Jarrod Cook

Professor Liliana Naydan

English 15, Section 15

9 September 2004

Journal Prompt #2

Lu grew up in an environment where she was forced to take on different behaviors at home and school. At home Lu used English and her reading and writing was of a different focus. At school Traditional Chinese was spoken and literature was expected to reflect the working class. This forced Lu to examine her writing and reading very carefully to make sure discourses from home and school did not get mixed. As a young student Lu thought of the languages as a “home” language and “school” language and as nothing else. As she grew older and entered high school she realized the things discussed at home were not acceptable in school. Her parents reminded her that she was in school only for Math and Science and that the reading and writing from school are not to be brought into the home. This caused Lu to encounter much strife and frustration in her writings finding it hard to close out one language while listening to another. She now realizes how lucky she was to go through such complexity because it allowed her to realize the effort and choice involved in writing.

Everyone today speaks different languages in some sense whether they realize it or not. I speak several different languages depending on the people I am with at the time. When I am at home I speak freely and openly because I am around people I know. When I write I tend not to reread and check whether something is spelled right or is grammatically correct. I even speak differently around different members of my family such as my grandparents. They grew up in a different time period and the way I talk and things I write and read at other times may not be acceptable to them. I usually do not talk about my personal life with them, and instead talk about more general topics. I tell them how school is going and how the family is doing and do not go into much detail about what goes on in my personal life. At school I take on a more professional manner in my speaking and writing and reading. I am careful in my writing to use proper grammar and writing techniques and only write about acceptable subjects. I do not speak out unless I am told it is acceptable to do so. I read literature that I am told to read and analyze it in an academic matter. It becomes complicated when these different languages become mixed I am forced to examine my language and make sure it is acceptable for all the environments I encountered.