Linguistic Reflection Paper

INDIVIDUAL LINGUISTIC IDENTITY PAPER:

University of Maryland University College

COMM 380/7380

October 05, 2014

Introduction

Language is used to express ideas, pass information from one person to another and express one’s feelings. It happens to be just like a basic necessity, and that is why all people including the little children use language. It is the basis of communication. Without language and communication people would not be able to communicate effectively neither would they be able to express their needs and style. Language is learned while one is growing on the end most probably kids learn the language that is used by their parents or those that bring them up. Language is used at workplace, schools, home and even social gatherings. Without the language, it would be so difficult to figure out how things would be.

Body

Throughout my entire life, language has been everything to me. I have been using language for so many purposes. One of the considerations that I have been doing using my language is interaction. Language has enabled me interact with my friends and fellows. For example, in school, I have been using language to do group discussions in class. Developing school study groups has also been successful due to language. Language has enabled me pass my exams because of consultations I have been doing to enhance my knowledge. Apart from consultations, I have been using language to study. The books studied in school are written using English language, and if it were not for my knowledge of the language, I would not be able to understand what is written neither would I be able to interpret. Therefore, language has contributed a lot to my academic excellence (Anderson, 2009).

I use different dialects when communicating with different people and this depends on the relationship that exists between me and them. It as well gets affected by the gap or the distance that separates me and them. When talking to family, I tend to use simple language and can utter anything apart from when talking to my parents. My communication with my siblings is filled with humour, jokes and sometimes it becomes satirical or ironical. The purpose behind this is because I am very free with them, and a very short distance exists between me and them.

When talking to my friends, anyone who is a stranger can tell from the look of thing. Humour guides communication with my friends although with those friends that I have academic relationships, with them, I tend to be more serious since the relationship that exists between us is professional. With my professors, lecturers and school heads, the communication is professional. Official language is likely to be used together with professionalism that gets ensured. In my communication with my professional colleagues and workmates, there exist purely professional relationship between me and them and hence, there are no jokes as opposed to the way I talk with my friends and family (Joyce, 2012).

The value of my identity language is above average in performance if I can say. The reason I may consider myself having a high value of personal linguistic is because I have been able to excel academically, and that has been accelerated by my knowledge of the language. One point in life, I have ever been appointed as the school president. That also happened because I had the ability to communicate fluently. Most of my friends have relatively lower values of linguistic identity because in most cases, I have been leading them even in the class academic groups.

Conclusion

In conclusion, language facilitates interaction amongst people. It as well makes people achieve their professional goals as well as academic goals. In addition, language makes people understand their culture and understand those people that surround them. It is important to know one's linguistic identity value for the purposes of improving them in case they fall below average.

References

Anderson, M. (2009). Language. New York: MacGraw Hill.

Joyce, J. (2012). Linguistics and its Importance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.