Category: Language

Code mixing (CM) refers to the integration of two or more languages in speech. It is frequently observed in user-generated content on various social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, especially from multilingual users. This present study attempts to analyze the code-mixed text collected from various articles and papers.

Introduction

Code-Switching and its History:

Code-switching and mixing, together, have always been a global phenomenon, which mainly occurs due to lexical borrowing. In linguistics, language alternation occurs when people communicate by using two or more languages, or language varieties, in the context of a single conversation.

Sociolinguists and other researchers are interested in the way in which code-switching occurs in many ethnic groups around the world.

Code-Switching has dated back to the early twentieth century when the first bilingual research observation was recorded in 1913 and 1939(Ronjat 1913, and later Leopold 1939-49). However, this phenomenon was not studied for a long period. During the twentieth century, code-switching was considered something that occurred without any logical reason and hence was considered imperfect for second-language learning. Nonetheless, the studies on code-switching resumed in the early 1970s when Blom and Grumperz (1972) published an article in which they presented a survey of their studies of a Norwegian village. Blom and Grumperz discovered that members of the village spoke two lingos of Norwegian and used them according to specific situations.

In the United States, code-switching was observed predominantly between Spanish and English languages. However, various studies show that code-switching was also noticed in African Americans who used to communicate in the national norm of English and African American English(AAE). From the late seventies on, there has been continuous research going on, producing various models predicting (constraints on) code-switching.

Diglossia:

Diglossia or bidialectal refers to the union of two dialects of the same language. Usually, of the two dialects, one form is literary, and the other is a native dialect spoken by most people. This is very common in many places in the world. For example, in Greece, there exist two types of dialects, known as Classical Greek and Demotic. The former is the prestige or literary dialect while the latter is the common dialect. Similarly, in Arab, classical Arabic exists along with the colloquial Arabic which is used in Egypt and Morocco.

Bilingualism:

Bilingualism refers to the ability or capability of an individual to speak two languages effectively. The term bilingualism has originated from the Latin words, i.e.‘bi’ and ‘lingual’ which means ‘two’ and ‘tongue’ respectively.

Children may also become bilingual by learning languages in two different groups. For example, British children learned an Indian language during British rule by constantly socializing with the Indians. Other studies show that the knowledge of two or more languages speeds up to one’s learning process and increases their intellectual capacity.

Objectives

• To identify the language of the words in bilingual or multilingual sentences.
• To recognize the influence of code-switching/mixing in day-to-day conversation.
• To draw an efficient conclusion for code-mixing/switching.

Types of code-switching

Many scholars categorize code-switching (CS). Mayers-Scotton (2006), classifies code-switching into two types: ‘Classic CS’ and ‘Composite CS’. Whereas, Myusken (2009) mentions CS is of three types: insertion, alternation, and congruent lexicalization. Ronald Wardhaugh (1992) defines two types of CS: ‘Situational CS’ and ‘Metaphorical CS’. However, code-switching can be mainly categorized into the following three parts:

Inter-sentential CS: 

In inter-sentential code-switching, the language shift is done at sentence bounds—words at the beginning or at the end of a sentence.

Examples:

In a Hindi-English mixed sentence, we have, ‘How are you, बेटी ?’

In Spanish-English mixed sentence, we have, ‘The food was great, mamá’.

Intra-sentential:

In intra-sentential code-switching, the shift is made in the midst of the sentence, with no interruptions, or pauses to indicate a shift. The speaker makes the shift unintentionally.

For example, in a Kannada-English mixed sentence, ‘Hello Soumya, ಏನಾಯಿತು, why did you throw it’?

Extra-sentential CS or Tag Switching:

It involves the insertion of a tag from one language into an expression in another language.

For example, in Hindi-English mixed sentences, we have, ‘This is the way of writing ना?’.

Basis for code-switching

• To render one’s need: A person who may not be comfortable using just a single language for communication purposes may tend to use a mix of two or more languages to overcome this inadequacy.
• Purpose of Unity: To be in harmony and maintain unity, speakers may tend to communicate using multiple languages.
• To rule out others: Code-switching may also be used to exclude others from a conversation who does not speak the second language. This may be beneficial to those who speak multiple languages as it serves as a degree of comfort and intimacy between them.

Other major reasons for code-switching may include the following:

• To convey precise meaning
• To emphasize a point
• To attract attention
• To communicate easily
• To negotiate with higher authorities

Code-switching possesses five functions, namely, (i) referential, (ii) directive, (iii)expressive, (iv) phatic, and (v) metalinguistic (http://www.glottopedia.org). Represented below are Waffle Charts which show the respective percentages of these functions.

The positive and negative impact of code-switching

Positive impacts

• It creates many opportunities for the multilingual speaker: A speaker who communicates in multiple languages may help to enable, develop and strengthen his personal, professional, and romantic relationships.
• It allows the speakers to become a cultural connectors. Code-switching effectively helps in bridging the cultural gaps between the world’s diversified ethnic groups. A code-switcher can help these distinct groups communicate and reach an agreement.
• Code-switching gives its users a more refined and unprejudiced view of world cultures: A multilingual and multicultural code-switcher quickly learns that no culture is superior and that each ethnic and traditional culture is to be respected.
• A multilingual code-switcher can access different environments without imposing a foreign culture/language: For example, if a Britisher is fluent in Spanish and is knowledgeable in Spanish or Mexican culture, she/he can interact with them without forcing them to speak English.
• Code-switching helps the speakers to express themselves and propose logical solutions.

Negative impacts

• Gumperz and Hernandez (1972) claim that those who code-switch, make a mess out of the conversation and cannot speak the language properly. Thomas (2001) states that in some communities code-switching is even seen as something unacceptable.
• Code-switching by the speaker may sometimes pose as though they are boasting.

Methodology

This work is based on conducting a survey to get the primary data for the study, while different published articles on the related topic have been the secondary input for the research.

Scope of research

The main scope of the study is to discover the impacts of code-switching in everyday life with the following issues to be more specific:

• Why code-switching?
• When do people prefer to code-switch?
• Is code-switching in children as effective as that in adults? If so, what is the age group for the same?
• Aberrations during code-switching and procedures to overcome it.
• How long do people typically code-switch?
• The percentage of code-switching is prevalent in India.
• What type of people switch their code;
• Why did they switch their code;
• Errors in the use of code-switching and its total impact on society;
• Outlining the way for code-switching

Survey on code-switching

• Is code-switching a new pattern to attract attention? 3 7 –
• Is code-switching bad? 2 6 2
• Is code switching considered flaunting? 3 5 2
• Do you think your Kannada pronunciation is accurate? 9 1 –
• Do you like the trend of this language pattern? 8 2 –
• Do you think code-switching pollutes our mother tongue? 2 3 4
• Do you have sufficient grammatical knowledge in English? 9 1 –
• Do you think that it’s a matter of age? 8 1 1
• Are you influenced by social media in this aspect? 5 2 3
• Are you confident while speaking in a bilingual language? 7 3 –

For the purpose of the survey, we prepared a simple set of ten questions that were to be answered by 10 people which included family, friends, and relatives. The participants were 40% male and the remaining 60% were female out of the candidates surveyed. They were evaluated and it was evident that they were all well-educated and fluent in bilingual languages which were English and Kannada. In the above table, the numbers denoted under each column for every question denote the number of people who have opted to answer as either yes or no or no comments for the particular query.

Conclusion

To conclude, the above research contains a detailed study of code-switching along with its history, objectives, types, and its purposes. The research has covered many queries that occur during the process of code-switching. However, many questions are still to be answered and discussed in the future. Code-switching is a useful phenomenon that fills the speech of bilinguals with emotions and encourages the two parties involved in a conversation to understand each other better and sustain harmonious relations.

According to the founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, the essence of social media is to recreate a “town square” environment in the digital world for people to engage in conversations similar to a traditional city center (Dwoskin, 2019). Thus, people can create a profile on social media that mirrors the reputation of a normal person in real life. Based on this, people can have different forms of communication that enable them to exchange information and ideas to communicate in a more expansively. In spite of this, the transmission of person-to-person communication from the traditional face-to-face context to the online environment has drastically modified communication and interaction. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between social media communication and language use. The thesis of this research is to prove that language use has changed significantly to fit communication on social media.

In order to understand the way social media has changed the use of language, it is important to understand the impact of social media on communication in general. This involves studying what social media does to mainstream interactions and the parameters that shape social media interaction.

Some scholars posit that digital media resources like social media have changed the way people communicate and the way information is disseminated (Barasch & Berger, 2014; Preistman, 2014). This is premised on the fact that traditional communication was based on face-to-face interaction and this required non-verbal communication cues including bodily language, eye contact and other things that complemented communication between two people facing each other. Social media has removed communication from that physical context and the concept of place has been erased through the use of digital technologies. This has caused social media to seek new ways and methods of promoting engagement and communication through other methods that are friendly to the digital environment. This includes things like emojis and other icons that are transmitted to show mood and other non-verbal cues that are present in face-to-face communication.

Another angle through which social media has changed communication because of its features as a species of digital communication is in the way mass information is disseminated. In the past, traditional media houses undertook “broadcasting”. This meant that a few regulated organizations and often, authoritarian entities provided information to the masses through various mediums of mass communication like television and radio (Priestman, 2014). However, social media has come to change this trend into what has become known as “narrowcasting” (Barasch & Berger, 2014).

The traditional radio and broadcasting house were under some kind of license by the authority in charge of society (Priestman, 2014). This meant laws and ethics were issued to guide and limit the conduct of people who engaged in broadcasting. Thus, the language had to conform with the generally accepted trends and patterns. Everyone had to adhere to some kind of standard and the use of language had to be within the appropriate framework and context. Hence, every media outlet had an “editor” or “manager” who had the duty to ultimately ensure that content issued from their broadcasting entity met the necessary standards. This was the way broadcasting was done and it was undertaken to influence a large group of people through the use of authoritative language and generally accepted communication mechanisms.

Narrowcasting, on the other hand, became associated with social media because anyone could become a “broadcaster” after they set up a social media account. However, instead of influencing people from a particular regulated hub, the social media account holder could narrowcast. They prepared information for a small group of people who understood their language and the jargons accepted in the field. This was not the case in the past.

Narrowcasting is intensified in the social network system because it is very flexible to create communication lines that brought together a small group of people. Hence, an individual could easily set up a social media account and add people they went to the same university with or served in the same military with or belong to the same religious affiliation. Based on this, they could communicate easily and use language that every connected person understood and appreciated. This created many niches within which communication occurred and hence, caused language to evolve at an unusually fast pace than it was in the past.

Aside from this, specific languages and jargons also relate to social media use. Words like hashtag, sexting, and tweet were not used in the past. They were invented to complement the use of social media as a tool for communication. These things were not known in the 1990s. However, it is a common language. Then, some words had a different meaning, but have been converted into social media language – like “share”, “engagement” and others.

The continuous use of social media has also created slang that is used by young people. This includes the famous txt language which has evolved through texting in conjunction with social media use. Initials like SMH (shaking my head), BFF (best friend forever), BTW (by the way), BAE (before anyone else), ATM (at the moment), HBD (happy birthday) and others have been developed over the years since social media became common. The use of notations and shortcodes for communication were common. However, they took a completely different face after they were used significantly throughout social media. This has caused shorthand to become popular and since it is common amongst people of certain age groups like millennials, they are now becoming the standard form of communication that is used in these niches. This was mainly enhanced through social media. Thus, the concept of narrowcasting can be credited with creating small niches within which people could develop their shorthand and coded language to use it for online communication (Barasch & Berger, 2014).

In spite of this, it can be argued that dialects developed and evolved in traditional communication. Different groups of people had different forms of pronouncing words and saying things. For instance, American English evolved differently from Australian English. As such, slangs and sub-dialects also varies. In the same way, African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) differs from Jamaican Patois which also differs from West African Pidgin English because these groups of Africans that lived in different locations – The United States, the Caribbean, and mainland Africa respectively developed different dialects of English as they sought to communicate in English amongst themselves and among other English-speakers. The evolution of language follows the same pattern. What social media did differently is the fact that it created mechanisms through which written text could be changed significantly, based on new conventions that became necessary as a result of social media use and digital communication. Since social media removes geographical boundaries for communicators, its evolution is limited more by demographics rather than a common location. Thus, people of the same age for instance 18 to 20 will listen to a particular form of music and share its content and discussions on them. Through this, common words and symbolisms would develop. This explains why some words and ideas are shared amongst certain groups of people all over the world.

Computer-mediated communication creates a unique set of interactions that are different from other forms of communication. This is usually done by modifying the context within which communication is done (Page, Barton, Unger, & Zappavigna, 2014). In this case, social media creates new contexts and parameters within which people interact and through this, language grows and dies – some things that are generally accepted die out and others are developed. Thus, digital culture is developed through the continuous use of social media as a means of communication. Social media has therefore created a process through which basic language use at the early stages of communication has evolved at a fast pace, based on the different needs and desires of people who want to communicate and share information that is emotional in outlook through social media (Page, Barton, Unger, & Zappavigna, 2014).

One approach used by Varis and Blommaert (2015) is to view the phatic forms of interaction by examining the impact of social media on “information” and “meaning”. These two components go through major changes and transformations where social media is concerned. This is because social media modifies the nature and transmission processes of information and how it is packaged and sent. Another element of language use that changes with social media is the “meaning” attributed to words and ideas (Varis & Blommaert, 2015). Two of the most vital elements that change with social media communication and language use are identified as:

• Memes and
• Virality

Memes refer to signs that are shared over the internet and social media to express a specific emotion or thing. This usually involves a common image or something that people are familiar with and its use as a means of expressing a particular matter.

Virality refers to the fact that information over a given matter is shared quickly within a very short space of time. This is something that was unknown in the past and was limited only through the fact that communication had to be done through broadcasting and under the guidance of some authoritative broadcasting authority. However, things go viral because they become exciting and interesting to share. Since social media is opened to anyone and everyone, virality means that information can be shared without limitations and restrictions. In the past, the equivalent of a “viral” sharing of information was something authorized by the appropriate agency or entity. Social media converts that to an everyday matter and anyone and everyone can easily communicate and share information and videos that have become viral. This makes anyone and everyone a party to broadcasting through social media.

Thus, the loose structuring of social communication and level of engagement gives room for social media to influence language in various ways and forms. This creates a series of circumstances that allow language to be developed and enhanced within the context of meaning and effect and to this end, what is convenient is done at any point in time to ensure that people can communicate and interact in ways that are within their parameters and core pointers.

Leppanen et al (2014) explain the impact of social media on language in a structural, rather than functional matter. They go into the way social media affects and influences language and how this determines the way people communicate. They find three key pointers that explain the impact of social media or language.

First, they identify that individual, social and cultural groups now expand their scope and parameters through the power of social media (Leppanen, Kytola, Jousmaki, Peuronen, & Westinen, 2014). Hence, they can bring on different groups that are marginalized to safeguard their communication and promote their ideas and views. Thus, they identify the case of some languages that are at the level of extinction because speakers of those dialects are put under pressure to speak a more dominant language. However, the advent of social media allows the scope to be broader so that groups that were previously forced to speak their language in an informal context can now speak, interact and maintain the core philosophies and principles that define them.

Secondly, social media creates diverse formats of communication and this increases the scope of its use and thus creates many different formats of communication within its parameters. Therefore, people have different ways of sending their ideas and views across social media platforms. This includes videos, written formats and others that allow people to communicate across a vast scope of linguistic formats. This improves communication and provides many different frameworks for interactions.

Finally, social media allows for the creation of new identities and new personalities amongst different groups of people (Leppanen, Kytola, Jousmaki, Peuronen, & Westinen, 2014). Thus, people can create new personalities that can define them in ways that are different and distinct and promote better communication.

The findings indicate that language use and communication has changed significantly since the advent of social media. This is because social media leads to narrowcasting which causes people from ordinary backgrounds to become broadcasters in a manner that renders language used to be more flexible than ever in history. This has led to the quick evolution of language in many ways and forms. Past authoritarian structures and systems are crumbled and language can easily change to fit into new dimensions that help in the quick evolution of the way people talk and make meaning out of information. Furthermore, social media has caused past nonverbal communication to be replaced by digital properties like emojis and icons. New words have been created around social media including hashtag and tweets. It has also caused language to evolve around demographics, rather than location as it was in the past. Virality and the use of memes provide new avenues for people to communicate outside the past limits and restrictions of language development which was formerly based on some definite authority.

Today, social media plays a tremendous role in enhancing language learning. Social media seeks out attention. There are lots of different types of social media which includes social networking like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, WhatsApp, etc., media sharing networks like Instagram, Snapchats, YouTube and writing reviews and online forum includes Quora, Reddit, Blogs and Vlogs.An average person over his life time spends more than five years on social media. Then, why can’t the same be use as language learning tool? And how? The answers to these questions are discussed in below

Social Networking

People always look for ways to connect and communicate with each other. The role of language and social interaction play an important in language learning. There are various social networking tools available that influences language learning.

Facebook

According to a statistics, Facebook enjoys 1.32 billion daily active users. Facebook is the most widely used platform by the people of the world. Facebook creates an appropriate environment to connect people where language learning happens both directly and indirectly. When it comes to the point of necessity there starts the learning process. People when they have an urge to share their ideas, opinions or to discuss or to appreciate, they start communicating in the common language where the enhancing of the language takes place especially, in terms of writing. Facebook can be used as a reliable learning environment to enhance people’s participation in language learning process. It is a useful mean which plays a prominent role in learning language.

WhatsApp

One of the social networking language learning tool that has been so influential among the language learning is WhatAapp. A language is best learnt when there are enough rooms for interaction. Though Whatsapp users can create groups, send each other text messages, images, video and audio clips. Knowning the popularity of WhatsApp, it is used by academics as teaching and learning tool. It has been acknowledged that “informal education plays key role for language learning”.(European Commission,2012,p.16)

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a social media platform or network for professionals. It helps to network and to build professional portfolio. It enables to connect with the people Linked in connections. This professional networking platform has become an invaluable social learning tool for professionals. This tool helps language learners to connect with professionals or experts to learn about a topic with a report or prepare a presentation. It helps a person to develop their language skills. It enhances formal language learning and writing.

Twitter

Twitter has been identified as a potential language learning (formal and informal) tool. Twitter is a multi-platform Social Networking Site (SNS). It allows users to post short messages (tweet) made up of up to 280 characters. It also supports sharing photos and videos, hyperlinks to online resources and creating short polls. When the character limit is limited to 280 characters, the choice of words, expressions, idioms and grammar are taken into consideration. Introduction of Twitter to people really helped them to develop a sense of community and encourage participation through formal writing. Twitter involves the learners a more sophisticated use of the language as well as error correction. It can also be effectively handled while teaching pronunciation. For example,a set up of series of tweets for participation can be created. Non-native speakers of German language can be grouped. The tweets highlighted the errors that commonly occurs in pronunciations like misplaced lexical stress, silent letters etc. The correct pronunciations can be highlighted either with the text of the tweets or with links to audio and video resources. Users utilize #hashtags to the topics of their tweets more visible and searchable. Language teachers and learners engage in showing of the resources and experiences through #hashtags such as #languagelover, #languagelearning, #langchat etc.

Media Networks

Instagram

Instagram is the popular picture-based social media that has over 800 million users. When an instagram users wants to develop his flair for a particular language, then the user should post and share his views only in the particular language which he/she wants to improve. The user should really be stern not to translate in his/her own language New friends can be hashtagged and form a language learning community.Their likes and comments on others posts can be done through the language that needs to be improved.

Snapchat

Snapchat has many features that can be used to enhance language learner’s writing, listening and speaking skills. These features include the ability to record videos, click photos, chats, access the posts of popular media sites in English and individual group stories. Snapchat is a great annotation tool. A user can mark up images and videos with stickers and can draw arrows or circle or underline key points and examples with the text tool, the user add labels or captions. The users are enabled to even take snaps of paragraphs from their reading and highlight vocabulary, quotes or main ideas. They can create stories where they can share about what they learned through their snaps or by annotating new stories.

YouTube

There are channels in YouTube which enable video classes dedicated to help the learners. YouTube is the largest video portal and the second largest search engine. With YouTube a user can learn virtually any language he/she thinks of. There are popular language channels specially meant for language learners. These channels focus on learning grammar rules and vocabulary. They offer material for beginners through advanced learners. There are channels that help to improve speaking skill by speaking along with videos. It offers fun and fast access to instruction, culture-based videos and languages from all over the world.

Writing review, online forum

Quora

Quora is a well known social networking where queries and questions are asked and answered, edited and organised by the community of users known as Quorans. Quora uses the ‘followers Principle’ to encourage, motivate and highlight the best authors. The quality of an author’s content is determined by number of followers. It enables the quorans in writing answers to the questions asked which will help the readers to equip themselves with knowledge on a particular subject where they needed more knowledge understanding and clarification

Reddit

Within the context of learning a language, using blogs has emerged as a language learning tool. It plays an important role in developing interaction among the learners. Blogging provides opportunities for communication in learning a language. Blogging focuses on reading and writing skills. One can write about their interests, ideas, wishes, humor and anything they think about. Blogging helps school children practice writing. Student interest to write more in blogs. The users can enjoy making their own diary in English. They could write a blog or make it public or make it readable to people they choose.

Vlogs

Vlogs are video blogs. It is a recording of one’s thoughts, opinions or experiences that are filmed and published on the interact. The popularity of Vlogs in YouTube community has risen drastically in the last few years. Vlogging is one of the strategies that in used to force the learners to tell their ideas in target language. Vlogs aim to improve learner’s speaking skills.

Conclusion

Social media and technology are the greatest combination for language learning process, because they provide an opportunity to improve learner’s ability to learn a language. A lot of social media can be effectively used to facilitate and enhance learners in learning a language.

References

1. https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/learning-english/parents-and-children/information-for-parents/tips-and-advice/learn-english-through-social-media/
2. https://www.scribendi.com/advice/use_social_media_to_improve_english.en.html
3. https://www.lindsaydoeslanguages.com/social-media-language-learning/
4. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Social-networking-and-language-learning-Lomicka-Lord/
5. https://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2012/apr/10/language-teaching-social-media
6. https://www.fluentu.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/FluentU-The-Complete-Guide-to-Foreign-Language-Immersion.pdf
7. https://www.fluentu.com/blog/social-media-language-learning/
8. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED585182.pdf
9. https://www.fluentin3months.com/language-learning-instagram/
10. https://blog.esllibrary.com/2017/08/30/9-ways-snapchat-language-learners/
11. https://learnenglishteens.britishcouncil.org/magazine/entertainment/can-youtube-help-us-learn-foreign-language
12. https://conference.pixel-online.net/conferences/ICT4LL2013/common/download/Paper_pdf/215-ELE13-FP-Bruenner-ICT2013.pdf
13. https://conference.pixel-online.net/conferences/ICT4LL2013/common/download/Paper_pdf/215-ELE13-FP-Bruenner-ICT2013.pdf
14. European Commission (2012) Commission staff working document-Language competencies for employability ,mobility and growth http://ec.europa.eu/education/news/rethinking/sw372_en.pdf

Introduction

The internet originates from the early 1980s when it initially served as a backbone for interconnection of regional academic and military networks. The linking of commercial networks and enterprises by the early 1990s marks the beginning of the transition to the modern Internet. Where writing was once a solitary activity, it has now become a very social way to communicate. Before the Internet, most people wrote to communicate with one other person. Now we reach hundreds or thousands of people with a single post. We search for laptop deals with an eye to wireless connectivity in order to stay connected and communicate with a global audience at a moment’s notice. Rather than eroding our writing skills, this has sharpened them. Blogging, in particular, is a powerful way for people to improve their writing. Today around 54% of the total population on Earth uses the internet every day. Another big factor is the social media which is overtaking the internet and it is used mostly by the teenagers. Social media are interactive computer-mediated technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, career interests and other forms of expression via virtual communities and networks. Most famous online social media is Facebook which is used by over 1 billion citizens around the world. Facebook, for example, as one of the leading social media platforms in the world, has made itself a near necessity for connecting with loved ones, friends, colleagues and acquaintances around the globe. With over 829 million daily users, according to Facebook’s newsroom, it has transformed our ability to stay in touch with those who would otherwise be out of reach, and it has allowed its users to have a closer tie with a growing number of people who share common interests and backgrounds, thus producing a social network far beyond anything we could have ever imagined.

The influence of these social media sites and platforms on our language, then, is a true phenomenon. It has managed to alter our vocabulary, increase the number of communications we have every day and the speed at which we have them, and leave us feeling a newfound responsibility to remain connected with the world at large.

There are many more social media such as Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat which influence on the modern society. As a result most of the younger population is using new slangs and the dictionary starts changing. Every day new words appear and their usage is becoming bigger. A whole host of words originating from social media and the wider Internet have become so commonplace that they’ve now slipped into popular usage, and we don’t even realize it. Just a few interesting words that have their origins in technology are blogosphere (the collective word for personal websites called blogs), troll (someone who creates conflict online by starting arguments or upsetting people) and buzzword (a word or phrase that is fashionable at a particular time or in a particular context).Also acronyms such as IRL (in real life), LOL (laugh out loud), IDK (I don’t know), BTW (by the way), AKA (also known as) are used much more in everyday life. Another curious phenomenon we’ve seen in recent years is the reappropriation of existing words and words based on brands to refer primarily to their social media context. Reappropriation is the cultural process by which a group claims words that were previously used in a certain way and gives them a new meaning. In this way the people who engage with social media are quite literally creating new words and giving new meanings to existing words.

‘Friended’ and ‘unfriended’ are two examples of words that have been given a new meaning due to their usage online. The word ‘friend’ and ‘befriend’ is from Old English originating in the 13th Century, but it has been given an entirely new meaning thanks to Facebook (the process of adding or removing someone from your circle of friends). ‘Like’ and ‘viral’ are other popular examples of words that have had their meaning appropriated by social media.

In the past when all of this technology was not existing people were writing in a much higher and formal way. Mostly they were writing letters which were formal and with no acronyms, slangs or any modifications on the language. They were sticking to the rules. Besides that the fact that now people cannot express themselves while interacting with somebody eye to eye is more disturbing. Everybody adapted the ability to sit in front of their smart phone, computer or any electronic device and start writing. But the problem is that only a few people still have the ability to communicate fluently in a formal way. We are getting afraid of the real world and we try to find a way to escape into the digital world. But as the time passes everything leads us to the fact that we must accept the digitalization and all the language modifications and mutations.

Main part

Humanity moved to a level where we depend on the internet and without it we are not able to function in any field. The Internet has been a springboard for all forms of informal writing. The ability to gather a large following doesn’t require so much eloquence and proper spelling as it did in the day of the paper- or hardback. Most online bloggers have no one looking over their shoulder to make proper language use an issue to take into consideration. In an era where anyone can be their own author, editor, and publisher, it might not be surprising traditional grammar rules are being replaced by something more flexible. And this doesn’t even start to take into account how much other innovation is going on in language used on the Internet. From impressive word plays to a whole new form of language, the change is quick and drastic. What social media has done is enable us to communicate with a much larger number of people on a global scale in a way that we only really used to be able to do on a local level. This is great when it means we’re keeping friendships alive over great distances, but it’s also increasing the demands placed on an individual to keep a much larger number of relationships going simultaneously. For example, the average number of friends a person has on Facebook in the UK is around 300 – even if you’re only actually really friends with, say, 10% of that number that’s still 30 friendships to be maintaining.

The result? An ever-increasing speed of communication. Facebook lets you communicate quickly, effectively and, most importantly, efficiently because written exchanges are concise and shared between all the friends you are connected with, meaning you only need to write them once. On Twitter there’s a 140 character limit, so even if you’re not against the clock you are quite literally forced to make the statement brief.

If internet is turned off for only five minutes everything will collapse. The banking systems will collapse, all of the social media will shut down, planes will lose their coordination and connection with the ground control, all websites will shut down and there will be big financial damage. Even though this is maybe the worst case scenario it still shows that we depend on the internet. Online movies, video games, blogs, news and websites make us use different slangs, acronyms and even totally new words which are not in the official dictionary and are not accepted and informal. For example when playing video games when we communicate with other players either vocally or written much of the time we use shortened versions of the words because we are concentrated on the game and we have no time to write or even say the full word. Another example which is spreading very fast in the last few years is the music that we hear, especially teenagers. Many of the teenagers listen to music and download it online. Usually the genre that teenagers use is mumble rap which is quite a new style of singing that modern rappers use it and apply it. In this mumble rap they invent many new words which are variations of already existing words and phrases. However they are not accepted and official, they are not in the dictionary. But as time passes many words which are used by these rappers and heard by us online are applied in the written and spoken language. Some of them are even accepted and approved as official words. Being active on social media is now popular and trendy, but this is the reason why people lose their ability to talk in real life (not in the virtual world). Also there are many side effects from using internet and social media on daily basis. Everything begins from the eyes and the brain. They are the first organs that get damaged. Brain cells are destroyed and the ability to think wise and properly is limited. Our eyes also suffer because we are exposed to constant radiation from our phones, computers, TVs, tablets or any kind of electronic device. Besides these two problems, there are many other consequences. On the other hand social media and internet change our life in a better way because we are more concise. This means that the small text boxes that most of the social media offer when we want to post something, make us think differently and change our mindset to write things in a more concise and shorter way. As an example we can contribute to Twitter’s text limit which gives us the ability to get to the point faster. The sweeping prose of earlier generations is giving way to a new way of writing that’s more concise, jumping right to the point. Blogging has contributed to this as well, since most successful bloggers know they only have a few seconds to draw a reader in before he clicks away. Short punchy sentences and the active voice are taking over as the most popular way to communicate in writing. Another positive thing that social media and internet bring to us is that before the Internet, most people wrote to communicate with one other person. Now we reach hundreds or thousands of people with a single post. We stay connected and communicate with a global audience at a moment’s notice. In the past few years another trend became popular, publishing books online. This might also be one of the positive consequences of internet and social media because books are always written in more formal way, with no acronyms, slangs or any new words unknown to the society. Plus when we read those books we learn new words which are more formal and on a higher level. This brings us to a higher level of education and raises our intellectual level.

CONCLUSION

As any linguist knows, language is not a static thing. Change and development is the one constant in life, and the changing sounds and phrases of a language are merely reflections of the changes in a particular society. You cannot expect the English language to remain the same while the world around us – and particularly the way we communicate – is subject to so much variation. Text messaging can be a fun and playful way to communicate – the important thing to remember for education is teaching children how to employ different ways of communication. Writing an essay and writing a text are different things; children can learn both. Recent findings have suggested that schoolchildren in the 1960s and 1970s were far more literate than children of today. In 2013, the average schoolchild struggles more with spelling, grammar and essay-writing: essential skills which before now were considered key to a good grasp of the English language. Text messaging is alienating English speakers from their native tongue and confusing non-natives who wish to learn the language. It promotes misspelling. English is a beautiful tongue with a rich literary history which does not deserve to be overshadowed by phrases like ‘c u l8r’ and ‘megalolz’. In my opinion internet and social media give us advantage because we learn new things much easier than in the past, we have access to everything we want and as a result of that our lives are much easier than in the past. I think that in the past few years these slangs, acronyms and new words became so popular and are accepted by the official dictionaries because we try to achieve everything in an easier and more efficient way, so as a result of that we try to find better alternatives for long phrases, words and sentences by using much more shorter newly invented synonyms and acronyms replacing these long words, phrases or sentences. Social speak is now the mainstay of quick, informal communication — like you’ll find in Facebook posts, tweets, emails, and texts. And while more formal writing still has its place in business communications, you can’t ignore the way that language is evolving. A better solution is to adopt it selectively to demonstrate that you’re evolving too. So while professional communicators shouldn’t jump on every trendy new word, phrase, or abbreviation, sprinkling in a few here and there can’t hurt. After all, there’s no evidence that social media is ruining the way we write. On the contrary, depending on how you look at it, it might even be making our language and writing all the richer and more interesting.

Have you ever wondered what languages in our world today use gender pronouns? Well, in this essay you will get a glimpse of some languages that use gender pronouns and some that do not use gender pronouns from interviews that were conducted along with tables that were created from those interviews and other sources. Also, I will be talking about the history of where these languages came from and how they became to be. Some questions will be answered here in the essay to give you a better look at what languages use gender pronouns and how they are used as well. Along with gender pronouns, we will be looking at how a language illustrates the connection between an individual’s understanding of the world and the wider society within which that individual lives and how an adjective conducted from an interview fits within their gender language pronouns in comparison to the noun that was given. In the world today there are more than six thousand five hundred languages spoken.

Out of the six thousand five hundred languages spoken the most predominant ones are English, Spanish, Telugu which is part of Punjabi, and Chinese. However, the four that I chose for this essay are Spanish, Telugu, German, and Southern Sotho. These languages are mostly spoken in Germany, India, Mexico, and parts of South America, and South Africa and they all derive from many different places. For instance, the Spanish language derived from the dialect of Latin that was brought over from the Romans to the Iberian Peninsula in two hundred and ten BC (Before Christ) during the second Punic war. Years after explorers from Europe brought the language over to the new world and it began to rapidly expand to the countries that we know today that speak the language.

Spanish along with English was one of the first languages to be brought over to the new world. Another language that was first recorded and spoken throughout the eastern hemisphere of our planet was German. German derives from the Germanic family language group. The history of the language was first recorded in the 1st century BC when Germanic speakers made contact with the Romans. From there it widely spread throughout parts of Europe such as Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, and Austria where it is still spoken today. While these languages derived from different dialects, they have one thing in common.

They both use gender pronouns in their language. Spanish uses masculine and feminine gender pronouns but when speaking they mostly use masculine words. For instance, “a group of females would be called ‘Latinas’ and a group of males would be called ‘Latinos.’ However, a group of males and females of Latin American descent would revert to the masculine ‘Latinos.’ (Rodriguez, A1). This example shows that when talking about a group of both men and women together they refer back to the masculine gender. They refer back to the masculine language because men use to be the predominant gender in society and woman did not have the same rights as men did a long time ago. Even if there was one guy they would still be considered “Latinos”. When interviewing with my friend, I chose four nouns for her to describe to me using five adjectives for each of the nouns.

Generally, motivation has been accepted as the main reason of increasing life conditions,prosperity and pleasure(Iguisi,2009).Motivation relates to promote somebody or be included in an activity, also it has a role in order to clarify why people pursue a goal while somebody avoid(Schunk et al(1992) cited in Al Kaabi(2016).Ryan,(2002)cited in Al Kaabi,(2009)that it has been included in different aspects science such as phenomenological, physiological even cultural form. As Seifert (2004)pointed out, in order to explain effects of motivation substantail effort have been spent by pschologist.

Recently, there are four prominent theories about motivation such as: self efficacy,attribution,self worth and achievement theory.According to Bandura(1994)self efficacy relates to confidence. Efficacy provides people accomplishment and feeling strong in every condition. Humans with efficacy have high assurance in their capacity even difficult events.On the other hand the self worth described by Covington(2000)as the theory regards that includes all self efficacy aspects. Obviously,two different kinds of achievement motivation have been occured since past half centruy.In addition first became the main aspect that examines motivation as a drive for example:an interior state,requirement or personal ideas for motivation. These general requirements have been conducted with earlier studies of motivation that emphasize motivation as an internal element which encourage people to achieve something(Convigton(2000)cited in Woodworth (1918).

It must be noted that,motivation can be taught one of the main item of second language learning also over three decades motivation have been seen a significant study that investigates importance of motivation in the language learning process. It is argued that whether social factors have effect on language learning process or not.One considerable question in recent years has been how social factors conducted with L2 motivation.In addition it will explain the connection between socail behaviours and motivation(Dorneyi,1994)Typically,there is a basic difference between attitude and motivation even though both of them accepted as key factor of pschology.Attitude is general and it is attached with sociology.The action can be observed in social groups also between interpersonal relationships.

However, motivation covers many expressions and it is more comprehensive notion rather than attitude(Dorneyi,1994).It is stated that motivation includes instinct,drive,personal behaviours and requirements.Particularly,L2 learning demonstrates single condition because of being exact role of language. It is known that motivation has great role on language learning.Schmidt and Watanabe (2001)claims that second language teachers realizes that motivation is powerful source because it provides opportunity to know more, encourages students in language learning process, enables students facilitated environment.Some teachers believe that curriculum improvement not only develop language ability and promote students to learn. Liuoliene et al(2006)stated that motivation has vital role in the learner’s success;it is often connected with the capability to achieve rather than other objects.In addition language attitude to affect success has two ways such as in positive and in negative.In contrast.Motivation is divided into two groups:goal and core motivation.Firstly,motivation at goal category involves core motivation,language oriented process, specially learner’s behaviours in language learning process. However, core motivation of Gardner includes three aspects :affect, want and effort (Liuoliene et al (2006)cited in Gardner(1993).

In fact,there are two versions of motivation:extrinsic and intrinsic.Intrinsic motivation encourages students engage in a task for its own willing,fort he enjoyment of its enhancement.In other case, extrinsic motivation provides encourage students with rewards or grades which given by teachers(Blaze(2010)cited in Lepper(1988).The main comparison between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation suggested by researches is that students can increase their abilities,also they will attain high grades rather than extrinsic motivation.If students motivated intrinsically they could be able to improve their language capacities,also they can improve some strategies for learning such as being hopeful and patient produce more effort, feel self efficacy,improve useful materials.If students motived extrinsically students could prefer even difficulties and attain lower grade(Blazer(2010)cited in Brewester et al(2000). Motivation of students can be influenced not only internal but also external factors. Internal factors conducted with personal ideas responsibilities,values and abilities. External factors involves habited motivation (Blazer(2010)cited in Malauff et al(2008).

First of all, it is commonly known that there are varieties in the use of any language depending on diverse factors such as, the place, the context, the social group and the time. Nevertheless, I am going to focus on the diastratic varieties of the language, which refers to social class. Alameda and Fernández (2016: 64) stated, “even if it is commonly assumed that modern societies are classless and egalitarian, people can generally be grouped into social classes according to their status, education, wealth and power”.

Having claimed that and bearing in mind there are many studies regarding the different social classes, I believe that the use of the language can tell a lot about a person’s background. From my point of view, it is a way of identifying someone’s social class when meeting them for the first time because it gives you an idea regarding their education and behaviour. For example, Alameda and Fernández, (2016: 64) said “the Australian English form “youse” (plural of you) is confined to working classes and the form “whom” is mostly associated with high sociolects”

In regards to my own feeling on the subject, this way to differentiate people between classes can bring out issues as prejudices and discrimination. Some people could be discriminated for not being part of a specific social class. However, the origin of the issue is not due to the varieties of the language themselves; it is more about the prejudices that remain within society. As Bourdieu (1987:16) claimed, “Words can make things and by joining in the objectivized symbolization of the group they designate, they can, if only for a time, make exist as groups collectives which already existed, but only in a potential state.” Keeping this in mind, I believe that language expresses reality but does not create it. Moreover, I think that there are still feelings and thoughts that cannot be expressed with words and sometimes the words that describe them are not accurate enough.

In addition, social classes already existed before. Social classes were named because of the different levels of income and education people had received. That said, the diastratic varieties of the language could help to perceive the education someone has received. In my humble opinion, they reinforce the concept of segregation between classes. For instance, the fact that some people have been more lucky to receive an education while others are illiterate, make educated people have more job opportunities than others which relates to their future integration in certain circles of society. In fact, your speech will be influenced by the way your social circle of people speak. Being born in a lower social class does not mean that you cannot increase your vocabulary or use better expressions but will definitely determine your use of the language at some point. The theory that our environment influences us in many aspects also implies the way we speak.

To support my opinion, Sapir (1912: 3) claimed, “According to this classification of environmental influences, we may expect to find two sets of environmental factors reflected in language, assuming for the moment that language is materially influenced by the environmental background of its speakers”. To paraphrase him, he said that the vocabulary of a language is the factor that best reflects the physical and social environment of its speakers. In addition, he explained that the language is influenced by either the subject matter or content, the vocabulary and the phonetic system.

Coming back to this thought regarding the varieties of the language depending on the social class, it has been proved to be assumed in our society. For instance, in TV shows such as The Crown, My Fair Lady, and Shameless we appreciate the lexical and grammar structure variations depending on the social class they represent.

As an example of the upper class, “The crown” reflects the characteristics of the English language when spoken by the highest social status, using the Received Pronunciation that is generally considered the most correct, since it is used by the Queen of England and also using long and formal sentences.

In order to reinforce this idea, I am exemplifying these theories to support my opinion within the subject. The formal English used in the dialogues of “The crown” say: “It is better to be patient and get what you desire at the right time, than have high office thrust upon you when you are not ready.” — King George VI, The Crown, Season 1, Hyde Park Corner

As I see it, after having compared the usual dialogues and talks between people from the upper class and the lower class, the first group tend to use more frequently a more complex lexical.

As far as I am concerned, people’s use of language is strongly influenced by social class. However, the education the person receives is more related to the person’s use of language rather than the social class to which he or she belongs. It is possible for a person to be rich and illiterate and another who does not have a lot of money but takes advantage of the opportunities they might have regarding education. The more financial resources a person possesses, the more possibilities the person has to study. Overall, it is more common for a person from an upper class to have received a higher educational level.

Another reason is that in their daily lives, they might need to use posh languages because they have to attend important congresses or give speeches. On the other hand, people who belong to a lower class might not go through those situations as much and in consequence, they tend to use a more colloquial vocabulary. In an informal context, this same idea could be expressed differently, for example saying “take things easy” or “do what you want as long as you can handle the situation”. In fact, I would use these expressions to explain the same idea since I come from the middle class and it is more congruent with the way I speak. Moreover, I would like to point out that the reason why I would normally use these expressions is that in my daily life, I don’t need to use posh language because I only study and spend time with my friends and family. However, I believe that if a person from any class has to attend an important event because of business or is in the public eye, will make an effort to adapt the speech to the context.

Another example of different ways of speaking according to different contexts and degree of formality, we can say: “You and I no longer engage in verbal confabulations” a very elegant way of saying “we don’t talk anymore”. The first expression is more likely to be used by a member of the Royal family than another citizen in their daily lives. Besides, other expressions like “Observe what course of action you compelled me to commit to” and “Look what you made me do” they both express the same idea but they vary in lexical.

In regards to the use of the language that is used by the middle class, the most highlighted characteristic is hypercorrection. In fact, this is the class to which people belong and it is mainly composed by average income an education. Consequently, they try to be extremely correct and by making changes in their pronunciation, they make mistakes in the process. As an example, Heinrich, H and Joseph, B. (2009: 182) claimed that:

‘English at a certain stage had two competing forms of the gerund form in -ing and a form in -en. Standard English leveled out the form in -ing, and many nonstandard dialects generalized -en, instead. This difference has since become one of the major features distinguishing standard from nonstandard English, and the use of the form in -en is often referred to as ‘dropping one’s gs.’ As speakers who ‘drop their gs’ try to speak the prestige dialect, they replace their -en by -ing”.

Finally, the cockney accent is an example of the lower class use of the language. It started in the East part of London and due to a lack of education; the working class and homeless have used it since the 19th century. Some examples of the cockney lexicon are the “Kosher” and “Stumm” meaning legitimate and quiet, respectively. The most common features of cockney accent are the dropping of the H sound, the dropping of the letter R and the glottal stop. As an example of cockney dialogue, retrieved from Varieties of English Accents Cockney English English Language Essay, I find it in “My Fair Lady” when Eliza Doolittle calls Henry Higgins “Enry Iggins”. Besides, the speaker still uses the double negative, for instance, “I haven’t found my keys nowhere”.

Fortunately, nowadays people no longer look down upon the Cockney accent and its historical meaning has helped to make it become part of the English culture.

Taking all these points into account, being aware of the variations in the use of the language and the factors that have led to this dissimilarity, I believe that everyone should have the opportunity to receive a high quality education regardless of the social class they belong to. My conviction is that in today’s society we are working to reach equality between the working and upper class with the purpose of becoming a more well-rounded and inclusive society.

Introduction

William Shakespeare’s plays are considered among the most powerful and influential works of world literature. His plays have entertained, stimulated, and been taught for centuries; however, our high school teachers may not have mentioned that many of Shakespeare’s iconic plays incorporate risqué humour, with crude jokes. Shakespeare wrote appropriate to his time but these days, we, as a contemporary society have better … and its questionable whether his words still hold value. Good morning Ladies and gentlemen, today I will be arguing that Shakespearean language should not hold value within a contemporary society and that we should push to promote texts relevant to contemporary students. This is due to the extremely derisive language used about women in Hamlet and the appalling amount of racism expressed in the play Othello.

Argument 1: Treatment of Women

The treatment on women in Hamlet is appalling and this was conveyed through the choice of language that Shakespeare used throughout the play. The female characters in Hamlet, Queen Gertrude and Ophelia, are portrayed as the puppets for the men around them. They are simply influenced by the men they love with little say of their own, in fact, Shakespeare does not even develop their characters. This was conveyed in Act 3, scene 2 where Hamlet says to Ophelia, “Lady, shall I lie in your lap,” and then he continues to say, “Do you think I meant country matters?” The treatment of women in this scene is destructive and in modern language, this quote translates to, “Did you think I was talking about sex?” This is an unacceptable language choice which can be considered as sexual harassment within contemporary society. Shakespeare is promoting misogynistic ideas through the language choices which society should be objecting to.

Hamlet uses Ophelia’s gender as the punchline of an unseemly joke when he uses the word, “country,”- drop off the last syllable and it is clear what he was going for. This type of language is extremely inappropriate and Shakespeare should not be promoting these values. As a contemporary society, we should not be glorifying this type of behaviour as we should promote more equality in this century. Throughout the scene, Hamlet ends with the word, “nothing,” which was essentially Elizabethan slang for a women’s private parts. These are just some of the many atrocious language choices that Shakespeare used throughout his play, Hamlet. The language choices are completely unnecessary and they essentially convey wrong values which contemporary society may think is a suitable way to refer to a woman. However, it is most definitely not okay to speak to a woman like this which is why Shakespearean language should not hold value within a contemporary society.

Argument 2: Racism in his play Othello

Now, I will explain the racist language of Othello.

Shakespeare’s Othello explores themes such as jealousy, gender and deception. The exploration of these themes reveals the racial, cultural, and social climate of Venice. Othello is among the literary works that racism constitutes their origin. The primary philosophies of the seventeenth century about race are a substantial part of Othello’s doubt and insecurity, which ultimately lead to his tragic demise. The encounter between worlds with differing values and ideas plays a considerable role in the context of Othello. Since the hero of the play is an outsider, a Moor, the audience get an idea of how blacks were regarded in England, in Elizabethan times. From start to the end of the play, there are many references that bring about the issue of racism. For example, in Act 1, Scene 1, Iago utilises racist slurs when he wakens Brabantio with the news that his daughter, Desdemona who is a white Venetian, has eloped with Othello. Shakespeare gives Iago the line “old black ram” (Othello) as a highly offensive descriptor of the black main character, and by describing him as “tupping” (sleeping with) Brabantio’s “white ewe” (Desdemona), he essentially plays on racist Elizabethan notions that black men have an animal-like hypersexuality. Furthermore, during this scene, Iago calls Othello “the devil,” playing on an outrageous sixteenth century idea that black men were evil and that the devil often took the shape and form of a black man. This type of language choices that were made by Shakespeare are wholly unnecessary which essentially convey wrong values to its contemporary audiences. Imagine being a person of colour, sitting down to your English lesson, and the teacher shines the spotlight on such beautiful “paragon” and “nuanced” language where people who look like you are likened to dirty beasts. I don’t need to explain why that’s bad, and I hope I’ve convinced you that we shouldn’t glorify this quite frankly horrific language.

Othello, a black man, succumbs to believing the racist attitude of the time period – he refers to himself as a “base Judean” in Act V which essentially translates to “base Indian” in modern time. This degrading description indicates that Othello suggests that his blackness is to blame for his lack of conversational ability and by using the word “base” he is essentially referring to himself as “lowly” – meaning worth less as compared to a white person. Furthermore, through the play, Othello compares himself to a toad living in a dungeon, from the quote, “…I had rather be a toad/ And live upon the vapor of a dungeon.” Othello implies that his blackness makes him a loathsome animal, somehow less than human. In regards to Shakespearean work in classrooms, we can study the messages of the texts in class, we can analyse the depiction of racism in society, but what we should NOT do is glorify the language. Regardless of the purpose it serves, teaching the younger people of our society that referring to black people as toads is ‘literary genius’ is simply not a good idea. Holding the words themselves up to a gold standard could be very damaging to potential victims of this kind of language.

Conclusion

To conclude, William Shakespeare is regarded as one of the greatest writers in the English language. However, I have established that his choice of language within his plays (specifically Hamlet and Othello) promote misogyny and immoral values. The texts hold valuable lesson hence why his work can be kept in our classrooms, but we should not idolise it. By glorifying Shakespeare’s every word, we’re only teaching our kids that misogynistic and racist comments are a mark of intellect. Therefore, this destructive Shakespearean language should not hold value within a contemporary society.

Traditional language manifests essential bonds through cultural identity which shapes ethnic domain and individuality. Communication empowers how ideas are contrived within society because of diversification and its impact on people. In Gloria Anzaldúa’s ruminative essay, How to Tame A Wild Tongue, she emphasizes how language and culture are inseparable and that a native tongue ties in with the identity of an individual. Anzaldúa also explores the emotional aspects of suppression by patrimonial language through pathos and anecdotes.

Gloria Anzaldúa’s How to Tame A Wild Tongue conveys how language is a key component to identity and how it interconnects the people within the world. She conceptualizes the socio-cultural challenges that beset the Chicanos. The author discusses her Chicana life during times of contention for immigrants and how she and her people are prevented from expressing colloquialism because of their embarrassment or doubt. Anzaldúa creates a proximity between the variations of Spanish and English by imbuing the concept of cultural colonialism and how it has pushed people to speak the language of their choosing rather than attempt to conform by learning.

At the beginning of her essay, Anzaldúa opens with an experience she had with a dentist who is agitated by the stubbornness of her tongue, making it a problem for him. This anecdote instantiates her accent and how she is aware of what other people are thinking of her, especially when she speaks. She explains how the Chicano people have been resented due to their ethnic heritage and opinions formed by others gave reason for her self-consciousness. Additionally, Anzaldúa opens her passage with quotes in both Spanish and English and lists the different dialects spoken by the Chicanos and distinguishes between them to help the reader understand the idiosyncratic nature of language that exceeds the conventional style of grammar. The author implements rhetorical questions correlating to her identity, asking how to conceal her Chicano heritage and her affiliation with her culture. Many like her are not able to completely emerge themselves in the American way of life without sacrificing a part of themselves through their values and customs. She makes inquiries by asking how the formation of one’s identity is determined, whether it be by social influence or the independent thinking of an individual. Throughout the passage, Anzaldúa employs pathos to convey her exploitation by sharing moments of her childhood that have psychologically scarred her because of the physical abuse she faced for speaking Spanish, rather than English, in school. Even after conforming to the English language, she has been looked down upon by her people because the English she speaks is prevalent in her native tongue, causing Anzaldúa to feel even more discouraged going into adulthood. By using colloquial diction, the author construes how her means of enunciation was lambasted because of her background. She applies the phrase “linguistic terrorism” to construe the social stratification of the Chicanos and how their turn of phrase was defiled. The Chicanos feel defeated since they are the minorities of the region and turn to repressing their means of expression because of their status.

Anzaldúa discusses that on the border, her language is being forgotten; living in the lands between America and Mexico pose confusion of not knowing which side one belongs. She expresses her inclusion as a woman inhabiting this boundary and that Mexican immigrants face backlash from society and ethnic challenges because of their inferior status in the United States. Anzaldúa plies how the Spanish language has metamorphosed and developed, specifically in this region since the first colonization of the area. Present-day Chicano Spanish is a combination of different languages—including English, Spanish, and Native American sounds and words—all of which were commingled together to form the author’s native tongue. Since Chicano Spanish derives from a miscellany of dialects, it was seen as a “bastard” language because its origins do not trace back to a pure linguistic root, and instead, is considered a pauperized language by other Hispanics. The attack on their language is prevalent in the way the Chicanos speak by imposing gender roles on certain words and suppressing the individuality of women. During her childhood, Anzaldúa was made aware of certain phrases that pertained to a woman’s intended behavioral status such as, “Muchachitas bien criadas,” or, “well-bred girls do not answer back.” This conveys, that in her culture, there are foisted roles for the female gender. They are presumed to be polite and not talk back. Furthermore, she had learned that only derogatory phrases had only been applied to women, whereas they did not pertain to men. She perceives how the masculine plural has burgled women of their female identity because of their dialect. With the multitude of words and phrases that correlate to male and female roles, language is more biased to the males since they possess stronger and more condescending words whilst the females are given more disrespectful or subordinate adjectives. The border is dominated by incongruity and perplexity, but Anzaldúa states that her people have lied in wait hoping that the turmoil will finally cease.

Anzaldúa imbues a type of structural syntax that gives her writing a more powerful approach. She parallels English phrases to Spanish phrases in her narrative when stating, “En boca no entran moscas. Flies do not enter a closed mouth.” By using this interchange from the Spanish to English language, Anzaldúa indicates that more can be expressed by using not just one, but two, languages. This juxtaposing style is characterized by the balancing of an idea that is tantamount with the subject of what it intends to articulate. The author divides her thoughts in Spanish and English at the beginning of her paragraph which lays the foundation of the section by presenting truisms of silence and loneliness. The connotation she uses when writing entirely in Spanish is to employ a sense of identity for suppressed Chicano women and challenge the silence of damsels. It serves as a contradiction against the stereotype that women are meant to stay in quietude through her use of argumentative speech. Additionally, the Spanish phrases mirrored with the English translations intensify the syntax and structure of her argument. These shifts allocate a logical approach towards bellicose hegemony and animate the meaning of her linguistics. In doing so, Anzaldúa can surpass a systematized, logical narration by maximizing the classes and borders, and maltreatment she has faced against her identity as a climactic element. Anzaldúa’s specific assemblage of various sorts of language and discourse in her essay construes her passivity by her structure and syntax.

The language an individual speaks is their identity, no matter how they are judged for it their heritage can never be tainted. By uniting all peoples together, language is the threshold of a nation, which can accrue many benefits of being multicultural. Anzaldúa addresses these aspects and the suppression she has faced as a woman. Language is the embodiment of culture and depicts the identity of an individual based off their native background.

The poems, “Elena”, by Pat Mora, and, “Translation for Mama”, by Richard Blanco, are both about having obstacles in communication, disconnection in family, and identifying themselves as individuals.These two poems reflect on issues in communicating and trying to adapt themselves into English as a new language and in a new environment. Mora mostly focuses on how a mother thinks that she is not able to fulfill her obligation as a mother due to her little knowledge of English. While, Blanco connects himself to his mother through language, even though he does not know how to speak her language.There are some more differences. For instance, Elena struggles to connect herself with her children because she sees herself isolated from them. On the other hand, Blanco knows that his mother has difficulty understanding the language, but still he is expressing himself through her language. Mora’s “Elena” and Blanco’s “Transition for Mama” both follow obstacles in learning a new language, yet the first poem emphasis on how lack of language causes drift in relationships and disconnection, especially among immigrants families, the second poem, by contrast focuses and how the speaker is willing to connect himself to his mother.

Now the barrier that Elena was having to communicate with her family or children, reminded her of her past when she had no issues communicating with the people in her native country, this brings to the idea that one faces different hassle until they nicely settle in the new environment; “ I remember how I’d smile/ listening my little ones/ understanding every word they’d say, /their jokes, their songs, their plots/ But that was in Mexico.” (2-6)The mother shall never forget how close she was with her family in Mexico where she was not having any issues with her children regrading in communication and even expressing her love to them. Yet, now she is in a completely different situation that she thinks she might will lose her children because of the lack of communication. Likewise, Translation for Mama, the speaker’s mother feels very isolated and misses her native country. “I’ve transcribed all your old letters into poems/ that reconcile your exile from Cuba, but always/ in English. I’ve given back the guajiro roads/ you left behind, stretched them into sentences.” (Blanco 4-7). This poem is very similar to the other poem in terms of seeing themselves disconnected from their nations and families. One is missing cuba and the other is Mexico. Immigrants tend to forget about their own native country and strive to fit themselves into a new society.

Coming from a different background and knowing one language are few challenges that immigrants often face. The speaker of the first poem thinks and feels that she is not smart enough because she cannot speak a language that her children speak; “They speak English. At night they sit around/ the kitchen table, laugh with one another/ I stand at the stove and feel dumb, alone” (Mora 8-10). This depicts that the mother wants to relate herself with her children when they are around in the house, but she is unable to communicate with them because she does not know the language and this is what makes her feel that she is not smart. A mother who taught her children how to speak is now struggling communicating with her children. In contrast, in the second poem, the speaker talks about his mother’s transformation from one language to another language, “what I’ve written for you, always written/ in English, my language of silent vowel endings/ never translated into your language pf silent h’s”(Blanco 1-3). The speaker writes anything he wants to his mother in english, the language that was translated to them when they came here from a different nation. The speaker compares his language with a language he is adapting to and the fact that their language will never be translated properly into english.

Immigrants that are not familiar with another language, such as English need to learn in order to fit into the societal norms. In a perspective of a mother who always feels awkward and has a very low self esteem when, “embarrassed at mispronouncing words/ embarrassed at the laughter of my children/ the grocer, the mailman.”(Mora 15-17). The speaker sees herself very disconnected not only from her children but also from the society she lives. She is afraid of speaking because she feels ashamed talking to her children, she has a sense that her children are mocking her as well as the outsiders and that is how she loses her confidence and causes her lifestyle to be the same and brings distance in her relationship with her children. On the contrary, the second poem focuses on how a mother is forced to assimilate herself in a totally different culture where everything was new to her in order to be a part of the society. “I have imagined you surviving by transforming/ Yards of taffeta into dresses you never wear/ keeping papa’s photo hinged in your mirror/ and leaving the porch light on, all night long” (Blanco 16-19). This shows that it is true adjusting yourself into a new environment that the language and lifestyle are different. However, if you want to be a part of the society, you must be like them in terms of speaking the same language because not everyone speaks the language you do.

Learning is an innate need to grow as a person. Learning a new language is challenging for everyone, in particular for those who think they are not able to learn or being stopped to learn by individuals. Elena is eager to learn the language; “I bought a book to learn English… My oldest said, “Mama, he doesn’t want you to/ Be Smarter than he is.” I am forty.”(Mora 11-14) This demonstrates that there is an opportunity that is given to her to learn and she is willing to learn the language so she can have a better understanding of children and will be able to integrate into her home. Yet, her husband is stopping her from doing something that helps her get connected with her children because he does not want her to gain knowledge and be as intelligent as he sees himself. On the other hand, the person forced herself to learn whatever it took, “I have recreated the pueblecito you had to forget,/ forced your green mountains up again, grown/ valleys of sugarcane, stars for you in English.” (Blanco 9-11 ). The speaker referring this to his mother because she needed to see herself among the society, therefore she forgets everything about her country which is not easy for someone who has spent most of her lifetime in there.

It is totally understandable that language helps us communicate, express our thoughts and resolves problems. The more languages you know the easier and better you can communicate and have access to anything because language opens doors for us so we can get to know people even if we are living in a different country. As an immigrant when i first came to the United States I have experienced language barrier because I never had the opportunity to learn the language and I had difficulty communicating with others, therefore I motivated myself and was eager to learn and nothing or no one could stop me from learning. However, Language proficiency should not makes us apart from our love ones because love does not require language but feelings. A mother who desires to connect herself with her children does not need to know any other language that her children speak because expressing her love to her children should not be based on whether knowing the language or not. On the other hand, Blanco expresses how he feels and is aware that his mother is missing her native country by translating into her language. The newcomer immigrants always have a language barrier and do not know how they are being viewed by outsiders based on languages that they speak. Immigrants tend to forget about their own native country and strive to fit themselves into a new society. Despite the fact that it is difficult for immigrants to learn a new language, yet you must force yourself because not knowing the language where you live can have many consequences. For instance, difficulty in being occupied, isolated from the community, and more importantly distance in family relationships.