My Linguistic Autobiography

I come from Stokesdale which is a small town in New York City. My first language is English because that is what my parents and people close to me used to talk when I was young. I learnt it slowly with difficulties in some pronunciations especially in words with many letters. I could stammer when pronouncing words like popcorns. More interactions with highly lettered words made me comfortable and I became used to them with time. My mother also confirms that when I was in first grade in kindergarten I would distort pronunciation of words like bathroom to “bafroom”. These kinds of errors I had learned from my dad who had a weakness in pronunciation. My dad would distort some word pronunciations due to the effect of the country ascent. He would saw “panapple” instead of “pineapple” and when in a bad mood he would tell me, “Go to your “wum” instead of “room.” I sometimes find myself making errors in pronunciation especially when talking in a hurry or mad by putting letter “w” instead of “r” in words such as room. Being close to my father most of the time made me adopt the linguistic mistakes until they became part of me.  

I was originally a Methodist but I changed to Protestant Baptist as the age of 12 years. The Protestant Baptist was strict on its beliefs and I had to go to a Christian school from k-12 where I interacted with people who had a country ascent. The increased interactions affected me a lot and I could sometimes find myself imitating them without knowing. The country ascent was sluggish in nature but I was tamed before I could permanently adopt it. The interactions I had with my peers after k-12 helped me to reset my language from ascent to a more advanced style.

When I started learning Spanish at the age of 16 years I usually got myself confusing the two languages in one sentence without knowing. At first, it was difficult for me to differentiate between Spanish and English but as time went by I could comfortably engage in both languages in the necessary situation and I could not confuse. I can remember talking to my father in the siting room one evening after long busy day and found myself talking to them using mixed languages and they were just staring at me wondering what I was saying. For instance when they asked where I was I told them, “Conoci a mis amigas and went to play.” The skills have helped me develop bilingualism since I can easily use both languages. The diversity in our neighborhood helped me to perfect in English and Spanish because I always used them to communicate.

I also took from my mother, a high-pitched voice which is use when am exited or really happy. Although the tones are similar, my mother`s was not as casual as mine. My sisters and coworkers complain that the high-pitched voice is annoying thus discourage me from using it when communicating. However, it has been difficult to change because I think it was something deeply-rooted in me since the early age and has become part of my linguistic style. However, I try to control myself especially when mad to avoid annoying those listening to me.