Whilst we all share one or more common languages it is our background, culture and life experiences that mold us and the way we speak into the person we are today, making each individual unique and differentiating our idiolects which is a persons distinctive use of language.
As a child, though I was born in Spain, I grew up in London with English as my first language whilst my mother conversed with me in Spanish which later on emerged as a second language. I was surrounded by native speakers, I attended school and as soon as I could talk, I unconsciously began to mirror and converge to the sociolect of my surrounding people in order to learn. As I grew older I found the influence upon my idiolect to be far greater, from the media, friends and family, to the foreign shop keeper I would have banter with after school. I found myself converging and code-switching on a more regular basis in order to fit in with my peers and the environment I was in.
Years later, I moved to Spain where I developed my Spanish language and became fluent. Following 6 years of living there I moved back to North London, which was a significantly challenging transitioning period for me, which I had found completely and utterly distressing. I was bullied and mocked due to my incompetent level of English which I had lost throughout my
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Most commonly I tend to use language features such as Elision, slang, pragmatics and paralinguistic features such as, ‘wanna’, ‘ganna’, ‘wicked’, ‘bit’s ’n bobs’, ‘whatever’, ‘oooh, those chips look nice’, hand gestures and
Language is an important part of who we are. It influences the way we think and behave on a great scale. However, sometimes it is forced upon us to go in different directions just so we can physically and mentally feel as if we belong to the society in which we live in. Just as we see in Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Richard Rodriguez’s “A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, both authors faced some challenges along the way by coping with two different languages, while still trying to achieve the social position which they desired.
Language is truly part of our identity: our languages shape who we are. That is why we always have to be tolerant and comprehensive with others’ accents, typical phrases, or grammatical errors. Writers that really make an impact when referring to language and identity are Gloria Anzaldua and Amy Tan, with their readings “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” and “Mother Tongue” respectively. These two writers, with completely different backgrounds, shared their views about how language and identity are intertwined.
Language plays a huge role in everyday life- connotation, denotation, etymology, idioms- all of these things come into play. We as English-speakers sometimes have trouble understanding certain expressions or accents- imagine the Price family trying to decipher French and Kilangan.
Most of us adjust the way we speak for the person or people we’re speaking to. This can be as subtle as speaking slowly for a child, or as obvious as switching to another language entirely. Depending on our situation or surroundings, we may change the way we express ourselves. The term for this is code-switching. Code switching is the practice of shifting between different languages or different ways of speaking or expressing yourself in a conversation with someone. Code-switching occurs when we begin “hop-scotching” between different cultural and linguistic spaces, moving between different parts of our own identities. It usually occurs within a single interaction. Once you become aware of
Language can be a difficult task to foreigners who have already achieved a first language. In “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, “Mute in an English-only World” by Chang-Rae Lee, and “Leave your Name at the Border” by Manuel Munoz, the authors explain how people are judged by their “broken language”, and their lack of understanding the English language. Tan, Lee, and Munoz admits that by not being fluent in English, it was hard to adjust to the new world that they lived in. The authors explained that throughout their life-time, English was very important to them; they also felt embarrassed in front of others who could not understand what they were saying. By having an accent in America can be a burden on individuals whether it is due to a feeling of being unwelcomed or alienated by others.
The first and second year after moving from China to the United States, I was afraid to talk to strangers because my English was not very well. I had to depend on my husband for dealing with my personal business, such as making a doctor’s appointment, calling to the bank, or questioning to DMV officers. Douglass says, “being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart” (62). For myself, being a dependent and helpless adult is a shame. Moreover, I lacked of extra money to go to school to improve my English. Thus, I stayed home all the time to avoid embarrassment of talking to strangers. After a while, I realized that improving English speaking skills are the essential to gain my self-confidence. So, I spent time to read various articles on the internet and watched English dialogues’ videos on YouTube. As a non-English speaking immigrant living in the U.S., I inevitably encountered a series of difficulties to integrate myself into a new
For more than 300 years, immigrants from every corner of the globe have settled in America, creating the most diverse and heterogeneous nation on Earth. Though immigrants have given much to the country, their process of changing from their homeland to the new land has never been easy. To immigrate does not only mean to come and live in a country after leaving your own country, but it also means to deal with many new and unfamiliar situations, social backgrounds, cultures, and mainly with the acquisition and master of a new language. This often causes mixed emotions, frustration, awkward feelings, and other conflicts. In Richard Rodriguez’s essay “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, the author describes the social, cultural and linguistic difficulties encountered in America as he attempts to assimilate to the American culture. Richard Rodriguez by committing himself to speaking English, he lost his cultural ties, family background and ethnic heritage.
America is home for thousands of cultures and languages. Most people can speak at least two different languages either because of the environment and family or simply by taking another world language class in school. One of the advantages with knowing more than one language is that code-switching becomes a part of you and it happens naturally. In “‘ I Don’t ‘Code-Switch’ to Hide my Identity. I ‘Code-Switch’ to celebrate It,”’ Vaidehi Mujumdar states that code-switching is enriching and exciting based on her personal experience. In “learning How to Code-Switching: Humbling, But Necessary,” Eric Deggans claims that code-switching is valuable and necessary in everyday lifestyle and it is lot more than just being about cultural differences. If one were to put Deggans and
It was challenging for me to adapt the language as well as the culture. When I started high school. It was entirely different from the school back home. There was only one Ethiopian out of the school. It took me sometimes to know and be more familiar with the school like Jessica Hernandez, who published her story on Huffington Post magazine company.The title of her story was called “Jessica is An Immigrant.” She talked about her experience when she came to the United States. She started elementary school in the U.S. On the first day of school; she asked the teacher “shoe”. Everyone was laughing at her because she was trying to say “Tissue”(1). That was a turning point for Jessica. She started to study English to improve her English. After a couple of years, she became fluent in English. Like Jessica, I was struggling to improve my English after I came to the U.S, despite the fact that most of my teachers in Ethiopia were from England. It was completely new to me, especially the accent. Hence, to communicate with others, I watched a lot of American Movies and made companions in my neighborhood whose first language are English. Over time, I have been showing improvement. These helped me a lot to cross language border.
I came to join my parents four years after they migrated. I knew starting school would be a challenge, so my parents got me a personal tutor to help me boost up my English speaking and writing. I was able to speak fluent English, even though I did not understand most of the things that were said to me. By the time I reached secondary school I had already adapted the British accent.
Although some people try to not judge other based on their language choices or dialect it is very instinctive for most to do so. As soon as someone begins to speak to you,without even thinking, some of the first things you realize are the dialect, tone of voice and word choice of the speaker. I agree with the statement from the African-American writer James Baldwin where he states that language is the most vivid and crucial keys to identity.
Dialect, I believe can be a prime example to illustrate social imagination, since it varies
As a child, I remembered walking hand in hand with my parents through my journey to learn. They started with simple Gujarati. When I entered school, I entered a new environment, where English seemed to be the only language used. What extraordinary adventures I faced with articulating vowels, spelling small words from cow to Emancipation Proclamation through my years. I give all my thanks to being bilingual. In my middle school years, we began learning Spanish. I found myself fitting in quickly, due to how accents and pace of Spanish was quite similar to the pace I used Gujarati. I was soon able to recognize points of grammar, reasons for grammar, and sentence
My family emigrated from the Dominican Republic when I was two years old. At the time, none of us spoke any fluent English. Due to their limited education,
Language is typically viewed as the verbal communication between people; words used with convention and within structure. This definition is frequently extended to the expression of external features and communication of thoughts developed both independently of their verbalizations and accompanying them. One often overlooked aspect of language, however, is culture. The ways in which one’s native language personally relates to the rest of their role and position within a community, as well as how it relates to sub-groups within that community, changes how the language is perceived.