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.