Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[fw]

I�m interested in the meaning/use of the adjective �aspiring.�

I understand an �aspiring actor� is a person who wants to be an actor, which means that the person has not yet established him/herself as an actor.

(1)
How about an �aspiring young writer�? Is he/she someone who wants to be a writer, which means that the person has not yet established him/herself as a writer? Or has this young person already become more or less a writer who is ambitious?

Somehow I feel the latter is the case, but I�m not sure.

(2)
How about �aspiring medical student� in the following text?

Gazing back to our time, he details the lives of six people whose stories intersect with global warming in different ways: a dirt-poor, aspiring medical student from Nigeria's oil rich Niger Delta; a young business scion starting up India's third "low cost" airline; a pair of child refugees from the war in Iraq.( from 'The Age of Stupid': a wakeup call on climate )

The same way, I somehow feel this person is a medical student who is ambitious.


If I am correct in (1) and (2), then it follows there are two meanings/uses in the adjective �aspiring.� What do you think?

[redset]

You're absolutely right. Someone who is aspiring is striving for recognition or advancement - so an aspiring actor is someone who wants to establish herself as an actor (i.e. gaining recognition), or someone who wishes to become a better actor (advancement, possibly followed by recognition as a better actor!).

So it's usually ambiguous, in the case of aspiring young writer I'd assume the person is already a young writer simply because aspiring to become a 'young writer' (a writer who is specifically young) sounds a little strange.

With your second example it's hard to say - is it someone who wants to become a medical student, or someone who is already a medical student and who has big ambitions? Honestly, I'd probably assume it's someone who aspires to be a medical student but who is too poor to go to school, just from the way the sentence is framed - it sounds like the story is about how the region is rich in oil but most of its people are in crushing poverty, without the ability to escape from that (e.g. by attending medical school and becoming a doctor). However, it could just as easily be about how the person is a student in medical school, struggling to pay fees, or just talking about his experiences. I couldn't say for sure.