Being bilingual always made my life differ as if I lived two lives, speaking Spanish at home and English everywhere outside of home. On the daily basis at my house, my family speaks Spanish. When we communicate we speak very fast, at times we can not even understand one another. After this occurs we all burst out in laughter super loud, no boundaries are enforced in our lexicon. The enforcement changes when entering a different discourse community. Many words and phrases make up our lexicon. When any of us our in a hurry or someone else is in a hurry we say a las millas, meaning super fast. When we are out and we smell something very bad we use the word abombao. The word mira means look, my family uses this word for everything, to get our …show more content…
Most of the time at school my lexicon is in English, I speak Spanish all the time at home.At times it is hard for me to switch my languages up because in Spanish we speak so quickly. My quick Spanish speaking always sticks to me and when speaking English I can slur a lot because of the speed in my voice. Adjusting the speed of my voice based on which language I am speaking is what I have been focusing on when communicating. In Mere Rhetoric's "Kairos", compares to the switching of my languages by me making them work separately. The podcast mentioned a lot about development of slaves in the 19th century (Mere Rhetoric's). It stated the movements that were taken in order to have no one "re enslaved". When switching languages a lot differs in culture, my self body language, and my tone. Many changes occur when entering different discourse communities. Overall Kairos plays a huge factor in my everyday life when I am switching up my lexicon. Spanish and English are both equally important to me, being bilingual is very helpful when communicating because I can relate to more than one cultural community. At home Spanish is my native language, but I am still able to utilize my native tongue in my academic discourse community with foreign exchange students, or when translating to someone. English relates to my Spanish discourse community by speaking spanglish, which incorporates both English and Spanish. At many times incorporating both is
It is interesting for Lisa Kanae to use three different voices in her book, Sista Tongue. The structure of Sista Tongue is different from standard books as if to make her words flow and become active. Her message still holds truth in today’s society. In many homes, younger generations face the inadequacy of being unable to understand their mother tongues while their parents struggle with learning English. Code-switching is natural for bilingual people and those that speak to other sub-cultures. Lisa Kanae’s different voices are similar to
I came from Mexico when I was 4 years, and like many of us I did not know English. Little by little I became fluent until I now can dominate English. Many people come to this country for a better life, but once in this country, we notice how essential English is for our everyday life. Being bilingual can be very beneficial for anyone in this country. I may be fluent in English, but I still prefer speaking in the Spanish language. This may be because at home that is all we speak. Both my parents do not really know English much. It’s better for me to talk to them in Spanish. I can try to talk to them in English but there may be a few words they won’t
Coping with two different sides of you can be challenging especially in American society. By being bilingual you always have a small character inside of you telling you what to do and how to react. As being an immigrant myself, I agree on the importance of public language. Human beings have a natural instinct to be happy in socially involved activities. To communicate with your peers and have a mutual understanding is a great blessing. However, that doesn’t mean you disregard the importance of your own mother tongue that made you who you are and gave you a unique identity. Using myself as an example, I speak a tribal language that is full of rich culture and identity, signifying the story and history of our people. My father prefers my siblings and I do not speak any English at home and only speak Pashto. I try to go by his sayings because I believe that by living in a western society and going to English speaking schools, I will gradually assimilate into their community and will be able to communicate without difficulty. Contrary, by not speaking Pashto at home and with family, I will not only lose my language, but my intimacy to my unique culture and heritage. Therefore, I believe that you can use your mother language and public language together to only enhance your confidence in both
Most people who grow up with a foreign language spoken in there house grow up with an advantage in society. This advantage can only occur once the individual learning that foreign language also learns the dominant language spoken in that country. Once both of these languages are learned and mastered, the individual has now placed them se...
Throughout time the flexibility of different languages within the world today are always being tossed up in the air, if there’s disadvantages or advantages to being capable of more than one language. Although all individuals have there own opinions on being able to speak fluently with different languages, there isn’t any other way to see it besides it being a huge advantage; fully appreciating the beneficial chance to be bilingual or trilingual and sometimes even more. Communicating with more than a single voice will represent who one is and where they came from. Within two articles “Speaking in Tongues” written by Zadie Smith and “How to tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzalduas’s both demonstrate the different languages they encounter. Smith looses her chance in speaking from her voice being forced upon to change without resistance while Anzalduas’s aggressively puts up a battle to be able to keep her voice. The acceptance of varies languages isn’t in everyone category, however in time we should be more accepting and realize from articles like such that’s beneficial to learn and accept the difference languages of different cultures within the world today. Although there may be struggles upon learning the knowledge to something new, its nothing but an advantage to have with one throughout a lifetime!
When I finished reading a piece of ‘How to tame a wild tongue’, I went on a journey to recall if I had a similar situation. In the reading Anzaldua implies that her language has been alienated through constant heat from both sides (English and Spanish), through this quarrel emerged a new language that was neither English nor Spanish “but both” (Anzaldua, 77). The journey – proves Anzaldua’s point - recalled past events that clearly pointed that what I speak is neither English nor Spanish but a variation of both. This occurred to me when I would talk to friends, I would include words that were officially incorrect in English or Spanish, but they were a part of my culture. For instance, when I would speak to my friends, we would use certain
In my class, I have children who speak other languages at home, my goal is to include them and their language into our daily routine and this help teaches the other children to be open to the difference. I incorporate this into our classroom by hanging both language’s around our room, and go over the basic’s words during our group time for example, numbers, colors, shapes, basic sight words. The children’s whose first language maybe different will be excited to share with their friends what they know. I also find stories that are bilingual to use during our story time.
Translanguaging is a theory that encompasses and focuses on language practices of bilingual people (Celic & Seltzer, 2012). Celic and Seltzer (2012) state that translanguaging is a person’s ability and choice to utilize their home language and their second language as resources to make meaning of the things they encounter in every day life. Translanguaging is one of the theories that influence my theoretical framework of my curriculum. This theory is meant to challenge those myths and assumptions about monolingual instruction and bring the belief that monolingualism is the norm versus bilingual practices as being the norm (Celic & Seltzer, 2012). When a bilingual person is translanguaging they are using both their languages in a strategic manner, which is what sets this apart from code switching. The common underlying proficiency theory developed by Cummins (1991) suggests that the first and second language depend on each other and work together, therefore supporting the translanguaging theory. Cummins (1991) believes that if an ELL gets proper second language instruction, their first language skill will then transfer over when learning the second language. This theory is often challenged by monolingual views of second language acquisition, despite the fact that monolingual practices are not well supported by empirical evidence (Cummins, 2007). Translanguaging creates this idea of dynamic bilingualism. Seltzer (2014), describes dynamic
The English and Spanish language abrazándose like íntimos compadres. That is the perfect example of Spanglish. Spanglish is the representation of different cultures, different places, and lots of history within the fusion of two languages. It allows its speakers to quickly switch between two worlds and put their brains to the test. In a similar manner, every language is a door to a new set of rules, concepts, and benefits. When reading Felipe de Ortego y Gasca’s “Regarding Spanglish” after having read Boroditsky’s “How Does Our Language Shape the Way We Think?”, a single idea kept echoing inside my head. Reading “How Does Our Language Shape the Way We Think?” before reading “Regarding Spanglish” suggests that Spanglish provides linguistic
According to the estimates, bilinguals make up more than half of the global population (Grosjean, 2010). Bilingualism can be described as the ability to use two with certain degree of proficiency, whereas linguistic skills of monolinguals are restricted to just one language (for further definitions of bilingualism, see Moradi, 2014). Being bilingual means that both languages are always active to some degree, even in contexts that require just one of the languages. The ability to manage attention to two languages the entire time requires higher involvement of the non-linguistic executive control system (Abutalebi & Green, 2007; Bialystok, Craik, & Luk, 2012). Numerous behavioural studies have demonstrated a beneficial effect of bilingualism
Understanding more than one language has positive effects on the brain’s ability to think. In comparison to multilingual individuals, monolingual English speakers are at a considerable disadvantage when it comes to learning, cultural awareness, and effectiveness in global affairs.
In various societies, people use several different languages in conversations between their friends, family and peers. Especially in Singapore, it is not an unfamiliar phenomenon to hear two or more bilingual speakers speaking and code switching between the language English and Chinese, English and Malay, English and Tamil or even Standard English and Singaporean English to each other in a natural and effortless manner. In this line, I have mechanistically relate speech varieties with “codes” and despite having a vast variety of definitions for code switching to choose from; I have decided to use Heller’s definition. Heller (1988) defines code switching as the alternating between two or more languages in a single sentence or conversation. During this phenomenon, it is common for individuals to fluently use more than one language in a course of a single communication episode. When this happens, bilinguals are not coached in how to code switch, but instead, they rely on unconscious linguistic understanding in differentiating between what are tolerable and intolerable code switching usages. According to Auer (1989), factors such as cultural interaction, intercultural marriage, education, and colonization are some influences for code switching. Moreover, speakers may choose to alternate from one code to another, either to distinguish oneself, to show commonality with a social group, to discuss a certain topic, join in social happenstances, to impress and influence the audience or to express feelings and affections (Crystal, 1987). However, there has been a misconception in many people’s perception, that “code switching is bad”, “code switching creates confusion” and that “code switching will result in a language deficit where individ...
In my case, I speak three languages, but this time I am going to focus on the ones that I am in touch with most of the time. Spanish is my mother language and my second language is English, consequently, I am a bilingual person for all people who does not know what is being bilingual. According to Myers (2006), being bilingual is not only the ability of understanding a language, but learning how to produce it and also, deciding where you can use a certain way of language depending on the context you are. This is the real bilingual I am.
Today we live in a world where a matric certificate is no longer enough to achieve success. We live in a society where cultural and ethnic diversity are more frequent than ever before. One thing that has become increasingly relevant in today’s society is Bilingualism. In Africa we are fortunate to have many languages surrounding us, however, in the educational system we need to involve bilingualism so that all individuals can benefit from education. In this essay the discussion of whether bilingualism is beneficial or not in an educational system will be discussed.
Bilingualism The English language has grown to be the world’s most significant language and its increase to the status of globally spoken language must rank as one of the most significant facts in the educational times gone by of the twentieth century world. It is conceivably suitable, as the new millennium comes closer, that we ought to pause to reproduce on how English reached this point, what might take place next, and what it all means, both for those who converse English and for the large proportion of the world's inhabitants who do not. Uniformly, we need to think the insinuations of these changes on our own position as language education professionals. David Crystal's book, English as a Global Language, (Crystal, 1997) aimed to point out that “English became the world language not because of any intrinsic linguistic qualities, but because at significant moments in history it happened to be 'in the right place at the right time'”. "The Future of English?" (Graddol, 1997) suggests that “English is at a turning point in its development as an international language: it has become a global language at a time when the world itself is undergoing rapid change. Indeed, English is very much a part of the process of transformation, which is creating a more closely interconnected world in which people and machines talk easily to each other across vast spaces.” Reviewing Barbara Mayor and David Graddol, evident is the fact that there are two key indicators of this changeover point in the progress of English. First, the number of people speakers using English as a second language will rapidly outnumber those who articulate it as a first language. Secondly, it is obvious that added people learning English as a foreign language do so in ...