“Not all speakers of a given language speak the same”
Growing in an English and Spanish home brought up who and when and how should we speak both languages. My father always said that in school I’ll eventually learn my English so why not learn Spanish at home and what he said was what concluded. Being Hispanic in our society means that we have to know how to speak Spanish and there’s a correct way when speaking it as well. Language and how we use it shapes us and based on the people that we are around affects it. When in a professional environment we are opt to use our “professional” English and of course when we are at home, with our friends our language becomes more comfortable to us. By this I mean we speak in our languages and the we say things the way we want to; slang.
The reality is people judge you and hire you based a lot on how you speak. The minute people open their mouths we already pick and choose where this person is from and how they were raised. We judge people on the use of their grammar and how they use it. Our attitudes about language affects the way we treat speakers. Dialect is determined by many factors including socioeconomic status and education. We may say that we dont judge people but in reality in a way we do, we read and see if the person is talking to us in slang so we can use that same tone with them. We judge on grammar, we judge on the English they use and we judge on the way they present themselves when speaking. We tend to say that people who only speak in slang were raised in a household where English and maybe even education wasn’t strongly implied. All around us even important speakers we tend to judge and see if they really use those vocabulary words to make them seem smarter.
1. Did I answer the question correctly?
2. Is there anything that I should add or remove ?
3. What else can I use as a guide to answer the question ?
I don’t think you should add or remove anything from your essay , you made some good point that I agree with. Some thing else you can use as guide to answer the question is your personal experiences with learning knowing both languages.
Daysi, I do recommend to go back to the reading that we did this week and then check the rubric and the questions for this essay – I think they they will be helpful in order to organize your thoughts. First, make sure to introduce your dialect/language(s) to the reader and explain why you have chosen it/them. You need to focus on language attitudes – as you have mentioned in your essay, we (speakers) tend to judge people “on how you speak”? what are those opinions/ideas/attitudes? and how can we explain these language attitudes?