Week 3: Linguistic Heterogeneity

In “Critical Hip-Hop Language Pedagogies: Combat, Consciousness, and the Cultural Politics of Communication,” H. Samy Alim talks about producing consciousness-raising pedagogies and identifies schools as places of combat, which appears to be rather dramatic language, but in the context of the promise of economic independence and upward mobility upon cleaning up language, language ideology is indeed combat. Considering the relationship between language and identity, adjusting to the standard as one’s only used language does attempt to revise the self. Maintaining the non-standard while knowing which situations require the switch to the standard is often cited as the less radical alternative; however, I see no less of the standard’s claim to privilege in this since it also implies that the standard is the language that will help one with employment and communication with people and institutions that are of importance. The non-standard, by contrast, is then the language that does not help and is not for the situations deemed “important.” The two arguments I know will be used in response are that situations that are not related to education and the professional world are still important and therefore the language used in those situations is not a lesser (simply different) and that the importance of having a desirable place in the labor market cannot be undermined. The former seems to be a linguistic case of separate but equal while the latter acts in support of a prejudiced economic system (simply accepting the world as it is). Arguing for the importance of non-professional situations ignores the dominant cultural view that perceives the non-standard varieties as disrespectful, which is seen in Alim’s conversation with a Haven High teacher, who also identified the vernacular as saying “whatever you want” (164). And despite Pennycook’s discussion of the pervasiveness of hip hop, it’s noteworthy that when he quotes Bozza’s claim that it is an international language that defines the image of teenagers (90), the non-standard is presented as a language limited to a period of time in the human lifespan that is popularly characterized by immaturity. Still, with all the arguments I face, including my own, I am conflicted about the hegemony of the standard and the consequences of its use and the lack of its use.

In Alim’s article, once students began to reflect on ties between linguistic supremacy and discrimination, the argument for the standard as access to upward mobility possibly becomes less significant. Speaking the standard did not help the woman when she was discriminated against in the housing market, nor is the case of discrimination any less damaging in the example of a man who was let go from his job because English was his second language (172). The example of the Latino man is a reminder that the standard, the English language, and fluency in English are not available to everyone, so when an argument is made for the standard with economic reasons as the supporting evidence, it is important to think of those who are still left behind in this defense of the standard.

Week 2: Language Ideologies: Standard English, Globalization and World Englishes

Week 2: Language Ideologies: Standard English, Globalization and World Englishes.

       Kingsley Bolton’s “Creativity and World Englishes” and James Paul Gee’s chapter on ideology from Social Linguistics and Literacies both speak to the power of fears that conflicting ideologies perpetuate. Gee emphasizes that “people often (but not always) see the world the way they need or want it in order to sustain their desires, power, status, or influence” (5), and postcolonial narratives are among the many threats to ideologies that value elevating the mainstream or the dominant rather than building an awareness of the global. If ideas are shaped by environments, how does an environment become global and inclusive to realize the relevance of bilingual creativity? The literary approach to bilingual creativity that Bolton cites Kachru describing “exemplifies the need to reconceptualise linguistic views of bilingual creativity and the bilingual/multilingual grammar, defined rather by patterns of code-mixing, switching, and discourse than by norms of morphology and syntax” (459). Furthermore, Pico Iyer claims that the work of postcolonial writers captures English literature while transforming the language by moving across borders and through cross cultural mixing (460). According to Iver, the common place of these authors is dislocation; therefore, if the environment that forms ideologies is indefinable, ideas formed in this space are increasingly inclusive and theoretical.

       It is not unlike Gee’s example of the perception of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) as less adequate than the standard. He corrects this notion and states that “since non-standard dialects are freer to change on the basis of the human child’s linguistic and cognitive systems, non-standard dialects are, in a sense, often ‘more logical’ or ‘more elegant’ from a linguistic point of view” (11). The relationship that non-standard dialects have with mainstream society is related to that of English literature and postcolonial literature. Both transform the language from a periphery and are closer representations of the English language and society than the mainstream because of the freedom to transform according to changes that happen in languages and cultures.

       Bolton and Gee also encounter a similar economic conflict. Gee states that Marx “Believed that our knowledge, beliefs, and behavior reflected and were shaped most importantly by the economic relationships (relations of production and consumption) that existed in our societies” (7). Bolton contextualizes the study of English literature and language and points to the issues that are encountered in multiculturalism, despite its intentions. He quotes Miyoshi, who discussed the focus on cosmopolitanism and the neglect of economic isolation as playing into the hands of capitalism. The discussion of economics in the context of language brings to light the role language has in controlling economic power. The standard is valued because it is expected when entering institutions from which one can profit, which is at least partly why the standard is expected in education. Looking at this in the context of Bolton’s article, multicultural studies and literature also have to subvert this economic power. The connection between Bolton and Gee’s arguments is also seen in Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows because of Alastair Pennycook’s concern with globalization and a discussion of global Englishes that is not limited to homogeny and economic policies controlled by a superpower. 

Introduction

Hi! This is Irina from the Seminar in Linguistics. For introduction, I simply have this quote I've kept around for about 7 years (after I took my first linguistics class as a freshman). It reminds me of the crucial importance of the relationship between linguistics and literature: "Official language smitheried to sanction ignorance and preserve privilege is a suit of armor, polished to shocking glitter, a husk from which the knight departed long ago. Yet there it is; dumb, predatory, sentimental. Exciting reverence in schoolchildren, providing shelter for despots, summoning false memories of stability, harmony among the public" (Toni Morrison).