Opinion | Harris Gonna Code Switch - The New York Times - 0 views
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language is about reaching into another mind. It’s about connecting.
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Code-switching is one of the ways that humans use language to connect. Using the colloquial dialect of a language serves the same function as drinking or getting a mani-pedi together. It says, “We’re all the same.” It is especially natural, and common, when seeking connection about folksier things or summoning a note of cutting through the nonsense and getting to the heart of things in a “Let’s face it” way.
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This is why many of us readily say “Ain’t gonna happen” even if we aren’t given to saying “ain’t” regularly.
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Closer to home, Maya Angelou deftly explained how Black Americans code-switch when she wrote: “We learned to slide out of one language and into another without being conscious of the effort. At school, in a given situation, we might respond with, ‘That’s not unusual.’ But in the street, meeting the same situation, we easily said, ‘It be’s like that sometimes.’”
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It is in this light that we must evaluate an X post like “It’s pretty weird to change your accent on the fly depending on which audience you’re speaking to.” Wrong. This is like saying it’s pretty weird to dress according to what your plans for the day are.