In terms of my home life and heritage playing a role in my English language, I’ve honestly had to adjust in and out of many different speech patterns. My mother comes from a very large, passionate Italian family. This was the first thing I was exposed to in my earlier, developmental years. Every time my mother spoke to all her siblings and her parents, it was all in Italian because that was the first language they all learned as my grandparents emigrated from Naples. Although my mother and all of her siblings spoke English fluently through their American school systems as children, I was exposed to an equal amount of Italian as I was to English. Especially when I became a little older and my mother became pregnant with my younger sister, my grandmother was around a lot more – and doing a lot in terms of taking care of me. Though my grandmother also spoke English (certainly not fluent, just enough to get by,) she spoke it with a very heavy Italian accent. Not only the accent but, she framed her English sentences a little odd because the Italian language is very different from English. In English, we structure our basic sentences with the subject of it first, then the verb and then the object. In Italian, the basic sentence structure is the opposite – the sentences usually start with the object, then followed by the subject, then followed by the verb. For example, the English sentence “I like apples,” would be structured in Italian as “Apples, I like.” So, before kindergarten – although I was speaking English and hardly knew Italian besides a few words, I was speaking it similar to my grandmother and a little differently than everyone else in terms of structure. I also had a slight accent that made some of my words difficult to understand. It was very minor and honestly only with a couple letters, such as R’s – I always struggled to not roll mine in the beginning. These little glitches in my English were quickly corrected as I went to school, in an environment where everyone around me was learning how to perfect their English language in terms of grammar. In getting older, my exposure to school and perfecting English was much more apparent than spending time with my grandmother so, I never had problems speaking it again in my life. So much so that when middle school came around and we had to pick a second language to learn (where I chose Italian,) it was actually pretty difficult to me to adjust back to that way of speaking. I even struggled to roll my R’s for the longest time. However, eventually (like when I was younger in learning English) I soon adjusted through practice/ teaching and am now able to communicate in both languages.
So, even though I was really young when the perfecting of my English was going on – I know the feeling of having to adjust to a different way of speaking. And, if I’m going to be honest – I personally wasn’t negatively affected by it and have never felt “othered” because of it. Completely given that I am white and have that privilege, I never thought too much into it. I saw it as my teachers giving me the tools so everyone else can understand me and I can communicate better with my peers. I’ve personally never felt that any of my educators have ever shut down my culture or denied “the right to [my] own patterns and varieties of language.” (SRTOL) To me, I was just learning how to properly speak in terms of what language I was learning. Also, with the opportunity that most public schools provide for students to choose another language to learn – I felt that I was able to connect back to my roots and embrace the culture I come from in my education system. Under full acknowledgement that I don’t know everyone else’s experiences and there are certainly students who do experience racial backlash in relation to their dialect, I don’t see the root of this problem to be language. I see language as a skill and tool that is learned and, languages all have their own set of rules in order to maintain consistency – which is what allows for mutual understanding. I experienced nothing but an encouragement of inclusiveness in learning how to speak like everyone around me did. I believe the root of this problem of students feeling “othered” truly stems from separate problems of racism and egocentrism that is often, mistakenly affiliated with language. Language is supposed to be something that brings people together as it gives people tools to communicate themselves. It’s what people choose to do with their communication skills that causes this rift. Language doesn’t divide us, people do.
Jenna's Blog 