Caitlin Araldi

Professor Dafney Blanca Dabach

EDC&I 548 A
Linguistic Autobiography Assignment (Language Learning Reflection)
22 January 2014
The historical aspects of our language identities are fascinating to me, and are so
intricately woven with our cultural identities as individuals and as learners. I came from an
English-speaking background, and it was the first and only language I acquired at home and in
general until secondary school. My family does not speak a distinct dialect of English, although
my father was born in England and moved to Florida at a young age, while the majority of my
mothers family was from New England (her mother married there and moved to Florida to raise
her children). Both of my parents were almost completely raised in the state, but demonstrate the
influences of their familys unique linguistic history, often materializing as small divergences
from phrases and vocabulary I would use in everyday language.
After moving across the country to live in the Northwest, the linguistic differences which
define states and regions of the United States (primarily vocabulary and pronunciation) are, in
general, far more pronounced to me. I can now distinctly see specifically how the speech patterns
of my generation are comparatively more Southern than those of earlier generations in my
family, who carry varying degrees of reflection of their family roots. For example, neither of my
parents say yall, but I find myself relying on the distinctly Southern phrase after identifying
with my first language environment socially, which included close friends who were heavily
influenced by their familiar roots in Louisiana and rural, old Florida.

I did not attend preschool, but enjoyed a mother who was committed to my language
development from an early age, teaching me to read and write before beginning my formal
education in Catholic school. The private, undiversified religious school environment placed
strong emphasis on formal, traditional methods for English language acquisition, such as with
the use of vocabulary drills and extensive reading and writing assignments, which in turn limited
the social dimension of acquisition by using a didactic approach to teaching throughout the vast
majority of classroom time. Even so, I soon fell in love with the study of language, and my
fascination with the human linguistic journey has only grown greater with time. I did not have
the opportunity for second language development until my first year of high school, in which I
chose to take Spanish (as opposed to French). Although only two years were required by the state
of Florida, I ended up enthusiastically taking classes for all four years. Although I loved learning
in my first language, the even more Romantic nature of Spanish led me to later take courses in
Latin, French, Portuguese and Italian throughout the course of my secondary career.
Originally, much of my experience with acquiring my second language was done in a
social context, as I had a boyfriend of many years whose first language was Spanish. Spending
time with his family (directly of Cuban descent) provided me with the chance to quickly develop
some conversational proficiency, which coupled with my grammar instruction at school, allowed
me to understand the language fairly well, and to read and write at a basic level. I went on to
pursue a B.A. in Spanish Language and Culture at the University of Central Florida, and
participated in two short study abroad programs, my sophomore year in Madrid, Spain, and the
following year in Buenos Aires, Argentina. My program in Spain proved to be less immersive
than my experience in Argentina due to the fact that it was taken with a larger, predominantly

English-speaking group, and did not include a home-stay dimension, which I found to greatly
assist my development of fluency during my second year of study abroad.
The overall complexity of our individual cultural identities are so connected to our
conceptualization of the role of language, particularly when looking at the development of our
own linguistic capacity on a time scale of experiences, as defining moments in our lives.
Obviously, I found that my passion for languages has consequently led to an profound interest in
the developmental and cognitive aspects of language acquisition, and I can only hope that my
fascination fuels a fulfilling career of lifelong learning.