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Bilingualism In Orange Is The New Black

Decent Essays

The Netflix television series “Orange is the New Black” has been commended for its diversity and complex representation of various ethnic groups through characters who are either inmates or staff in a women’s federal prison. A unique feature of the series is that it frequently includes entire scenes of dialogue in Spanish, or that switch between Spanish and English. While there are other characters and scenes that show bilingual code switching with other languages such as Russian and German, the show includes more than five main Latina characters whose focal narratives are portrayed in Spanish and English, so I will focus on bilingualism in relation to the Spanish speaking characters. In her master’s thesis, Millette states that the dialogue of Latina characters in “Orange is the New Black” realistically reflects elements of code switching such that it is “always presumed to be a conscious choice by the speaker” and is “crucial” to “the relationship between language and identity” such that it exemplifies “performance of identity” (Millette). …show more content…

Accuracy of multicultural linguistic portrayal and operation is important because scenes and relationships positioned around bilingualism give English viewers of the show insight into cultures and identities that exist within their community but that they may otherwise misunderstand or find irrelevant. Additionally, it expands the way bilingual speakers, in this example specifically Latina Spanish and English speakers, are represented by tackling issues and realities prevalent in their

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