Dr. sj Miller
EDUC 4222/5222
Class Notes 8.31
M, 4:30pm-7:00pm
Class Focus: Historical Contexts of Language and Grammar
Essential Questions
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 How did language evolve?
 How do we talk about American English in current
education?
 How do classrooms attend to the needs of global or
plural Englishes?
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4:30- Attendance clipboard and shift date on syllabus
4:32- EQ
4:35- Small groups (match on color): share what was most
interesting about your language history and dialect quizsomething you hadn’t thought about before. (I collect them)
4:45- Brooke and Courtney lead class (explain assessment
sheets)
5:15- Notes and Activities:
All languages and dialects are equal: only uneven racial, social
and/or power relations in society, allow any one dialect to become
“standard.” To call a dialect nonstandard obscures that power, and
naturalizes language domination in a way that makes it appear benign.
Some dialects and uses of English have been undervalued and
devalued.
EQ: How did language evolve?
Highlights Andrews—
Chapter 4: Properties of Communication and Language
• No clear answer to the origins of language
 divine origin theory- human and language developed at the
same time
 bow-wow theory/natural sounds theory/echoic theory-first
words were imitations or pantomimes of sounds cave
dwellers heard in the natural world
 yo-heave-ho theory- rd. p.75
 Arbitrary- no direct relationship between a referent and an
object (tree and word tree)
Language Exploration and Awareness: from Larry Andrews
 Numerous studies indicate that traditional approaches to
teaching the English language have been ineffective.
 Many studies indicate that studying traditional grammar and
parts of speech have made little difference in students’
reading, writing, or speaking proficiencies
 Studies indicate that thought and language are
interdependent: what I think affects what I say and what I
say, affects what I think
 Many teachers still teach through antiquated paradigms or
decontextualize grammar…
B. Ways to approach language/2 philosophies at odds
Prescriptive- approaches language rules as right or wrong/passes
judgment, seeks to impose arbitrary rules that come from outside
the language or to preserve a stage of language that has been left
behind (Was: American Heritage Dictionary- published)
Some of these rules include:
o •Double negatives
o Split infinitives
o Postponed prepositions
 Descriptive- describes language and suggests ideas, rules
Dictionaries- debate began in 1961 w/Merriam Webster’s 3rd
Unabridged Intnl Dictionary (all words, including swear words were
included: descriptive)
Current Dictionaries:
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary*
American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language*
Oxford English Dictionary- Considered the most complete
Merriam-Webster's Unabridged
Chambers (various editions)
Merriam-Webster's Collegiate
Cambridge (various editions)
Collins (various editions)
Macmillan (various editions; MED is best)
New Oxford American Dictionary
Webster's New World
Show arbitrariness and danger of consensus words (Merriam
Webster):
Black: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/black
White: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/white
Brown: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/brown
How do we talk about American English in current
education?
 Pivot Toward how American English is Privileged in
Schools
 It is important to keep in mind though that tests are culturally and
economically biased and that the achievement gap is a (Kirkland,
2010) construct that was designed to demonstrate and normalize
the myth that non-White and poor students do less well on
standardized tests compared to White students. As the gap has
gained more power structurally, it has been used to justify the value
of dominant ideologies of middle and upper-class Whiteness and
use of AE in schools. In order to develop a true picture of what any
test score really means, results should be disaggregated, read over
time, account for background and schooling experiences, and
examined cumulatively and holistically.
And so NCLB was invented as remedy… but
What numbers represent
Stakeholders’ dreams for replenishing
the economy
Values of the dominant social and ethnic
classes
Sociocultural deprivation
Cumulative neglect of motivation
Prior practices of teachers
How home effects self-perception
Any type of neglect or abuse
Internalized inferiority complex
Stereotype threat-negative self concept
Who it represents
White, middle class students and who
have resources or access to them
A test score…
What it doesn't represent
Who it doesn’t represent
Truth or reality
Non-white students
Students from impoverished
backgrounds or who lack resources
Hope
The majority of students
Intellectual Capacity
Students whose first language is not
English
Research that claims standardized
Teachers’ best practices
testing is biased
The full picture of a student
Student success in school
A student’s potential to do well in college
or life
Sociocultural or multi-class values
How do we talk about American English in current
education?
5:35: Harmon, Chapters 1 and 2
 What is Linguistic Habitus and Linguistic Capital?
 How can this benefit people?
 Who doesn’t benefit?
Bourdieu, refers to individual differences in practical
linguistic competence. Habitus refers to a speaker's
competence as a strategic player: their ability to put
language resources to practical use but also to
anticipate the reception of their words and to profit
from this. Adjusted to a situation in order to benefit.
 What does this indicate to you about American schooling? Who
is privileged upon exiting?
5:45-6:05 Groups (1-5) Based on Discipline/Field…. (4 minute
rotation)
Station 1 Station 2 Station 3 Station 4 Station 5
Round 1 1
2
3
4
5
Round 2 5
1
2
3
4
Round 3 4
5
1
2
3
Round 4 3
4
5
1
2
Round 5 2
3
4
5
1
Stations- Small groups:
A. Based on our reading, is language neutral? Why or why not?
B. How are the terms “Standard English” or “English Variety”
problematic? Explore (help me not use EV.)
C. When we talk about grammar and syntax in our language
development, which word do you prefer, rule or convention?
Explain which word seems to be more appropriate for you.
D. Harmon discusses phonology –smallest unit of a sound (p.15),
morphology-study of words and their meanings- and how they
connect (p.16) and syntax- sentence structure (p.17). If you had
to communicate what these terms meant to someone who was
just beginning to speak English, how would you teach that
person? Provide a concrete example… (consider a real-life
situation, such as how to ask for the bathroom, how to ride a
bus, how to get money at the bank, etc.).
E. Discuss how language influences thought and how thought
influences language (consider Harmon’s discussion of
conventions of pragmatics and semantics)
6:05-Other People’s English
 How “do” classrooms attend to the needs of global
or plural Englishes?
Briefly review:
Explain why the authors say African American English; what are your thoughts
about the use of their term (p.11). You will often hear other uses—Black English
(BE), Black English Vernacular (BEV), African American Vernacular English (AAVE),
Black Language (BL), Ebonics.
Today: What we see is the interchangeability of Plural or Global Englishes,
English or Language for Wider Communication (EWC) as the terms used for
English use and usage—
How did you understand Code-switching?
 What did the authors name as their concerns with the term?
 Tends to prevent African Americans from viewing “Standard English” (SE) as
expansive and inclusive, and as inclusive of culture and dialect
 Promotes a segregationist view of literacy/linguistic segregation- puts dialects in
false/binary oppositions. There are formal degrees within all dialects- Not all people can fully code-switch, or can keep language varieties separate
 Editing out grammatical features (supplanting one for the other)
 Vestige of legalized racial segregation- where one dialect is put into the mouths
of the undervalued and disadvantaged and is favored by those perpetuating
prejudice.
 Has stalled racial and linguistic progress in classrooms but not for much longer…
 Canagarajah says that code-switching causes linguistic division because
students have to separate their dialect registers from academic registers
How did you understand Code-meshing??
(accommodating more than one code within the confines of a “text”)
 Calls for multidialectalism, language pluralism, contains divergent varieties of
English
 Blending of AA rhetorical strategies- extends range of forms of
grammaticality, recognizes the importance of standard and undervalued
varieties
 Not just specific to AA, but also includes Spanish speaking students, Chinese
English, White working and middle class English, Appalachian English,
Mexican immigrants, online German hip-hop Cajun English, inner-city Black
students, Hawaiian English
 Draws from a speakers experiences and invites a blending of dialects for best
communicating in a given context
 Draws from larger set of resources for interpretation and communication (e.g.,
from OPE, pp. 136: For students “language competence is not just the
rational faculty but other sensory dimensions as well.” They “bring the
physical environment, social contexts, gestures and multimodal resources for
communication (Canagarajah, 2009, pp. 19-20). Integrates other rhetorical
dimensions, pathos, and ethos
 Words
 Symbols
 Emoticons
 Linguistic conventions
 **C-M is Translanguaging (Canagarajah, 2011)---Allows speakers and writers
to communicate across differences by creating norms and constructions.
Meanings and grammars are emergent- enlarges traditional tropes of
composition strategies such as meaning, voice, audience, purpose, and
genre. This is a rhetorical choice.
 Obama is a master of cultural modes of discourse, which helped him get
elected. He could speak with whites and “kick it” in a way that was familiarly
Black
Do now:
 Show Obama Clip…
 Read in small groups and highlight where he code-meshes…
Discuss full group: How can code-meshing be an asset to students and
professionals? (accommodating more than one code within the confines of a
“text”, see p. 7).
MICROAGGRESSIONS
6:30 Microaggressions, PP. Sue, Chapter 1: Review…what they are
 Small group, have them write up a linguistic microaggression: insult, assault,
and invalidation
 Please start this chart and bring in… (handout)
For Sept 14th:…
 Linguistic audit
 Articles…. … remember, look for what is most interesting
 Presenters: Anyone?