Darren Zamudio

ENGL6212 – Introduction to Linguistics

September 24, 2021
Course Project: My Linguistic Autobiography

Language is essential in human existence in the society. It allows us to communicate and

connect to the people around us and to be able to have a shared understanding. This very

language we use in our everyday lives is not only a means of communication but also

consequently shapes and reflects our identity. And the way we talk and communicate is

influenced by the existing social context.

As a local boy who grew up in the City of Santa Rosa, Province of Laguna, I was exposed

to the Filipino language and was the first language I learned at an early age. However, living in a

household with my father and mother who happened to be also fluent in the English language, I

was also exposed to English while learning my Filipino. In fact, according to my parent’s stories

about me and my childhood, some of the first words I learned are mostly English nouns such as

“mommy” and “daddy”. Then I started to label the things around me as well as the people in the

living and visiting the house depending on my relationship to them such as “kuya”, “ate”, “lola”,

and “tita”. However, still based on my parent’s stories, I often used hypernyms in referring to the

things and food in front of me. For example, I called “carrots”, “squash”, and

“peas” “vegetables”. I also refer to all of the action figures I owned at that time as “toys”. Until I

slowly learned to utter a complete sentence, telling my mother when I am hungry, or I want to

go outside and play.

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 I grew up watching television programs in English and Tagalogs. My favorites are the

cartoons after the morning news. Watching these shows eventually allowed me to understand

and talk more complex sentences. For children's shows that are mostly designed as interactive, I

learned the conversational usage of language—how to talk to a friend, to your parents and

allowing me to sustain a longer communication to people around me.

Until I entered pre-school and elementary whereas the skill, I have in conversing allows

me to make new friends and expand my circles. But as I recalled my childhood, I remember that

if based on Paul Grice’s conversational implicature and its particular maxim—the maxim of

quantity, which states that “it expects the speaker’s contribution to be as informative as needed

and no more information than is needed” (1975), most of my personal encounters violated this

maxim. For example, based on my recollections, I used to ask my friends if “Anong oras

na?” and “Nasaan siya?” (referring to a friend), but nearly all of them mostly answered “Tanghali

na!” and “Nandyan lang ‘yon!” which they did not really answer the question. However, upon

thinking, most of us conversed or at least had one encounter with this type of conversation as a

child but somehow we manage to still understand one another.

When I entered high school, I considered myself fluent in English and Filipino—knowing

the basic structure and usage of both languages. This allowed me to excel in communicating

inside the classroom, engaging in debates, joining in plays, or participating in recitation. In these

different circumstances, I realized that the way we talked is significantly influenced by the social

context we have that dictates our roles as well in communication. For example, in debates, I

learned that this followed a systematic usage of language with a clear outline and was designed

normally as argumentative. As a debater, I spoke with conviction with a distinct structure of ideas

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such as presenting my stand in the introduction, building my claims and supporting it with

concrete examples and evidence in the developmental part of the speech, and last concluding

and emphasizing my main idea. Meanwhile, in my experience in joining classroom plays and other

poetic pursuits, I learned the creative usage of language. I had experiences where I need to

adhere to a script, but sometimes, to improvise. In this type of experience that my vocabulary in

both languages became wider. Lastly, as a proactive student, always participating in recitations

allowed me to observe brevity in my communication—to be always concise and direct to what I

intend to express.

When I entered the University of the Philippines in Los Baños, I was exposed to a deeper

understanding of communication and language. I was able to engage in a more scientific way of

writing research and scientific and academic papers. I was also given an opportunity to also

honed my skills in the creative side of language particularly because of the general education

electives courses I took in my undergraduate program. Staying in the university for a couple of

years, allowed me to know the lexicons and jargon circulating in the community. Take for

example the abbreviation “Elbi” is being used to refer to the UPLB. “Kaliwa” and “Kanan” are not

just the literal direction of left and right but pertains to the jeepney route inside the university.

The word “sablay” is translated to English as a failure but in the context and community of the

University of the Philippines, it means the indigenous garments worn during the graduation

rites and, ironically, can actually mean the opposite of failure—and that is to succeed in finishing

your degree.

But most importantly, if there is anything I learned inside the university that I considered

as significant to me personally, it is the acknowledgment that language and communication are

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also political in its nature. One of the values I learned here is that to always serve the people. In

closely working with communities, I learned that the way you talk and what language you used

can alienate the people you are talking to. That is why it is important to acknowledge the type of

relations you have with the people around you and what particular social context exists.

For me, my linguistic journey will never end. I will continuously learn about language as I

continue communicating.