Is it ok to speak Spanish in a US office?

It's the March issue of Let's Talk Inclusive Language!

This advice column is a supplement to the Worthwhile Language newsletter, which comes out on the 15th of each month.

Have an inclusive language question? You can send it to [email protected] . All questions are anonymized.

Here’s a question from a subscriber:??

“At the end of your Lily Gladstone article, you asked us ‘Who can and cannot speak their home languages at work? Why?’??

It got me thinking about two people in my office who sometimes speak Spanish or Spanglish together. Not in meetings or anything, just eating lunch or if they’re walking out together or talking at a desk.

I’m ok with it, but it makes some other people really mad: I’ve heard people say that they’re rude, and it’s un-American. They’re sure these guys are saying bad things about other people in the office.?

?What are your thoughts? I feel like they should be able to speak Spanish if they want to. I’m thinking you agree.”

Let’s talk about your linguistic repertoire, which is kind of like your wardrobe of clothes and accessories, but for language. Just like you choose your clothes to be appropriate for an occasion, you’re also choosing your words, pronunciation, and grammar to be appropriate for an occasion.? ?

That occasion is a communication event. And it can be a face-to-face conversation, a meeting, a speech, an email, a phone call, a press release, and more.? ?

We all have a range of ways that we speak and write (and, as always, I am including sign languages when I say “speak”). Even the most boring people aren’t monostylistic.? ?

Over the course of a day, we move around our linguistic repertoire. This is style shifting.? ?

We change up how we speak depending on the context. There are lots of different ways to break down what factors in the context affect how we speak, but to keep it simple, the most important ones are:?

• who is in our audience,?
• where we’re speaking, and?
• what the purpose is of the communication event.?

There are way more contextual factors than just these three. But the most important factor, by far, turns out to be the audience.?? ?

Research has shown that in most cases, the identity of the person you’re talking with is what has the strongest effect on your speech. (My dissertation research showed that the possibility of secret police eavesdroppers could be even stronger, but that’s another story for another day.)? ?

This is called audience design. And it plays a role for those of us with a monolingual linguistic repertoire and those of us with a multilingual repertoire.?

Here in the US, 78% of us are monolingual. Although English isn’t the official language of the US (there is, in fact, no official language), it is the de facto language of government, media, and offices.??

Most people in the US have a linguistic repertoire that involves moving around English only. This may involve moving in and out of less standard dialects, like dialects associated with Black Americans. But it might involve moving around only the local standard dialect.??

For a monolingual speaker in their 20s, this may look like a more formal style with their boss, a more casual style but with no cursing with a grandparent, and a more casual style with lots of slang, cursing, and in-jokes with a close friend.??

And millions of people in the US, along with billions of people elsewhere in the world, are multilingual. Their linguistic repertoire involves moving in and out of multiple languages.??

Talking to a boss will probably mean speaking in the language used in the office (and, like those English speakers, speaking more formally, with minimal slang and cursing). And talking one-on-one with a friend who speaks the same home language will probably mean switching to that language with them (and, like those English speakers, probably talking less formally and with more slang).?

Bilingual speakers might mix both languages in the same conversation — this is called code-switching, and when it’s mixed Spanish and English, it’s commonly called Spanglish. Or they might speak English for a few minutes, then Spanish for longer, and also have some Spanglish thrown in.?? ?

People moving around from language to language often aren’t conscious that they’re doing it. And research on bilingual speakers shows there are all kinds of triggers for switching languages.?For example:

• There’s a convenient word in Language A but not Language B.?
• The subject lends itself to one particular language (like a holiday or a traditional meal).?
• Someone is being quoted and the quote is in the other language.?
• And, most fun for those of us trying to pin down all the triggers for switching — sometimes there is no clear reason at all, and it looks like the brain or tongue just decided to hop over to another language.?

?

I remember when I came home from my year of research in Russia. For a year, everyone I had spoken to in English was also able to speak Russian. So I never had a conversation there that was 100% English.?? ?

And when I arrived in the US and stopped for a few days in New York to hang out with my family, I just wasn’t aware of all the Russian peppering my English. People would be like, “huh?,” sometimes not even realizing I’d thrown a Russian word in there.?? ?

It took me weeks and weeks to start recognizing in real time that I was switching languages “inappropriately” and try to stick to only English with people who didn’t know Russian.?

The Spanish speakers in the question-writer’s office are just doing what multilingual people naturally do. They are keeping it to English for the communication events that are “officey,” like meetings. And they are keeping it to English for conversations that involve people who don’t speak Spanish, or don’t seem to speak Spanish — you can’t look at someone and just know their linguistic repertoire.??

But when it is just them, in a private conversation, then that audience design kicks in. Decades of learning how to move around their repertoire and be appropriate has left them with reflexes that push them into Spanish or Spanglish when it’s just the two of them.??

Just like you might use more slang or curse more with office friends when you’re close, bilingual Spanish speakers are using more Spanish.???

It’s as simple as that.???

Are people speaking another language gossiping or saying bad things about someone nearby? Mayyyybe. Possibly. I’m not going to say it never happens.??

But chances are excellent that they are just having a mundane conversation about lunch or a movie or a deadline and speaking in a style that feels comfortable and appropriate.??

Kind of like wearing a hoodie and jeans and sneakers to the office. But instead of a hoodie that says Supreme, the hoodie says Peso Pluma.??

Even though your monolingual colleagues would rather see a Supreme hoodie than a Peso Pluma one, because they probably don't get the reference, there’s nothing actually wrong with a style that just isn’t to their taste.??

It’s not unprofessional. It’s not rude. It’s not un-American.??

It’s just speaking appropriately, in a way that feels natural, using styles from a multilingual repertoire instead of a monolingual one.?

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