linguistic autobiography assignment

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Linguistic Autobiography

Introduction to language (lcd 101), queens college cuny.

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Luz Barales December 4, 2018 Professor Tapia

English and Spanish are both languages that I natively use to interact with others within my community and school. They are also the languages that are predominately spoken and heard in my household. My parents are not native speakers of English, but they accumulated most of their knowledge of the English language through interacting with other Spanish speakers in the community that were fluent in English as well as listening to those who spoke English at their place of employment. Spanish and English are languages that I can speak and read fluently in without hesitation but, writing in Spanish took some adjusting to. My mother has taught me and my siblings how to speak and converse in Spanish at home to prepare us for the real world, she had always told us, “Debes hablar Español, no avergonzarte. Es una gran oportunidad para trabajos también.” Essentially, she wanted us to understand that Spanish was not a setback but an advantage. Me and my four siblings were first taught how to write and say the numbers and alphabet in Spanish. I was not exactly taught the writing structure or grammar in Spanish at home, I only properly learned these rules during my junior and senior year of high school through my A Spanish course. When we were younger our mother would make us watch children television shows in English which is where we learned most of our English. The media played a huge role in my Spanish development as well, I would watch news reports in Spanish to make sure I was able to understand the information being discussed and widen my lexicon as well.

English is a language that I only converse in with my siblings. When we are discussing school or things that we are interested in we discuss them in English. There are instances in which we can’t properly express something completely in English or Spanish, so we use Spanglish to say things like, “Dónde esta the blue shirt?” or “That juego is muy aburrido”. I never used Spanglish when I lived in Georgia. I lived in a very suburban area with a predominately white community, so I was never exposed to any variety of Spanglish or Spanish. I personally find jokes and disses more amusing and effectively executed when expressed in Spanish so when joking around with my family I only express the jokes in Spanish. My parents don’t usually communicate with us in English, they find it difficult to express themselves through it, so they mostly speak to us in Spanish. This “only Spanish” implementation method has effectively been able to preserve the Spanish language within our household for now. My younger sister often refuses to have conversations in Spanish and prefers to use English. This is due to her lack of exposure to the Spanish language in her predominant Asian school community, which is where she spends most of her time. She is the one that has a more difficult time understanding our conversations in Spanish. When it comes to arguing I find myself being able to express my anger and discontentment in Spanish. The lexicon and change in tone when using Spanish make me sounds more serious, “Callate la boca!”. English is a bit more lenient sounding and doesn’t make quite the impact, “Shut your mouth”. In order to make it more effective you must raise your voice. This division of expression between Spanish and English is evident. In Spanish there is more “flavor’ into every word that is being said making the conversation more effective and intriguing.

The individual I interviewed is Sara a fellow classmate. Sara shared that her household predominately interacts in English since her parents are second generation Americans. Even

significantly by my parents. I often use the lexicon that is predominately used by Central Americans (since my parents are Guatemalan), such as, “ustedes” to address the second person plural and to address people informally I would use “vos”. This was viewed as normal and acceptable to me until I actually took the A Spanish course in high school. It took some adjustment, but now I can code switch my lexicon depending who I am with or where I am. Similarly, Sara’s home experience with the moderate use of Hebrew with a lack of an Israeli accent, which she viewed as not an issue because she normalized it through her parent’s way of speaking Hebrew, which also lacked an accent. When she finally went to Hebrew school she realized that there was more to Hebrew than just speaking it, the accent played a huge role in whether you are speaking it “properly” or not. Both of us were given the opportunity to educate ourselves formally on our heritage languages. We were both able to conclude that what we are taught at home is just a fraction of our understanding of our heritage language, there is more variance and interpretations to the way we use our language. Another conclusion made through this interview and paper was the division of the roles of our heritage languages.

Language is critical in an individual’s life because it allows you to communicate with others and unite with larger communities through this language commonality. Language is important in one’s identity because language is “malleable” you can manipulate the many aspects of language such as phonology, phonetics, lexicon and etc. to present yourself the way you want others to perceive you. Language is also an oral representation of who you are and where you come from.

• Multiple Choice

Course : Introduction To Language (LCD 101)

University : queens college cuny.

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