A case study for Sociolinguistics

study. Each letter in this paradigm represents a word in which furthers the investigation into the

case study. The first letter is S, which stands for setting. It was sophomore year in college, and I

was so excited to get back to school and live with Jess again. This year all of us would be living

together. What could be better than seven of my friends all in one place? I wait and wait and

see that Jess has not arrived yet. I blame it on traffic, and simply finish unpacking and catching

up with the girls. Then, the dreaded phone call. Jess would not be coming back to school this

semester due to an abrupt family emergency that would ultimately keep her away for the whole

semester. The tears flowed as I realized that my best friend would not be coming back, and

somehow I would have to live without her.

Within ten minutes though, my RA (Resident Advisor) comes and tells me not to fear

that he has found me another roommate whom, I will share the semester with, her name being

Lee. I am excited, yet fear the uncertainty of the future. When my roommate arrives, we see

that she is of Asian descent, and speaks minimal Engli

. . .

Rebecca: Lee, do you want to come out with me and Susie for a while tonight, we will introduce

you to some peeps. I’ll see ya around!

Lee: Your welcome.

Due to the unexpected changes, our need for an expansion of cultural knowledge was

acknowledged and acted upon.

The paradigms next letter is K, which stands for key.

Upon her acceptance to do the interview, I arranged in my head the questions I wanted to

ask her as time was not in our favor here. The

place we lived stayed the same, the suite, but the topic, being the way we lived changed slightly. We did not do this intentionally in any way, to make her feel as if we were not treating

her as one of us. When Lee

speaks, when only she speaks, in response to her we change our tone completely from normal

pitch to that of a louder slower tone.

When she arrived, we helped her move her stuff into the suite, and tried to make as much

small conversation we could. Lee was not hearing impaired, nor was she

intellectually impaired, so why did we feel that we had to speak to her this way? We felt that if

we spoke in this way she would feel included in the conversation, but she was probably more

concerned with not going deaf! Of course there is no way to depict this in a dialogue, but the

scene of how ridiculous it was is not hard to picture. Our RA told us that she has just

arrived from Korea a mere three months ago. We only realized awhile later that we

spoke to you in this way. By this

Hymes meant things that were expected, as well as things that were not expected. Seven girls sit in the living room eating

dinner while watching TV, talking back and fourth about the events of their days.

Having Lee living with us reproduced our social world, changing from the way that we were

accustomed to.

Common topics in this essay:
Dell Hymes, Lee Im, Emma Oh, Resident Advisor, Rebecca Yo, English RA, dell hymes, unexpected changes, Lee Susie, dell hymes paradigm, Lee Asian, social dialect, hymes paradigm, cultural knowledge, living lee, seven girls, letter dell, spoke lee, letter dell hymes, due lack necessity, friends social,

Approximate Word count = 2163
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)

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