Flexicon

Josh Bloom
Sep 1, 2018 · 4 min read
Talk about flexible lexicon…make sure you turn on the closed captioning for subtitles.

[I acknowledge that “lexicon” is less appropriate a word to describe what I have been experimenting with than “syntax” — although I have adjusted my vocabulary, as well — but the portmanteau presented itself to me. Besides: flexibility of language is the theme here, so perhaps it is, for once, better to use ill-suited words.]

An interesting, and perhaps foreseeable, development has happened to my speaking English after all these months abroad, especially now in Japan. It is well that I have this blog, otherwise I might have further lost my grip on my mother tongue. Although I have generally been able to communicate in English quite well in every country I’ve visited, with at least *some* people, it became increasingly rare that my conversation partners could match my native speed or vocabulary, and I began to slow down and simplify my syntax. This became so habitual that whenever I *did* encounter a native speaker, it would take some minutes to shake off the rust and express myself more fluidly.

Nowhere has this change become more evident than in Japan, where my necessary interactions with my boss at the hostel required me to formulate my English into a quasi-Japanese. I would break my sentences down into blocks of ideas, much like the purpose kanji serve in written language. Japanese does have grammatical tenses, unlike Chinese (at least, this is what I understood from a Hong Kong housemate at my temporary Kyoto apartment), but my boss’s English wasn’t strong enough for me to really even conjugate verbs for time: a sentence would sound something like this, replete with hefty pauses between words: “Tomorrow…I…go…dance class…night…no work…next morning.” Translation: tomorrow night I have dance class because I don’t have work the following morning. I would strike nearly all prepositions, articles, and causal phrases, and relied on only the most basic adjectives and adverbs (when I used them at all). And somehow we made it work (although Google Translate has been crucial for more complicated conversations).

Language tics are contagious, of course, just like many habits, and I can still remember how for years I would frequently use “mad” as a qualifying adjective to mean “very”, the tendency having been planted in my ear by a Brooklyn-accented friend from theater camp. I have just never been more aware of it than I am now. I have kept my ears open to the plethora of voices I have encountered and my eyes open to how they speak through writing. So sometimes I can tell when my companion is translating directly from their mother tongue because the expression used is not one that we would typically use in English: grammatically correct, but just a strange choice of words. (That or it’s just their artist brain processing everything through the prism of metaphor.) Additionally I feel the urge to mimic the syntax and rhythms of a dear friend of mine, who speaks English very well, but who is not a native speaker. This is apparent to me, especially in her writing, but I do not know whether the lay person could necessarily discern: I myself have the benefit of a strong educational background and years spent reading Shakespeare, and I have also seen many (typically middle-aged adults) native English speakers on Facebook using language and punctuation so poorly it hurts to read (a simple spell check would work wonders). So perhaps I only notice because I am already aware that she is not an Anglophone. In any case, even though she would obviously understand my “correct” English, I find myself drawn into aping her dialect, partly, I think, out of a desire to be on a common wavelength and partly because it’s just fun to play with my speech — it feels more poetic somehow.

I also often find myself pulling this specific dialect out of my pocket when talking to Japanese people, as if it might be easier for them to understand this English, that has been processed by a fellow non-perfect speaker, instead of standard American English. If they don’t speak English well at all, I resort to the kanji -syntax I discussed above — and Google Translate — and if they speak English decently, I use my friend’s dialect. Rare indeed are the times I can use my full linguistic powers.

I wish that there were some product or result of all this experimentation with language I could immediately point to. Certainly practicing with syntax, rhythm, and vocabulary as I have is useful for my intended career in acting: Mamet reads differently from Sarah Ruhl who reads differently from Shakespeare, etc. But I don’t know that I could convince anyone that I was, say, Italian, and not American (ignoring the fact that I can neither speak Italian nor use an Italian dialect). It remains inherently interesting to me, however, and I have no reason to believe that my circumstances will drastically change over the rest of my time abroad. There are likely more and better English speakers in Tokyo than Kyoto, but whether I will spend significant time with them remains to be seen. So I will just keep aware and keep analyzing and keep practicing and make of it what I can.

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