For this assignment, you will connect your experience as a user of one or more American language to concepts covered throughout this course. Think about how your experience as a speaker of a language (or languages) has been formed and about who or what has been part of this formation. You should contextualize your experiences in the larger social setting and explore how these experiences have shaped your own attitudes about language.
Requirements:
1. A thesis statement which connects your personal language experiences to at least ONE topic we have discussed in class.
2. Develop the body of the paper connecting it to your topic and thesis statement – develop your thesis and how that relates to at least THREE concepts covered in class.
3. A well-integrated reference to at least THREE academic sources (These should include concepts from the class readings, discussions, and lectures.
4. Correct use of terms from class when appropriate (e.g., language shift, Three-Generation Rule, linguistic discrimination, mutual intelligibility, overt/covert prestige, diglossia, etc…)
5. The paper should be clearly written, proofread, and no longer than 750 words (does not include in-text references or reference list)
Thesis statement
The thesis statement is the point of your paper; it should summarize how your personal experience relates to course concepts. It should be clear, concise, and the body of your paper should support and connect to it.
Some generic examples:
- My connection with my peers led me to use the non-Standard variety of English spoken in my neighborhood, despite the fact that my parents spoke Standard English at home.
- Language attitudes about the low status of my regional variety motivated me to switch to the standard form after leaving home.
- My positive attitudes towards my heritage language allowed me to maintain it throughout my adolescence.
- My family is an example of the Three-Generation Rule, as we have shifted from Polish, spoken by my grandparents, to only speaking English.
- Being in a large Tagalog speech community helped my family to maintain the language past three generations.
- My school had a subtractive bilingual program, so we switched from Chinese to English medium instruction by the 8th grade.
- Much like other heritage speakers, I have limited literacy in my heritage language, but I can be mistaken for a monolingual Hindi speaker under the right circumstances.
- Going to Saturday School helped me become literate in my heritage language despite being schooled in an English-Only environment.
OUTLINE:
Please give your paper a title. Don’t just call it Linguistic Autobiography.
Please write from the perspective of a native Mandarin speaker whose second language is English
Required Parts – Actual Essay – (Five paragraphs at least)
Intro: ¶ #1
Tell your story here and begin by talking about yourself and your experience.
You can mention the three concepts you want to describe here or not.
End the paragraph with your thesis.
Thesis:
The thesis statement is the point of your paper; it should summarize how your personal experience relates to course concepts. It should be clear, concise, and the body of your paper should support and connect to it.
¶ #2
First concept – Tied back to the thesis
For example… (What kind of bilingual are you… Dominant bilingual (Mandarin – Subordinate language – English. How did you acquire the language?)
¶ #3
Second concept – Tied back to the thesis
For example… (Diglossia – Where do you use the two languages? In which places?)
¶ #4
Third concept – Tied back to the thesis
For example… (Covert prestige/overt prestige – How does your language use reflect either covert or overt prestige when you use the language in a given place.)
¶ #5 Conclusion – Restate your thesis with reference to your main points/concepts and wrap up.
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