Gloria Anzaldúa: a couple of concepts

I’d like to talk about code-switching and language use before we discuss why Anzaldúa would choose to write in a mixture of languages instead of simply choosing one.

Language is a marker of class, of race, of gender. Language marks one as a member of a group. It may betray where we grew up, or our nationality; it may betray what kind of education we’ve had, or it may mark us as upper class or lower class. By marking, I mean how we are perceived by others. Often, speakers use a particular type of language or word choice consciously to allow themselves to be identified a certain way by another person. Group solidarity is reinforced by certain language use. When someone speaks differently than the majority, that person is singled out. When a group speaks differently than the majority, that group is singled out, often in a negative way.

Code switching occurs when a bilingual (or multilingual) speaker switches suddenly from one language to another, and this can only happen naturally when the speaker is fluent in both. For instance, a girl and boy are working together at the computer. They are speaking Spanish, talking about their friends, but when they start to talk about the assignment they’re working on, they begin speaking English. My professor who is Greek is talking on the phone in Greek with her son, and suddenly she says in English, “Did you pay your car insurance?” This is code-switching. Monolingual speakers will switch styles or dialects in this same way. We all use language, normally, that is appropriate to the situation we are in, including who we are talking to and where we are, and even what emotions we are feeling. Another similar phenomenon that often occurs with code-switching is borrowing, when a word from another language is inserted spontaneously. For a bilingual or multilingual speaker, code-switching is especially rich. It serves a particular function in speech that provides more dimension for these speakers than they might have in a single language.

In order for a child to be completely bilingual, many experts believe that each language must be used in separate contexts at home. For instance, maybe the Hispanic mother speaks Spanish to the child, while the Anglo father speaks English. Or maybe both parents are bilingual and Spanish is used for close family situations and English is used for talking about school or the outside world in general. My Greek teacher uses Greek to talk to her son about his feelings or his personal life, but then switches to English to talk about whether he paid his bills. I was watching a program on a Spanish speaking channel, and the show host, in Spanish, introduced the next topic, then grinned at the camera and said, “Check it out.” It was startling to me, but I noticed that quite a few people on the Spanish channels and on Spanish radio will pop in English words and phrases for emphasis, or to express a concept. English speakers do the same with Spanish phrases. We see bits and pieces from other languages everywhere: my stepson’s school sends out a newsletter every month. The closing salutation is “Carpe Diem!”

Why do we use phrases like this instead of just translating them into English? Because they carry a certain significance in their own language. Everyone knows Carpe Diem means seize the day in Latin. It doesn’t sound the same to yell, “Seize the day!” But to yell the Latin phrase does carry significance. It brings to mind certain images or ideas. For bilingual speakers, not every language functions in the same way. Apparently, “Check it out,” carries a different meaning than saying the equivalent in Spanish, and clearly, the people watching the TV show are expected to at least be familiar with the English phrase, otherwise it wouldn’t be worth using.

According to Suzanne Romaine in her book Language in Society, switching is an option available to bilingual speakers in the same way that monolingual speakers switch between dialects or speech styles. An example of this would be a mother asking a child about his day versus reprimanding him for spilling milk, or you speaking to your best friend versus greeting your boss at work. This type of switching is an important function of language, and it has meaning in the way we express ourselves in a given situation or context to a given person or persons (59). Speakers switch for many reasons, Romaine states, to define a certain “social arena” or to redefine a conversation from one arena to another (60). Such as I showed with my teacher and her son.

There is a little poem on page 1585 of BH: “Ahogadas, escupimos el oscuro.” It means “Drowning, we spit the dark.” I may not have it quite right, but regardless, we have lost something important in the translation: in Spanish, most adjectives are gender oriented. In this poem, the adjective which describes the persons in the poem as drowning is a feminine adjective. A Spanish speaker knows that the people drowning are female. This can’t be expressed so succinctly in English. We have to add more words. On page 1586, we see her shock at hearing the word “nosotras,” which means “we” feminine. She hadn’t known the word existed. She had only heard “we” used in a masculine form: “nosotros.” I found this particularly poignant, and it is a concept that just can’t occur in English.

Because Anzaldúa is multilingual, fluent in many languages because of her exposure since birth, she can “walk between worlds” in a manner of speaking. She has far more freedom than someone who speaks only a single language, and she can use whatever language she feels is most appropriate to express a particular concept. But it certainly isn’t as easy as she makes it look, or as easy as it sounds. Imagine trying to write an essay and switching from standard, formal English to casual English. My mother, when I was growing up, always used Standard English, while my father speaks some mix of Midwestern dialect and Oregon dialect, so I can speak either depending on which is most appropriate, but I couldn’t write this way, switching back and forth. I don’t know how Anzaldúa does it.

Gloria Anzaldúa believes that your home language is who you are, a vital part of self that can’t and shouldn’t be erased. Her work matters because she shows us what it means both to feel ashamed of one’s home language, and to regain that love and pride in it. She shows us how we can benefit from using a rich mixture of language. La Frontera demonstrates clearly that someone can master and use Standard English smoothly, yet still maintain a sense of self and individuality.