After reading the excerpt from “Borderlands/La Frontera” and watching “I the Worst of All” about Sor Juana Inés de La Cruz, I realized how foreign some aspects of Latino/a culture are to me. The first cultural aspect of Latino/a culture that I couldn’t really relate to was Gloria Anzaldúa’s discussion of the different types of Spanish spoken across the United States Mexico Goshen College Indiana and Nebraska
Because I don’t ever come into contact with diversity in the English language in the United States
Understanding Sor Juana’s role as a Catholic nun was also very hard for me to comprehend. I have never devoutly faced sexism anywhere I have lived, and therefore could not understand how difficult it would have been to live in Mexico
The varieties found in Spanish have been interesting to experience. I was taught Spanish at Goshen. That was very much from the textbook, which would be interesting to know where that dialect of Spanish comes from. Then, I lived in the Dominican Republic for 3 months and learned most of my Spanish there. I lived with a host family and that is where I feel I learned most of the language. Then, I traveled to Spain. The Spanish there is very different than the Spanish I have experienced. The accent and pronunciation are different, and there was even different vocabulary. Now, the article was talking about different Spanish in a closer range, but it doesn't surprise me. Sometimes when I hear people speaking Spanish, I don't understand their vocabulary or accent. The other times I can. There are many dialects and accents that are so different that jumping between them is difficult.
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised - and a little angry - that Sor Juana gave up her life's work. It's not that I feel her devotion to her Sisters is bad, or that her selflessness in giving up her work is wrong - just that it seemed as if there was no other choice for her. Being a nun is a calling, and it seemed to me that she had been pushed into it halfheartedly because she felt she had no other options. What you said about her glorifying God through her work makes a lot of sense to me: serving others, praising God, and being outspoken are not mutually exclusive.
ReplyDeleteThe different dialects in Spanish are somewhat new to me as well. I discussed in my blog that I have never heard somebody speak Spanish with a pachuco dialect. The same goes for people who speak standard spanish and have never heard Chicano Spanish. It's amazing how many variants there are of Spanish. Each one has its own culture. With these different dialects it can be very frustrating for people to speak with each other. People who speak Spanish from different areas or countries have a difficult time understanding my Chicano Spanish. It frustrates them because they don't understand the differences. It's frustrating sometimes that we don't bother speaking in Spanish. We would rather speak English to understand each other.
ReplyDeleteI was also surprised at how easily Sor Juana gave up her life’s work, especially as she seemed the type to not back down too easily. I don’t know if it was because it was a movie but she seemed to move quickly to just giving up without trying to protect anything. Especially after the Viceroy left and she was no longer afforded their protection, I would have thought she could have seen the Archbishop coming to get her and would have taken certain precautions, such as hiding her work or coping it, etc. I think I would make more of an effort if I had been working on writings as long as she had to protect what I had created and accomplished.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting to me, what you say about there being fewer differences in English dialects than in Spanish. In Spanish, after learning Dominican Spanish (which many say is some of the laziest around) then academic Spanish, and then experiencing the differences between that and what people on my soccer teams growing up would speak, I feel as if I understand differences in Spanish.
ReplyDeleteI would argue, however, that there are the same differences in English; they're just harder to find. They're much more spread out, whereas (because so many different Spanish cultures are geographically close) Spanish is more obvious. But there are a number of differences in vocabulary between Austrailian/British/Scottish/American English. Even within the U.S., this past summer I worked with a number of people who grew up in Mississippi and her vocabulary was very different from my own.
And I would claim that online interactions like the Facebook (though not literally spoken) would exemplify the difference in formality between friends and colleagues.
I really like what you had to say about English dialect. I, too, only really speak one dialect of English. While I am occasionally made fun of here in Goshen for some East coast idiosyncrasies, I for the most part get by in my one dialect of English.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if you ever have encountered trouble communicating with someone with a completely different dialect of English, and what that was like for you. I know that there is a lot of diversity in English, even if we don't tend to notice as much as we do in other languages.
Stephanie, you started a great discussion about language variety that has continued in the responses to your blog. I think we have to get out of our own geographical, linguistic and community bubble to really appreciate the variety of any language. English has some variations, but it's not like German, which has dialects that are so strikingly different that speakers of different dialects cannot understand each other. I couldn't say how thoroughly different dialects of Spanish are from each other, because I am only beginning to learn Spanish, but that would be a good question to ask someone like Dean Rhodes or Maria Schirch. Anzadula's writings introduced me, too, to the great variety in versions of Spanish. French has regionalisms, but I don't think it has dramatically different dialects. Perhaps some languages lend themselves to variation more than others.
ReplyDeleteAs far as Sor Juana is concerned, I think that when her friends and supporters all deserted each other, and the only person she had left was her confessor who wanted to humble her, that she came to doubt herself. It is hard to defend your work when you come to doubt yourself and its very source. I know we have different interpretations of this ending in our class, but I think the filmmaker leaves it somewhat ambiguous so that different people can interpret it in light of their own values.