Ashley Torres
Chapter 1 Linguistics As I sit here I’m thinking about what to write and what it should be about. It is so frustrating. Like, what does Linguistics have to do with anything in my personal life? Well I’m not phrasing the question correctly. What I meant to say was, what can I share about the personal involvement of linguistics in my life that would be interesting? Now that I really think about it; there is one thing that I find kind of funny.
You see, my dad plays his tone of voice and accent towards a person’s nationality.
For example, when he is having a conversation with someone who is of Latin/ Hispanic decent he changes his voice as if he speaks Spanish. Sometimes he even uses Spanish dialect although the person he is conversing with speaks English fluently. Some of the words he use are, primo, mañana, etc…
I mean it’s pretty funny. Yes! My father is of Puerto Rican roots but he does not speak Spanish and he does not have a Spanish accent. Another one of my father’s voice façades is of a West Indian Accent. Now my mother is originally from Trinidad and Tobago, but she herself has no accent. Other family members from my mother’s side of the family have an accent. This is where I think my father picked up the change of certain words. When he speaks with my great grandmother “the” becomes “de”, “on” becomes “pon”. It’s just amazing to see how he changes his voice to suit his situation. My family and I have gotten so used to seeing him do this that