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Dane Wessex
Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 17
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 Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 7:52 pm Post subject: Re: You ain't no more smart than me |
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| johnslat wrote: |
"Which English You Speak Has Nothing to Do With How Smart You Are"
How can linguists and educators work together to help maintain the linguistic voices of the next Zora Neale Hurston or Albert Einstein while at the same time support students on the Common Core, SATs, GREs, and LSATs?
In classrooms across the U.S., there are kids who speak a wide variety of types of English. Even though it's historical accident that anyone considers "isn't" better than "ain't" or "wash" better than "warsh," those kids who just axed a question may feel dumb and be treated as if they're dumb by the people around them. And it starts young: Even by the end of kindergarten, many students have absorbed messages that their language is wrong, incorrect, dumb, or stigmatized.
For example, when I studied the language patterns of 4- and 5-year-old black children in several U.S. cities, many of them were worried that just talking with me would somehow cause them to be held back a grade if they did not do well in the conversations. You can see how these feelings of insecurity, anxiety, and apprehension when communicating—what the linguist William Labov calls linguistic insecurity—would make it disheartening to try and learn higher skills like math and reading when you're told you’re wrong as soon as you even open your mouth.
But where does this idea that certain varieties of English are worse come from, does it have any basis in reality, and what can teachers—and all of us—do about it?
First of all, let's lay to rest this idea that English—or any language—has one dialect that's just right and a whole bunch of others that are wrong. Not only has English changed throughout the ages, but there isn't even any logic behind what's currently in style: As the linguist Steven Pinker explains, "The choice of isn’t over ain’t, dragged over drug, and can’t get any over can’t get no did not emerge from a weighing of their inherent merits, but from the historical accident that the first member of each pair was used in the variety of English spoken around London when the written language became standardized. If history had unfolded differently, today’s correct forms could have been incorrect and vice versa."
So why do people think of speakers of standardized English as being smarter, of a higher status, and as having more positive personality traits than speakers of non-standardized English varieties? These values have more to do with who is in power: If people are devalued for some reason or another—race, gender, socioeconomic class, and so on—their language gets the same association. For example, the way that the British upper class speaks may sound snobby to some, but it's most always judged academically acceptable. The language of Southern African-Americans may sound warm and fun but it's often judged to be academically unacceptable or undesirable. It's even in our media: As the linguist Rosina Lippi-Green points out, the way that cartoon characters speak, like the Lion King’s hyenas or Shrek’s donkey, reinforces our racial and linguistic stereotypes, encouraging kids to think of their classmates who sound like Simba or Shrek as "good guys," people who sound like the hyenas as "bad guys," and people who sound like Donkey as buffoons.
All too often, what happens is something like this story I heard from a math teacher in a first grade classroom, "One of the kids, an African American kid, was playing a game and he said, ‘I don’t got no dice.’ He didn’t have the materials he needed. And the teacher said, ‘You know, Joshua, we speak English in this class.’ Really harshly. And I just thought, oh gosh. There must be a better way to respond."
But what's a teacher to do? On the one hand, they need to help students prepare for a world that—like it or not—isn't particularly accepting of linguistic variation. But on the other, they want to do so in a way that lets students continue to be proud of who they are and where they come from, rather than pushing them into tongue-tied linguistic insecurity.
It's not a solved problem yet, but the educators I'm working with have two main approaches. The first is to talk in terms of being able to use and understand many varieties of English. Educators have also used the terms code-switching and toggle talk to express the idea that it's useful to speak standardized English in certain contexts, like academia, but that it doesn't have to come at the expense of speaking your own way in other contexts, with friends or at home.
The second is to point out that, in fact, many famous authors take great care in learning several language varieties. For example, in the preface to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain notes:
In this book a number of dialects are used, to wit: the Missouri negro dialect; the extremest form of the backwoods Southwestern dialect; the ordinary “Pike County” dialect; and four modified varieties of this last. The shadings have not been done in a haphazard fashion, or by guesswork; but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personal familiarity with these several forms of speech.
I make this explanation for the reason that without it many readers would suppose that all these characters were trying to talk alike and not succeeding.
When we encourage students to creatively mix their own varieties of English with the standardized version depending on the time and circumstances, we help them develop both their self-confidence and their own unique voices: Think how much blander the literature of Mark Twain or Maya Angelou would be if every character talked the same way. For more ideas on how to do this, my colleague Christine Mallinson and I have a list of resources here.
In fact, this kind of linguistic flexibility is a skill that's becoming more and more recognized. For example, the recently-implemented Common Core Standards state that students need to "appreciate that the twenty-first-century classroom and workplace are settings in which people from often widely divergent cultures and who represent diverse experiences and perspectives must learn and work together…[and be] able to communicate effectively with people of varied backgrounds."
But the task of challenging linguistic insecurity isn't just the job of classroom teachers. From animated caricatures to the next great work of literature, we all need to start with this basic premise: Which variety of English you speak has nothing to do with how smart you are.
In a 1979 essay called "If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?," James Baldwin states: "A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled. A child cannot be taught by anyone whose demand, essentially, is that the child repudiate his experience, and all that gives him sustenance, and enter a limbo..." Otherwise, Baldwin warns: "it may very well be that both the child, and his elder, have concluded that they have nothing whatever to learn from the people of a country that has managed to learn so little."
William and Mary Professor of Community Studies at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA and the author of We Do Language: English Language Variation in the Secondary English Classroom.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/10/14/english_variation_not_related_to_intelligence_code_switching_and_other_ways.html
Comments?
Regards,
John |
It's called convention; in this case conventional standards. There is no intrinsic reason that driving on the right side of the road is better than driving on the left. But it is important that everybody agrees on which side we should drive, at least within one's country.
In the case of language, if we give up on standards, the language will deteriorate into a multiplicity of dialects, decreasing the communicative effectiveness of the language. As it is now, we already have various dialects in different Anglophone countries with small distinctions between them. This is manageable because 1) the small number of dialects involved, and 2) the forces of globalization work to keep the dialectics from drifting too far apart. But if we give up on standards altogether, even within the same Anglophone country, the dialects will proliferate like rabbits, and we will have a real tower of Babel on our hands.
Many of the better-paying ESL/EFL students want to learn English so as to impress or at least feel confident around Anglophone people they interact with professionally. They will never achieve this goal if they learn English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), which seems to me to be what you're suggesting. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 8:44 pm Post subject: |
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Dear Dane Wessex,
There sometimes seems to be a misapprehension that when a poster cuts and pastes an article (and makes no comment on it other than the single word "Comments?" after it) that the poster is advocating all or part of what the article claims.
"They will never achieve this goal if they learn English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), which seems to me to be what you're suggesting" (my emphasis added).
I don't know - maybe it's just I. But I find this to be a very strange and completely unjustified notion.
Regards,
John |
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fluffyhamster
Joined: 13 Mar 2005
Posts: 3292
Location: UK > China > Japan > UK again
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 11:35 pm Post subject: |
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Hmm, when I start threads with quotes, it's usually because I disagree with or find some aspect of them puzzling. I usually zero in on the parts that seem the most objectionable, to help people understand where I'm coming from, even if that reduces (or indeed because it helps reduce) the amount of (unnecessary) responses. If on the other hand I am responding with quotes on threads that others have started, that is usually to just support one or other of the sides in a usually already-ensuing discussion (well, duh).
Just my two cents.
Last edited by fluffyhamster on Fri Dec 26, 2014 11:37 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Dane Wessex
Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Fri Dec 26, 2014 11:35 pm Post subject: |
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| johnslat wrote: |
Dear Dane Wessex,
There sometimes seems to be a misapprehension that when a poster cuts and pastes an article (and makes no comment on it other than the single word "Comments?" after it) that the poster is advocating all or part of what the article claims.
"They will never achieve this goal if they learn English as a Lingua Franca (ELF), which seems to me to be what you're suggesting" (my emphasis added).
I don't know - maybe it's just I. But I find this to be a very strange and completely unjustified notion.
Regards,
John |
You are 100% correct, and I apologize. I guess my only excuse is that I read it too fast  |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 12:06 am Post subject: |
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Dear Dane Wessex.
Thanks - personally, I agree with both you and the author, who, I think, makes some good points:
1. "But what's a teacher to do? On the one hand, they need to help students prepare for a world that—like it or not—isn't particularly accepting of linguistic variation. But on the other, they want to do so in a way that lets students continue to be proud of who they are and where they come from."
and 2. the danger of judging a person's "smartness" by how well their speech conforms (or does not) to conventional standards.
By no means do I believe that we should give up on standards, however. People are, like it or not, judged by others mainly by three standards: 1. their appearance 2. their dress 3. their language. Were we to throw teaching conventional standards to the wind and tell students, for example, that "I don't got" is perfectly OK (since, after all, the listener can understand the intended meaning), we would be doing them a grave disservice since, alas, they will be judged (at, for example job interviews) by how well they conform to those conventional standards.
Regards,
John |
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Dane Wessex
Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 2:14 am Post subject: |
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| johnslat wrote: |
Dear Dane Wessex.
Thanks - personally, I agree with both you and the author, who, I think, makes some good points:
1. "But what's a teacher to do? On the one hand, they need to help students prepare for a world that—like it or not—isn't particularly accepting of linguistic variation. But on the other, they want to do so in a way that lets students continue to be proud of who they are and where they come from."
and 2. the danger of judging a person's "smartness" by how well their speech conforms (or does not) to conventional standards.
By no means do I believe that we should give up on standards, however. People are, like it or not, judged by others mainly by three standards: 1. their appearance 2. their dress 3. their language. Were we to throw teaching conventional standards to the wind and tell students, for example, that "I don't got" is perfectly OK (since, after all, the listener can understand the intended meaning), we would be doing them a grave disservice since, alas, they will be judged (at, for example job interviews) by how well they conform to those conventional standards.
Regards,
John |
Yes, this whole issue reminds me of when I was teaching ESL to predominantly Latino students at a community center in the South Bronx. One of the students complained that my animosity toward double negatives was an instance of linguistic imperialism. (I'm paraphrasing, obviously) On the outside, I just said "Andrew will be back tomorrow, and you can talk about this with him". (I was subbing for another teacher.) But on the inside, I wanted to tell her "Look, if you want to speak English the way they speak it in the streets of the South Bronx, the door is right there, and right behind that door are the streets of the South Bronx, full of people speaking bad English. You can either learn from them or me. Your choice." I'm glad I kept my inside thoughts on the inside, but that doesn't mean they were wrong |
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spiral78
Joined: 05 Apr 2004
Posts: 11534
Location: On a Short Leash
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 2:35 pm Post subject: |
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This is a sticky issue in the context you describe, Dane.
If these are Latino immigrants to the South Bronx, it may well be in their best interests to speak in a way that doesn't make them stand out in the community.
It's far simpler in an international context - I've always openly felt it my responsibility to correct anything that makes my students sound/look (speaking/writing) less than the adult professionals that they are. Never had a student neglect to correct a substandard item when I put it this way. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 3:46 pm Post subject: |
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On those (rare) occasions when the issue comes up, I use what I mentioned above - the fact that the world (i.e. people in it) isn't fair and that you get judged by superficial standards (appearance, dress, speech) that have little to do with who we truly are. And I mention job interviews.
Since they've almost always experienced being judged by those unfair standards, they always nod their heads and agree.
It's a shame, but you've got to play the game.
Regards,
John |
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Dane Wessex
Joined: 17 Dec 2014
Posts: 17
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 7:07 pm Post subject: |
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| spiral78 wrote: |
This is a sticky issue in the context you describe, Dane.
If these are Latino immigrants to the South Bronx, it may well be in their best interests to speak in a way that doesn't make them stand out in the community.
It's far simpler in an international context - I've always openly felt it my responsibility to correct anything that makes my students sound/look (speaking/writing) less than the adult professionals that they are. Never had a student neglect to correct a substandard item when I put it this way. |
Ah yes, 'sticky' indeed, Spiral. It takes us into Charles Barkely territory: "Why you tryin' to talk white"? I certainly don't have any magic trick to make the problem go away, or I'd probably be talking to Charlie Rose right now instead of typing on an internet forum. In the instance I described above, I was able to pass the buck, as my level 1 students never had any problems like that. I never asked Andrew about it, I figured just let sleeping dogs lie. I just have no idea what an English teacher is supposed to do in a English as a Lingua Franca environment; just don't worry about it unless the utterance is completely unintelligible? |
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esl_prof
Joined: 30 Nov 2013
Posts: 2006
Location: peyi kote solèy frèt
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 9:17 pm Post subject: Re: You ain't no more smart than me |
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| johnslat wrote: |
| Comments? |
This is basically Sociolinguistics 101 repackaged for a non-academic audience.
I've only ever had to deal with these issues when teaching English to native or near-native speakers of "non-standard" English. I've found that recent immigrants to the U.S. or ESL students in international contexts generally are concerned about learning to speak "proper" English. But, as other posters (and the author of this article) have suggested, the situation becomes much more delicate when teaching "standard" English to speakers of "non-standard" English. |
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esl_prof
Joined: 30 Nov 2013
Posts: 2006
Location: peyi kote solèy frèt
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 9:37 pm Post subject: |
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| Dane Wessex wrote: |
| One of the students complained that my animosity toward double negatives was an instance of linguistic imperialism. |
At a certain level, this is linguistic imperialism. (And, most certainly, arbitrary. Prior to the Enlightenment, double, triple and, even, quadruple negatives were not a problem in English. The great English author Geoffrey Chaucer, for example, used them all the time . . . but I digress.)
On another level, it's simply pragmatic. In the same way that a monolingual Spanish speaker will only get so far in America without learning to speak English, speakers of "non-standard" English will also find themselves limited in social and economic mobility. Is that fair? Not really. But you also have to pick your battles strategically, and I suspect that double negatives are probably not the most strategic point on which to challenge imperialism.
Perhaps one possible response to your student would have been to point out that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who coincidentally was born and grew up in the Bronx, would probably not have ended up where she is now had she refused to learn and use "standard" English in academic and professional contexts. |
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esl_prof
Joined: 30 Nov 2013
Posts: 2006
Location: peyi kote solèy frèt
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| Posted: Sat Dec 27, 2014 10:03 pm Post subject: |
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| Dane Wessex wrote: |
| Ah yes, 'sticky' indeed, Spiral. It takes us into Charles Barkely territory: "Why you tryin' to talk white"? I certainly don't have any magic trick to make the problem go away, or I'd probably be talking to Charlie Rose right now instead of typing on an internet forum. |
You're absolutely right. There are no easy answers to these questions. As teachers, I think the best we can do is introduce students to perspectives from speakers of non-standard English (e.g., Rachel L. Jones' essay in Newsweek titled "What's Wrong with Black English?) at a level that's accessible to them, familiarize them with the issues, and trust them to make an informed choice/commitment to the type of language they want to use.
Should I ever have the opportunity to address these questions with students again in the future, I'd probably also introduce W. E. B. Du Bois notion of double consciousness, which I think is helpful in understanding the experience of students (or, really, anyone) outside of the dominant culture.
http://scua.library.umass.edu/duboisopedia/doku.php?id=about:double_consciousness |
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Sashadroogie
Joined: 17 Apr 2007
Posts: 11061
Location: Moskva, The Workers' Paradise
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| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2014 11:49 am Post subject: |
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| Not a difficult issue at all. Just speak like I do, and all will be well for you. Just one of the many benefits of a superior system of historical analysis is that one's English is more educated and cultured too. |
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johnslat
Joined: 21 Jan 2003
Posts: 13859
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA
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| Posted: Sun Dec 28, 2014 10:49 pm Post subject: |
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Here's an interesting video on the topic (I had to smile the first time she used the adverb "correctly" - and there was just the hint of a pause between "correct" and "ly.")
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6af_1411736298
Do you agree with her?
Regards,
John |
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water rat
Joined: 30 Aug 2014
Posts: 1098
Location: North Antarctica
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| Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 2:35 am Post subject: |
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| johnslat wrote: |
Here's an interesting video on the topic (I had to smile the first time she used the adverb "correctly" - and there was just the hint of a pause between "correct" and "ly.")
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=6af_1411736298
Do you agree with her?
Regards,
John |
Ever hear the one about how they were going to have a Ebonics Beauty Contest? They had to shelf it though. No young lady was willing to be Miss Idaho. |
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