Language Autobiography
Basically, after reading this you’ll see a hint of my personality through language. If we were the same age, I would talk to you the same way I talk in the dialogues. You’ll see how I talk with friends, but not with family or elders because I could guess that everyone with respect speaks to elders the same way. I had a hard time choosing a scene to write about, and exactly which parts of my language to write about that are unique about me. Once I had it all figured out, it was easy just writing it because it’s me, I have the most experience and I know exactly how I speak. Doing this project made me realize a couple aspects about my language that I never really paid attention to. I also learned that your language determines where you fit in best.
Autobiography:
I was a kid born on April 27, 1996 and raised in Philadelphia, PA. Even though I was the only white guy in an urban environment, it was really easy to fit in. I never had a problem with it. Even though I was really white, me being Macedonian made me look Puerto Rican. My whole family looks either Puerto Rican or Mexican. We never knew until every time we went out to eat the waiter would speak to us in Spanish and we would have to tell them we don’t know Spanish.
As I grew up, I spoke 2 languages, English and Albanian. I spoke both at home and at school. In kindergarten, I spoke Albanian to the teacher and she never understood me so my parents had to start speaking English to me all the time to forget Albanian just until I grew up a little older.
“I believed that her English reflected the quality of what she had to say.” (Mother Tongue, page 2) In a way, different people already guess if what the person has to say is important or not. For example, the way I talk with my friends is different than how I talk to my family and how I speak formally. The result of me living in an urban environment affected the different languages I speak. It’s all the same words, but depending on whom I’m talking to, I have limitations for the choices of wording. Around my friends, I have no limitations; I can speak freely; curse a little, use slang, or just speak the language everyone else is speaking, that’s how I code-switch I listen to the language people are talking first then I adapt to it. I would use words like “was good?” to ask “how are you?” or “how’s it going?” or “jawn” to replace the actual thing I’m talking about to save time having to think about what its name is and more on describing it so the person I’m talking to knows what I’m talking about. Basically I can say what whatever I want. Whenever I speak like this, almost anything I say is irrelevant, but it carries a social conversation. Talking to family has limitations; I speak freely, but I don’t curse, or use slang. “Was good” would turn to “hey” or “hi” and I would cut out any language that can get me grounded with my rights taken away. Then when I talk to any other elders or people with power, I speak strictly Standard English and I watch what I say instead of speaking freely to show the quality behind my thoughts using big and meaningful words. Despite the limitations, there are advantages because as I choose the limitations for myself or show the respect I have for people, I gain more respect from the people around me as they see how I show them respect. Respect will always come in handy.
One way I speak with my friends is like when I meet them in the morning at SLA. As I walked into school, I scanned my ID to mark myself present and my day started. “8 O’CLOCK TIME TO GO UP!”, yelled Officer Byrd to get everyone to go to class. I listen to this as I walk in and have to fight the traffic of people walking towards the stairs which are in back of me. I walk over to my friends first because I still have 10 minutes before class starts and I want to wake up fully to begin my day. “WAS GUD BRANDEN?!”, I say in a hyper emotion as I offer a handshake starting from over my head to interlock palms and then pivot the body of our thumbs to switch into a formal handshake. Branden with his black glasses, tan jacket, baggy blue jeans, and grey Nike Air Jordan sneakers responds to my arrival with a hyped up, “REAL N****S!” Of course this response to my question didn’t make sense, but I just went with it and went on to all the rest of my friends giving handshakes and greeting them with, “Wassup yo” (another word we use to say “hey” or “hi” that makes us sound more masculine). They all responded with a regular “Wassup” back, except for Michael. Michael actually started a conversation.
“Wassup Mike?”“Nothin yo, you chillin?”
“Yeah, I’m chillin, you chillin?”
“Nho” Nodding side to side laughing softly.
“Why? Hehe”, laughing along
“I donno”, he’s still laughing but it dies down after a couple seconds.
“Haha! Wow” I remained silent from then because I couldn’t think of anything else to talk about. It was still the morning and I don’t usually have anything to talk about during that time.
I look around and see the Café almost empty and the clock is almost at 8:10. So I make my way upstairs along with everyone else to our first class.
“People tend to switch back to their original language when they’re under stress.” (American Tongues) This is true for many because I know when I get stressed or when I’m in certain situations I start to forget the language I’m speaking and switch to a language to let go of my feelings. People like me do this all the time, when we have a lot of work we tend to turn their Standard English into cursing and slang. I do this mostly when I get frustrated or angry.
I just got home from a long day of school. I go to my room, sit in my blue bean bag chair and I open my school MacBook and like always I go on Facebook before I start homework to check my notifications and other people’s statuses for about 3 minutes. I started noticing how the only statuses my friends post are about what relationships should be like. This friend posted, “LMS IF YU LOYAL,” (Like my status if you’re faithful). That friend posted something similar, it just keeps going on. After a couple minutes I go on Tumblr for a laugh before I start my homework. This time I didn’t see anything except photography of scenery like beaches or pictures of celebrities with a meaningful quote. I finally reach my senses to start homework and go on Moodle to see what’s due. I look at the assignments with a forceful sigh as I continue down the long list and then look at the little time I have to finish it. Then to top off my stress, 3 of my friends IM me on iChat simultaneously. Kenny says, “Yo u finishd the jawn?” “Naa I dnt kno where to start with all this f*****n b******s homework!” I replied seeing red. “LMAO me 2 yo” “Yo imma talk to u later man f*ck this sh*t.” “Ard yo.” I quit iChat and then started my homework hastily because I only had 2 hours until bed time.
Everybody speaks different languages, even when they don’t know it. In my life, I speak different kinds of English along with other languages, but English will always be my native language and slang will always be fluent to me. My language identity may seem complex to others, but it’s my identity, I’m used to it, I live by it and it’s a huge part of my personality.
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