Reading: English Varieties and Intelligence

Slate has an article this week titled "Which English You Speak Has Nothing to Do with How Smart You Are." This article takes an intelligent and straightforward look at the problem of stereotype and language:

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 nonstandardized 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.

Code Switching and Culture Series: On Short Skirts and Black Vernacular English, Making Choices from the Intersection

Since we've been discussing code switching and culture on this blog, I wanted to share a post I published previously on my personal blog Balancing Jane. Check out the other posts in the series here and here. And if you have something you would like to add to the conversation, please let us know!

*****

"That student's skirt is too short. You should tell her. It could be a distraction."

Sigh.

I am an educator, and I want all of my students to be successful, but I understand that "success" is not a one-size-fits-all path. Besides, I am not just an educator. I am also a feminist. I am a rhetorician.

So when someone starts telling me that it's my job as an educator to interfere in my students' personal communicative choices, I have to make decisions from the intersections.

Let's Discuss Code Switching and Culture Series: Hallie Quinn Brown

The term code switching gained prominence in the last few decades due to the work of theorist Lisa Delpit and other scholars of linguistics, rhetoric and literacy.  The concept, however, has existed in U.S. educational arenas for at least a century.

In the United States, Hallie Quinn Brown, an educator at Wilberforce University at the turn of the 20th century, was one pioneer of the acceptability of alternative English vernaculars. Brown is credited with infusing her work as an orator and elocutionist with the African-American vernacular.  

Hallie Quinn Brown

PowerPoint: Dialects and Discourses

At the end of a week-long discussion on dialects and discourses, I used the following PowerPoint in class to wrap up the key concepts and focus on what students need to know about dialects and discourses in academic and professional contexts.

The main takeaway from this presentation is that Standard Academic English is no more "correct" than any other dialect of English but that mastering it is often a necessity for participation in professional and academic discourse communities.

Reading: Do You Speak American?

PBS has a great resource on different dialects in American English. There are a lot of different entry points into the material, but one way to break it up and share it with students is to assign the section on "American Varieties" as reading. Students could then choose two or three of the different dialects to explore in more detail: Appalachian English, AAVE, Californian, Cajun, Chicano, Lumbee, Midwest, New York City, Pacific Northwest, Pittsburghese, Smoky Mountains, Spanglish, Southern, and Texan.

Since many of these individual sections are written by sociolinguists, some of the language and discussion of dialectical variations can be rather technical and dense. In order to help students discuss their readings in more detail, there are a variety of sources that could be brought into the classroom to help illustrate the way dialects work.

Reading: Language and Culture

This Wall Street Journal article takes a look at how language differences mirror cultural differences. It examines how people from cultures that use words for directional terms (north, east, southwest, etc.) in everyday directions have a stronger sense of direction and that people from cultures that use passive construction are less likely to place blame on individuals for accidents.

It raises questions about the nature of language. What comes first: our thoughts about the world that then shapes the words we create to express it or the language that we learn that then shapes how we see the world? It also raises questions about what learning language means to us as we live our lives. How can we use what we know about language to make sure that we are aware of how it shapes our perceptions?

Reading: Differences in Sign Language Highlights Discourse Communities

This article from The Washington Post demonstrates that there is a racial difference in American Sign Language usage. It traces the difference back to practices in segregation and could be used as a place to start a discussion on the way different dialects form. It is also a very useful way to discuss that there is no "right" way to use language and that language develops through usage.

Lisa Wade also talks about this post over at Sociological Images.

Reading: Exploring How Language Shapes Thought

Since language is how we make meaning out of our world, it makes sense that language would impact how we view the world around us. Many researchers have shown that the way we use language impacts the way that we think.

This article from Cracked (Warning: contains some profanity and sexual innuendo. For a more formal version of similar content, see this WSJ article.) puts several examples of language shaping our perception into a relatable, comical list. Everything from how we visualize time to how we perceive colors to how we follow directions is ultimately controlled by the words we use to explain those things.