward extinction.

Having decided to focus my thesis on the steps Shetlanders were taking to prevent the death of their dialect, I traveled to Shetland in May 2003 thanks to a grant from the Harvard College Research Program. While there, I found that Islanders no longer needed to speak their dialect since the predominance of “southmouthers” from mainland Britain meant that Shetland residents frequently spoke Standard British and Scots English. It also became clear to me that those who were trying to promote the Shetland dialect did so because of its emotional importance: no longer necessary for communication, the Shetland dialect with its Norn remnants was actually a living embodiment of [the Islanders’] Scandinavian heritage.

This notion that people can, through efforts to organize language promotion programs, prevent or slow down a dialect’s march toward the grave … fascinated me. For centuries languages had died with little fanfare as there was always a new dialect or language in use to take its place. As Professor Michael Barnes of the University College London wrote, “The concept of language as a badge of personal identity seems only to have become widespread in the nineteenth century, and … tended chiefly to excite those with the leisure to ponder such matters.” Thus, the fact that some Shetlanders were proposing laws to require Shetland dialect instruction in schools stands as evidence of a new awareness of language as an important element in identity: though Shetlanders had no trouble communicating in Standard English, there existed a sentimental motive to keep the Shetland dialect alive. By relying on the legal system to effect linguistic change, Shetlanders reveal a belief that nearly all facets of human behavior can be shaped through legal means—even requiring that a dying dialect be spoken in schools.

After assessing Shetland’s actual language promotion efforts through fieldwork, interviews, and library research, I concluded that the Shetland dialect, although emotionally valuable, was destined to die. Parents, who wanted their children to learn Standard English so they could attend university in mainland Britain, thought that teaching the dialect in schools was preposterous. Furthermore, although many Shetlanders were sad to see the dialect abandoned, most did not take any initiative to organize a dialect promotion program. Although Shetlanders indeed thought of their dialect as a badge of personal identity, it did not appear to be one worth protecting.

Upon my return from the Shetlands, Professor Jasanoff suggested that I compare the situation in the Shetlands to other European minority-language promotions. Thinking that rescuing a language through legal means was somewhat unnatural, I did not expect to find many successful linguistic promotion efforts. Surprisingly, citizens of both Luxembourg and the Faroe Islands successfully organized movements to promote their native languages. The Shetland dialect movement, I then realized, will likely fail because of the particular indifference among Shetlanders, not because it is inherently untenable to promote a language/dialect through legal channels.

What had started as a project investigating the fragile state of the Shetland dialect ended with my examination of how modern legal systems and motivated civic groups can alter language use. After having a small taste of how the law shapes its citizens, I plan to pursue a much more detailed examination of the written words that were crafted to dictate our behavior. After all, the law is the ultimate arena for linguistic study: nowhere else do words have as much power, and in no other context can an ambiguous sentence have more impact. I am looking forward to spending the next three years and beyond immersed in a world of these influential words.

点评

Bari M. Schwartz, The Harvard Crimson

From the opening sentence, Sarah’s application essay is striking with its unique anecdotes, successful demonstration of her passions and work ethic, and overall quality of writing. Rather than stating all of this as fact, Sarah allows them to appear organically through the essay’s construction. The writing is anything but boring, as Sarah takes the reader along on her academic and personal quest.

The essay’s structure, in which she first presents her interest in language and concludes by illustrating how law and language intersect, is a formula overused in law-school admissions essays. Regardless, the essay’s assets outweigh its formulaic structure, and her essay still stands out among the numerous other essays that attempt to do the same thing.

Sarah’s inclusion of a quote with a footnote may not have been the wisest choice—the essay temporarily breaks from its memoir style and risks becoming too academic and impersonal. Also, it just takes too long to read through the essay—Sarah could have been a little more judicious in deciding just how many anecdotes and facts to include. The reader has to plod through a lot of material to discover why she wants to attend law school, and specifically Harvard.

Sarah’s writing attests to her talent and her love for language, but her interest in law school is not obvious. The essay could just as well be an application for graduate study in linguistics. Further discussion of Sarah’s interest in studying law itself would better serve the purpose of the personal statement.

David Atnip, 律政留学外籍主管

Sarah Hyman effectively demonstrates her communication skills and passion for language. Beginning with her opening sentence Ms. Hyman pulls a reader into her story. Her writing is smooth, easy to follow. Sentence structure is well crafted. Vocabulary is clear. We believe her, we feel her enthusiasm, when she says she is “intrigued” – “Intrigued by this exotic combination of…”, “Especially intriguing to me...” With her PS Ms. Hyman confirms she’s a gifted communicator and storyteller.

The weakness of this PS is in the ending. The reader gains limited explanation of what comes next. “I plan to pursue a much more detailed examination of the written words…” After a long, vividly described journey, a reader understands how, and why, Ms. Hyman arrives at the gates of Harvard Law. With only a peek through the gate, a reader may be left wishing for a more complete story. If a novel chapter ending, this ending works well; there is a next chapter. No next chapter in a PS structure. The most effective PS leaves a reader satisfied with a feeling of completeness.

Aaron, 律政留学上海办公室负责人

上面两位老师都指出了这篇PS行文的优点和why law上的稍显牵强，这也是我不推荐大部分学生采用这种PS一样结构的原因。但是这篇PS为什么能够成为《55 Successful Harvard Law School Essays》中的一篇，其成功理由是值得我们学习和运用的：1. 作者反复强调了她的哈佛本科：哈佛的图书馆，哈佛的研究赞助项目和哈佛的教授，这对于申请哈佛JD是很有帮助的，不少美国法学院都对本校学生有偏好，所以你如果申请本校JD的话，这个技巧是可以借鉴的。2. 由于只提供了PS，没有申请者的其他材料，我只能从PS的蛛丝马迹中推测这个学生是语言学专业的，那么从她大段的研究中可以看出她对自己本专业的学习能力，这点很重要如果是一个外专业的学生纯粹从兴趣角度研究这个方言灭亡问题，就会显得重心偏移，而本专业的学习能力能够给法学院以信心，预测学生在法学院的学习能力，这点是非常重要的。简单来说美国法学院想招未来成功的法律人（一般来说是律师），而美国JD求职GPA非常重要，所以法学院招人时候喜欢招高GPA的学生，无论你实际GPA高低，在PS中进一步体现你的学习能力都是不会错的。

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