Tuesday, September 12 (Day One): I’ve always noticed that I would code switch whenever I spoke to my parents, because I never speak english with them, even though they understand and can speak it. I also noticed that I speak in a softer tone when I speak with my parents. I don’t know if it’s out of respect for what, but I did notice that I do it.
Wednesday, September 13 (Day Two): I hung out with some of my cousins today. When hanging out with them, I realized that I speak in a more excited and enthusiastic tone, and I also have more vulgarity in my sentences. I spent my whole life with them, so I don’t feel uncomfortable with them, so I noticed that I said things that I wouldn’t really consider saying to my friends.
Thursday, September 14 (Day Three): After class, I hung out with some friends at a cafe. I noticed that the environment definitely influenced the way we all spoke because usually when we get together we are loud and rowdy. Since we’re at a cafe we were mindful of our surroundings and trying not to be too loud.
Friday, September 15 (Day Four): Today, I was heading to the mosque to pray Friday prayer. I was walking on a crosswalk when someone driving was speeding and almost ran a stop sign. They hurriedly stopped when they saw me cross the street and decided to yell at me for crossing the street… I decided to yell back. When I was yelling, I noticed that I had a heavy “New York” accent coming out, which to me was very weird because I never really speak with a New York accent (many people say I have a New York accent but I don’t really hear it). Nonetheless, I thought it was very weird because all I was doing was yelling back at the guy. I didn’t try to sound more “New York” or anything, it just came out like that.
Saturday, September 16 (Day Five): While hanging out with my Bengali friends today, I noticed that sometimes we mix in English with our native tongue. We mix these two languages together, as we all grew up speaking both languages, but when we hangout, these two languages just mix together.
Sunday, September 17 (Day Six): I saw myself code-switching while I was playing with my cats. I did that weird thing pet owners do by talking to them in a high pitched voice.
Monday, September 18 (Day Seven): While hanging out with friends, an acquaintance of ours who we really don’t like to hang around with invited themselves to go with us. While we were out, my friends and I were replying a lot with sarcastic remarks. We all just talked less because we all felt awkward with that one friend.
Definitely to the speaking with parents aspect, I too noticed that I adopt a much different demeanor or tone when I speak with them, especially since I don’t speak English with them.
I also relate to your day one where you say you code-switch with your parents, because I also speak another language with my parents even though they also can speak English.