In some newspapers people with a non-native American voice write opinion articles in English. The Washington Post, for instance, has a section called "The writers group" in which Esther Cepeda and other writers promote code meshing in this type of discourse:
"My column is about the American experience -- how it has evolved during my generation and what it feels, sounds, smells, tastes and looks like through the eyes of the daughter of Latin American immigrants."
"Because
my personal story is very much about the way the great American melting
pot bubbles and churns, the topics I write about most -- education,
health, politics, business, public policy, culture -- reflect the
diverse experiences and the issues that result from our country’s
rapidly changing demographics."
Esther J. Cepeda is living the American story".
Little by little, people are getting used to different voices in newspaper discourse.
I have also experienced how English speakers react to code meshing in this type of discourse. I was writing a report for a school newspaper about a concert together with an American writer and I wanted to write about an expression we have in Spanish. This expression "romper una cuerda en un concierto", whose literal translation is"to break a string during a concert" means that for a concert to be great, the musicians have to break a string at some point during the show (usually by the end). So she loved the meaning of it but there is no such a expression in English for it. As the literal translation would not be understood by the readers, we decided that the best way for us to include it in the report was to explain it in context. Though her reaction towards using it was quite positive, I had the feeling that she was thinking about it as something not very appropriate. Yet, her willingness to include "an exotic" aspect in the report was a sign of tolerance towards "other voices".
No comments:
Post a Comment