The summary that Anna posted on this article, Are You With Me, was well done. Therefore, I won't bore you with a recap on the reading, yet I will give my thoughts. In the conclusion of the reading, Foster wrote, "codeswitching is a deliberate and
systematic practice intended to express the speakers' identities and influenced by the social relationships between participants."
I liked how this reading tied into the previously read code-switching articles. Similar to genders, religions, etc., race is yet another identifier that similar people can code-switch through to relate to one another.
While pondering my thoughts on where the dialect to which African Americans speak came from, I found the following video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvuWSJI87r8. This video claims that the dialect has evolved from slaves. Many of the words they spoke with have also made their way into standard english.
I think it is interesting to watch this video and understand what gave African-Americans this ability to code-switch through language.
I think Matt brings up an interesting subject, how languages evolve.
ReplyDeleteBecause our past shapes our identities, and language is also part of our identity and how we express ourselves, the history of language is significant to who we are today.
The languages, or varieties of speech that we employ in day to day conversation is most definitely a part of our identity, one of Foster's main statements. As we code-switch between dialects, or variants of speech we are shifting our identities, not entirely who we are per se, but only to perform or act appropriately in different situations whether at work, with friends, giving a presentation, or an over-the-phone interview.