My Idiolect Influences By Rodney Jackson
My speech variety and influence come from many different places. This can be defined as a person's idiolect. Wikipedia says that an idiolect is a variety of a language unique to an individual that is manifested by patterns of vocabulary, expressions, words, or phrases that has a figurative meaning to others. We all have different influences on our word usage, such as geography, music, grammar, logic, family, Internet, movies, and college peers. I have been influenced by and experience the American Idiolect, the Las Vegas Idiolect, the Southern Idiolect, the International Idiolect, the Constitutional Idiolect, the Christian Idiolect, the Black Idiolect, the Veteran Idiolect, the Military Idiolect, the Social Online Idiolect and the Business Idiolect. I do have my highest idiolect.
On a daily basis, I hear many different idiolects from many regions of the world at The University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I hear many uses of words and morphemes that are not in American Standard English. They’re in common use. On campus, the most noticeable idiolects have come from the Asian professors, any of whom have been quite hard to understand. But they also appear to be some of the smartest instructors. Many Asian professors teach the most complex courses in finance and economics at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. I hear the Arabic idiolects in political science and finance. Many students use the African idiolects from many students whether they are speaking in English, Swahili, French or Zambian. The Australians’ idiolects are very recognizable as well as the Scottish. These idiolects have been influential on my understanding language usage and people. In reflection, I do understand that I should not to judge a persons’ level of education or knowledge by the various idiolect they use.
For me, this has increased exponentially with the use of Twitter. Twitter has added overwhelming, new excitement to the idiolect use in my language. I can channel ten different idiolects to communicate with ten different groups of people in a matter of hours. I can follow thousand of idiolects of different people around the world in a weekend. A person can follow me for one day to see the degree of idiolect variation that I use on Twitter. My idiolect had been mostly influenced by my past teachers and family, but that has all changed with my use of Twitter. A Londoner that I met on Twitter found my different idiolects intriguing. Many people do. It is a good conversational piece with each Twitter community I visit. I call this my Tweetolect. A Tweet is a message on Twitter under 120 characters. There is a Twitter dictionary called Twictionary.com to help you with those new words and morphemes used in the Twitter community. Twictionary exposes millions of people to new word usage, such as Twerminology, Twerp, Twerrorism, Twesaurus, Twesbian, Twesbo, Twescapade, Twesh, Twestival, Twetches, Twhater, Twhither, Twicabulary, Twictivism, and Twictory. For example, an Actwivist is one who uses a Twitter message to advocate or oppose a political, social, or environmental cause, and an Attwaction is a crush, intellectual or physical, on a fellow Twitterer. I play Twitter, blogging and the Internet like a musical instrument. I am a master musician. I am the Web master, the Web Twaster! A person can follow me or millions of others for one day to see the degree of idiolect variation, influence and divergence that we use on Twitter. So now you can Tweet your idiolect. Twitter has had a positive effect on my idiolect. Twitter has become a recreational area for the idiolect to cultivate.
My experience with regional and social idiolects has been diverse. My speech is peculiar. When I’m in Las Vegas, many people try to guess my regional dialect and say I sound southern because of geography. When I am in the south, people say I talk like a white person because of my grammar. When I was in Honduras and Korea, the people said I sounded American because of my esprit de corps from my military background. I use my American idiolect the most. I am sure that many feel alone, envious and unconnected to America without a specific American dialect for one of their different idiolects. My American idiolect expresses that I am patriotic and very constitutional ready to protect the American land through vocabulary, expressions, words, and phrases. I watch many movies for inspiration from many actors, such as John Wayne, Denzel Washington, Mel Gibson, and Clint Eastwood. More specific is my southern idiolect. I do have a linguistic pattern unique to a person speaking country. I love this. I would not change the writing style, dialect or accent for the world. It is well recognized by people from all over the world. Country folks sound patriotic and very constitutional and ready to protect the land. I love those country folk for developing words such as “ya’ll” and “fixin to”
My Christian idiolect expresses that I do have a special relationship and faith in Christ. I attempt to put this relationship before everything I do. The Christian idiolect puts me in another realm with supreme personal elements, the highest idiolect.