Persuasive Speech About Code Switching

Anzaldua’s How to “Tame a Wild tongue” goes to great lengths to discuss her opinions on language, and how her communication with people from various linguistic backgrounds required her to change gears in a way. To “switch codes.” Each of us as we participate in different environments with diverse expectations and duties switch various codes of our own. In my life I most often switch between a normal code, a snarky code, and a business code.

“Code switching is a strategy that helps us communicate in socially and culturally appropriate ways. As we think about how we speak to different audiences — such as colleagues, pastors, doctors, children, and service workers — we recognize our own use of code switching. This is a natural and often unconscious response to modify our use of vocabulary, sentence structure, intonation, and topic of discussion according to our audience” (O’Neal & Ringler, 2010). Code switching is helpful in the classroom when teachers are able to use the local dialect but explain why he or she is using it and when it is appropriate. For example, in research papers students need to use Standard English so that it looks professional and informational. For narratives and creative works it is okay to use different dialects and word choice because it gives readers details about the author’s voice and writing style. Teachers can also teach students to be bi-dialectal so they can know how to speak to different types of people in different places. They can do this by comparing words we use in Standard English to words that are used in different cultures that mean the same thing. By using the students’ native/home language or dialect, we can bridge the gap and achieve the target goal of students learning Academic/Standard

Different social, professional and cultural contexts may affect relationships and the way people communicate due to of a lack of understanding or knowledge of one another’s background and culture. This could be through their race, religion, ethnicity or where they come from. Each one of these can have similar or very different ways to communicate. For example

Tone is another thing that be misinterpreted by other as when someone raises their c=voice to one group of people it means that they are angry are annoyed but to other it can mean that they are excited yet in different culture this can be the subtle difference in cultures; different cultures will often have picked up different things like when looking at the west it is very common to use communication methods as emails and texting. Other culture prefer to communicate through telephones or written word; and generation can also affect the language as young people will have developed new language to accompany the new technology which may seem horrible to older people.

Code switching is a part of everyone’s daily life. Gloria Anzaldua expressed how she used code switching in her story “How to Tame a Wild Tongue.” Anzaldua grew up in Texas, near the Mexico border, to a Mexican-American family. Her family primarily spoke Spanish, but while at school and in the community, they had to speak English, the accepted language of America (Anzaldua 530). Anzaldua did not want her native language to die, so she wrote “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” to express her feelings, and to show how code switching affected her everyday life. In the story, Anzaldua expressed that depending on who she was talking to,

In the begging of the chapter, Anzaldúa decides to incorporate the use of code switching to show how both languages are a

It refers to the use of the two languages within sentences or a conversation. When this alternation between the two languages occur at the sentence level it is referred to as code-mixing. According to Paradis et al. (2011), code switching and mixing are used by many typically developing, proficient bilinguals in all countries of all languages. This suggests that code switching is a perfectly normal behavior that does not need therapeutic intervention. Bilingual children commonly use switch coding to help them connect the languages they are learning. Researchers have found that code switching may occur in varying frequency depending on the situation or the context of interaction. However, increased use of the behavior suggests lack of competency in the language that is being used less frequently (Roseberry-McKibbin,

People from different backgrounds may use and/or interpret communication methods in different ways because every family has their own way of communicating together. For example: some children might hear or speak more than one language at home or they could hear others swearing. This can affect children’s communication and how they communicate as adults.

If you are a Spanish speaker who speak both English and Spanish, you code switch back when talking to Spanish speakers not continue to talk in English. Sadly, a lot of standard English speaking Black people don’t do that. They might use AAVE words to sound cool while still using Standard English

The existence of a large Latin American community living and working in the United States has been the main cause for the Spanish language to have gradually found its way into the North-American society. Those belonging to this community use both Spanish and English on a daily basis, although not usually to the same degree: Spanish is normally spoken in colloquial situations, whereas English is the language used in work or academic contexts. The code-switching between the two languages emerges as a tool of identification with both cultures. Over the past few years, the cultural reality of all those people who are able to alternate English and Spanish in the

In “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan, she opens the story by informing us that she speaks more than one language. She states that she is a writer and she is someone who has always loved language. Throughout the story she explains the different situations that she experience because of the way she talks such as when she has to translate for her mother on the phone and how she talks proper when she is giving a speech. She feels as if her mother’s English “limits” her perception of her. She also states that at one point she was ashamed of her mother’s English. On the other hand, her mother’s English is perfectly clear to her and she describes it as her mother tongue.

When reading the article I came to realize that code switching is an essential part in the way I socialize with everyone. For instance, I might use a different type of dialect with my 18 year old friends who has a heavy influenced urban dialect than I would with my 46 year old AT&T supervisor from Bridgewater NJ. I also use a different dialect when talking with my brother vs. when I talk to my sister, and when it comes to my fellow peer vs. my teacher. Code switching is important when it comes to communication whether it’s through an email, text, phone call or in person. By being able to embrace code switching, success/acceptance at a job, in a posse or with your family is easily achievable. I again found this article to be relatable because

Although the language individuals use reflects our identity, language use is not static and changes according to context. This is

Code switching affects how students and adults view each other in different cultures depending on how much they know about each other's background. Kids are around many different cultured students, and they have to make sure not to offend anyone but also do this effortlessly. Since communities are so diverse, kids can sometimes automatically just pick up on different culture norms. According to Deggans, Boston kids use more of an accent when they are around people from the same place as them. For kids living in a community with only one culture, they find that it’s quite a struggle to meet new people in college since they aren’t familiar with other kids backgrounds. Even adults as important as Barack Obama use code switching. When Obama was giving a

My topic of choice has to do with the concept of code switching in a social concept. We all adapt our language, slang and otherwise based upon social constructs more than anything I feel, whether it be formal, informal, professional, academic or otherwise. I chose this topic because for the first time in years I live in a very linguistically diverse environment. I have two roommates from the heart of Baltimore City and one from Scotland and myself who (by virtue of length) consider myself more Eastern Shore; I thought it interesting to keep track of the code-switching between conversations between several linguistically diverse individuals and how code-switching occurs depending upon conversation topics.