The most meaningful takeaway of today’s discussion for me
was the fact that we discussed how identity is influenced by culture, and how
having to learn a new language in depth produces the oblivion of your own
culture and identity. As we can read in the text the author says ‘’for people
who cannot entirely identify with either standard (formal Castilian) Spanish
nor Standard English, what recourse is left to them but to create their own
language?’’ the author in this sentence is explaining how important the language
is for her.
Knowing that her
Spanish is not the most common and correct Spanish, and that her English is not
perfect since she has a Latin accent, she directly states that there is no
other way than creating her own language, in order to be able to communicate . This idea, transmits me the fact that
the language is a big part of our identity, since nobody can fully understand
what we want to transmit throw a different language than our native language.
Besides of the communication problems, the author is being
forced to learn English, since it has more influential power than her own
language, so in this case by having to learn a new language, she has to get
used to a different culture, different customs since she has to copy the American
accent in order to be accepted, copying the American accent and expressions. In this case we can also see the connection between power and language in the fact that she is forced to learn a language that has more power, influence, and acceptance than her language in order to become a more accepted person in society, and in order to be seen as an educated person. As
we discussed in our group when it comes to learn a new language, you know that
in order to fully understand everything, a person has to understand the culture
of the countries that speak that language as the mother tongue, and besides of
that a person has to replace the expressions,and ways of communication of that new language with her or his own expressions that come from his or her own
language and culture. Therefore, language plays a significant role in our
identity because when we learn a new language, our expressions, customs, and
even way of speaking and acting, change, creating a new person that is totally
different to the one that knows and speaks in his mother tongue.
