Becoming Someone Else

After being assigned the Becoming Someone Else assignment, the first attribute that I thought to change was speech. This is because throughout my life, my family and educators have emphasized the importance of public speaking. I learned that being a good public speaker equated to competence and respect, and that knowing how to change the way you spoke in different contexts was even more important. I then decided to change how I speak in my apartment with my two roommates, whom I am very good friends with. There are two new implementations that I made to my speech. For the first change, I added more slang when referring to one of my roommates such as “bro” and “fam”, and I started referring to them by their nicknames, which I usually do not do. This change felt very foreign to me because I was not used to referring to my roommates, or anyone I had met as “bro”. Nor have I ever really been someone who is big on nicknames. Even though these were common terms people in my age group said it felt unnatural.

From the Bucholtz and Hall’s reading, I was able to deduce that the partialness principle largely shapes how I am perceived in my apartment. I am seen as a friend and someone who shares in the responsibilities of upkeeping the apartment and being a close friend. Since I am this close friend my identity in this apartment has been solidifies and my roommates have a good understanding of who I am. Not only that, but the positionality principle also explains how my macro identity shaped my speech to be more formal than it was informal. These both worked to establish my “normal” form of speech.

Keeping the Bucholtz and Hall reading in the back of my mind, I embarked on this new journey and tried very hard to implement informal language. At first, neither of my roommates really said anything, but they did pause for a few extra seconds and look at me. However, as this continued, I started getting more questions. A specific encounter that I recall was late at night when it was only me and one of my roommates. I said “Bro, can you pass me the water”, this made my roommate respond and tell me that she was never referred to as bro by her female friends. This was something I found interesting because I realized slang really depended on partialness and what norms the society has instilled into you. The reason my roommate was confused was largely that the slang I used, “bro”, was something both out of the ordinary for me, and something she had not had her own female friends say to her. For me on the other hand, even though I personally do not use bro, I have been called bro by my sisters and friends alike. Since my roommate and friends grew up in different places with different norms, that was probably the reason she found it to be weirder then normal.

Using slang to refer to people still felt unnatural as I continued to use it but using nicknames for my roommates was easier. I think this is because I am very close friends with both of my roommates, I was able to associate my friendship when referring to them with their nicknames. It felt like it was something more reserved for close relationships. Even if the tone in which I speak with my friends is different to how I would speak in comparison to speaking with a teacher, the nicknames added a sweeter affect. My roommates responded with smiles and “wows” when I decided to use their nicknames. My partialness quality of being their close friend reinforced my use of their nicknames and allowed me to have this positive effect from the both of them.

All in all, this assignment taught me that I do not need to change the way I use slang with the people I am close to. It highlighted what things I had normalized through my interactions in life. I also learned that Becoming Someone Else is not necessary a bad thing because I know can call my roommates by their nicknames with more ease and it feels nice. Speech is an important tool that we can use to convey our feelings and mannerism, and finding your own in this society is one of the most freeing skills to have.