Spanish as Alternative Discourse: Working Against Language Demarcation

Summary:

Segregating students based on their language creates this idea of being right or wrong, or that there is a standard, correct language. Professionals believe that making students use the correct language will help them succeed, and not learning it will eventually damage them. The people who are the most affected are the international students and the ones who speak English as their second language. Mangelsdorf states that in their writing classes, "they are likely to be seen as deficient because they are evaluated according to an English language norm consisting of an idealized standard language used by 'native' speakers" (Page114, lines 10-12). It is hard for them to adapt and express themselves using the correct English. In this article, Mangelsdorf uses spanglish in order to describe the effects on the students. The author describes spanglish as "a complex language that allows its speakers to drastically interact with their words" (Page 115, lines 38-39). In the United States, the standard English is considered superior to any other type of English, and Mangelsdorf does not agree with this. She wants spanglish to be recognized as a proper English, and for it to be accepted in the higher education.

Synthesis:

Personally, I agree with the author when she says that we should "study and honor student's lived languages, such as Spanglish, in order to examine our own assumption about language demarcation and containment" (124, 8-10). I consider myself to be a Spanglish speaker. My first language was spanish, and I speak this language almost everywhere. Whenever I go into a classroom where I am expected to only speak and express myself in English, I honestly don't feel confortable. I feel like I'm expected to change who I really am. Not only that, but I feel that people judge me by the way I speak. This is why I prefer remaining silent all the time. I wish that people would stop thinking that I'm not speaking the corrent language, because in reality, is there a correct English? I believe that people should be more open-minded, and accept all the different tpes of English.