Angelo Makris
Week 4- critique
The Speech Community- Gumperz
All human societies have language and with that language, specific conditions of
appropriateness for linguistic choices that arise from social norms. From these societies, internal
speech communities are formed, comprised of a group of speakers that share common linguistic
features with each other. A speech community can be the citizens of a nation-state, or a street
gang, provided it has its own distinct verbal system and appropriations of language.
Prior to 1940, study of speech communities focused on three main areas: Dialectology,
Special Parlances & Classical Languages, and Language Acculturation/Shift. Dialectology was
concerned with the distribution of colloquial speech forms in societies with major literary
languages. In this line of study, researchers studied the link between social change and linguistic
change by charting developments in grammar pronunciation, and lexicon (isoglosses) to show
the relationship between centers of innovation and transition in language. Special Parlances are
specialized, “secret” languages, usually of minority or immigrant groups. Classical languages
compose another distinct linguistic system, often associated with religious and ceremonial
contexts. The amount of prestige and cultural value elevates it from an esoteric secret language
to a highly specialized, elite way of speech. Speakers of this type of variety are usually
personally trained and come from a background of high economic capital.
America itself and Standard American English possess the major features of a standard
literary language: SAE is undoubtedly the majority unofficial language of the country, it is a
variety that arose from and is concentrated in urban centers of power and economy, and it has a
largely codified grammatical system and lexicon, and the institutions and means to circulate and
reproduce the dominance of SAE forms. Gumperz also raises an interesting point about how
societies with standardized languages have “better internal channels of communication and
language loyalty that it evokes” (385). I think this ideal motivates the proponents of the EnglishOnly movement and other similar groups, but this is an ideal that rests upon a community being
relatively linguistically homogenous. Despite the linguistic and cultural diversity in America,
SAE is often considered the only valid way to express oneself and communicate, especially in
academic and professional discourses. While I don’t see anything wrong with having SAE as an
effective and unifying resource, the push for linguistic homogeneity in this country historically
and continually has overtones of classism and ethno-cultural homogeneity in which the dominant
national culture invalidates heritage languages and relegates them to closed, internal interactions.
Acculturation becomes assimilation.
Looking at Black English in light of Gumperz’s concepts is also appropriate with regard
to education. The textual linguistic approach would classify it as a branch of English, a creole or
dialect. The socio-historic approach, however, contextualizes the language within the realities of
its social conditions. Black English could be understood as a hybrid, the result of language
contact rooted in slavery and historic, systemic oppression. The power source of this linguistic
wave of influence is English as it interacted with existing African grammars and lexical systems.
Speakers of this variety may be associated with lower rates of achievement, lower test scores,
and generally lower prestige than SAE. This disparity is not to be addressed in terms of
biological disposition or racial determinism, or as an isolated branch on a family tree. Rather,
this Dialectal Variety and the secondary relationship it has to SAE must be understood within the
socio-historic framework of vast race and class inequality.
Likewise, this extends to LEP and other students who are required to conform to a
discourse which may invalidate their home variety or experience. Recall the example from class
of the inner city students who are asked to write about their ideal vacation, and how that writing
activity was blind and biased against students from a low-income or LEP background. As
Gumperz states, the link between bilingualism and low test scores needs to be re-examined from
this basis. (384)