ipl-logo

Linguistic Ethnographic Study: The Speech Community Of Latina Teenager School

435 Words2 Pages

Language ideology, boundary, communities, and linguistic code mixing/switching, heteroglossia and transidiomatic are ways in which people define their linguistic identities and sense of belonging, engage in stratified power-driven relationships, and attitude towards language use.

Mendoza (2008) situate her linguistic ethnographic study in a community of Latina teenager school, to examine their linguistic identities and how they are shaped by their language attitude and ideology, and the affect of that on educational practices. Latina girls from different categories such as European-Mexican, Rural-Mexican and American-Mexican/Jocks, are interacting and reflecting boundary demarcating and language ideology and attitude through their daily lives at the school. Urciuoli (1990) presents a case study of Puerto Ricans speech community in NYC, in which linguistic boundaries are at some situation clearly defined, and at other blurred depending on the ethnicity, socioeconomic class, gender and race affinities, such as Puerto Ricans interaction with their black neighbors versus white outsiders. The result of that is reflected on “sense of language around relationships” and …show more content…

How to define a speech community is dependent on the demographic and geographic markers, the shared linguistic variety and socialization. While community of practice is engaged in a social interaction and share a repertoire. In these communities of language and practice, language can shift to another in the same speech known as code-switching, whereas code-mixing/switching indicate a shift to another language or linguistic varieties. This can further be specific as in heteroglossia, multiple ways of speaking languages, dialects, or registers, and transidiomatic practice, where changing geographies and communication modes

Show More
Related
488 Words | 2 Pages

Bilinguals in America must bear with unjust persecution by English-only zealots. In Martin Espada’s essay, The New Bathroom Policy at English High School, he conveys bilingualism as the conflict of not completely fitting into one distinct culture and language, but to live with two separate languages and identities, which bilinguals experience oppression due to their differences. Espada’s definition of bilingualism consists of the ability to speak two languages. Espada gives an example of bilingualism: “My friend Jack… explains his bilingualism: ‘English and Spanish are like two dogs I love. English is an obedient dog… Spanish is a disobedient dog.’

Read More
550 Words | 3 Pages

Martin Espada and Richard Rodriguez are Latino authors of “The New Bathroom Policy at English High School” and “Hunger of Memory” which touch on the topic of language-limiting policies and ideas in the United States. Language is something everyone in existence uses to communicate with. Yet, not all languages are the same. Many have difficulty understanding language when it differs from one’s own. Language can be a barrier between people from other places.

Read More
548 Words | 3 Pages

When considering Tiffany Hendrickson’s “Storming the Gates: Talking in Color”, I agree with the interconnections of cultural background, speech and race. We often stereotype the way we think a person’s voice should sound based off of their race. In Hendrickson’s essay she talked about how people can code-switch between SAE (Standard American English) and AAE (African-American English) in order to feel more comfortable in different environments. The purpose of this paper is to show the importance of code-switching and how our cultural surroundings relate to the sound of our voices.

Read More
504 Words | 3 Pages

The power of language We all have some form of language limitations, no matter where we come from and what our background is. “Mother tongue” by Amy Tan and “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” by Gloria Anzaldua both share similar themes in their stories that demonstrate how they both deal with how different forms of the same language are portrayed in society. In both stories they speak about what society declares the right way of speech and having to face prejudgment, the two authors share their personal experiences of how they’ve dealt with it.

Read More
473 Words | 2 Pages

In the essay, “If Black English Isn’t Language, Then Tell Me, what is?” (1979) Baldwin asserts that “Black Language” is part of the American community, and background, but its social background makes people deny it. He supports his claim by using his personal experience while also including examples of how languages are involved, and it is a key to identity; he also uses pathos and linguistics diversity to encourage his readers to support his claim. Baldwin purpose is to inform his readers about the situation in order to augment how black language is not only a language itself, but how it unveils things about the early days of American society.

Read More
1647 Words | 7 Pages

Young’s definition of code switching is a transition or deliberate changing of a certain style of language use to another. In the article, Young argues that the traditional unspoken bias towards code switching that is expected at school and/or in the workplace, is discriminatory

Read More
1356 Words | 6 Pages

My Rhetorical Analysis Language is a part one’s identity and culture, which allows one to communicate with those of the same group, although when spoken to someone of another group, it can cause a language barrier or miscommunication in many different ways. In Gloria Anzaldua’s article, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue”, which was taken from her book Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, she is trying to inform her readers that her language is what defines her. She began to mention how she was being criticized by both English and Spanish Speakers, although they both make up who she is as a person. Then, she gave convincing personal experiences about how it was to be a Chicana and their different types of languages. Moreover, despite the fact that her language was considered illegitimate, Anzaldua made it clear that she cannot get rid of it until the day she dies, or as she states (on page 26) “Wild tongues can’t be, they can only be cut out.”

Read More
1095 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout generations cultural traditions have been passed down, alongside these traditions came language. The language of ancestors, which soon began to be molded by the tongue of newer generations, was inherited. Though language is an everlasting changing part of the world, it is a representation of one’s identity, not only in a cultural way but from an environmental standpoint as well. One’s identity is revealed through language from an environmental point of view because the world that one is surrounded with can cause them to have their own definitions of words, an accent, etc. With newer generations, comes newer forms of languages.

Read More
802 Words | 4 Pages

Race and ethnicity as socially-constructed categories separates friends from the same background. In the article “Best of Friends, Worlds Apart,” Cuban immigrant Joel Ruiz finds himself stuck between two worlds after landing on American soil. Ruiz’s childhood friend Valdes traveled to the United States together and settled down near one another. Valdes lives a well-off life in the Caucasian community as a Cuban. On the other hand, Ruiz identify himself as Cuban, yet, whites see him simply as black.

Read More
311 Words | 2 Pages

The article “From outside, in,” by Barbara Mellix reveals the difficulties among the black ethnicity to differentiate between two diverse but similar languages. One is “black English”, which is comfortable to her while speaking with her family and community and the other is “standard English”, generally used while talking in public with strangers and work. Since childhood Mellix was taught when and where to use either black English or standard English. To illustrate, seeing her aunt and uncle in Pittsburgh, where there was wide range use of both languages, she learned to manage both languages with ease.

Read More
1395 Words | 6 Pages

The Skin That We Speak The way a person speaks is a direct link to a person’s culture and the environment which he or she was raised in. A person’s language, skin color as well as economic status influences the way he or she is perceived by others. Lisa Delpit and eleven other educators provide different viewpoints on how language from students of different cultures, ethnicity, and even economic status can be misinterpreted due to slang and dialect or nonstandard English by the teachers as well as his or her own peers. The Skin That We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom by Lisa Delpit and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy, who collected essays from a diverse group of educators and scholars to reflect on the issue of language

Read More
254 Words | 2 Pages

In his essay "Speech Communities," Paul Roberts mentions the importance and impact speech communities have on an individual's form of speech. According to Paul Roberts language is always changing due to three distinct features: age, social class, and geography. All which are the basis for forming speech communities and causing then to eventually adapt and evolve. When discussing the speech communities of a child, Roberts makes an intriguing point. He states that no matter what speech habits were engraved in a child from birth through its parents, they are all prone to change once they interact with a different speech community such as school.

Read More
572 Words | 3 Pages

Language can either separate someone from this larger identity or connect him or her to it. This essay shows that black people in America have been systematically and institutionally marginalized by white society that their creation of separate and distinct language was a necessity, and this essay brings to light the struggles my community ---------- the black community --------- had faced in an effort to break through stereotypes and erroneous assumptions .I personally enjoyed how Baldwin incorporated historical examples into his essay, such as the Irish and the Germans, because it showed me that African Americans were not the only ones who felt marginalized by the way they use

Read More
1301 Words | 6 Pages

Black and Puerto Rican: Developing Piri’s Double-Sided Identity For centuries, American citizens have possessed a tendency to view ethnicity in black and white. A person without pale skin and smooth hair is characterized as black without regard to his or her self-identification. Given the racism prevalent in society, this black-white paradigm causes difficulty for people who are not comfortable in one or either category. Piri Thomas was one of these children, and his memoir recounts his struggle to understand himself. In Down These Mean Streets, Thomas demonstrates how the protagonist Piri’s confusion with his skin color and Puerto Rican heritage lead him to eventually acknowledge and appreciate his identity as an Afro-Latino man in America.

Read More
553 Words | 3 Pages

The United States is made up of some of the most diverse and interesting cultures in the world. Jamila Lyiscott proves this by showing her different dialects and how they are all equally important. Lyiscott believes that the way she speaks towards her parents, towards her friends, and towards her colleagues are all one in the same.  Throughout the entirety of her speech, Lyiscott changes up her vocal patterns and dialects so that the audience can understand first hand what each of these dialects are. When she talks about her father, Lyiscott uses her native tongue, when she talks to her fellow neighbors and close friends she switches it up to a more urbanized dialect, and when she is in school she masks the other two dialects with a professional sounding language.

Read More

More about Linguistic Ethnographic Study: The Speech Community Of Latina Teenager School

Related Topics

Open Document