Belmihoub and Corcoran sum up the recent linguistic research about how we learn and use language. The main gist is this: there really aren’t separate languages, only mix of the ones we use based on the different stores of words and grammar we learn. So, it might be more accurate to say that we all have our own “language” that we speak, which is a mix of different languages to make up the total communicative resources we have.

We have different competencies.

1. Linguistic competence: knowledge of grammar and vocabulary for a language you speak
2. Strategic competence: using non-linguistic features to help communicate (e.g., body language)
3. Discourse competence: is it coherent, is it complete (enough)
4. Sociolinguistic competence: culturally appropriate to situation

You have this whole wide amount of resources, why not use them all where you see fit and where you want to use them? Feel free to play around with them where you are comfortable. That’s why I wanted to focus on “joy” in your QSR responses. You all have many languages and some of them really feel like home. Lean into that when you want and where you are comfortable.

In the coming weeks, when we talk about style, we will also have moments where we consider how translanguaging can be part of that discussion. This week, we will focus on “words,” so we will have some attention to how to translanguage with words. In future weeks on sentences and on rhetorical tropes and figures, we will also consider translingualism there.

To get a sense of the resources you have to draw from, let’s try to brainstorm all of the linguistic resources you have.

Here are my unofficial languages, for an example:

• US White Mainstream English
• “Academic” English (e.g., “let’s unpack that”; “problematize”; “dissertation”)
• US government / military English (e.g., “get the digits for that,” “what are the due outs?”, “shut up and color”)
• South Philly / South Jersey English (e.g., “looka dis strapper,” “wooder,” “don’t need no beggels”)
• Western Pennsylvania English (e.g., “nebby”, “dippy eggs,” “slippy,” “chip-chop ham”)
• Restaurant Work English (e.g., “right behind you”)
• Italian American English (e.g., “galamar,” “moozarell,” “greaseball”)
• Gaming (e.g., “gg”)
• US Sports Fan (e.g., “defense wins championships,” “establish the run game,” “want the shot”)
• Parenting English (I speak a different way to my young kids!: “potty,” “bye bye”)
• Internet(??) English (from computers in general, Twitter, Reddit, etc.: “evergreen,” “tweet through it,” “tl;dr”, “hard restart”)
• Very Basic School Spanish (e.g., “ir a la playa,” and so on…I’m sorry, I liked to go to the beach when I wrote essays for Spanish)
• Very Basic School German (e.g., Don’t make me try to remember this 6 week class)
• Italian Curse Words (really, just part of Italian American above) (e.g., “fongool”/”fanculo,” “marone”)

There are 2 tasks before moving on in the module.

1. Brainstorm all of the languages you speak/write below in the comments section on this page (see my examples above for me, but you will undoubtedly have different languages than the ones I speak/write).
2. Comment on 2 QSR2 posts due from last Tuesday about something liked about the languages the author talked about (either generally speaking or specific to the languages they wrote about for “joy”). Try to comment on ones that haven’t been commented on yet if you see any by the time you comment!

Once you have done the 2 tasks above, click on “Click here to continue” button below: