Sociolinguistics and Language Education.pdf

420 Part 5: Language and Identity
schools; the manipulation of linguistic features can be a strategy to avoid
discrimination in the classroom; and the use of standard English by ethnic
minorities can be met with disapproval by classmates. As educators, it is
important not to subject students to preconceived notions about the languages,
behaviors and abilities that are stereotypically associated with the
ethnic groups that students may or may not even identify with.
I would also like to emphasize that there is no one-to-one correspondence
between language and ethnicity. Not all members of an ethnic group
speak an ethnic variety, and not all ethnic groups have an ethnic variety.
For example, an ethnic variety, such as AAE, Chicano English or Native
American English, can be used by both members and nonmembers of an
ethnic group. Asian Americans, who have no ethnic variety but can be
linked to mainstream American English, a foreign accent and nonstandard
English, further complicate any natural association between language and
ethnicity. In presenting a section that covered language use by ethnic group
in this chapter, my goal was not to reify a link between language and ethnicity
but to discuss how linguistic issues can be central to the construction
of ethnic identities. An important part of this chapter presented the documented
systematicity of ethnic varieties, namely AAE. This research reveals
that nonstandard varieties are not laden with errors, as popular imagination
would have it, but are just as grammatical as standard varieties. This
knowledge is absolutely vital for teachers. When deviations from the standard
are enacted by students, they may be quickly greeted with confusion,
criticism and punishment. Language educators are in powerful positions
to correct these judgments. Whether a student is simply complying with
his or her own ethnic community norms or strategically deploying an ethnically
defi ned convention for a particular purpose, language educators
trained in sociolinguistics are the most prepared to understand the complexity
of language and ethnicity in these situations.
Although many educators are already overburdened with meeting the
goals of the mandated school curriculum, it would benefi t both teachers
and students if discussions of language and ethnicity were incorporated
into the classroom. Such discussions would help educators learn about the
local models of language and ethnicity that students draw on in their
understanding of themselves and others. If students speak a distinct ethnic
variety, design class activities to uncover the systematicity of the language.
For example students could become ethnographers through group projects
that document the multiple speech styles heard in the school and
community. Have open class discussions and debates about language attitudes,
standard English, style shifting and multilingualism. Uncover student
understandings of what ethnicity is, what language is and how the
two relate. Such activities could become springboards for discussing alternative
conceptualizations of language and ethnicity that depart from fi xed
perspectives.