Why do Anglo-American women change their speaking manner when
they are in the presence of their African-American significant
others
and his or her homies? On the other hand when they are back
among their own crowd the speaking is switched off and back to the
proper American
English; or as Amy Tan put it, "broken or switch" in
their English.
My sister-in-law who is Anglo-American; used slang by day and proper
etiquette by night; that was until my family asked her to be herself
and stop trying to speak in what is called Ebonics. Her worst
habit was rolling her neck around, as if she had a a hoola hoop around
it. Why do any of us in our society change our speaking manner, when we
are in the presense of certain people. I agree with Amy Tan when she
said that a person's
language and liguistics is mostly motivated by
peers."
In the Fall of 2003, I watched a local news report on a local affiliate
here in Texas. I reside in a predominatley hispanic area of the state,
so quite naturally the dialect has it's variations. As the reporter was
interviewing the young women, she recalled how she had saw the alleged
suspect "getting off" the car before he shot his victim. A person that
has been in South Texas all their life, much like myself relized the
common misuse of her person's words. On the other hand if I were
visiting her from Boise Idaho, I would have been confused by her use of
words. I would immediately have thought she meant by "getting off the
car", in all my confusion; I would have gathered the suspect had been
on top of the car on the hood.
Now in the 21st century there is still controversy over Ebonics. Much
of the controversey is, who would decide what were proper Ebonics and
what is improper Ebonics? Some conservatives still view Ebonics
is a way to validate incorrect usage and pronunciation by
African-Americans. But who gets to decide what proper Ebonics is? Amy
Tan recalls how clerks, and bank workers, treated her mother like a
second class citizen when she talked; I can strongly assert that Tan's
observation is true. The way a individuals speech comes across; we
normally measure his or her intellect by their choice of words and the
way they express themselves.
Tan recalled her mother asking her to call people and pose as if she
were her. Because of her mothers language limitations in English.
Another point I recalled while reading Mother Tongue reminded of a
child who had a parent that was oppressed because of a language
barrier. I personally can relate and understand why Tan was ashamed of
her mother limited english.
Tan stated that people never took her mother seriously primarily
because of her "imperfect english". For example, her mother waited for
a rebate on a check she asked Amy "why he don't send check, already two
weeks late?" Many times information can be misleading as confusing for
people with limited english. As Tan mentioned "we all have something in
common" and that is that families, much like hers have a family talk.
A language within a family and foreign to those outside.