How Myths about Language Affect Education: What Every Teacher Should Know
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How Myths about Language Affect Education: What Every Teacher Should Know
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780472032877 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Michigan Press ELT |
| Publication date: | 05/27/2008 |
| Edition description: | New Edition |
| Pages: | 120 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.80(h) x 0.30(d) |
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How Myths About Language Affect Education
What Every Teacher Should Know
By David Johnson
The University of Michigan Press
Copyright © 2008 University of MichiganAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-472-03287-7
CHAPTER 1
Myths about Language in General
Tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration.
— Samuel Johnson, 1755
Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary makers, but is something arising out of the work, need, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.
— Walt Whitman, 1888
The quotes represent two dichotomous views in a fundamental and longstanding debate regarding language. Samuel Johnson, an eighteenth-century lexicographer, intimates that language can degenerate. This represents a common and somewhat alarmist opinion about language that was not only prevalent in Johnson's time but is in fact still prevalent now. The alarm that Johnson sounded — and that some still think is true — is that English will degenerate into an incoherent mess. On the other end of the linguistic spectrum is poet Walt Whitman. Whitman's opinion, and likely that of most dictionary writers today, is that language usage arises from the people and is "close to the ground." Degeneration did not enter his estimation of language, and he did not sound an alarm if language changed. Rather, he focused on the language of the people and what the people in the street used.
The misconceptions that will be discussed in this chapter are:
1. Some languages and dialects are better than others.
2. Grammar usage reflects a person's moral character.
3. Languages and dialects are determined by race.
4. Languages have one correct form, and this form should not change.
Linguist William Mackey wrote: "Only before God and the linguist are all languages equal" (1978, p. 7). The reality is that no one language is better than another. Languages have several functions: they allow us to communicate, they help us think, and they situate us in speech communities (O'Grady, Archibald, Aronoff, Rees-Miller, 2005, p. 1). (Pullum and Scholz define speech community as "a human group whose members broadly understand each other's speech and recognize it as being characteristic of the group" [2001, p. 367].)
If these are indeed the primary functions of language, then all languages must be equal because all languages allow their speakers to communicate and identify with groups (Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams, 2006). Every language has different words to name and describe objects and actions. And, certainly, the world's languages differ in grammatical structure. Some languages such as English use definite articles (e.g., the, a), while other languages such as Russian rarely use them. Some languages like Spanish use many prepositions, while others, such as Latin, use very few. These lexical and grammatical differences, however, do not imply superiority or inferiority; superior or inferior status is a label that people ascribe to languages.
Equality in Grammar
Language equality is not universally understood or accepted. Those who report on language topics for the media also do not understand this and so sometimes make inaccurate statements about language in their stories. I am not implying that it is the media's job to promulgate all linguistic facts. Rather, I simply am drawing attention to the fact that many people (including teachers) find their erroneous notions about language confirmed by inaccurate or incomplete statements that appear in the press. Consider this report about Latin in schools: Time magazine ran an article about a school district in Fairfax, Virginia, that was using Latin to help middle schoolers grasp the grammatical structure of English (Eskenazi, 2000). Test scores improved as did students' grasp of English grammar, but there is one troubling line in the article:
* Media Spotlight
And once kids master the grammatical structure of Latin — which is simple, logical, and consistent — they will more easily grasp the many grammatical exceptions in English (Eskenazi, 2000, p. 61).
The truth is that Latin is not more "simple, logical, and consistent" than English. If you have ever tried to memorize all those inflections (word endings) in Latin, you know the grammar is not simple. English is not simple either. It does not have as many inflections as Latin does, but it does depend on a strict set of rules for syntax (word order). There is a balance in the world's languages: some languages depend more on inflections, and some depend more on word order (Searchinger, 1994). If a second language learner goes from one kind of language to another, then it seems like the other is quite complex or more logical (or illogical). It's all perspective.
Examples of languages that tend toward an inflectional system (languages that depend more on word endings) and examples of languages that tend toward an analytic system (languages that depend more on word order) are shown. Of course, languages fall somewhere on the continuum between being inflected or analytic, but this gives examples of languages that tend toward inflectional or analytic.
In his 2006 book The Ultimate Gift: How Children of the World Learn and Unlearn the Language of the World, linguist Charles Yang makes a tongue-in-cheek argument for the superiority of the Turkish language. He wryly contends that if the superiority of languages depends on the complexity of the inflectional system (an argument many make in favor of Latin), then perhaps we should enshrine Turkish as the model language since it is a much richer language in terms of inflections than Latin. His argument illustrates the subjective nature of comparing languages in terms of grammatical superiority.
What the Time story was trying to say was that there's a benefit to learning Latin. The implication that it is a "perfect" language is the problem. In fact, the benefit derives from comparing English with Latin. In this sense, any language would work because students would be able to compare one grammatical structure with another. They would be forced to learn terms such as noun, verb, and direct object when they compare the two and thus be able to see and appreciate English grammar. Obviously, there is the added benefit that many English academic words have Latinate origins. So studying Latin is truly beneficial: it helps with grammatical understanding and vocabulary. However, it does not serve as an example of a perfect language to which all languages and students should strive.
The Virginia school district might have chosen Spanish and had the same results, plus the added benefit of students being able to use the language in real-life settings with a growing Latino population. It all depends on the aims of the language program as to which language should be studied.
Educators in Fort Wayne, Indiana, reported that students who studied Latin scored better on tests than those that did not (Roduta, 2003). However, the report did not note if students who did not study Latin studied another foreign language. Perhaps those students studied no foreign language at all. So it might not have been Latin itself but just the fact that students were exposed to a foreign language. It may be that the students scoring higher are studying a foreign language and that many are studying Latin, and that the results are skewed accordingly.
Of course, no harm is done by studying Latin. But if students inadvertently pick up the message that one language is better than another, then what is to stop students from saying English is better than Spanish? Seeds for discrimination are sown based on this attitude. The result may be that some people think their language is not on equal standing with other languages, that their language is either superior or inferior. A friend told me that she once talked to a mother who had to select a second language for her high school student to study. The choices were French or Spanish. The mother explained that she chose French because Spanish is the language of "all those poor people." Obviously not everyone believes all languages are equal. This mother certainly did not, and it is painfully obvious by her remark that, unfortunately, she associated the Spanish language with "poor people."
Equality in Communicative Capability
What about the ability to communicate? Even if some languages are not superior in a grammatical sense, are some in a communicative sense? Are not some languages better because they are more expressive? Texas's Ma Ferguson, our nation's first female governor, remarked with regard to bilingual studies in 1920, "If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" (as cited in Safire, 1984, p. 265). Whether quipped in jest or in sincerity, these kinds of comments and attitudes (not based on facts) influence people's perception of language. Some people think that certain languages just do a better job of communicating because they have been told that Latin (or Greek or French) is better for certain tasks such as drawing up a treaty or writing a novel.
Ma Ferguson's quote is assumed to be a defense of the communicative capacity of English; this is not the first time a language has been defended for its ability to communicate, but the truth is all languages have equal ability to express any feeling, thought, or idea (Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams, 2006, p. 28). It cannot be otherwise. Just because a certain language has a more developed vocabulary in a certain area does not mean that it has more communicative ability. Other languages can and will develop that vocabulary if needed. For example, since many computer innovations originated in the United States, English developed an extensive vocabulary that dealt with computers. However, as computer technology expanded, other languages quickly developed their own vocabulary. Sometimes words were taken from English and pronunciation was altered to fit the language; at other times, it was the speakers who developed their own computer terminology. For example, Spanish has adopted the word email with a Spanish pronunciation and it also has the phrase correo electrónico for email as well. Both the loan word and the new phrase are used. Languages are able to adapt to allow speakers to express themselves.
When I was in college, my philosophy professor said that the reason the ancient Greeks wrote so much philosophy was that the Greek language had so many verbs and was thus better equipped to express philosophical ideas. He went on to say that English was a poor language for philosophy because it had so few verbs, and that English had no equivalent for many of the Greek verbs. I was intrigued and bewildered. If this were true, then I could never truly master philosophy; I could not learn Greek because there were all those verbs that could not be translated into English. How could anybody learn Greek as a second language? My professor was American. How did he learn Greek with all those extra verbs that could not be translated?
Even then I suspected something must be wrong with this statement. Later I learned that English, or any language, could develop the verbs (or any words) if it needed to; it could be just as "philosophical" as Greek. If there is a need for new words or a new nuance of meaning, a language will develop. For example, when English-speaking colonists arrived in America, they borrowed heavily from Native American languages, which provided names for much of the flora and fauna that were new to the colonists: hickory, chipmunk, opossum, and squash (Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams, 2006, p. 476). More recently, English has added words that deal with technology: blog, net, texting. This is evidence that "membership in the word stock of a natural language is open" (Pullum & Scholz, 2001, p. 367). Languages constantly add new words to fit new situations.
Equality in Beauty
Even if it can be agreed that languages are equal in grammar and in communicative ability, many of my linguistics students have said that they are unequal in beauty. How can anyone critique someone else's judgments of beauty? You can no more tell people that their appreciation of the sound of one language over another is unfounded than you can tell people that their love of Mozart over Elvis Presley is without foundation. However, we can draw attention to the fact that our preferences are entirely subjective and have nothing to do with objective linguistic reality.
Linguists Howard Giles and Nancy Niedzielski have proposed that we should not fight the battle to purge aesthetic judgments when it comes to language. Instead,
we should encourage teachers and others not to abandon these judgments entirely but to recognize them for what they are: the result of a complex of social, cultural, regional, political and personal associations and prejudices. Most listeners know of linguistic varieties that they do not like, but we should appreciate that these feelings are highly subjective and have no basis in social scientific fact. In particular, such feelings should not be allowed to influence teachers', the media's and politicians' attitudes and policies towards children's and others' language varieties. (1998, p. 92)
Being aware of these prejudices is important.
Hollywood often perpetuates notions that some languages are more beautiful. In the movie A Fish Called Wanda (1988), Jamie Lee Curtis' character loves it when her boyfriend (played by Kevin Kline) speaks Italian. In fact, it stirs her passions, and this is a constant source of humor in the movie. But the fact is, neither Kevin Kline nor his character speak Italian. All he is able to say are memorized phrases like Dove il Vaticano? (Where's the Vatican?) or Dove il bano? (Where's the bathroom?). In actuality, the sounds of Italian or any other language are not inherently more pleasing. It is what we associate with those languages and their sounds that make them so. If Italian stirs passions, it is not the consonants, vowels, or intonation pattern; it is, rather, associations with that language. Many claim that the sounds of German are harsh. But harsh is a subjective term. Are German babies distressed when they hear German sounds coming from their mother? Hardly. They are comforted because mom is near and is speaking to them. But the sounds and structures of different languages are simply that: sounds and structures. They are not inherently beautiful or ugly. The task of language specialists then is to make educational policymakers aware of the unscientific judgments about the grammatical and communicative capabilities of other languages as well as the highly subjective nature of aesthetic judgments of languages. This will allow language policies to be based on fact.
Equality in Dialect Variation
Throughout history and all over the world, people have made judgments about dialects (varieties of a language that are mutually intelligible) and accents (pronunciation features of dialects). Some examples of situations in which judgments are made based on dialects follow.
Linguist John Baugh has conducted research based on phone inquiries about rental property using an African-American accent, a Latino accent, and a standard American accent. His results show accent discrimination against the African-American and Latino accent.
(Purnell, Idsardi, & Baugh, 1999)
Although individuals with different dialects should not be penalized, this research ... indicates that such penalty does exist in hiring. [Job] recruiters who state that they do not discriminate on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, age, national origin, or handicap seem to be discriminating on the basis of nonstandard dialect.
(Atkins, 1993)
According to Preston (1999), some Americans hold negative judgments about some dialects of English (the southern dialect is inferior, New Yorkers have an abrasive dialect, the Latino accent is lazy sounding) and positive judgments about other dialects (the Midwest dialect of American English is standard, the British dialect is authoritative, the Irish dialect is quaint, a French accent in English is prestigious).
(Continues...)
Excerpted from How Myths About Language Affect Education by David Johnson. Copyright © 2008 University of Michigan. Excerpted by permission of The University of Michigan Press.
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Table of Contents
Contents
INTRODUCTION,1. MYTHS ABOUT LANGUAGE IN GENERAL,
2. MYTHS ABOUT FIRST LANGUAGE ACQUISITION,
3. MYTHS ABOUT SECOND LANGUAGE ACQUISITION,
4. MYTHS ABOUT LANGUAGE AND SOCIETY,
5. MYTHS ABOUT LANGUAGE AND THINKING,
Epilogue,
References,
Index,