One of my roommates is from Compton in California, and she always impresses me with her ability to code switch. Since her and I are really comfortable around another, we have no problem speaking in what could be considered restricted code. (Nelson, Lecture 9:”Language and Social Class”) Often I do not even think about the fact that our similar class statuses help us communicate with one another until around someone who seems at a loss for comprehension of our respective meanings.
The other day, a funny example of this happened. My roommate and I were grabbing dinner together in the dining hall when someone who had been a laboratory research program with her over the summer saw and decided to join us. In the midst of our conversation, she jokingly called the guy a “fool,” a term I too have picked up somewhere in life (according to my roommate, she introduced it into my vocabulary, but I am fairly confident a friend in Houston did). To both of our surprises, the guy got really excited and said something along the lines of, “I have never heard anyone use ghetto talk like that before.” My roommate and I broke into laughter, but her friend asked in earnest if she could say something else. She and I both humored him with a little vocabulary lesson, which resulted in more laughter. Although not intentional on his part, my roommate’s friend’s response illustrated to me how ingrained language can be not only geographically, ethnically, and the like but also by class, which is one of the few similarities between my roommate and I.
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Martha’s Tangential Cartoon Pick!
Sociology 155- Class & Culture 