Traveling back in time to when I was young, I find that many of my influences come from my closest family members. I was starting pre-school when I first started listening to how people around me were talking. I would listen to my mother and father talk on the phone or to each other and found myself starting to adopt their special language. My sister is six years older than me. Naturally children will look up to their older siblings. I, like many others, would copy exactly what my sister would do. She would say “crap” or “gosh” and sure enough I was running around using the word in complete wrong context. My mother and father were somewhat strict with how my two siblings and I talked. When I was running around yelling words that we weren’t supposed to say, it was almost a routine for me to get in trouble and eventually end up tattling on my sister. My original language came from my family, yet unlike others many slang words were absence from it. I find that many of my most strict proper …show more content…
high and High school I found myself changing my language as soon as I stepped foot in that school. I would see a teacher and formally greet them using “Mr.” and “Mrs.”. Then I would see my friends and insult them using the common colorful and playful language we used when talking to each other. Thinking back to it I code switched just like I did with my father and mother. I was loose with my language around my friends. I would shorten things up. It’s odd that unlike my home life my loose slang filled language would often be harder to turn off when writing English papers and other formal papers. I would find myself typing “u” or “dem”. My English teachers often would correct kids in my class. I was generally quite but when I would answer questions or talk publicly I used formal English. School seemed to continue on trying to weed out my slang but with my peers and friend I just wouldn’t be able to fully get away from that loose and easy going special slang