Logs of Linguistic Observations

By

Sandra Quiroz

Dr. Dominguez

SPA 435

May 1, 2018
1. “What are you doing?”

“ Nothing.“

-I called my cousin the other day to invite her to the movies. I asked her what

she was doing and she responds with “nothing” I then ask her if she would like to got

to the movies. She then tells me she does want to go but if I could wait for her because

she is not home. She tells me she is on her way home but that she has to stop at the

grocery store to purchase some groceries. I believe she could have told me right from

the start of the conversation that she was not home instead of responding “nothing.”

To me nothing means she is just home doing absolutely nothing, and I mean she was

talking with me on the phone she had to be doing something. On top of that she gives

me a list of the things she has to do before she gets home. I just do not quite

understand what nothing means to her.

2. “Tu haces la mejor salsa.”

- The other day we had a family dinner and we invited my aunt, my mother’s

sister, and she was eating birria. My mother placed a container with salsa in the center

of the table just in case anyone wanted to add some to their birria, my aunt then says, “

“Yo si quiero mas, es que tu haces la mejor salsa.” I thought to myself yes she does but

then I realized that that opinion was according to us, how do we know that she does

make the best salsa. Someone else who does not like birria might think that the salsa

that my mom makes to go with it is the worst.

3. “You are always on your phone.”

- On most Fridays I pick up my nephew from school. A couple weeks ago he

walked out, got in the car and looked at me and told me “You are always on your
 phone.” I laughed and told him, “No, I am not always on my phone. I am only on my

phone while I wait for you to come out.” He then said, “That is why I say that you are

always on your phone.” My nephew used always to refer to the fact that every time I

pick him up on Fridays when he gets to my car I am on my phone. He used the term

always to refer to that same event because I am not always on my phone. For example

when I go to work I am not allowed to be on my phone, when I go to class I am not

supposed to use my phone, when I take a shower and go to sleep I cannot be on my

phone so that is why always was not the right word for him to use.

4. “I’ll go right now.

- Last week, I needed help moving a bookshelf in my room. From my room, I

called my brother, who was in his room, to go help me. He replied by saying, “I’ll go

right now.” Well I do not know what “now” means to him because he did not get there

until like thirty minutes after and I had already moved the bookshelf on my own. He

complained about me calling him to help me if I was not going to wait and was even

able to do it on my own. He did not understand that to me now meant in that moment

not thirty minutes after and since he took thirty minutes to go I assumed he was busy

and was not going to be able to help me.

5. “Sandra, you never say a word.”

- During my break at work one of my coworkers told me, “Sandra, you never say

a word.” I told her yes I do and in fact I just did. She just laughed because what she was

referring to was the fact that I do not complain about the teachers that I am assigned to

work with. She then just told me, “You know what I mean.” How was I supposed to
 know what she really meant? How would I have known that that was really what she

meant?

6. Lose 1 inch for free in just 15 min.

- I read this on a flyer for medically supervised weight loss. It said, “Lose 1 inch

for free in just 15 minutes.” There are quite a few things that do not quite make sense.

First of all from where are you losing that one-inch? Is it from your body? What part of

the body? Second of all, I had never heard of people being charged for loosing inches.

Lastly, do you lose an inch every 15 minutes? Does this mean if you want to lose 10

inches you can lose them in 150 minutes?

7. “Te la pasas renegando.”

- My mother asked me on the weekend if I was not busy so that I could take her

to the store. I said that I did have some homework to do but that I would still take her. I

told her that it was not like she was going to spend the whole day at the store. Well

when we were at the store I did complain to her about how she was taking longer than

I thought, that I was tired, and that I had homework that I had to do. She then told me,

“Tu nada mas te la pasas renegando.” However this is not true because I cannot

possibly spend the whole day complaining. To begin with we had a conversation as we

drove to the store and once in the store we talked about what she was going to buy so

that was absolutely false that I spent the whole time complaining.

8. “Tu nunca estas en casa.”

- I got home from school last week and my dad told me, “Toda via vives aqui, ya

ni te veo tu nunca estas en casa. Well, yes I spend most of the day out of home because

I work and go to school but I do still live there. The fact that I am not home when he is
 home does not necessarily mean I am never there and nonetheless that I do not live

there. The fact that he sees my belongings there means I still live there and thus that

means that I should be there at least during the night to sleep.

9. “I’ll be back in a minute.”

- My niece the other day said she was going to go play with my other niece at my

sisters’ house. As she walked out she yelled, “ I’ll be back in a minute.” This of course

was not true, if she was going to go play it was definitely going to take her more than

a minute, meaning she was not going to be back home in a minute. A minute was

probably going to be the time it would take her to get to my sister’s house, how

would she be able to be back in a minute.

10. Food with Integrity

- Over the weekend I went out with some friends. They all said they wanted to

go eat at Chipotle. So we went. I had never been there so I picked up a menu and read

through it. On the top it read, Food with Integrity. I laughed for a second and asked

myself if integrity means having the quality of being honest how can foods have

integrity.