Blog 5

The article I read was on Chicano English. After reading this article, I realized there was actually very little I knew about the subject [complex sentence with a dependent clause to begin, this shows the connection in time and emphasizes when the events take happen sequentially, it also emphasizes what comes next]. This article’s main purpose was debunking several myths about Chicano.

The First myth was: “Chicano English is spoken by people whose first language is Spanish, and whose Spanish introduced mistakes into their English.” This myth was debunked by the fact that most speakers of Chicano English are not actually bilingual. This means those who speak Chicano don’t necessarily speak Spanish [ In this I used the relative pronoun “who” because it is talking about all speakers of Chicano, it is also used to encompass a large number of people].

The next myth was: “Chicano English is the same as Spanglish.” This really threw me around the loop. Before reading this, I had never heard of Chicano before, in all of the places I grew up, most people spoke Spanglish. As I read this, I immediately assumed that Chicano was another variation of Spanglish, but this is not the case. Most speakers of Spanglish are fully  fluent in both Spanish and English, but, like previously stated, this is not the case in Chicano.

Next was the myth: “Chicano English is a dialect spoken mostly by gang members and not used by middle-class Latinos and Latinas.” This myth is actually a common misconception with most dialects of standard English. Cajun dialects are thought to be only used by rednecks, Appalachian dialects are stereotyped to hillbillies. What seems to be perpetuating these awful labels are films. Many gang members in films are portrayed as speaking Chicano English, which only serves to make those who don’t know about Chicano to get the wrong ideas about it.

The last myth was: “Chicano English is merely incorrect grammar.” This myth, similar to the last, is also not only reserved for Chicano. Many people believe that the different dialects of standard English are simply people brutalizing the language. I would have to admit, a while back, I too thought that people that spoke the dialect in say, Philadelphia, were simply too lazy to use proper grammar. Then I moved out of the south and to Arizona. There, where people constantly told me that I was using incorrect grammar, I realized something was up. It wasn’t until I got back from Germany, were I spent three years speaking what is known as Standard English, because that was the English that the Germans knew and when I used my own variation of slang it confused people, I realized that grammar is a personal preference.

What I consider to be “proper grammar” differs greatly from others. Every dialect has its own complex grammar system, and we don’t even realize that we use it. It is ingrained into us at a young age. I am also taking a phonology class and we were talking about this a few days ago. You can always tell when someone is trying to emulate your dialect/accent who isn’t actually from the area of the world that you are from. It is because they aren’t raised with the grammar that you are raised in, and it is something that they will never be able to fully copy, as it isn’t their grammar system. For me, not spending enough time in any one place to fully learn the grammar of the dialect there, my language is a mix of many different dialects, all partially learned and grown into a unique language I can call my own.