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Normally, I would only use English and Toga to converse, but here I added an extra language that most of my friends don’t know. There could be many reactions towards my violation of this norm. My fellow Chinese friends would probably find It Interesting and funny. They also know the language so they probably wouldn’t really mind since we will still be to communicate. The only thing they would probably think is that I’m weird. My other friends on the other hand, the ones who doesn’t speak Chinese, would probably get mad at me cause they wouldn’t understand what I’m saying.
They would also probably find it weird since I’ve never done it before in my life. I think that most people would find it strange and weird since thieve all not used to It. The norm violation will be taking place in school. Most of the time me and my friends eat lunch together. We usually talk a lot and tell many stories and experiences. It is In this time that I will violate the norm of conversation by speaking in Chinese. I will be talking in Chinese to two types of people; first, with my fellow Chinese friends, and second, with my other friends who don’t know how to speak Chinese.
As we were eating lunch and exchanging stories about our previous class, I started to speak in Chinese and everyone suddenly stopped talking, as if they heard a loud explosion. I Just continued to talk Like nothing happened, and soon all eyes on the table were on me. As continued to speak in Chinese, their faces started changing as if they Just saw a cat barking Instead of purring. Their faces were filled with the “WTFO” expression. Soon enough, one of them broke out laughing. It was my friend back In high school.
Since he was Chinese, he understood every single word of my funny Chinese story, but what made him laugh was not the story but my speaking in Chinese. On the other hand, my other friends who don’t know how to speak In Chinese were just mesmerism’s on what they Just heard. One of them even slapped me to make me stop because they didn’t understand a single thing I said. Most of them are asking me why I Just did that, and I simply answered that I felt like It. One of them that knew how to speak Chinese even started to converse in Chinese with me.
We started making fun of the ones who doesn’t know how to speak in Chinese by talking about them In Chinese. They can only hear their name from time to time and they got irritated and got mad at us for speaking in Chinese, especially me. Most of them felt that what I did was weird and that it was the first time they heard someone toy 2 Chinese, and I simply answered “Why not? “. Overall, it was fun and full of laughter. Even though my non-Chinese friends didn’t understand what I said, they Just played along and laughed hard on what Chinese sounds like.
It felt really weird when I was violating the norm of conversation. It was totally out of my comfort zone. There were even times where I had to pause to think for the proper Chinese word to say what I want to say. It didn’t feel good speaking in Chinese in front of many people because nobody really used to it. It would be totally normal in China, but here in Atone, it made me look ridiculous. I had some difficulties violating the norm because first, I wasn’t really used to speak in Chinese so it was a little hard for me to tell my story in Chinese.
Second, I was really conscious about how ridiculous I sounded. People might think I’m crazy. My friends reacted the way I expected them to. Their main reaction was telling me that I was weird, which is the same with what I said earlier. There were Just some unexpected reactions like the one who laughed really loud, which grabbed the attention of nearby tables, and the one who even slapped me in the face. Overall, I learned that breaking a norm is not as easy as it looks. If there was no norm of conversation, there would be total chaos.
People would probably speak in differently languages, but fortunately it is a norm that we speak in Toga or sometimes English. It makes our society stable and functional. Likewise, English being the global language is a very good kind of norm of conversation. Imagine if there was no norm of language. The world would learn differently languages, and it will be harder for countries to communicate with each other. Therefore, a norm definitely exercises social control, and it makes the society much stable and organized.