What's a Language, Anyway?

Speech is much like the fashions in clothing. Most of us dress according to "the style of the day." The shoes we wear and the shirts we put on usually what is considered "fashionable." If you choose to ignore the understood dress rules set by society, than your chances of being accepted become slim. In the same manner, when you ignore the majority's methods of speech, you become less accepted for it. If you buy a "cool" Tommy Hilfiger shirt, nobody looks at you any less for giving in to the standard instead of wearing a pink and orange poke-a-dotted shirt like you might have wanted to. You have not degraded yourself for conforming, but instead have opened opportunities for an audience. Just the same, when you change your manner of speech briefly to fit into another social group, you do not lose any part of you, but instead become more accepted.

Any particular peer group in today's society has its own unique and custom variants on a language. These groups are identified by their distinct speech, and whatever is thought of their language is thought of them. Gloria Anzaldua in "How to Tame a Wild Tongue" wrote "Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity--I am my language." (34) She says that when she was a child, her teachers would get on to her and tell her that she needed to speak English or go back to Mexico (29). In her situation, people judged her from what they knew of the language she spoke before giving her an opportunity to identify herself. She said that language was her identity because few people could look past her language and see her as being something other than what the stereotypes made her appear to be. Instances like Anzaldua's make me believe that people look at language and many othe...

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...moment you walk away from the situation that required you to change your language, you go right back to being the exact same person you were before. There is nothing lost and no one should look at you any less for doing so.

Let me say that I do not agree with stereotyping and preconceived notions, but I cannot ignore their existence either. To say that we should forget such thoughts and their effects is foolish. Society is filled with "conventional" methods of speech and to find an audience in society means working with these methods and perhaps shedding your more comfortable way of talking . You have no obligation to change, conform, and assimilate to the majority if you don't mind having your ideas forgotten and being remembered only for your clumsy method of speech. But if you are like the most people, you will find that society is offering a fair trade.