Trilingualism: English Language and Baker
It’s Always about the Education
“Ya’ll need to put up your toys!” was what my father used to say to me when I was younger. I must have had a confused look on my face because then my mother would whisper to me “he means pick them up and put them away.” My mother grew up in suburban New Jersey and my father grew up in South Florida. As far as their education goes my mother did some college and my father graduated with his high school diploma. After reading the first two sentences judgments were already made and my father would have been labeled uneducated and my mom educated even though there levels of education are not that different. He was using what author Judith Baker would consider “home” English. (51) Where as my mom was using what Baker would consider “formal” English. (51) Baker also wrote about “professional” English, but that type of English would not have been used in that situation.
The whole concept of Judith Baker’s “Trilingualism” is based on the different types of Englishes. Which she states are home, formal, and professional. (51) In her words home English is what “most students learn at home, and most immigrants often learn from peers, and for first and second immigrants may be a combination of English and their mother tongue.” (51) Home English is the language people are most comfortable using, and they use it in a more relaxed setting. That also depends on how they were raised to speak it. For example if they were raised “properly” they would speak it with peers and on certain occasions
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with some adults. If they were raised “poorly” they would most likely speak it with anyone and would be considered ignorant. The “properly” and “poorly” boundaries have been set by our society. They set them up and enforce the many stereotypes we have in this world.
Society is not just the media it’s every living, breathing human being on this planet. Any where you go, whether it be to a town a few miles away from home, or to
“Ya’ll need to put up your toys!” was what my father used to say to me when I was younger. I must have had a confused look on my face because then my mother would whisper to me “he means pick them up and put them away.” My mother grew up in suburban New Jersey and my father grew up in South Florida. As far as their education goes my mother did some college and my father graduated with his high school diploma. After reading the first two sentences judgments were already made and my father would have been labeled uneducated and my mom educated even though there levels of education are not that different. He was using what author Judith Baker would consider “home” English. (51) Where as my mom was using what Baker would consider “formal” English. (51) Baker also wrote about “professional” English, but that type of English would not have been used in that situation.
The whole concept of Judith Baker’s “Trilingualism” is based on the different types of Englishes. Which she states are home, formal, and professional. (51) In her words home English is what “most students learn at home, and most immigrants often learn from peers, and for first and second immigrants may be a combination of English and their mother tongue.” (51) Home English is the language people are most comfortable using, and they use it in a more relaxed setting. That also depends on how they were raised to speak it. For example if they were raised “properly” they would speak it with peers and on certain occasions
2
with some adults. If they were raised “poorly” they would most likely speak it with anyone and would be considered ignorant. The “properly” and “poorly” boundaries have been set by our society. They set them up and enforce the many stereotypes we have in this world.
Society is not just the media it’s every living, breathing human being on this planet. Any where you go, whether it be to a town a few miles away from home, or to
Cited: Baker, Judith. “Trilingualism.” The Skin That We Speak. Ed. Lisa Delpit and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy. The New Press: New York, 200 Delpit, Lisa. “No Kinda Sense.” The Skin That We Speak. Ed. Lisa Delpit and Joanne Kilgour Dowdy. The New Press: New York, 2002