Build Your Own Linguistic Identity

Everyone uses language and dialect differently. Sometimes we aquire new languages, like Gloria Anzaldua did when her family came to the United States or like Whitney Johnson had to do when she went to Mexico for a year. On the other hand, sometimes we have to adjust our mother tongue slightly to fit in with a culture, like James Baldwin with "black language" or like what Josie Greenwood has to do everyday while she attends college in the United States. The languages and dialects we use are a direct reflection of who we are as people. Languages and dialects often show where our family is from, where we were raised, and our social status. Everyone should have a linguistic identity that is specifically theirs, like Johnson and Greenwood. I have never went to a different country and picked up an new language in a matter of months, or lived in a country that uses a different dialect then what I am used to, but these two examples show how linguistic identities are unique to their owners just like my linguistic identity is unique to me personally. We are all our own individual people and the language and dialect we use reflects that.