Language Autobiography: Shanayia Roland
Ms.
Roland, Mr. Johnson would like to see you now. I walked into his office
with the confidence that I could get the job because I was fully
prepared to be as professional as I knew how to be. My definition of
professional was that I would “code switch”
the term used often when some switches the tone of voice, attitude, or
even the accent they speech in, to make it appropriate for the situation
they are engaging in. I Code Switched I
expressed all of my knowledge in every sentence I said, I used my
creativity to create connections between the experiences I had
professionally, to the questions he asked. This was when the unexpected
lesson of language began.
I watched his lips open, and close, and his lingual frenulum helped to him to roll his tongue to the back of his mouth creating sounds like “HAVE YOUU HAADD ANNY OTHER WOORRK EXPEEERIENCE?” I gazed into his mouth watching so closely that I could see his tonsils dangling in the back of his throat like a pendulum. I saw him gather his saliva as he spoke those questions at me but not to me as if I wasn’t a native English speaker. I blinked continuously to get myself out of the gaze. “ Yes I have been an SAT at an early child care center called Mommy and Me.” I responded in the tone of voice that he asked the questions. I began to gaze again.
I don't know what caused me to gaze, was it the proper English accent that he had which my brain was not used to because of the improper black English that I was used to speaking and hearing, my own language felt foreign to me ears. I understood him but only because of the small bit of words that he spoke that was in my English vocabulary. There is also a very strong possibility that it could have been that we both were code switching and our impressions of code switching were completely different because of the experiences we’ve encountered. This was my first experience with the way one Language can be spoken in so many different ways. Our language is something that roots from the different factors, aspects and experiences you encounter in your life, sometimes even where you’ve lived. People can be from the same place and not even understand each other because of the costumes and changes that they have to their own form of the language they were speaking. I was speaking perfect English, however because of the background of African American heritage, the slight bit of Philadelphia accent, the fact that I had braces, a slight lisp, and a Philadelphia public school education influenced upon my speech he didn’t understand me just as well as I didn’t understand him.
In the film American tongues there were many examples of how people from the same exact country could be so distant in language, and not even realize that they were speaking the same language if they were talking to each other. In the film there were people who would consider themselves speaking proper English but yet if they were speaking proper English wouldn’t anyone from any part of the country be able to understand them? They would insult others by one and other by calling them things outside of their name all because of the thought that they were speaking proper English. This question that is raised in this situation; was if problem was that he spoke proper English and I couldn’t understand him because I was used to speaking improper English or what is considered “Black English.” Or could it have been that I was used to hearing proper English and he wasn’t speaking proper English? My interviewer and I have nothing in common with our language but yet we live in the same country, follow most of the same costumes; we even live in the same state, and city.
When I began to understand the questions it was only because of the forceful but necessary need for me to understand him in order to proceed with as good of a chance at getting the job as I could. This is how the differences in languages evolve when people are forced to find ways to communicate they begin to combine their languages so that they can understand one another clearly with no miss understandings. This was something that was in that James Baldwin rises as a point in his speech “ A language comes into existence by means of brutal necessity, and the rules of the language are dictated by what language must convey”. This shows that people find ways to communicate because it is a necessity. My interviewer and I found a way to communicate but only because it was a necessity.
The language lesson that I received at my interview taught me, taught me that there is never a real reason to judge anyone about the way they talk because we all talk differently and interrupt things differently, therefore we could have a million and one differ languages evolving in one day, but instead we stick to a way the we all know or can at least interrupt because communication is a necessity.
I watched his lips open, and close, and his lingual frenulum helped to him to roll his tongue to the back of his mouth creating sounds like “HAVE YOUU HAADD ANNY OTHER WOORRK EXPEEERIENCE?” I gazed into his mouth watching so closely that I could see his tonsils dangling in the back of his throat like a pendulum. I saw him gather his saliva as he spoke those questions at me but not to me as if I wasn’t a native English speaker. I blinked continuously to get myself out of the gaze. “ Yes I have been an SAT at an early child care center called Mommy and Me.” I responded in the tone of voice that he asked the questions. I began to gaze again.
I don't know what caused me to gaze, was it the proper English accent that he had which my brain was not used to because of the improper black English that I was used to speaking and hearing, my own language felt foreign to me ears. I understood him but only because of the small bit of words that he spoke that was in my English vocabulary. There is also a very strong possibility that it could have been that we both were code switching and our impressions of code switching were completely different because of the experiences we’ve encountered. This was my first experience with the way one Language can be spoken in so many different ways. Our language is something that roots from the different factors, aspects and experiences you encounter in your life, sometimes even where you’ve lived. People can be from the same place and not even understand each other because of the costumes and changes that they have to their own form of the language they were speaking. I was speaking perfect English, however because of the background of African American heritage, the slight bit of Philadelphia accent, the fact that I had braces, a slight lisp, and a Philadelphia public school education influenced upon my speech he didn’t understand me just as well as I didn’t understand him.
In the film American tongues there were many examples of how people from the same exact country could be so distant in language, and not even realize that they were speaking the same language if they were talking to each other. In the film there were people who would consider themselves speaking proper English but yet if they were speaking proper English wouldn’t anyone from any part of the country be able to understand them? They would insult others by one and other by calling them things outside of their name all because of the thought that they were speaking proper English. This question that is raised in this situation; was if problem was that he spoke proper English and I couldn’t understand him because I was used to speaking improper English or what is considered “Black English.” Or could it have been that I was used to hearing proper English and he wasn’t speaking proper English? My interviewer and I have nothing in common with our language but yet we live in the same country, follow most of the same costumes; we even live in the same state, and city.
When I began to understand the questions it was only because of the forceful but necessary need for me to understand him in order to proceed with as good of a chance at getting the job as I could. This is how the differences in languages evolve when people are forced to find ways to communicate they begin to combine their languages so that they can understand one another clearly with no miss understandings. This was something that was in that James Baldwin rises as a point in his speech “ A language comes into existence by means of brutal necessity, and the rules of the language are dictated by what language must convey”. This shows that people find ways to communicate because it is a necessity. My interviewer and I found a way to communicate but only because it was a necessity.
The language lesson that I received at my interview taught me, taught me that there is never a real reason to judge anyone about the way they talk because we all talk differently and interrupt things differently, therefore we could have a million and one differ languages evolving in one day, but instead we stick to a way the we all know or can at least interrupt because communication is a necessity.
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