Spanglish: Shift or Maintenance?

I believe you guys have seen the movie Spanglish. Its a movie about a single mother and daughter who emigrate from Mexico to America in search for a better life. When they first arrived in America, you can see that Flor (mother), still stays within the Mexican community and is reluctant to step across the cultural divide. On the other hand, her daughter have already learned to speak English. Only when the money problem surfaced that she starts to work for a rich American family. You can see that even then, she have no knowledge of English and there were difficulties in communicating with the Claskys. After one particular incident, Flor then felt the need to learn English which she seek help from her daughter, Christina.

Christina was offered a scholarship in a Posh private school with the help of Deborah and we can see that Flor is not happy about it. I think that she was afraid that her own daughter will be influenced and become Americanised and forgot their own roots. She was worry about it and thinks one in two things will happen: (1) To be the odd one, or (2) Become one of "them". She was worried that Christina is afraid of being who she is. Towards the end of the movie, Flor asked Christina, "Is what you want for yourself to become someone very different than me?" It shows that how important it is to hold on to one's identity and Christina was able to realize it.

Flor's unwillingness to let Christina to fully assimilate into the American society because she was maintaining her ethnicity. In my opinion, I think that the feature of Ethnicity and staying loyal to their L1 can be seen here. Living in an completely foreign country, there are chances that there might be more of language shift than language maintenance. However based on this movie, its otherwise.

Now, what do you guys think?

Malaysian English, the Most Colourful English

As shown in the video, the speaker commented Malaysian English as the most colourful English in the world. Malaysian English has its own style and register which is quite unique and peculiar among the varieties of English. Lexis such as “where got” or “see first” are only known among Malaysians. This unique pronunciation identify Malaysian’s ethnic group from the others is called shibboleth, a custom or practice that portrays one as an insider or an outsider.

In order to be communicative competent, we have to move along the continuum based on different factors such as identity, audience and situation. For example, there is no point of using posh English accent in night market while you can get what you want sooner by using typical Malaysian English. Besides, Malaysians will have the sense of belonging when adding fillers like “la” or “ma” when speaking English even though it is not standard.

I am proud of being a Malaysian where our language is colourful and unique due to our multi-cultures. In my opinion, it is alright to have personal style of dialect even though it is not standard. We just need to know when to move along the continuum and adapt the style or cultures based on different factors in order to be communicative competent.

Which criteria do you think the best to differentiate 1 language to another?(give the reasons)

This week, we learned about what's a language, how it can be different one and another?

Based on the textbook, there are two criteria, it is Mutual intelligibility and various socio-political. Mutual intelligibility means that the two speakers can understand each other. Based on this criteria, it means when the two speakers can understand each other, the languages are the same.

Another criteria is  various socio-political criteria. The parts of this criteria are national borders, cultural borders, religious borders, and uniting linguistic varieties into one language. For this criteria, 1 language is different to another it is caused by national borders, different political, etc. Every criteria has a good side and also the bad side. None of these criteria are perfect. So, based on your opinion, which criteria you think as the best one to make a differences between 1 language to another?

What really makes a bilingual?

Since the first class, we learnt about bilinguals, who are the bilinguals, and what qualifies a bilingual. However, i have been wondering what really, really makes one a bilingual?

In my opinion, there is really no way for anyone to really judge whether a person is a bilingual or not. We know that everybody has different preferences, and these preferences can vary from one another either mildly or even on the extreme end of a hypothetical scale.

Is anyone who can communicate in one language a bilingual? Well for me, yes. The context I shall put in is our very own country Malaysia. In the textbook we have learnt that people use different languages for different purposes. Well yes, especially in Malaysia. I can speak and write Malay and English. I can communicate in Mandarin fluently but I can’t write well. I can speak the Hokkien and Cantonese dialect sparingly when I need to use them for certain purposes like ordering food, asking inquiries  or getting myself something. However, I am not fluent in these two dialects, does that mean that I am incompetent?

This brings us to a more societal level. If we zoom into the urban area of Kuala Lumpur, people here all speak different languages. However, we all know other languages sparingly if not proficiently. Still, everyone can communicate and can have meaningful conversations even though the command of the language may not fulfill the aspects of speaking, listening, reading and writing.

To end, I would reiterate my opinion that, there is nobody to judge a bilingual, because everybody has different concepts and preferences. I might feel that a spoon of sugar is enough for a cup of tea, but you might prefer two, and he might prefer three.