The Influence Of Culture On Personal Identity

Culture is the clothing each of us dawn every day that give people around us a general sense of who we are. The language around a culture is the code in which we communicate with one another in our own culture. When two of the same cultures are interacting, nothing is lost in translation, nothing is misunderstood, and above all they have had relatively the same personal experiences and see things in the same way. It is when you leave one culture and go to another culture that the code in which we use to communicate is misunderstood and things are lost in translation. Even the the cloths of our culture which identifies us in our identity wardrobe are called into question in the interaction of foreign cultures. It is important for us to know

For her she spoke “Black English” in her home environment and integrated into the cultures surrounding the language. When her extended family from the north came to visit or when she was out in public she had to switch and use “Proper English” and integrate into the culture that surrounded that language. In Mellix’s words “In time, I learned to speak standard english with ease and to switch smoothly from black to standard or a mixture and back again.” (Mellix 389) Because language not only shapes our personal identity, it also shapes the identity of the culture surrounding the language. Many things are lost in translation when translating between two cultures and languages. As a result of this misunderstanding, cracks form in the lens of which we view others cultures and their languages. It is important to insure that as a result of these cracks that they are not filled with vulgar stereotypes and generalizations of a culture and the language surrounding it. Language and culture are what shape all of us, how we feel, how we act towards each other, and how we view our place in the

As Mellix grew up in the south, she had these experiences. She was caught between not only the white and african american culture, but also the differences between the north and south culture. All of these cultures used two different languages as she describes. She learned “Black English” and “Proper English”. Both languages, like anything, had its time and place which for Mellix was sometimes hard to understand and determine when and where to use what. In Mellix’s words “I grew up speaking what I considered two distinctly different languages — black English and standard English and in the process or acquiring these languages, I developed an understanding of when, where, and how to use them” (Mellix 386). When out in public, in a professional setting, or at dinner with her family from up north Mellix used “Proper English”. When Mellix was around her friends and close family, she used “Black English” This is referred to by Mellix as code switching. The ability to transition languages or the code in which we use to communicate without loosing things in translation. This however is just once instance of code switching. Looking at others we bring our self to Risech, a light skinned, homosexual from Cuban. Risech had to use code switching or as he refers to it, changed his identity wardrobe for three