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REVIEW: Language Ideology

› Ideology: the promotion of the needs

and interests of a dominant group or
class at the expense of marginalized
groups, by means of disinformation and
misrepresentation of those marginalized
groups.”
› Standard langauge ideology: a bias
toward an abstracted, idealized,
homogenous spoken language which is
imposed and maintained by dominant
institutions.

Ø Language is mystified: You can never hope to

comprehend the difficulties and complexities of your mother tongue
REVIEW: Language Ø
without expert guidance.
Authority is claimed: Talk like me/us. We know what we are
Subordination doing because we have studied language, because we write well.

A model of the language

Ø Misinformation is generated: That usage that you are so

subordination process
attached to is inaccurate. The variant I prefer is superior on historical,
› Process of Language Subordination: aesthetic, or logical grounds.
› Step 1: Seizing of authority Ø Non-mainstream language is trivialized: Look how
cute, homey, how funny.
› Step 2: Mystification Ø Conformers are held up as positive examples:
› Step 3: Misinformation See what you can accomplish if you only try, how far you can get if
you see the light.
Ø Non-conformers are vilified or marginalized: See
how willfully stupid, arrogant, unknowing, uninformed, and/or deviant
and unrepresentative these speakers are.
Ø Explicit promises are made: Employers will take you
seriously; doors will open.
Ø Threats are made: No one important will take you seriously;
doors will close.
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Language ideology in the

classroom Problems
› Learning to read and write › 1 A child who is a native speaker of
Hawai’i Creole English may be criticized
for using her home language rather than
*SAE in the classroom.
› 2 A child who is a native speaker of
Hawai’ian Creole English may be
criticized for speaking “school English”
rather than her family’s home language
at the dinner table.

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National Council of Teachers of English

All of us who speak English speak different varieties of English
Different varieties/styles depending on whom we are communicating with, the
circumstances involved, the purpose of the exchange, and
› All of us who speak English speak different other factors. Indeed, creative and communicative powers
varieties of English depending on whom are enhanced when students develop and maintain multiple
language competencies.
we are communicating with, the
circumstances involved, the purpose of
Nonetheless, some varieties of English are more useful than
the exchange, and other factors. Indeed,
others for higher education, for employment, and for
creative and communicative powers are participation in what the Conference on College Composition
enhanced when students develop and and Communication (1993) in a language policy statement
maintain multiple language calls “the language of wider communication.” Therefore, while
competencies. we respect diversity in spoken and written English, we believe
that all students should learn this language of wider
communication.
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How is this an example of Linguistic Subordination?

In the process of young people applying for
jobs, employers would ask them a question Discussion
which would elicit a response, “I bees ready for
coming here next week.” This – um – utilization › When a teacher who grew up speaking a
of the word and insertion of bees is rampant stigmatized vernacular is assigned to teach a
and I think really throws an employer off in terms first grade class in his old neighborhood, what
does institutional policy tell him about the kind
of what the young person’s talking about. “Uh, of English he should use with those children?
now that you’re finished with me I bees going
› Do teachers in this position follow prescripted
home.” . . . If we relegate them only to that usage rules, or do they simply use whichever
narrow, limited, provincial dimension of life and language works best in reaching the
language, we do them a disservice because I children?
see that they will not go beyond the borderlines › How do they talk to children about their
of their immediate neighborhood. And we have language?
no right to do that to any child.

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Student Expectations
› A more recent experience concerns my daughter, a

Discuss
recent graduate of the engineering college. Most of her
undergraduate experience was with TAs, many of whom
were ill equipped to communicate the language let alone
› Should children be required to learn ideas. For $10,000 a year in out-of- state tuition we
English, and learn in English, regardless of expected more. (Fall 1993; letter to the “Alumni Voices”
section of the University of Michigan LSA magazine)
their own home languages and the
primary languages of their communities?
› The ONE problem with Ann Arbor (aside from construction,
too many coffee shops): Graduate Student Instructors who
› Can one policy – based on allegedly don’t know how to speak English. (From a column in the
common views of the responsibilities of student paper, The Michigan Daily, April 18, 1996)
citizenship – be just for all students in all
schools, whether that child is a native › Of course it’s hard to understand them, and of course I
speaker of Navajo, Arabic, or Spanish? resent it. Why can’t I get what I pay for, which is a teacher
like me who talks to me in my own language that I can
understand? (From a questionnaire distributed annually to
incoming students in a linguistics course)
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Rubin (1992)
Studies
› Rubin and Smith (1990) found that students
were not always able to distinguish between
different levels of accentedness and yet
perceptions, right or wrong, served as a very
good predictor of how the student rated the
teacher.
› Rubin (1992) used an interesting technique to
see how students’ expectations of foreign
instructors played into their attitudes and
learning experience.

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Rubin (1992) Rubin (1992)

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• An introduction to the school and the teacher as major forces in the perpetuation of
› Do you have any memories of being language ideology
corrected for the way you said • The instructional goals of the school in regards to literacy and standard language
ideology
something? Who did the correcting? How the notions of appropriacy and communicative competence can be connected
•
What reason was given, and how did you to linguistic discrimination in education
• The arguments that many educators have for why children should be taught *SAE
react? Anger? Shame? Confusion? The effects of appropriacy arguments on A discussion of language policy in
•
education from the mid-nineteenth century to the present
• The educational policies and social expectations related to teachers’ speech
› Describe your own experiences in school. Studies examining university students’ reaction to L2 accents in teaching assistants
•
Were there speakers of stigmatized and lecturers
varieties of English in your classroom? • A few examples of schools and educators who resist the standard language
Were you one of those speakers? How did subordination process speakers of devalued language varieties

perceptions make things easier or harder

for them (or you)?