Language And My Language: The Importance Of Language

The Words We Speak Language is used to communicate in our daily lives and routines. Language helps people write, speak, read, and actively communicate with one another. Language also tends to build community; with that we gain a sense of belonging within others around us. Through language we can relate with other people and fit in with our personal experiences. The importance of language allows us to interact with all other parts of the world in an effective way. I love the language I speak, I wouldn’t change it for anything, it is part of who I am, it is part of my identity. As we find ourselves surrounded by many diverse people we come to the realization that we need words to communicate. Language helps us express how we feel, explaining

I grew up in a Spanish community/ neighborhood all my life, leading to my influence into Spanglish dialect. In “Ey, watcha! The linguistics of the East LA accent”, by Patt Morrison I read, “Dialects and ways of speaking are about our identity. They’re joy, they’re the way we express our connection to the people in our community.”. I associated myself with people similar to me, my friends all spoke mostly Spanish instead of English. My Spanglish was not only being used at home but also, at school and all my daily routines. With this being said I grew into the habit of speaking Spanish all the time, often times not even realizing that I was speaking Spanglish. I found myself talking to other people in Spanish, failing to pay attention to whether or not they knew or spoke Spanish. While reading “Ey, watcha! The linguistics of the East LA accent”, by Patt Morrison, he states, “Some people that speak with an accent, they use a lot of slang”. This is what I found myself doing most of the time while hanging out with my friends. I feel this is also why my dialect is part of my identity and connection to my

Sometimes others can use language to judge life experiences and situations as they did in A.W.B., and as it has happened to me. My culture has not been entirely accepted by society, most of us with Mexican names and accents are often times misjudged. Right off the bat when people hear how I speak they assume I’m Mexican and with the Mexican background comes a lot of stereotypes. In “Ey, watcha! The linguistics of the East LA accent”, by Patt Morrison, I read “With the accent comes a stereotype; many associate the East L.A. accent with Hispanic gang member, cholos.”. A few times while growing up, others associated me with group of Mexicans known as cholos, gangsters, and immigrants. Those people never bothered to know me for who I really am or ask anything about where I come from. Automatically, I was stereotyped and judged for my culture and background with those words. People can be quick to judge without knowing the real story behind what they are talking about, that’s how the rumors are created, and how the mean words are