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Sociolinguistics Journal

Vincent Lauter LING8500 Dr. Goldstein

Having just attended our second class meeting this morning, and not having been a university student for many years, I must admit my feelings are mixed. The classes have been handled expertly and the discussions are lively and engaging, though Im not sure, really, how this applies to our task of becoming masters of teaching languages. Perhaps Im just used to the pragmatism of meetings with colleagues and peers when youre teaching, where the discussions focus mostly on hard-and-fast issues of how to teach: how to handle problems and difficulties. Discussions of different peoples accents and usage, for the most part, are confined to informal settings like the caf or the pub. Thats usually where teachers have a laugh about how their mothers pronounce the word wash, or suchlike. Non-native speaking teachers often consult native speaking colleagues about questions and problems concerning pronunciation, meaning and usage, but most discussion is about curriculum-building and finding useful and engaging activities to teach different language points. About how to structure an activity, or correct errors. Our discussion today about descriptive sociolinguistics was very interesting, and I understand the need to accept different varieties of language as valid. Of course. This is an issue that comes up all the time in language teaching, especially when teaching children and young adults who hear non-standard speech in popular music, movies, TV shows, or vernacular speech in their own environment. Its a fun topic to address and talk about, though its usually understood that one shouldnt emulate everything they hear as proper speech. Ay, theres the rub. Today, and Im sure for the rest of the course, well run up against that wall of subjectivity where everything is ok and one mustnt categorize anything as good or bad, right or wrong. I suspect even standard and non-standard will eventually come to be seen as insensitive and judgmental, something like the word common in British English having picked up connotations of low or poor over time. Perhaps we could talk about what should, or shouldnt, be taught and why? This seems to be more relevant. Our discussion today reminded me a lot of ESL discussion lessons where a controversial issue is introduced and discussed for the sake of reinforcing new vocabulary and sometimes grammar, but this isnt an ESL class. Its true that the discussion of prescriptive versus descriptive viewpoints and folklinguistics reinforced those concepts for the group, but we never did get to anything teaching-related, such as how or if non-standard varieties should be taught in the classroom to non-native speaking students. Another small quarrel I had with the discussion today was the hyper-sensitivity and anxiety shown by the students. Nearly everyone, when taking a turn to speak, first gave a long disclaimer so that everyone understood that this was only their feeling from their experience and they didnt mean to offend or demean anyone elses feelings or experience. Well, of course. We know that. We know that

its your opinion from your experiencewho elses would it be? We know that you dont mean to demean or disrespect: I think weve all gathered that MIIS students and faculty are neither bigots nor bullies, and value diversity perhaps above all things. And naturally, with such sensitive and subjective subject matter, someone somewhere could potentially disagree. So what? Thats what makes discussions lively. Maybe its the mixed nature of the group-- nearly equal parts American- and foreignborn at an inclusive international institution on American soil-- that causes all of these disclaimers, especially on the part of the American students. For the sake of a moving the discussion along and allowing more points of view to be heard, I wish we could forego the disclaimers and just say what we feel. But I suppose that will come with time and comfort-level in the classroom. After our second week of Sociolinguistics, Im more favorably impressed. Alice, Marie, Takako and I are ready for our presentation of an article on educational issues for non-standard varieties, which helped quell my concerns about the utility of sociolinguistic studies and teacher training. The articlewritten by a Britonexamines the educational system in the Swabian Dialect region of Germany. The writer, whose recommendation was the all teacher-training courses at university require socio-linguistic training, pointed out that a teachers lack of sensitivity to the non-standard varieties spoken by their pupils creates a barrier that makes it much more difficult to teach the standard variety. Or anything else, for that matter. This, is true. Our discussions in class this week have also been interesting, though they still seem to center on who says what how and where in the United States. Its interesting, having been over in the European ESL community all the time Ive been teaching, to see the American perspective in language teaching for more or less the first time. All the names of the experts and their scholarship, for example, are new to me, though occasionally Harmer, Allwright or one of the other familiar Brits will pop up in the references. The terminology is often different, and the emphasis on the United Statesas opposed to the United Kingdomis striking. It would be very interesting, Id think, in our class, to examine language in the UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and even India as well, since teachers absolutely will run up against this in textbooks and lessons no matter where they teach. Also, the differences are much more significant and of interest to second-language learners than what people in Pittsburgh call a rubber band, or Rhode Islanders call a milkshake. These things, it seems to me, are fun facts to talk about, but not terribly interesting to pass on to our future students. That said, the American Tongues clip we watched today was informative and entertaining. I felt a bit guilty laughing at some of the people in the film, like Id been set up to do so, like they were being mocked, pilloried. This, of course, goes against all the relativism and subjectivity that were being taught in the program. Next week should be more interesting yet, when we touch on the Ebonics controversy. I dont think many of my classmates remember the controversy itselfthey were in kindergarten, maybeso it will be interesting how they react to the issues it raises. My guess is theyll agree with whatever they think the professor thinks. As usual. After further readings Ive become more favorably impressed with Sociolinguistics as a discipline especially with the writings of Labov and other pioneers in the field, who you can tell were, or are, fearless adversaries of bigotry and bullshit. Found myself often laughing aloud at passages in his

articles, and the obvious empathy and sympathy he has for his subjects. It is, of course, very important to note when he was doing these studies and writing these piecesforty years agowhen such sympathy and empathy was truly revolutionary. My lovely partners and I did our presentation on educational issues for non-standard speakers this past class, and were generally successful but for being a bit over the time allotted. The reaction to our article about such issues in the German region of Swabia proved, however, that such writing and theories are no longer controversial, at least, not among teachers and trainees. What Labov and his contemporaries were arguing for in the sixties and seventies has long since become the paradigm; nobody seriously challenges the idea that teachers should be sensitive to diversity in general, and non-standard vernacular speech in particular. In our classroom, at least, participants know that to disagree with LippiGreen or any of the experts in this area would make you the object of anger and ridicule. There is a similar atmosphere in Language Analysis. How, exactly, these teachers should be trained to be sensitive and in what way this would manifest itself in the classroom is another matter. This, being difficult, is not widely agreed upon and discussed. Hopefully well address this more in the future, because I think Im not alone in wishing for more specifics and skills and fewer opinions on abstract political issues. These opinions are perhaps only new to our classmates from developing countries who were not brought up under the doctrine of multicultural diversity like anyone my age or younger from the developed world. The rest of us are wellconditioned to reflexively espouse and agree with such sensitivities, in the abstract. The problem is how to practice these sensitivities effectively in the classroom and in our daily lives, as they might have made us a bit guarded and fearful of giving offense in our interactions with diverse populations. Most students at MIIS are experienced with living and working abroad, and the school itself is very diverse, but how to manage very heterogeneous students in the classroom is something else. Im an experienced teacher, but my students were nearly all from the same linguistic background and mostly from a similar socioeconomic background as well, as the countries Ive taught in are quite uniform in this way. The United States is notably not. This morning Id thought we were moving on to the controversial topic of bilingual education, but I was deceived. We instead revisited the issue of non-standard dialects for at least the third lesson in a row officially, but in reality all of the class discussions have centered on this topic. It seems that the crux is simply that sociolinguistics wants to be recognized: it wants to be a part of the curriculum for both teachers in training and their students. Sensitivity to sociolinguistic matters needs improvement. I think everyone is in accord with this and has been for weeks now, but we talked about it again. Shockingly, when Dr. Lynn again brought up the Ebonics controversy and the Oakland School Board ruling of 1996, some of the students seemed unfamiliar with it, despite the fact that weve talked about it and read about it extensively. The discussion of the ruling was interesting nonetheless, even if the topic is a tired one. Deborah noticed a quote from the Oakland Times on the handout accusing Ebonics, or AAVE of Oedipal insinuations or somesuch. When Dr. Lynn asked if anyone knew what theyd meant by this, I had to restrain myself from exclaiming mutha-fucka!, instead politely raising my hand and asking, Is it the yo

mama jokes? Lynn smiled in the affirmative. I wanted to relate a story from my undergrad time at the University of San Francisco, when basketball great Bill Russell, our most notable alumnus and an AfricanAmerican native of Oakland, came to speak on campus. Responding to a question as to what hed learned in class at USF, he said, Before college, I never knew you could use the word mother all by itself! Our further discussions in groups about non-standard dialects in schools proved unilluminating, however. Im not so sure the students are really thinking about the difficulty and complexity of the issue, and are just trying to say whatever is correct. It really is a thorny problem, and will only get more so when we move on to bilingual ed, which is a huge morass here in the west. Theyre having similar issues in the UK, France and Germany with the relatively new and exponentially growing immigrant populations there, I hope this is touched on at least partially. Another interesting topic is the use of English at state universities in non-Anglophone countries, notably Italy, in recent years. Many Italians and others feel that this bowing to English is not only un-patriotic, but also results in poorer quality of education if the teaching and learning is nearly universally in a foreign language. Heres a topic: Does it affect the quality of instruction and learning if a teachers and their students are using a language other than their first? Discuss. Tawk amongst yourselves. An interesting bit of sociolinguistic dialogue happened last night and this morning after Dr. Lynn introduced a thread of conversation on the iLearn page asking the class for their thoughts on Samy Alims and Carrie Secrets differences of opinion on teaching appropriacy. This, of course, served to reintroduce the topic of ebonics and race. One of my classmates, in what seemed like a coverletter for a job application or an admissions letter for this program, carried on at great length about how she and her colleagues in a teaching program discussed how she is white, and how much a difference thats made because she is white, and many other people who are not white arent white like she is white, which is different than being white, because some of those people are black, not white, like she is white. In a moment of poor judgment, I wrote a very short postwhich didnt really respond to Lynns topic but rather to the general obsession with race in our classparticularly with African-Americans. I didnt want to address that classmatewho by the way is whitedirectly. That would be inappropriate. I merely wanted to point out that one nice thing about two whole generations of multiculturalism and diversity having been enshrined in our education system here in the U.S. is that we can now let black people be black, and white people be white, and not have to constantly worry and wring our hands and harp on the issue. This has long stopped being interesting. It is no longer a white and black society, and neither are those of most any developed nation anymore. Im not even sure that many people in Oakland are much fussed about all that anymore. Where are the Black Panthers of yesteryear? Huey Newtons probably relaxing, feet up with a cold drink, smiling at his grandkids. Not much angry these days. This is not to say that racism is dead and its all copacetic now that weve voted in a black president and suchlike and so forth. Thats not what I mean. Its just that even in my own memory of the last thirty years or so this society has made enormous progress towards demystifying race and moving toward Haile Selassies the color of a mans skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes. The difference in the attitudes of young people these days and those days is profound: weve actually

started to relax. This progress is often thwarted, however, by well-meaning people harping on the issue, reminding us of our differences, inadvertently causing us to return to the old way of thinking Race first, Individual second. Sensitivity and education are the best defense against prejudice and racial injustice, as weve seen with multiculturalism and diversity training in K-12 education and their very real effects on peoples attitudes. But theres a law of diminishing returns at some point, and a shift for this age must be made. I wouldnt like to be a black man in our class, I think Id be hiding under my chair.

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