Chelsea's Language Autobiography

Living is something everyone does, and everyone lives on the same place, Earth, but why is it that we all live so different lives? What could be the independent variable in which we have complete control over, in this experiment of life? Language, the way people talk is key here, everyone starts the same on the same path, but from a early age, to early to really know what you are doing the way of speech puts you in a place. This place defines you and is the reason for where you stand in life, how life plays out and most importantly who is in your life to help mold it into what it becomes in the future. 

“Why you in my pocket, yo?”  My sister said with a raised tone in her voice. 

“What? Amber, what? What is that even suppose to mean?” my mom said getting kind of mad at this point in the conversation.  “Amber, your sister was just asking you a question, do not get all hyper and what is ‘why you in my pocket’ even suppose to mean? That doesn’t even sound nice.” Her voice was starting to sound concerned about the language my old sister was starting to use.  

This conversation with my sister followed a discussion of where her paycheck went. My sister, Amber had been complaining about how she was broke and had no money to go out nor to fill her pocket, even though the day before this she had gotten a thick pay check. To me this didn’t make sense and from hearing her complain multiple times it made me eager to confront her. When this simple question was asked by me her response was ‘Why you in my pocket’ which isn’t correct grammar or anything close to what my home family speaks like. This type of language reflects the friends that she surrounds herself with when she is out. This quote from her, plus her tone did not sound pleasant nor did it make me want to continue the conversation. It concerned us more and made both, my mother and I shake our heads with disappointment. Differences in language make people uncomfortable when it comes to conversations, mainly because they cannot understand the differences and the questioning factor of, is what I am saying going to be accepted by this person. Everyone no matter if they have a really strong and noticeable background everyone has different ways of talking with different people. When it comes to many different ways of speaking, that causes another challenge to arise. When to use certain languages and how to make sure it doesn’t slip in front of the wrong person. Which is what happened in this case. This phrases said by my sister probably would have been okay to say to her friends and she would of “won” the argument that she was in.  

“Today was the worst day ever, it sucked mom.” I said, as I walked in my front door and dropped my school bag to the ground. I tore my shoes off my feet and through them against the upstairs steps. Then took a deep breath and stared in the eyes of my mother with no energy. 

“Chelsea Ann, what kind of language is that?” my mom said ignoring the fact that I was in a not so good mood. 

“Mom, you don’t understand my day literary sucked, it was the worst” I said reassuring her that the language I had used was for a reason and was being used to describe the degree of how bad of a day it was. 

“I don’t care, I don’t want to hear that, it just isn’t a very nice word, you can use other words to describe your day. I don’t like that word, it just sounds fail.”

This is a normal conversation that happens with my mom. The content normally varies but the same things happen, I always get told about my use of words and how they do not sound nice. My mom works in a school and deals with little kids all day from the grades of K-3. So you can imagine her language being very PG rated. She is also quit proper when it comes to talking because she is use to kids picking up everything she says, so she is almost always formal. Another thing that really bothers me mother is the phrase “my bad.” It has just become one of her pet peeves, but I often use it because I have caught on to it from school and friends. 

“Oh, no not yet, my bad. I’ll do it when I’m done writing my English paper.” I said as I said on my computer at the dining room table, listening to music and checking my Facebook. 

“Chelsea, what is this my bad? You know I hate it, it sounds so ghetto.” She said in a tone that allowed me to know that she was appalled by my language.  

This situation above was not a serious issue with my mother so I said “my bad” like I normally would to anyone my age. Saying ‘I’m sorry’ is a lot more formal and I would use it after I did something wrong so naturally ‘my bad’ came out but to my mother’s ears it sounded ‘ghetto’ and trashy to say. 

In one of the short stories we read in class in-titled Tongue Tied, The mother of the main character had cut her daughter’s frenum, which is the thin piece of skin under a tongue connecting it to the jaw. The daughter is the only one with this piece cut and she wonders about it a lot, when she brought it up to her mother, her mother’s response to doing it was, “I cut it so that you would not be tongue-tied. Your tongue would be able to move in any language. You’ll be able to speak languages that are completely different from one another. You’ll be able to pronounce anything. Your frenum looked too tight to do those things, so I cut it.” (Kingston, p.164) In the long run the daughter had a lot of problems with her speech and had a speech impediment, but the reason her mom did it was because in her mind she thought it would help her daughter. She did not want anything to hold her daughter back, which leads me to believe my mom has similar goals to the main character mom. 

My mother did not cut my tongue or do anything so drastic to come close to that mother, but my mother does want the best for me. My mother does want my life to be amazing and she does want all three of her children to shine. So when she gets upset over our language I guess it makes sense. The little habits we pick up while with our friends, over time it turns into bad habits that could break us when it comes to job/college interviews. I know my mother does not want that, she is always pushing us forward to type proper when on Myspace or Facebook and to talk proper and normal. When it has come to job interviews she has me run things and stresses the importance to me, I know she wants the best and means well. Sometimes she comes off strong and from difference sense in my life I can see her anger and degree of her being upset, but I shouldn’t take it to personal because she is only trying to better me and push me to be the best. I can see that now and what really made this clear to me was the movie we learned in class about the different ways of speaking throughout the country. The movie has really made it clear that different dialects are looked down upon and looked at as being stupid. Listening to the people talk and hearing what parents of people in the film told them, about because of their accent they always need to be one step ahead and they are stuck proving that they are just as capable. I know my mother does not want me to fall under this category and I guess now I will not argue with her about my speech, I will just aim to do better because I know it’s my future that’s in the hands of my teenage speech.