Speaking the Language of your Audience

Code switching is the practice of moving between two languages or between two or more varieties of the same language.

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In the Caribbean, code switching is part of our culture. In many of our countries, we represent an amalgam of races, languages and cultures, and so, for many of us, there's the language that we speak at home and among our peers and then there's the official language that we must speak.

In my country, Trinidad and Tobago, for example, we have had different official and main languages. Prior to European arrival here, our countries were occupied by Amerindian tribes and those were the main languages used.

Following Spanish settlement, which began in Trinidad from 1530 onwards, Spanish was our official language, and this continued until 1797.

Around 1783-1784, the king of Spain issued a cedula of population, inviting settlers from countries that were friendly to the Spanish crown. This led to an influx of settlers from French Caribbean countries. They brought their languages and their culture, and so, while Spanish continued as the official language, a significant portion of our population began to speak French and broken French patois from 1784 onwards.

And then in 1797, the English took over charge of the governance of the island and English became the official language.

Africans brought to the islands by European settlers from different countries in West Africa, including Nigeria and Ghana, also brought their languages, cultures and belief systems which survived the trauma of slavery. And then there were indentured laborers that came from India and China who also brought their languages, cultures and belief systems.

There's a lot more to our complicated history, of course, but the nutshell of it is that our local dialect is an amalgam of all these languages, and for the most part, we pride ourselves on our ability to code switch really well. We have to.

As a small twin-island country engaging with larger countries in the developing and developed world several times our size, we have had experiences where our English was not commonly understood even though it is our first language. Many Caribbean people can relate to this, in fact, and I guess English speakers of other countries as well.

Because we code switch naturally, it's not that serious to us Trinbagonians, we're not that earnest about it, and in fact, we often laugh at the idea that a lot of our common linguistics is not readily understood. A Trini would say, when it comes to English, we know time and place. Well, we should.

Today, serious note, I would like to spend some time discussing the importance of code switching as a writer and writing in a manner that is relatable to one's audience.

Recently, while perusing a local newspaper, I came across a column that was interesting but which I felt was not suited for a general newspaper that is mass produced for public consumption. As a consumer, I felt the article might have been better served in perhaps a peer reviewed journal or a niche magazine with a more targeted readership.

The article was about politics and its implications for regular folk, however the writer wasted no time to crack his knuckles and show off his extensive vocabulary. The article was littered with words like antithesis, contextualized, incentivisation, effete, and so on. It was difficult to read.

I enjoyed the article, mind you, but I had to go back and read it over again. Of course, to be fair, the author was well educated. He signed his letter with his well earned accolades and so we, the reading audience, knew that he held a PhD, though, from his vocabulary, he didn't need to tell us anything.

One of the rules, I think, in mass writing is KISS- Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Write for a wide and diverse audience.

Write so that as many people can understand and relate to the perspective that you're trying to share. Don't intimidate your reader.

In peer reviewed journals, there would be an expectation for a certain type of writing. For a mass produced newspaper, there is another expectation altogether. And this is not to say that one needs to insult the intelligence of his reader by putting together anything without care for the artform, but I'm saying, be relatable.

In the past when I've written speeches, it's one of the first things I tried to understand: who is the audience. Technical audiences may appreciate a technical speech. Niche audiences will understand specific terminology. But when you are speaking to the general public, you take care, without being condescending, to be relatable.

As a content creator, code switching doesn't mean that you are not authentic. Code switching means that you care for the person you are trying to communicate with. After all, what would it feel like if someone came up to you and just started to rattle off on a highly technical topic that you couldn't connect with and expect you to follow along? You'd disengage, wouldn't you?

Let's say you're a teacher and you have to teach a complicated lesson to your class. You may be familiar with all the terminology, but you'd break it down for your class. Doesn't mean you think your class is dumb. It might be that there are some people in the class who grasp the topic and may even know more about it than you. But you'd simplify it all the same because you have a diverse class and you'd want to ensure that there is maximum understanding, right?

Doctors do the same thing. Scientists do the same thing. It's code switching for universal understanding.

And honestly, guys, no matter how extensive your education or vocabulary, I think a really smart person does not need to step into a room and throw his weight around. But that's just me, and anyways, guys, there's a long way for me to go yet. For one thing, I still suffer from a terrible writing sin: the sin of the run-on sentence. But life is about growth, right? As is writing, I'd say.

But tell me, friends, do you code switch in person and as a writer? And how has this helped you to connect with your readers?