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An Argument Against Code Switching

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The novel, The Hate U Give, by Angie Thomas, intrigues the reader by something called “code switching”, which most readers may not notice; this is important because it shows the roots of the characters in the book and how they contribute to code switching. Code switching is “the use of more than one language or language variety concurrently in conversation”, according to the article, “Nah, We Straight”: An Argument Against Code Switching, by Vershawn Ashanti Young. Although many people contribute to code switching, it is mostly identified with race, which is what Thomas’s book portrays a focus on. This novel suggests that to be a black adolescent in 21st-century America you must change how you present yourself to fit in, which includes the …show more content…

This is often related to the stereotypes that are correlated with code-switching. After reading THUG and Youngs article against code-switching, a question might arise; When is the person code-switching stupid and when is it okay? While being a white well-known, maybe even famous, man or woman, some might think they are less intelligent for using code-switching words like, “ain’t” or “sayin’”. While society expects African American citizens to use code-switching, they do not have the same expectations for a white citizen. If the “slang” words are used by this important white figure, like a president or a motivational speaker then they are taken less seriously and often stereotyped as dumb or stupid. When a black figure code-switches this is a norm, so nobody pays attention to what everyone is expecting to happen. An example of this would be when Young expresses in his article about President Obamas wife, Michelle. He says that she used words like “ain’t” in her speech and nobody cared or thought lower of her for it. In the novel THUG, Starr’s boyfriend tries to talk like Starr and Seven, her brother, but gets [jokingly] made fun of by Starr. Since it isn’t the “normal” language for white people to talk in, he got judged and laughed at. This is proving that the stereotypes of white people are to always speak “proper” English. Today it is easy to question if you

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Starr Carter, the protagonist of Angie Thomas’s young adult novel, The Hate U Give, epitomizes the subversion of cultural racial oppression through the development of an identity that encompasses multiple consciousnesses. As an African American teenage girl raised in a middle-class family attending a high school with primarily White upper-class students, Starr finds the need to prove her belongingness to both communities in Garden Heights and at Williamson Prep. Unlike her White upper-class counterparts at Williamson and African American middle-to-low-class counterparts in Garden Heights, Starr’s identity is multifaceted. She must act and interact with her peers with respect to her location, in other words, utilize double consciousness. However,

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I feel like code meshing effects our own literacy in terms of how the word is pronounced vs how the word is correctly stated. Code switching is more like changing a mechanism for retaliating information a specific way, in order to please someone or disprove someone’s opinions. Throughout my daily life, I take the time to unitize these techniques as I make decisions by the minute. As a part of my everyday communication methods, I often find myself using code switching in my career world because I find myself very unsophisticated in someone else’s eyes, if my use of communication and message was unclear. I sometimes feel subjected to use code switching when I’m outside my culture, in public, at my work place or in school.

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They are so used to being somewhere for a while that they automatically use that language that they adopted from the person or atmosphere that they are so used to being around.another reason why people code switch is because of the simple fact that they just want to fit in. usually when people hear words or phrases they they think are cool they will follow up with saying that word or phrase. Also people may use it to get to the things that they want in life such as a job. When people want something better for themselves such as a job, they will change their language and how they speak from being with their friends to being about

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Furthermore, this may lead to disruptive behavior as the teacher cannot demand good behavior from their learners and thus there will not be enough time to teach a certain subject if all the time spent is on trying to get their learners to work (Rodrigo: 2016). Another negative aspect of code-switching is miscommunication and misinterpreting what has been said. This could lead to a teacher being offensive to learners if a phrase or sentence is used incorrectly and thus diminishing the professional relationship between students and teachers. For example, a teacher might say a phrase in another language but a student could take the phrase out of context, which may cause many problems.

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