For one of our projects in my English class we had a group project on almost anything we wanted involving multilingualism. My group focused on the social pressures that people who do not speak formal English face. The other two members in my group focused on Black English while I focused on Spanglish. We all wrote essays that were similar but were still completely different essays. My essay talks about the different pressures to speak English and Spanish. Through my research I found that in the United States the pressures to speak Spanish generally come from family. Families want to keep the language of their ancestors a live. Many Spanish speakers in America speak Spanish at home with their families. This is done on purpose to preserve the language and the culture of Spanish. On the other side there are pressures from media, friends, teachers and even the government for people o speak English. In public schools there are programs to help students learn English and generally only English is taught in school. The government has a policy where all of the formal government documents are first printed in English and then translated to other languages. Most people who go to school in the United States only speak English with their school friends. The are different pressures to speak both languages for people who speak English and Spanish. From the many pressures Spanglish was born. The mixing of the languages comes from people having pressures to speak both languages so then they mix them. Spanglish is growing rapidly because of the increase in people coming to the USA who are Spanish speaking. People of all different economic background speak this language. Spanglish is a beautiful example of code meshing that is present in many people’s daily lives.
To read the full essay go to http://accentsinstigma.weebly.com Code Meshing in Music
I bet if I turned on the radio to a pop station and listened to it for an hour I would head some code meshing. There are so many artists now who mix other languages with English. Listening to some of my favorite songs by Beyoncé, Pitbul, Lady Gaga , and Shakira there will be more than a few code meshed lines Common languages that are being used today in pop music are Spanish, Italian and French. One of my favorite examples of code meshing in music is in the song “Vamos a la Playa” by Loona Here are some lyrics to the song Vamos a la Playa A mi me gusta bailar el ritmo de la noche sounds of fiesta Vamos a la Playa A mi me gusta bailar el ritmo de la noche sounds of fiesta You know we go Where the feeling'is right You know we go Where the groove is hot You know we go Were the feling'is right Vamos a la playa a mi me gusta bailar el ritmo de la noche sonds of fiesta Vamos a la playa a mi me gusta bailar el ritmo de la noche sounds of fiesta Amigos que calor Esta maquina vailando Vamos todos a la playa Vamos todos a gozar Baila baila ho! Baila baila ho! Baila baila ho! From reading over the lyrics there is an obvious code meshing between English and Spanish. In the line “El ritmo de la noche, sounds of fiesta” is a great example of code meshing. By switiching back and forth from English and Spanish It makes the song flow more smoothly and gives the song a little umph. For example in the previous line if Loona used sonidos (the Spanish word for sounds) instead of sounds the lyrics would not sounds the same. El ritmo de la noche, sonidos of fiesta sounds much less fluid then the original with the code meshing. I think it is great that today in huge hits there is code meshing. I think it makes the music more fun and interesting. Code meshing in music is great! In Ana Lucia Gonalez's "Hispanics in the US: A new generation" there is a a very evident presence of spanglish. Most people who speak spanglish are fluent in English and Spanish. Most people tend to speak Spanish at their home with their family while speaking english with their friends and while at school. Both languages are both very important in their lives that they switch between the two languages making spanglish. In one of my pervious blogs I wrote about how authors wrote poems in spanglish having similar lives as these kids speaking Spanish now. Both languages are important to them so they would go back and for in speaking them. An example of real life spanglish is when a 15 year old said, "Por ejemplo, I'm talking with my friends and sometimes Spanish gets mixed in with the English and you're like, hey, como estas, I saw you the other day…". He just switches back and forth between both languages flawlessly. Spanglish is becoming more prominent because more and more people are bilingual in Spanish and English. Now there are more people in the world who's first language is spanish and the second most common first language is English.
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Erica FischerWriting about things happening in English 101 at Emory University. Archives
April 2015
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