"Broken" English

The short story, From Outside, In, by Barbara Mellix, describes how black people oftentimes straddle between speaking "broken" English and "proper" English to please different audiences. Mellix comments that at home she often spoke plain English as it was more comfortable and customary for her home life but she goes on to describe her main reason for speaking properly. She says that "[s]peaking standard English to whites was [her] way of demonstrating that [she] knew [the whites'] language and could use it." (Mellix, 396) Unfortunately for Mellix, speaking properly was not something she did for herself, but to please white people. One can see that this still goes on today. Black people and other minorities are seen as inferior when it comes to the English language. For example, people of oriental descent are often seen going into fields dealing with math and science such as engineering and discouraged from pursuing careers dealing with language. This is true to Amy Tan's short story, Mother Tounge. In her tale, she talks about how her "teachers [steered her away] from writing and into math and science." (Tan, 409) This goes to show that many minorities are frowned upon when it comes to the English language.