Becoming Frum: How Newcomers Learn the Language and Culture of Orthodox Judaism

7. "I Finally Got the Lingo": Progression in Newcomers' Acquisition of Orthodox Language

144 It is clear from the previous chapter that BTs do eventually acquire many of the Yiddish and Hebrew influences in Orthodox Jewish English. But, unlike students learning a foreign language, this acquisition does not happen in a formal language classroom. As I show in this chapter, BTs go through a long and multifaceted process of language socialization as they integrate into Orthodox communities. Peripheral, Community, and Yeshiva/Seminary BTs An important part of the language socialization process is the three stages of religious and social integration that BTs tend to go through (introduced in chapter 1): Peripheral (marginally affiliated with Orthodoxy), Community (following halacha and living in an Orthodox community), and Yeshiva/Seminary (having studied intensively in an Orthodox institution of higher learning). A quantitative analysis of overall use of distinctive Orthodox features shows that these stages correlate with language use: Peripheral BTs had the lowest indices, Community BTs were in the middle, and Yeshiva/Seminary BTs had the highest indices (figure 7.1). In every category except Yeshiva/Seminary BTs, men used more distinctive linguistic features than women. I found a similar pattern of gender difference in my research in a Chabad school in California. Among both students and teachers , males used more Hebrew, Aramaic, and Yiddish loanwords than females, and they released their [t]s about twice as frequently. These differences are in line with the distinct activities and expectations for men and women regarding traditional learning and learnedness.1 7 “I Finally Got the Lingo” Progression in Newcomers’ Acquisition of Orthodox Language “I FINALLY GOT THE LINGO” 145 The one surprising finding is that Seminary BT women score just as high as Yeshiva BT men and even higher than FFB women. This can be attributed to two Seminary BT women who, at the time of the study, had been Orthodox for less than two years. The scores recorded for Devora and Rivka Bracha were well above average, eleven and fourteen, respectively. Both young women embraced Orthodoxy with great fervor at Ner Tamid and in Milldale, and, after spending time in BT seminaries in Israel, they have integrated religiously, socially, and culturally into the community. For both, using Orthodox language has been such an important part of their integration process that they hyperaccommodate to Orthodox linguistic norms. We also find outliers on the other end of the spectrum. For example, Samuel, the Community BT profiled along with Rivka Bracha in chapter 6, has a score of two, which is lower than even the average for Peripheral BT men. His low score is balanced out in the Community BT men’s category by Levi’s high score of nine. As the previous chapter explains, these individuals’ disparate scores stem from their different ideologies about language and Orthodoxy, among other factors.2 As BTs integrate, they change not only their speech but also their comprehension . Shelley, a Community BT, said that soon after moving to an Orthodox community someone gave her an audio tape of a lecture that was intended for FIGURE 7.1. Average index of BTs’ and FFBs’ use of Orthodox linguistic features, according to gender Note: The number of people in each category follows in parentheses. See chapter 6 for details about the index. 146 CHAPTER 7 FFBs and knowledgeable BTs: “I had no idea what he was talking about, because there was so much lingo thrown in.” She put the tape aside for over a year, and then, “about a month or two ago I took the tape out just for the heck of it, and it was totally different. I really enjoyed listening to the tape, because I understood what he was talking about—because I got the lingo.” It is clear that some BTs are able to increase their use and comprehension of Orthodox language significantly within just a few years. Let us examine how this transition happens. Progression of Exposure to Linguistic Styles The Orthodox socialization process can be illuminated by anthropologist Jean Lave and social learning theorist Etienne Wenger’s model of learning as “legitimate peripheral participation.”3 The learners, or “apprentices,” observe the “masters” and other apprentices, and they gradually gain increased access to roles and responsibilities within their new “community of practice.” As linguists Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet define it, “a community of practice is an aggregate of people who come together around mutual engagement in an endeavor. Ways of...