English Benchmark Two: Language

     Language is how we communicate with one another. It’s how we show respect for those that we communicate with, and how we talk. Our language is made up of our dialect and accent. Our dialect and accents are influenced by our surrounding beings, by how people in the media speak. We all have accents, and talk in some sort of way influenced by our peers or role models.

  It was the first day of school, and I wasn’t nervous or jittery with excitement – I was exhausted due to only getting a few ours of sleep the night before, but even though I only got a few hours of sleep, I was still out to enjoy my day, I wasn’t going to let tiredness be in the way of that.

     I arrived to my Advisory for the first period of the day. The walls were completely stripped of all of the random assortments of math posters and various other posters. The walls were painted with a sky blue. The place would have looked so much better, if there were windows in the room. I sat with faces that I haven’t seen in a while. I sat with Tyler and Alex and the rest of our advisory slowly, yet surely came into the room.  Shortly, a favorite of different dialects, word choice, and people were within the room. You could easily walk from one end of the room and here more sophisticated and quiet conversation, or go to the other side of the room and here a variety of shortened words and loudness. I chose to seclude myself between these two areas, where I could easily indulge in a conversation between either group of speakers. Tyreé came in the room and we greeted each other, “Yo man, I haven’t seen you in forever.” I said to him.  We did the “Shake hand hug thing.” and sat down.  Minutes passed, and Garvey and Sanchez walked in to the room. Immediately how I talked changed. My voice become more upbeat and much more louder and powerful. I walked up to Ms. Garvey and said, “Hey, Ms. Garvey! How was your summer?” She turned around to me to give me her undivided attention, “Hello, Mr. Ferry! My summer was great! I got a lot of training in and traveled. How about you?”

“My summer was pretty good. I got a lot of running in, volunteered, and got around the city abit. It was pretty sweet overall.“  I replied.  “That’s good.” She said with a smile. “Now, go find a place to sit while me and Mr. Sanchez read the advisory memos.”

   I took my seat away from the other students, because I enjoy being by myself in advisory, so I don’t get involved in a conversation. It’s not that I’m anti-social, but it’s because my advisory is very loud, and I’d prefer not to contribute to that noise. My advisory came a bit close, just leaving a few corner desk out of the way. I decided I’d sit at one of  those corner desk.  I sat there and faced where the Promethean board was, which was where Sanchez and Garvey were sitting in front of. I patiently awaited for them to speak, so I could find out my schedule and other information.

   Conversation was still be conducted on both sides of me by my peers. It wasn’t anything interesting, really.  On one side of the room I heard more thought out sentences like, “Haha, you’re absolutely right!” While on the other side I heard sentences like, “Haha, you so right!”  Their were such various uses or words and dialects, it was quite pleasant to hear, well in some cases it was. I could have gone without the slang, or improper English, but hey, who am I to judge one’s language of choice?

   We were just about to get rolling with the Advisory memo, when suddenly, Sanchez was interrupted by one of my peers. “Ahahaha, Sanchez you think you so funni!” It was in such a rude, and raised voice, which I found completely terrible. She used improper English when talking to a teacher, and showed no respect in her tone.

   How one speaks to someone else is a form of respect. Language is a tool of communication, and an indicator of that person’s heritage, intelligences, and overall just how polite they are. The way the student spoke to Sanchez just displayed them as rude, uneducated, and simply disrespectful. When you speak to someone, you either create a world of possible respect and a good relationship, or you create disrespect and a horrid relationship. How you project your voice use your words, and your accent all play a role in how others see you. You could speak with a more Philadelphian accent, and get respect from certain groups of people, or speak more Black English, and get respect from people who use that language.

   The language you use, is how one will be looked at, judged and will create a very large part of the first impression, or just reestablishing who you are with a group of people, like what happened here. She established that she was ignorant of the teacher with her word choice, and tone to the man. While I on the other hand established my respect for Ms. Garvey by my speaking toward her.

     A voice is a very powerful thing. It speaks languages, whether old, ancient, new, or new-age, it help creates a powerful instrument, some are nicer to hear then others, and some prefer some over others, but think of them as instruments. Some prefer it well played and very long notes (words,) if you will, while others prefer much shorter notes (words.) Each voice has a different sound, accent, and dialect, which gives it’s own uniqueness.