8. Content: Word Choice, Framing, and Meaning

I am an immigrant to the United States. I arrived as a very young child and spoke no English. Because my mother also spoke almost no English, we spoke our native language, Portuguese, at home. When I was six, just as I was beginning to get the hang of English, we returned to Brazil for a while. When we came back, I had forgotten all of it. Just in time to start school. And I struggled to master English over the next ten years. It was a rocky journey.

When I was about 10, my mother took me to see a movie that has stayed with me ever since. Casablanca, starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman, is, among other things, a movie about words. It has some of the most memorable lines in the history of cinema. ...

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