For one of my classes we are reading a young adult novel titled Little Brother by Cory Doctorow and the language in it is very intriguing. The book is written in first person, from the main character who is a computer genius. But it really interesting how Doctorow uses a teen character using high technological jargon and intertwines with speaking like a normal, rebellious teenager. This is beginning to happen more often in young adult novels because of the mass increase in technology growing into the English language.
“I have a dark secret. I used to be a LARPer. LARPing is a Live Action Role Playing, and it’s just about what it sounds like: running around in costume, talking in a funny accent, pretending to be a superspy or a vampire or a medieval knight” (pg 16-17).
Another aspect of the novel’s language I find very interesting is how teens tend to mix English with other languages in a daily basis. Many of minor phrases such as “gracias” (thank you) or “da nada” (you’re welcome) are beginning to become very popular in a teenager’s language. I think that it’s because the education system usually requires students to take a second language. Now this is not to be confused as Spanglish, which is a completely different concept. This idea is the blending of Spanish and English together. Most often this occurs to those who speak both languages or live in the areas where both languages can intertwine and borrow words from each other. In the United States, Spanglish appears most often along the western border, near Mexico. But circling back to Little Brother, as Doctorow set the novel in San Francisco, he may have been trying to create a greater sense of the language culture by having his characters mix the two languages together in a casual conversation.
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