as small as a world and as large as alone, Is the idea of a non-native English Speaking...

6:35pm October 13, 2014

Anonymous asked: Is the idea of a non-native English Speaking character going into their native language when stressed exotification?

ursulavernon:

andreashettle:

writingwithcolor:

Stressed Characters Speaking Native Tongue

My mom uses Lunda when she is surprised or frustrated.

~ Mod Alice

I sure break into AAVE when I get mad or passionate. I don’t think it is unless it happens every time the character is mad.

~Mod Najela

The one and only time I cussed at my dad, he was yelling in his native tongue (which he hardly ever speaks) as I got my ass whooped :’(((.

I’d say it’s realistic. I wouldn’t overdue it, lest it become othering.

~Mod Colette

Although I’m not a PoC, I do have experience having grown up with two languages, one of which is a bit easier to “access”.

I’ve been deaf since birth. Although my first two words were spoken English words, I still for the most part learned signing before I really learned speaking or reading in English. I lipread moderately well when not too overly stressed and if conditions are ideal for it. And I speak English pretty fluently most of the time, even in many of the circumstances when my lip reading skills might completely fall apart (emotional upset, for example, kills my lip reading a LOT faster than it kills my speaking skills … though it can affect speaking too if extreme enough).

But a few weeks ago, when I woke up from anesthesia following surgery, in the first few minutes I could neither speak nor lipread in English. I could read in PRINTED English (I learned to read in English almost at the same time I was learning sign language). Which I know because I understood the written note from the nurse that I was in the recovery room. And once the sign language interpreter was available, I could understand her signing just fine. (Well, I did need to ask her to repeat a couple of times, but having just woke up from anesthesia language fluency wasn’t the issue!) And I also could express myself just fine in American Sign Language. But it took a while before my speaking skills got back into gear (even then only with some effort) … maybe half an hour? And even longer for lipreading to get back into gear too. And I’m not sure if I would have been quite as successful writing/typing in English, even if I had had access to the right tools, as I was in expressing myself in American Sign Language.

Waking up from anesthesia is not exactly the same thing as stress. But I think in terms of neurological processing it may be somewhat similar in that, any time a lot of your energy is either gone (anesthesia recovery) or diverted to dealing with your emotional upset, you’re going to revert to whatever requires the least brain processing power for you. And I’ve heard other anecdotal evidence for the general idea of reverting to a more native or comfortable language when under stress. For example, I once met a couple in which one was an immigrant whose first language was Spanish. Although he was pretty fluent in English, there was apparently one occasion when he was in the hospital and not well and scared and just forgot all his English and could only communicate in Spanish for a while.

I’ve noticed a phenomenon that I think may be somewhat related, though obviously a great deal milder—I live in the American Southeast, and many of my friends who grew up here have worked very hard to eradicate their “Southern” accent, because there’s a pretty strong stigma against it in much of the US.

However, if they get mad, tired, drunk, or (and this is the one unexpected one) talking about Southern food, the accent comes roaring back. You can actually hear the vowels lengthening. (I expect I do the same thing, although being from Oregon, it’s a little harder to notice.)

I’d be really surprised if there isn’t some hard-wired circuit in the brain that kicks you back to your first language or first accent under duress.

My dad’s Okie accent comes and goes according to lots of factors. Even my brother said that he himself goes into a more southern accent the more rural he gets. And I had traces of the accent too.

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