“You Can Take The Girl Out Of Jersey…”
Whoever says “New Joisey” around me gets their head ripped off.
One of the coolest things about the United States is the quantity of regional dialects and accents spoken across the country. People from the Mid-Atlantic region and points north speak with rapid precision, while those further south talk with mind-numbing slowness (just kidding, my friend from Virginia has the sweetest little accent… even if she did say I speak too abruptly).
People who grew up in the same state or region their whole life, then move away, are always surprised to find out they speak with an accent, vis-à-vis: “I don’t have an accent, you’re the one with the accent!” We all know the stereotypes: People from Texas say “howdy, y’all;” Californians are all like, “Oh my Gawd, that is so totally awesome;” and everyone in Boston has a “wicked cahr.”
One of the more actively lampooned United States regional dialects is the New Jersey accent. Contrary to pop culture’s representations of my home state, the men don’t all talk like Tony Soprano and the women don’t all sound like Teresa Guidice from “The Real Housewives” (though most of us can probably throw down and flip a table, if necessary).
Born in Northern Jersey but having grown up in Central Jersey, I speak a watered-down version of this regional accent. When I asked my ex-boyfriend (from Florida by way of Northeast PA) how “Jersey” I sounded on a scale of 1–10, he answered with, “normally, a 4. When you’re mad, 7.” Thanks, Mike. When I asked him about my parents, however, he replied with a solid “10.”
My parents were born and spent the majority of their lives in Jersey City, located in that mystical land across the Hudson River from New York City that my dad calls God’s Country. Falling within the greater NY Metro Area, Northeastern New Jersey enjoys an accent that is similar to, yet oh-so-distinct from the New Yorker accent. For a thorough examination of that North Jersey patois, nobody is a better linguistic case study than Babs and Brian Gallagher.
My dad has a rough, gravelly brogue that sometimes turns nasally (though he’s got nothing on my Aunt Maureen). He un-ironically uses “aint’s,” double negatives and other miscellaneous improper grammar. My dad is also loud as literally anything. My mom always yells at him to “talk lower, Brian, you’re not sittin’ in a bar.” But what my dad lacks in syntax he makes up for in unique, often emphatic expressions.
On the other hand, my mom either draws out her vowels or softens them. Like my dad, she doesn’t pronounce all her Rs and drops her final Gs. Her accent is most pronounced when she’s mad (which is usually all the time). In my house, the running joke is that my mom is Linda from “Bob’s Burgers” (except I’m the only one who finds this observation funny).
The fact that my accent apparently fluctuates while theirs stays the same can be explained by the linguistic phenomenon knowns as code-switching.
Code-switching is a sociolingustic phenomenon in which people switch between two (or more) languages or language varieties in the same context. In pure linguistic terms, code-switching primarily applies to people who are bi- or multi-lingual and switch between languages, either consciously or subconsciously. An example of this would be an individual saying a phase entirely in English, then finishing with “bien, ¿entiendes?” en Español.
There are many different motivations for why people code-switch, as highlighted by an NPR blog series exploring race, language and culture. We code-switch in moments of raw emotion, because our instinctual lizard brain takes over. If you and a friend are lucky enough to be bilingual in the same languages, you can conveniently code-switch to gossip about people right in front of you. Most importantly, code-switching occurs when we really want to express a thought, but can only really accurately do so in one language over the other.
One of the more recently explored applications of code-switching is the idea of code switching for prestige or social approval. While this sociocultural application takes some liberties with the academic, linguistic definition, it provides valuable insight about the intersection of language and culture.
When speaking with members of your immediate social group, you can verbally let your guard down and communicate in an unrestrained way. These subtle shifts happen every day without us realizing it. A person speaks prim and proper (sorry — primly and properly) on the phone at their customer service job, but probably slips into their regional accent when talking sports with their dad on the phone.
When code-switching occurs among broader, cultural groups, it emphasizes just how political the sounds coming out of your mouth really are. Instances of this phenomenon are usually used to describe the way that minorities navigate communicating in a country where the informally adopted “most neutral” (read: most acceptable) way of speaking is Standard American English (a very polished version of the Midwest accent).
In the US, African American Vernacular English and Spanglish are the two primary speech patterns that people interchange with Standard American English. Examples of code-switching occur all throughout pop culture. Public figures, from Beyoncé to Oprah to President Obama, will address the media in one way, and address family members or other celebrities of color in a completely different way.
Whether you’re speaking more professionally for a class presentation or because you want to appear polished and educated, code-switching is a form of self-censorship. Rather th’n tawkin the way ya NORmally would, individuals consciously (or even subconsciously) adopt an affected manner of speaking to suit their circumstances.
Besides my former boyfriend commenting on my Jersey accent — which I maintain that I still don’t really have — my out-of-state college friends sometimes called attention to it, too. Beyond the obligatory comments about how I pronounce “water,” “bagel,” “agita” and — everyone’s favorite — “cawfee,” my non-Jersey friends remarked that I spoke fast and aggressively. My words blend together, the vowels and consonants tripping over each other.
“Even when you’re happy, you sound so angry,” my best friend remarked once. For the record, I think I sound damn-near pleasant. Even though none of their comments were scathing or mean-spirited, I became aware of the accent I didn’t even realize I had. And it became even more apparent to me when I worked in my school’s Office of Financial Aid. My primary responsibility was to field calls from families about their financial aid information. On the phone, my voice shot up three octaves and took on a poised, efficient clip. This was much different from hours later, when I was yelling to my coach across the field about how “I’m gonna be late ta practice t’morra, I got an exam.”
I’ve only ever felt self-conscious of the way I speak when I studied abroad in Spain. Not only was I intimidated by my bumbling castellano accent during university classes, I also felt stupid around my American peers. This program was apparently pretty prestigious (who knew) and I could tell that some of my classmates took themselves very seriously. This is in direct contrast to my easy-going, yet blunt Jersey Girl attitude. After a few uncensored interactions, I could tell that some of my classmates liked me well enough, but they looked at me with gazes normally reserved for the clinically dumb.
“I don’t act stupid on purpose,” I speculated. “Maybe it’s not what I’m saying, but the way I’m saying it?”
It wasn’t until I published and shared an editorial on a blog site that people actually started taking me seriously. I find this very, very interesting, given that my thoughts are my thoughts, whether they are sitting silently on a piece of paper or coming out of my big, dumb Jersey mouth.
Language is so important, and how we express ourselves implicitly tells the world who we think we are. Whether you’re trying to defy harmful racial stereotypes or modifying your speech pattern in front of that really strict professor, we implement code-switching as a means of self-censorship.
