Accent In English Language Essay

It engenders the minute idiosyncrasies which can drive us crazy or make our day. Language is the fountainhead of individual identity, making each person as unique as zebra stripes. If dialects vanished from the world, we’d lose more than just linguistic variety: we’d lose ourselves. Unique expressions and idioms make communication intriguing; they add spice to what otherwise would be bland and boring. Dialects are like jelly beans; they come in a million different flavors, some bizarre like toothpaste and some refined like French vanilla, and when they are synthesized, they generate excitement and facilitate communication.

In his essay "Speech Communities," Paul Roberts mentions the importance and impact speech communities have on an individual's form of speech. According to Paul Roberts language is always changing due to three distinct features: age, social class, and geography. All which are the basis for forming speech communities and causing then to eventually adapt and evolve. When discussing the speech communities of a child, Roberts makes an intriguing point. He states that no matter what speech habits were engraved in a child from birth through its parents, they are all prone to change once they interact with a different speech community such as school.

The sound system is more complex and inconsistent in English than in other languages. There are more than 40 different phonemes in spoken English, and there can be a number of different phonemes to represent the same sound (for example, f and ph'). Phonics helps us to look at the different letter patterns together, along with their sounds. Synthetic phonics puts the teaching of letters and sounds into an orderly framework. It requires the reader to learn simpler individual sounds first, then start to put them together to form words, and finally progress to the most complex combinations.

Throughout generations cultural traditions have been passed down, alongside these traditions came language. The language of ancestors, which soon began to be molded by the tongue of newer generations, was inherited. Though language is an everlasting changing part of the world, it is a representation of one’s identity, not only in a cultural way but from an environmental standpoint as well. One’s identity is revealed through language from an environmental point of view because the world that one is surrounded with can cause them to have their own definitions of words, an accent, etc. With newer generations, comes newer forms of languages.

The United States is made up of some of the most diverse and interesting cultures in the world. Jamila Lyiscott proves this by showing her different dialects and how they are all equally important. Lyiscott believes that the way she speaks towards her parents, towards her friends, and towards her colleagues are all one in the same.  Throughout the entirety of her speech, Lyiscott changes up her vocal patterns and dialects so that the audience can understand first hand what each of these dialects are. When she talks about her father, Lyiscott uses her native tongue, when she talks to her fellow neighbors and close friends she switches it up to a more urbanized dialect, and when she is in school she masks the other two dialects with a professional sounding language.

The main points that will be looked at are the different genders, backgrounds, and groups. These are used to help to better understand why language is used differently. The research done by Deborah Tannen showed that

Rhetorical Precis #4: “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan Amy Tan’s purpose in her article “Mother Tongue” is to show the influence of her mother’s style of english. She also relates this to a more broad topic of the idea that there are many different types of english that people speak that are tailored to whoever they are speaking to. She begins this piece by stating plainly that she is not an english scholar. Instead of decreasing her credibility it actually increases it and paints this piece as a more personal set of observations rather than a bland overview of the entire language.

There are a rising number of students living in the United States that are classified as English Language Learners or ELLs. These students are not only learning grade-level content but also learning how to communicate in English. The majority (77.2 percent) come from Spanish speaking countries in Latin America. Latino ELL students are typically enrolled in schools that do not have experience serving this special population. In the past several decades there has been a change in the demographic in the South due to the increase number of Latino immigrants moving to this region after the adoption of the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA. Although the student population has shifted in kind, the teacher population has remained largely monolingual,

Phonemic Awareness and Phonics As a ESL student, I learned a lot information to teach young students to read, pronounce letters and words. “English is an alphabetic language, and children learn crack this code as they learn about phonemes (sound), graphemes (letters), and graph phonemic (letter-sound) relationship (Tompkins, p.103). My first language`s letters sounds never changed, but in English it changes when different letters come together for example “sh”, “ch” and words are cat and cent. When you read these word, sound is changing first letter of words even same letter.

Dialects are not just accents but also grammar, vocabulary, syntax and common expressions used. One is able to identify and distinguish between different people, different ethnicities and races as people speak different languages. Each human belongs to a community which makes them speak a specific language and dialect that represent their community and differentiates them from others. Language connects people to their community as they are connected to people that speak the same

However, Amy points out, “But to me, my mother’s English is perfectly clear, perfectly natural. It’s my mother tongue” (Tan, 2014, p.317). Because Amy grew up grew up with her mother’s modified English, understanding it became second nature. Intimacy of language utilized by close family and friends makes sense to those belonging to the group, while outsiders remain disconnected To prevent confusion and language barriers, the method of delivering language depends on the situation and audience.

A person speaks differently towards everything, they often speak differently with their friends then they would with their professor or family, but sometimes, no matter what their roots follow them, even if it an accent that comes up during a speech. A person never fully disconnects from their original way of communicating, they just get better at either concealing it or revealing it. My different voices led me to make more friends, explore possibilities. Instead of trying to hide out or being scared of not fitting in with the way society defines its norms. I was able to speak many different ways thus interacting with more people, maintaining connections in a stronger

In the article “Mother Tongue,” Amy Tan cogitates about how her mother’s spoken English is compared to the Standard English language. Tan believes that language is not only a tool of communication, but also a sociological tool of measuring self worth. She’d always loved language, but never had she appeared expressive and rhetoric in front of her mother, due to the fact that her immigrant mother could not speak the Standard English language, but rather a “broken” English language. She discloses that between her mother, the outside world, and herself, only three languages exist: “broken” English (as her mother speaks to her), “simple” (as she speaks to her mother), and “watered down” (as she translates her mother’s tangled up broken English to

Jack Sidnell (2012), a student from the University of Hawaii, explained that “speakers may use some distinctive aspects of phonology (pronunciation) and lexis (vocabulary),”

The Power of Language James Baldwin’s idea of language being the “key to one’s identity” is a correct assessment. The manner in which a person speaks or what they say often acts as a highway leading directly to private information that creates their identity. This can reveal to a person’s audience their level of education, level of confidence, and how they may fit in with those surrounding them. With taking these factors into consideration, it can be understood that your language defines who you are.