Thursday, November 12, 2009

On idiolect in community

My fiancé recently informed me that my group of friends from back home and I don’t really have conversations, we just joke. If I were and unreasonable person, which most men are, I would have told her off, but since I am reasonable, I sat back and thought about what she said. I examined the topics and style of our conversation and realized that we don’t really talk about anything. We just fling phrases and laugh. We have our own language of humor that we all enjoy when we come together, so we don’t rely on each other for deep, intense conversation. Our “idiolect” or “private tongue” can be inclusive and exclusive. We feel like members of our community because we can contribute to the ocean of jokes. But my fiancé feels excluded because she wants to have a real conversation and she doesn’t feel welcome we just gossip and joke in a foreign idiolect. I don’t blame her. Try to budge yourself into a group of people who are already friends. Their idiolect (inside jokes, funny words, and communicative nuances) is probably deeply developed. If you want to break into a group of people, you have to learn their idiolect. It will take patience and failure. And perhaps, in the process, you will realize that you don’t want to be part of the group, but I dare you to try.
We’ve been told before that on Second East Coly, we “speak a language of our own.” This is true. It is the idiolect that we have developed from common triumph, trial, fun and failure. We know how to talk with each other, whether it is a storm of nonsense, or a deep conversation.

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