Martez Card Language Auto Biography

I was sitting at a table with my friend and said ,

“Yo u hear about that jawn who was rumblin”  

“Naw but who was she rumblin and why?”  

“Man you kno how girls always fightin over the dumbest stuff but i dont really know why she was mixin”

“Oh trizz but yo you heard bout jawn that was bout 2 get jumped”  

“yea thats crazy”

This would be how i would talk to my friend at a public place and this relates to my life because when i go out to public places i have to switch the way i would talk and act if i was with my friends. Also this goes for the same with adults if i am talking to an adult then i won’t talk like I’m talking to my friend and sometimes its hard to switch between these. When I’m outside

walking somewhere relates to my life because i have had problems with people trying to fight or jump me and my friend or friends because we say the wrong thing and it doesn’t have to be directed at them at all.

 

In my life I use many different ways of speaking and i code switch a lot. For example If i am outside with just my friends then i will joke around curse a lot and basically just have a good time and not care about what I’m saying and hardly ever speak proper, but if I’m in public like at a restaurant or something then i will still joke around but not curse because I’m in a public place and if I’m talking to my friends I would use slang but if I’m talking to an adult then i would talk properly. If i am in my neighborhood but I’m walking somewhere i don’t talk a lot because that could attract attention and people would then try and mess with me and my friends or start a fight if i say the wrong thing or if they don’t like the way i talk or the way i sound. If I’m at home and my mom is home i will not curse because then she would probably hit me because I’m not suppose to curse around adults, if I’m at school in a class i wont curse but when I’m in the halls or at lunch i will curse because i would be with my friends. When i talk to adults i talk to all adults with respect because that’s what i was taught to do by my mother and i don’t use slang because I’m suppose to speak proper to adults. This matters because if i talk to a certain person the wrong way i could get hurt or in trouble and i could be looked upon differently then i want to be looked upon and how my family is looked upon.

 

This also relates to code switching because depending on who i am talking to depends on the way i talk . For example if I’m talking to an adult I’m not going to be cursing or yelling or cutting them off or being disrespectful because that would be wrong, I would talk to an adult like this

“hey”

“hi”

“how are you”

“good and yourself”

“Fine thanks for asking”

“have a nice day”

“ok thanks you do the same”  

 

If I’m talking to my friends i will curse and joke around and things in that nature like this.

 

“Sup Fam”

“yo my ni**a wats good”

“YA MOM”

*laughs* “that doesnt make since” *jokingly*

“Yo u did that nut a** homework”

“Naw motherfu***a i was jus gonna copy jawnski’s”

“true that gucci my ni**a”

 

If I’m outside and I’m walking somewhere then i wont be just saying anything i want because if i say the wrong thing it could start trouble and i try to avoid trouble as much as possible. When I code switch i don’t like it because i want to be able to talk to everybody the same way but if i do that it could end me up i trouble. For me code switching is like a good skill to have so then you can know how to talk to different types of people and would be able to accept more people or to be able to withstand people that others might not be able to because of there personality or something. To me the way a person talks could be how there personality is and if you don’t know how to code switch then you might have a hard time accepting other people for who they are and might have trouble in the work world so that’s why i think that being able to code switch is a good skill to have.

 

For example of a reason you need to know how to code switch in my neighborhood one time i was with two of my friends Rondel and Survon and it was a hot summer day and we were walking to our friend Juniors house. When we were walking we walked pass edmonds which is a playground where there is a basketball court at in my neighborhood, and there were 3 boys playing basketball. Then the boys started walking toward us after we were at the end of the block and one of them was yelling "COME HERE" but we didnt know the boys so we kept walking. Then the 3 boys caught up to us on the next block and one of the boys said to Survon

"watsup"

and he said "nothing much chilling" then the other boy said " i dont mean watsup i mean watsup wit a mix". Then Rondel said "we dont want to fight we dont want no problems" then the boy said "i didnt ask you that but wat if i wanted a problem" so we kept walking and they kept following us until we got up to st raymonds which is a school/church in my neighborhood and thats when the boys were next to us so we were trying to get away from them. Then the boy said to Rondel "yo rumble me" and Rondel said "why u wanna rumble u dont kno me and i already said i dont want no problems" then the boy said "i dont like you cuz i dont kno u so rumble me" then Rondel said "why dont u and one of them slap box if you wanna rumble so bad" then the boy said "cuz they like my bros" and the other boy said "WHAT!" to what Rondel had said. then we just kept walking and they left us alone because we were going to west oak lane and the gang BI is in west oak lane and 1-4 is in mt airy and they dont like each other so they didnt want any trouble really. In my neighborhood if you dont know how to code switch then you could end up in trouble because if you are from a different neighborhood then you might talk differently then people in my neighborhood. If your not from my neighborhood and you dont know how we talk then most people are going to want to fight you so code switching is good so that you dont get into trouble in unknown places to you and so you dont get hurt, you could also end up in a scene like me and my friends did.

 

To me the way i speak influences a lot about me like the type of people i hang with and type of music i listen to. In the future i will have to understand how to relate to may different personalities so that i can get and keep a job because if i dont like my boss i will still have to just deal with him or her and the people i work with.