Speak That You Might See Me Confused

543 Words3 Pages
Speak that you might see me confused “You are not from England right?” the first reaction that I get from someone after talking to them. How could they notice that so quickly? Is it because I have a different skin colour than others, or they notice a difference in my language? Language is obviously a vital tool. A means of communicating thoughts and ideas, but it forges friendships, cultural ties, and economic relationships. Language is also a vehicle for the expression of thoughts, perceptions, sentiments, and values characteristic of a community, it also represents a fundamental expression on all levels and spheres of social and human identity. Identity, whether it is or an individual, social or institutional, is something which we are constantly building and negotiating all our lives through social interactions. I am ethnically from India, but I was born in Vienna and have spent most part of my life there. Apart from English, I speak Malayalam, Tamil, (both Indian languages) and German. Language has been always important for me. By means of language you can tell one another what you see and what you think. My first spoken words were in Malayalam, my first language. English and German came into my daily life as time went by. Even though I knew there were many different languages in this big world, I noticed the major differences and varieties in my education. In school I understood there are ways you give and receive languages and how that can affect both my own identity and those around me. If I belong to a particular group, this means adopting the linguistic conventions of that group. If that group has a particular slang, I also tend to adapt that slang with the time. That slang signified the identity of that specific group. The use of particular slang can express my gender, age, personality, race and class. People perceive an American accent. This I have
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