It has been my experience thatintelligence is associated with how well one speaks English. I have spokenEnglish since forever or at least I thought until I moved to Florida. I wasquickly informed that I was not speaking English. City people can be so cruel.I was not thinking about my speaking ability because the only thing on my mindwas having fun. I moved from a small town in East Texas to the big city ofTampa, Florida. The population is about 50% white, 40% black, 6% Hispanic, and4% other in my hometown. It does not matter who they are, almost everyone in mysmall hometown speaks the same way. It was one of the happiest, one of the mostembarrassing, and one of the biggest learning experiences of my life.
It wasn’t until a few months laterwhen I went job hunting that I realized that I was different than the peoplewho lived in Tampa. After answering the question “Where are you from” a milliontimes, I started to think that something was different. I tried to put it outof my mind, but I kept asking myself the same question “Why do they want toknow where I’m from”? I found a job and went in for training. The girl whotrained me, Nicole, kept asking “What did you say” and I kept repeating. Now Ihad questions “Is she deaf or just trying to be funny”? And then, it happened acouple weeks later. She said, “Girl, I’m going to teach you how to speakEnglish”. I’m not sure if it was possible before but, simultaneously, I feltembarrassment and happiness overcome me. Before my transformation, I heard all kindsof backwoods jokes and comments. Afterwards, I could go out with them inpublic. Yea!!! Yeah right. I felt more confused now than ever before. Why wasit so important for me to learn to speak the way that others spoke? It’s THEaccepted language in America.
She helped me for weeks and never teasedme about my dialect anymore. At first, it was like Ellie Mae Clampett hadstepped into the building, but then… I was one of them. To complicate matters,I started learning Spanish. Not only do I have an East Texas dialect and a StandardEnglish dialect but now I have Spanish. Yea! I decided to major in English and I want to learn as much as I possibly can learn about this wonderful language.
Now as an English major, I have bettercontrol over my different dialects and use them when appropriate. There aretimes when one of them may slip out at the wrong time, but I quickly recover. Iwanted to study English as a way to help with my “deficiency” and improve uponwhat I had learned.
I love how you've touched on this aspect of English. When we talk about our language, we tend to forget that language isn't a set list of rules and words; it's dynamic and fluid and different everywhere. I think we've all had experience with different kinds of dialects and especially with Spanish here in Texas. In an immigrant nation, it's fascinating to see all the different factors that have influenced our national language.
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