English was not my first language but I started learning how to read, write, and speak the language at a very early age. English, although sometimes does not always make sense to me now, was always considered the universal language that everyone had to know. People living in non – western countries had to learn English and take entrance tests in English to get into a good school. Living in India, I remember our teachers telling us to only speak in English and if they caught us speaking in another language, we would get some form of detention. I feel like learning to speak English was not extremely hard at the age of two because I had already learnt to speak two other languages. My parents spoke to me in one and to each other in the other and just by being around them, I was able to learn both and I can speak both even to this day. When I started going to preschool, pretty much everyone around me spoke in English and my parents also spoke English at home to help me learn quicker and I think that helped a lot. Supposing I did not know English, it would be extremely difficult if I tried to learn it at this point in my life. As we go on speaking English, we introduce the concept of slang. For instance, to refer to a group of friends, I say “y’all” or saying “extra” to refer to someone that is being unnecessarily and overly dramatic. I personally use a lot of these slang terms when speaking to my friends because I know they understand what I am saying and a lot of them use them as well. But when I am speaking with my parents and use some of these slang terms, they ask me to explain what I mean when I use a slang term. In school, if we accidently used a slang term, especially in front of an english teacher, they would correct us and tell us that that was not the right way to speak.
English was not my first language but I started learning how to read, write, and speak the language at a very early age. English, although sometimes does not always make sense to me now, was always considered the universal language that everyone had to know. People living in non - western countries had to learn… Continue reading Critical Linguistic Autobiography