The Switch

I have a secret that’s easy to figure out, no it’s not money or anything you can touch but maybe this will help you figure it out. Every day the sunlight creeps in through my window shining almost directly on me. I manage to stay asleep that is until my cat comes in my room meowing and scratching on anything he can. I wake up and say

“Lester what you doin’ to bed, you crazy cat.”

He looks and says “MEOW.”

I giggled because it was the kind of a response you would expect from a cat. The look in his face says “hungry” at least until I start to put on my belt then he tries to play with the loose end. I get out of bed and see my sister and she says “Hi Jovan”

“Hey Nadya” I say

I see my mom and say,

“Good morning mom”

I get to school and say “Sup” to all my friends, or I might use a playful English accent and say “top o’ the mornin to ya,” but that’s just for fun. Did you guess what the secret was? If you said that I talk to my cat you are wrong, but I bet you do what I do too. I code switch I have multiple ways of speaking. A lot of people do. I code switch because my default speech pattern is a little unacceptable for professional conversations and a little too proper for a friendly talks without being judged.

I go through my day with many ways of speaking. They change depending on whom I’m talking to. I find it is useful if you know how to talk to certain people. I talk like your average African American with less slang in my speech, don’t know why maybe because I was raised that way. I say things like, “Sup,” and, “Ain’t” in my regular speech but you wont hear me talk like that at a job interview. Instead of, “Sup boss” you would hear, “Good morning Mr./Ms. (whatever their name is)” I know how to change my speech and it helps me fit into a new place. Through elementary and middle school I had to talk proper because I was in a “learning environment that encourages proper speech and literacy,” I already had those from preschool so those were no challenges for me. Once high school came into play it was a different environment. People weren’t in uniforms, and you hear a mix of languages and forms of speech all around you. I spoke proper for a while but somehow my speech changed and now when I give a greeting to a friend you hear, “Sup” instead of “Hi.”

Since then my language has been the same, but I can change it with a simple thought. My code switching is a major benefit for me. With my code switching I can do a lot of things that I like to do. You’d be amazed at what proper speech can do for you but don’t code switch so much that you lose your original speech. To quote Mike Rose’s I Just Wanna Be Average “Rely on your own good sense.” What this means to me is that code switching doesn’t require knowing another language, or keep using the same form of speech for a long time it just means know when to switch how you speak you can always switch back after. I like code switching its fun. And honestly I don’t even need to think when I do it. I know how to talk to certain people so I instinctively change the way I speak to show my respect to other people. I’ve done this for so long that in a sense I am a multilingual person because I talk in different ways to different people.

Code switching doesn’t take long to master. All you need to do is have common sense. Understanding when to speak properly is the most important part of code switching. You also don’t need to change your voice when you do. Mastering this skill is really easy and only takes about 2-3 days, so you can get used to it. It works because when we learn to talk we learn proper English, so over time as our language changes we will know the proper language and we can willingly revert back to it whenever we want. As stated before you don’t have to keep talking in another way; you can change right back and it will be fine. I do it all the time. After some time of reaffixing yourself with proper speech code switching is a breeze. That is my secret to getting things I want, along with the work that I do. But if you knew me you would have already known that. And with that I say “See Ya”