Speech is a part of my everyday life. I am involved in a lot of extracurricular activities that require communication in one form or another. I also have to do a lot of speaking with my job. I have paid more attention to how I speak and what changes I make in my speech depending on who I am talking to since the start of speech class. I am not going to talk to my professors the same way I talk to my friends. I use quite a bit more slang when speaking to my friends. I have always been afraid of public speaking, but I am not as afraid since taking a speech class back in high school.
I am actively involved in sports at my school. The three sports I play are volleyball, cheerleading, and track. I have to communicate with my cheerleading team through Snapchat about what to wear on game days and what times we have to be places. Since I am the captain, I do most of the sending and my teammates do most of the listening part of the communication process. We have team discussions about what bows we want to wear and what days we can host team dinners. I do have to give speeches to them and I never really thought of them as speeches. I get up in front of them and inform them about what we plan on doing for practice for the week.
My friends and I all speak differently. We have some similarities, but mostly differences. I am the kind of person to use “y’all” and my friends think I am weird for it. My grandmother lived in Mississippi and I would spend my summers with her. I picked up on some southern slang and continue to use it everyday. I don’t realize when I use it either. I also shift my language when talking to people in higher authority. I don’t use any slang when talking to older people, professors, and my bosses. They might not understand what certain slang terms mean.
Texting is another platform that my friends and I use. It is often difficult to understand what my grandparents or parents are trying to say. It took awhile for me to teach my grandma that “LOL” mean “Laugh Out Loud” and not “Lots Of Love”. My friends know what I am talking about when I say “COABMF”, while my mother has no idea what that means (It stands for “Come Over And Bring Me Food”). I’m just kidding about that one, but I really think I should start using it. I never realized how much my speech changes depending on the person without me even realizing it.
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