EDU 551 – Language Acquisition and English Language Learners
Tuesdays 5-7:30
Textbook Presentation: English with an Accent, Rosina Lippi-Green
Christy Scott, Linda Goggin, Beth Faria, Maria Calvo
The book reveals American attitudes toward English; how people think about language, how and why
they try to control it, to what ends, and with what social repercussions in a variety of contexts: in the
classroom, court, media, and workplace. The author presents evidence that prejudice based on accent
can produce damage similar to that caused by racists. She examines how language variation can
promote linguistic stereotyping and discrimination, as well as language subordination. Simply put:
this book is about how people think about language, how and why they try to control it, to what ends,
and with what social repercussions (p.6).
PART I: The Structure and function of language and accent.
I.
The science behind language structure and acquisition. While linguists argue about language
on many levels – syntactic elements, cognitive grammar, social aspects – there are certain facts
that most linguists would agree upon:
 All spoken language changes over time: in all linguistic subsystems: phonetics,
phonology, morphology, lexicon, syntax, and semantics. Only moribund, dead languages
don’t change (p.7)
 All spoken languages are equal in terms of linguistic potential.
Language is flexible and responsive: we make or borrow what we do not have (p.8).
When the need arises for new vocabulary, the culture will develop it. Each language is
suited to its community of speakers (p.9). This type of evolution also applies to the
variations within one specific language: What is important in the vocabulary of Boston
may not necessarily be adopted into the vocabulary of Chicago, for example.
 Grammaticality and communicative effectiveness are distinct and independent issues.
There are a certain set of rules that must be followed in order for communication to be
effective, however, even if the rules are followed, there are times when communication
breaks down. Chomsky’s example:
1 Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
2 Furiously sleep ideas green colorless.
While both sentences are technically nonsensical, Sentence number one is something
that English speakers can recognize as grammatically correct and somewhat
understandable. Even a child that is still learning her native English language would not
create a sentence like #2.
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Written language and spoken language are historically, structurally and functionally
fundamentally different creatures. Historically, those that were in charge of putting
important information into print have been the ones that have claimed to be the authority on
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the correct way to write. Linguists do not typically agree that written and spoken word are
intertwined, rather they see the spoken language of primary interest (p.16). The education
field sees the written language as primary, and often applies the same rules of propriety to
the spoken language. Given this, many in the education field have determined what is
essentially correct in the spoken language based on their rules for written language. It is
important in that one must not fall victim to colloquial vocabulary in professional or
educational settings when speaking or writing.
o The literacy myth plays a role in the subordination of the spoken language to norms
developed for the written language-norms that are in themselves arbitrary. This
process is part of what Foucault has called the disciplining of discourse, or the way
we decide who has the right to talk, and to be listed to (Foucault 1984). (p. 20)
Variation is intrinsic to all spoken language at every level, and much of that variation serves
emblematic purpose. There are three main sources of variation in spoken language:
o Language internal pressures, arising in part from the mechanics of production and
perception.
o External influences on language, such as geographic mobility and social behavior
subject to normative and other formative social pressures.
o Variation arising from language as a creative vehicle of free expression (p. 21)
The simplest truth about language variation: a speaker will gravitate to the variants tied to the
community which is most important to him or her, despite possible negative repercussions.(p.29)
II.
The Sound House. All humans are born with a finite set of potentially meaning-bearing sounds
(vowels, consonants, tones). The set in its entirety in universal, available to all human beings
without physical handicap. Children are born with the ability to produce the entire set of
possible sounds, but eventually restrict themselves to the ones they hear used around them.
(p.47) As the child grows, the number of available sounds begin to diminish until at sometime
in adolescence, the ability to acquire language with the same ease as a young children
atrophies. When an adolescent or adult tries to acquire another language (L2), he finds that not
all of the “tools” are still readily available to him to build a second “house”; thus the second
language contains “flaws” or what we call accent.
Accent has little to do with what is generally called communicative competence, or the
ability to use and interpret language in a wide variety of contexts effectively. Adult language learners
all have the same handicap in learning a second language. Some people are better at putting together
second or even third languages together, not perfect ones, but very good ones. Strong circumstantial
evidence indicates it has nothing to do with intelligence and not very much to do with how hard you
work to learn the target language. It is more of an ear for language. Focused training can have some
effect. It is possible to adjust an accent to some degree. But it is not possible to substitute the second
accent for the original. Accent reduction course may help learning English as a second language
toward a better pronunciation.
PART II. Institutionalization of prejudice in linguistic ideology
III.
Standard Language Ideology (SLI). is defined as a bias toward an abstracted, idealized,
homogenous spoken language which is imposed and maintained by dominant bloc institutions
and which names as its model the written language, but which is drawn primarily from the
spoken language of the upper middle class.
Standard language ideology is introduced by the schools, vigorously promoted by the
media and entertainment industries, and further institutionalized by the corporate sector. It is
enforced in subtle and not so subtle ways by the judicial system, justifying rejection of the
other because of race, ethnicity, or other facet of identity that would otherwise be called racism.
When an individual is asked to reject their own language, we are asking them to drop
allegiances to the people and places that define them. We do not, cannot under our laws, ask a
person to change the color of her skin, her religion, her gender, her sexual identity, but
regularly demand of people that they suppress or deny the most effective way they have to
situating themselves socially in the world:
 I don’t care about the color of our skin, but speak that dialect of yours someplace where
it won’t insult my ears
 You were a successful engineer in the Ukraine, sure, but why can’t you speak real
English?
 If you didn’t sound so corn-pone, people would take you seriously
 You’re the best salesperson we’ve got, but must you sound gay on the phone?
IV.
Standard America English (SAE). While the definitions make some room for regional
differences, they make none at all for the social ones, and in fact, it is quite definite about the
social construction of the hypothetical standard: it is the language of the educated. The
rational: persons with more education are more exposed to the written language and literary
traditions; they may, in simple terms, be better writers than those with less education.
The more extreme ideological definitions of standard language come from those who
make a living promoting the concept. Writers like Edwin Newman, John Simon and James
Kilpatrick have published extensively on how English should be spoken and written. They
assume you will grant them authority because they demand it, and because it has always been
granted. From Pocket Fowler’s Modern English Usage:
Standard American English ….. a form of English that is the most widely accepted and
understood in an English-speaking country and tends to be based on the educated speech of
a particular area… it is used in newspapers and broadcasting…(p.57)
Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary also identifies SAE by using the word educated, and
further explains that SAE is acceptable wherever English is spoken and understood. Since
nowhere else in either of these definitions is “educated” defined or explained, one can’t help
assume that unless you speak SAE and you are “understood”, you are not amongst the
educated. This is the beginnings of prejudices against what “proper” English is and what is
not.
V.
The Educational System
 The question arises about how the educational system defines the primacy of SAE over all
other languages. The National Council of Teachers of English acknowledges that, while all
who English speak different varieties, some are more useful than others, and more
appropriate for education and employment, thus it is the more widely communicated
English that should be taught.(p.82)
o “Certain vernacular varieties of US English should be restricted to the home and
neighborhood, to play and informal situations, to the telling of folktales and stories
of little or no interest to the wider world.”
o In Bernstein’s view, children who do not speak SAE do not possess sufficient
human language to think or reason, and must be helped to overcome these language
and cultural handicaps.
At school: children who do not speak *SAE will be corrected; they must assimilate or
fall silent. When speakers of devalued or stigmatized varieties of English consent to the
standard language ideology, they become complicit in this propagation against themselves,
their own interests and identities.
The teacher discriminates because the employer does; the child pays the price of that
discrimination by accommodating and assimilating. The only way to achieve pluralistic goals,
we are told, is to make everyone alike.
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VI.
VII.
“We ask those children to learn English for their own good. The more they willingly
submit to mainstreaming, the better the mainstream will treat them.”
The media and entertainment industries, the workplace and the courts. Many practices and
“guidelines” of these above mentioned institutions are linked to race, ethnicity, economics and
homeland security. Media representatives have claimed for themselves a spot as national role
models. And in fact, we allow them to chide us when our language differs from those varieties
of English they speak, or think they speak. They have convinced us that they have the right to
do this, and we do not challenge them. That unwillingness or inability to question such claims
of authority does the real damage.
 News broadcasters are often mentioned and seen as the voice of authority, and are
authorities on the proper way to communicate. They speak SAE, and thus represent the
educated.
Teaching Children how to discriminate. Children are systematically exposed to a standard
language ideology by means of linguistic stereotypes in film or television entertainment.
 There is a large body of animated short films or cartoons that denigrate trivialize or mock
the mentally ill, the handicapped, and almost every nationality and ethnicity.
 The use and manipulation of language variation to establish character are long-established
practices in storytelling.
 Disney animated film goes about setting up conceptions of good and evil
with strong correlations to race and ethnicity. The manipulation of accent is
part of that process, and it works very well.
Part III. Specific groups and how they are affected by lifelong exposure to language bias
VIII.
AAVE: African American Vernacular English. The features of AAVE that distinguish it from
other varieties of American English have to do with phonology and grammatical or syntactic
structures. In addition, AAVE have prosodic and rhetorical features. AAVE is understood as a
language with a unique rhythm. It is usually possible to identify a person’s race and sometimes
ethnicity on the basis of the spoken word without visual cues.
 Middle-class African Americans may seldom or never use grammatical features of AAVE,
but such persons can still signal solidarity with the greater African American community by
careful engagement of discourse strategies, intonation contour, and pitch.
 Not all AAVE speakers are black. Children and adolescents learn the language they hear
around them, regardless of race or ethnicity.
 Blacks have believed that the price of the ticket for Black education and survival and
success in White America is eradication of Black Talk. Black children who don’t learn
white English will have limited choices. But the inverse of this situation, the implied
promise, is not equally true: Black children who learn *SAE will not be given automatic
access to the rewards and possibilities of the Anglo middle-class world.
IX.
The Hawai’ian language. The aboriginal Polynesian language of Hawai’i (Olelo
Hawai’i) was the only language spoken in the islands until they were colonized, when
Hawai’i was annexed by the U.S. and her government forcibly disbanded. As is usually
the case in when a country is colonized, “Olelo Hawai’i” was systematically suppressed
and finally outlawed. It wasn’t until 1978 the native language regained its status as one
of the official languages of the state.
 Hawai’i Creole (HC) lexical items come primarily –but not exclusively –from
English. However, the structure of the language draws heavily on Hawaiian,
Portuguese and Chinese.
 Hawaiians believe in the primacy of *SAE and its use in business and formal
situations, but they are more comfortable speaking HC, and the language is important
to them despite stigmatization. Even in formal situations, sometimes de vernacular is
called for in order to establish solidarity.
X.
Hispanics. Latino/as may be any race, but the general image of Latinos is that of the
Mestizo. The Latin look is that of the Mestizo (Baker 2009). Baseball star David Ortiz
(black) does not physically look like actress Cameron Diaz (white), and the soccer
legend Pele (black) looks nothing like funnyman George Lopez (Indio/Native
American), and so on. Yet, they are all Latinos here in the U.S.
There is a long and well-documented history of discrimination toward Spanishspeaking populations in the Southwest. Some of the most destructive policies have been
practiced in education, where Mexican children were routinely segregated into poorly
staffed and overcrowded schools. Even after Brown v. Board of Education, Latino/a
children are still peripheralized, segregated, unfairly and incorrectly funneled into special
education classrooms, denied opportunities readily available to Anglos, and forbidden to
speak their own language even in one-on-one conversations on the playground.
Issues around language are tied to questions around immigrants. This is the most
divisive topic in Arizona. Anti-immigration laws lead to HR 2083, a law that prohibits
schools from offering courses at any grade level that advocate ethnic solidarity, among
other topics. This law was written and promoted by the state superintendent of public
instruction Tom Horne. The State Education Office took the opportunity to put new
policies in place that target teachers who speak Spanish as a native language or English
with an accent. If teachers do not improve their English, it is up to the school districts to
decide whether to fire teachers.
XI.
Asians. Asians are discriminated against in the workplace, in the courts and in
education, even for those of Asian origin who are monolingual English speakers and
have no foreign accent at all.
There is a large body of scholarly work that has examined the complicated way Asians are
perceived. Some of the findings include:
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Native English speakers are not good at identifying Asian accents on the basis of voice.
In a situation where the speakers see each other, the non-Asian will sometimes hear a
foreign accent that is not there, a phenomenon called accent hallucination (Atagi 2003;
Fought 2006; Rubin 1992; Rubin and Smith 1990)
Negative attitudes about Asians, whether they are conscious or not, can make successful
communication difficult or impossible (Cargile 2010; Cheryan and Monin 2005;
Lindemann 2002, 2003, 2005). Asians are still seen –and may always be seen –as the
Other, and not authentic Americans.
Non-native English –speaking Asian Americans, as a large and diverse group,
experience something in common, regardless of their economic status, education, or
national origin: there is a special stigma attached to their presence which is externalized
in reactions to the way they speak English.
The most prevalent and deeply rooted Asian stereotype of all is encapsulated in a series
of questions and statements often directed to Asians (Cargile 2010; Chryan and
Bodenhausen 2000; Kaway 2005; Le 2010; Lee 1994):
o Where are you from?
o Where are you REALLY from?
o But you speak English so well!
This is often referred to as the perpetual foreigner syndrome.
The other mirror: Who has a foreign accent?
The Census Bureau estimates that in 2008 there were about 54.5 million residents of the
US who spoke a language other than English at home; however there is no reliable way to
estimate how many people are vulnerable to language discrimination. One thing can be said
with certainty: millions of people resident in the U.S. are not native speakers of English, and
their L2 accent does not correlate to education, intelligence or motivation. A high degree of
education does not bring with it any protection from discrimination based on foreign accent.
A person who is a non-native speaker of English may want nothing more than to assimilate
to the language and culture she sees around her; she may work very hard at it, and still sound
distinctly like a native speaker of Farsi or Portuguese, simply because sincerity and
application are not enough to replace one accent with another. Thus hard work toward a
non-stigmatized variety of U.S. English will not necessarily protect anyone from
discrimination.
PART IV. Strengths and Weaknesses
STRENGTHS
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High standard of research excellence, which has been updated, including studies from 2010.
Represents sociolinguistics at its best, implicating race relations, immigration, social classes,
education, politics, and more.
It has discussion questions, further reading, and suggested classroom exercises.
Updated examples from the classroom, the judicial system, the media, and corporate culture
A companion website with an interactive bibliography, a glossary, links to audio, video, and
images relevant to each chapter’s content
The author is successful in presenting her goal: to make people aware of the process of
language subordination.
WEAKNESSES
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The book is saturated with examples, making the reading tiring. The author proposes ideas,
facts, concepts, ideologies, etc., and supports with examples. One or two examples would be
enough to see her point, but she sometimes presents 15 or more.
In the sections about the workplace and schools, it seems like the only reason for a negative
assessment of an employee’s or a student’s oral communication skills are racial discrimination.
The author does not accept any other reason, such as level of L2 ability.
The author makes claims about the media as authority, but does not provide much evidence to
support this claim.
The author has many repetitions. The same comments, examples, ideas, etc. can be
found several times throughout the book.