language – Page 2 – Educational Sociolinguistics

Romancing Language Teacher Identity

Albert Maganaka

Do you really know who you are? How do you see yourself as a language teacher? What are the impressions of your students and colleagues toward you?

These questions boil down to knowing one’s identity. Identity is the “whole sum of characteristics given by place, gender, age, race, history, nationality, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, religious orientation, ethnicity and above all the blanks between all these…” (Meyer, 2017). The video below captures the concept of identity. It also shows the intersection between language and identity.

When I took LLED 510: Language, Discourse, and Identity at the University of British Columbia with Dr. Bonnie Norton, an authority on the subject https://faculty.educ.ubc.ca/norton/, we discussed the various components of identity vis-à-vis language learners, language teachers, investment, imagined communities, indigeneity, digital era, digital storytelling, transnational research, and future directions.

Cognizant of language teachers, it is inevitable to know the kind of rational human beings they are, capable of deciding for themselves, their school, and communities. This connects with Gee (2000) that identity is “being recognized as a certain ‘kind of person’, in a given context” (p. 99). The romance between identity and language teachers cannot be overemphasized. As Motha et al (2012) argue that “if teacher linguistic identities are to become available as pedagogical resources, critical reflection on how these identities are formed and maintained is crucial.” Varghese et al. (2005) add “In order to understand language teaching and learning we need to understand teachers; and in order to understand teachers, we need to have a clearer sense of who they are: the professional, cultural, political, and individual identities which they claim, or which are assigned to them” (p. 22).

Barkhuizen (2021), the winner of TESOL’s 2017 Award for Distinguished Research, popularizes the term Language Teacher Identity (LTI). He refers it to “the way language teachers see themselves and understand who they are in relation to the work they do. It is also the way others, including their colleagues and students and institutions, see them” (p. 1). Barkhuizen explores LTI in detail, including its research potential on this video Professor Gary Barkhuizen on Teacher Identity – YouTube .

Personally, I have always been passionate about teaching- it was my first love. At 7, I already knew that I would become a teacher someday. While teaching is a tiring and a demanding profession, the difference I make in the lives of my students who are newcomers to Canada outweighs all the challenges and difficulties. It is my accomplishment to see students able to settle and integrate to the Canadian mainstream. Much more, it is gratifying to receive positive feedback regarding teaching performance and a true ‘thank you’ from students and administrators.

References:
Barkhuizen, G. (2021). Language teacher identity. In: Mohebbi, H., Coombe, C. (eds) Research questions in language education and applied linguistics. Springer Texts in Education. Springer, Cham. doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79143-8_96

Gee, J. P. (2000). Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of Research in Education, 25, 99–125.

Meyer, U. (2017). In the name of identity: Teaching cultural awareness in the intercultural classroom. Retrieved from https://immi.se/oldwebsite/nr19/meyer-ulrike.htm

Motha, S., Jain, R., & Tecle, T. (2012). Translinguistic identity-as-pedagogy: Implications for language teacher education. International Journal of Innovation in English Language Teaching, 1(1), 13– 28.

Varghese, M., Morgan, B., Johnston, B., & Johnson, K. (2005). Theorizing language teacher identity: Three perspectives and beyond. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 4, 21–44

Vernacular Language, Language Varieties, and their Deserved Place in Education

Written by Alison D.

One can arguably say that we all speak our own version of a given language. As social beings, we are influenced by our peers, our elders, our environment, as well as other languages in our language repertoires to contribute to the way we speak. As we explore the idea of dialects, tongues, and Vernacular forms of the English language, it is eminent for us to take a moment to explore how these comes to be, how they are continuously reinforced, as well as what can we do as language specialist to perhaps halter the divide and social-status attribution to particular forms of language.

Van Herk (2017) mentions in his work that “Geographical location is probably the most-studied social factor affecting language variation” (p.27). That said, depending on where we are located physically, our language variety will change. As we are highly influenced by the way people around us speak, it is only natural for the way we speak to change depending on where we are. This phenomenon also applies to children! Before the age of 4, children are almost exclusively spoken to, thus linguistically influenced, by their parents. Their parents’ languages and variations which are affected by geographical location, are thus passed down to their children (Tagliamonte and D’Arcy, 2009).

If you take a moment to reflect on this, our kindergarten learners often come to school at the age of 5 never having had language experiences other than immediate family. Thus, the varieties and Vernacular languages are simply the languages that they speak! Educators, then become language models and evaluators of children who speak unique forms of languages. Though, the educators in question, do not always value these Vernacular languages and varieties the same way they would value ‘standard’ languages.

The idea of a standardized or ‘ideal’ form of English dates back many years. Typically, the standardized form of a language is associated with users of a higher social class. Examples such as highly regarded occupation and income will be associated with individuals who speak a more ‘ideal’ and ‘recognized’ form of language. ‘Non-Native-like’ speakers of English, such as second language learners and speakers of Vernacular languages in such contexts are often faced with instances of insubordination and unequal treatment due to the difference in the way they speak. This relationship of ‘ideal’ languages versus ‘other languages’ tends to reinforce the hierarchal division of society based on social class.

Even when I think about students in my high school classroom, they are speaking in such unique ways. Their ways of expressing themselves, their slang, word choice, intonation and overall linguistic behaviour reminds me every day why I love teaching secondary English. This said, since I have gotten to know my learners quite well, I can expect certain variations of English from certain students, while different forms of English from others. I, however, cannot expect a particular learner to speak more like one of their peers. This would be taking away from their individuality as well as right to express themselves the way that best fits their identities. If promoting a safe space where students can express themselves comfortably is the goal, where is the line drawn? At assessment? For oral presentations? Does it have to be drawn at all? Is there a way for all variations and forms of language to be valued and celebrated in the classroom?

Regarding the place of English Vernaculars in education, perhaps a shift from using English to ‘move up in the world’ towards a focus on intelligibility and open communication can be a good starting point to having language learners and users embrace their individuality to richen their repertoires. Educators can then ponder on “what does it mean to be a language speaker” as well as what the actual goal for language learning is, instead of focusing on creating the most ‘native-like’ English speakers. Additionally, reconsidering evaluation methods could strengthen this shift but, alas! We can explore this topic another time.

Take a moment to view Morgan Gill’s take on African American Vernacular English and it’s place in Education.

References:

Ramanathan, V. (2005). The english-vernacular divide : postcolonial language politics and practice (Ser. Bilingual education and bilingualism, 49). Multilingual Matters.

Tagliamonte, S., & D’Arcy, A. (2009). Peaks beyond phonology: Adolescence, incrementation, and language change. Language, 85(1), 58-108. https://mcgill.on.worldcat.org/oclc/5791997425

Van Herk, G. (2017) What is Sociolinguistics? Linguistics in the world. Wiley Blackwell.

The Chameleon Effect

Victoria Ky-Khim

The title of this blog post must have intrigued you. The chameleon effect. How is this related to sociolinguistics, you may ask? Fear not, we are getting there. Let us start with a definition of sociolinguistics. What exactly is sociolinguistics? Well, it is hard to say. It depends on who you ask. According to Van Herk (2018), it is a “scientific study of the relationship(s) between language and society” (p. 2). This is quite a broad definition and sure enough, it encompasses the chameleon effect which deals with language and interaction.

Nowadays, many of us are second or even additional language learners. As language learners, we refer to a model, oftentimes a teacher or tutor, and we end up imitating them. Just like how children imitate their parents, learners imitate their teachers. Time and again, the teacher’s pronunciation or accent will rub off on the learner. Indeed, just last year, one of my international classmates, who is Chinese, happened to have a British accent, which we (other students, local and international alike) were quick to notice. The reason behind her accent was that she had an English teacher with a British accent.

Apart from teacher-student interactions, you might have noticed that your accent changes depending on who you are talking to. Many factors affect language, these include but are not restricted to education, society, place, social status, etc. In this case, the interaction with an interlocutor can certainly affect how we speak. It might feel like we are adjusting to their accent, but really, we are imitating or mimicking their accent. Did I know this phenomenon was called the chameleon effect? Certainly not. But a quick Google search (why does my accent change depending on who I talk to?) informed me of that. In their abstract, Chartrand & Bargh (1999) defined the chameleon effect as “nonconscious mimicry of the postures, mannerisms, facial expressions, and other behaviors of one’s interaction partners, such that one’s behavior passively and unintentionally changes to match that of others in one’s current social environment”. Now I know, and so do you. For more information about the chameleon effect, I invite you to watch this YouTube video.

Although the chameleon effect seems mostly associated with the field of psychology, it would certainly be interesting to investigate its relation to sociolinguistics since it concerns both language and interaction. Most of all, the chameleon effect touches upon accent which remains a controversial topic in the field of sociolinguistics.

Questions

Have you noticed instances where you imitate your interlocutor’s accent? If yes, when does it happen most? In which languages?
Does the interlocutor notice you have adapted their way of speech? If yes, how do you think it makes them feel?

References

Chartrand, T. L., & Bargh, J. A. (1999). The chameleon effect: the perception-behavior link and social interaction. Journal of personality and social psychology, 76(6), 893–910. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.76.6.893

Van Herk, Gerard. (2018). What is sociolinguistics? 2e Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

“In my language” —— do not set limitations and respect all languages

Heng Ding

The idea of this blog comes from the video posted by Amanda Baggs on Youtube called “In My Language” (you can find the link below). Briefly speaking, Amanda is an autism-rights activist and in this video, she showed and explained to the public how she interacted with the environment, which seems to be “mysterious and puzzling” from the generally accepted language perspective.

When I first watched this video, I was unfamiliar with Amanda’s situation and all the actions she made, as it’s not what we generally think “communication” or “language” is. Personally, one of the biggest reasons is that spoken language represents the most widespread mode of social communication (De Stefani & De Marco, 2019). It’s true that most of our thoughts are verbally expressed by symbols by which we build connections with the world, but there is a limitation to such a statement. De Stefani et al (2019) also argued that language should be considered always in relation to the background of a person’s mood, emotions, actions and events from which the things we are saying derive their meanings. Language is not limited to spoken or written words and sentences and there are many other factors such as personal identity and emotions that we should take into consideration. As a result, it’s not wise that we hold a narrow view of language and communication.

In Amanda’s case, she mentioned that “nobody was giving any chance, as usual, to the kinds of language and communication that people who are non-standard in some way often develop whether or not we also develop more standard language”, which is sad. In my opinion, the so-called “non-standard languages” cannot be looked down upon but instead deserves people’s understanding and respect as although in a minority position, they are also certain ways of how people interact and communicate with the world.

“Rub the face in a book, twirl string, play with water”, does this look different? No! It’s just a dominant way of communicating with the world.

References

De Stefani, E., & De Marco, D. (2019). Language, gesture, and emotional communication: An embodied view of social interaction. Frontiers in Psychology, 10. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02063

Language and Time

Kevin Anderson

How does language change over time? Are new words just fads or do they become part of our repertoires forever? How do we measure change in language? Van Herk (2018) discusses how we should look at language through time. He mentions that linguistic change should be reflected in the variation of language at a single point in time. We can see the variation and we know people’s language will change over time, but exactly how that happens is more complex than it seems.

Van Herk (2018) describes how people individually go through changes and adopt new vocabulary in life. For pronunciation, there seems to be less change through time. People change along with changes seen in the community. As cited in Van Herk (2018, p. 64), people who mostly use the old form or the new form of language continue to do so over decades, whereas people who are in between and using both forms in approximately equal proportions shift towards the newer form. This means people who are not stubbornly sticking to the old form or the newer form of language will eventually drift toward the newer form of language. Van Herk (2012) mentions how teenagers are the most adventurous when it comes to using new words. Adults tend to shift toward language that benefits them socially and economically, as cited in Van Herk (2018, p.71).

There is a certain ‘community’ that forms around new words, a sense of belonging with other people who use similar terms. Likewise, people using older words will feel a sense of belonging with people who use the same words.

This article discusses the ways anglophone people of different generations pronounce street names in Montreal. Older people call St. Laurent, “St. Lawrence street”, as do I, and they say, “Mountain Street” instead of “De la Montagne”, which I do not. My father grew up in “Ville de Leery” near “Chatta-gee”, whereas younger people will say “Ville de Léry” and “Chateauguay” in a more accurate French accent. I find myself pronouncing these areas both ways depending on who I am talking to and what age they are. People of all ages seem to say, “Saint Catherine Street”, though. Change does not always involve only one language as can be seen.

Where do you fall within language and time? Do you stick to the old ways or the new ways? Are you somewhere in the middle, and if you are, how much will you slip towards the newer way of speaking? At what age will your language stop changing?

Reference:

Van Herk, Gerard. (2018). What is sociolinguistics? 2e Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Pandemic Language Shift

By Hannah Southwood

Van Herk (2018) explores how language changes based on place, social status and time. These three topics are entering a new phase experienced at more or less the same time due to the coronavirus pandemic. Two examples given by Van Herk (2018) explore the physical isolation of both Newfoundland English and Québec French. In both cases the languages were ‘cut off’ from the rest of the developing groups, both keeping some of the old language features.

We see the opposite happening on a global scale as business meetings and classes are taken online. Regardless of place, social status or time, similar words and phrases are becoming a part of our everyday vocabulary and understood across the globe. Some of these terms and phrases existed well before the pandemic, but because of their use are now common terms we associate with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Here is a list of English medical terms and phrases that are commonplace now:

Physical & Social Distancing
Flatten the Curve
Epidemic & Pandemic
Respirator & Ventilator
Isolation & Quarantine
Asymptomatic
Contact tracing
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE)

Here is a list of new terms and phrases in English:

Zoom Fatigue
Let’s Zoom
Covid bubble
Learning Pod or Class Bubble
Elbow bump
Blursday
Covidiot
New normal

Here are a few examples in other languages and their explanations:

Geisterspiel (German) for no fans in the stadium
Coronaspeck (German) for getting fat during covid
Quatorzaine (French) for 14-days of isolation

As you can see, unlike languages being cut off from others, here in our digital age with social media as a driving force, old words and phrases become ‘new’, important and forever associated with COVID-19. Newer words and phrases to deal with and explain the new normal will forever be in our vocabularies, pulling them out when needed and knowing others understand. I personally will continue using the word “blursday” because sometimes days blur together even without a pandemic.

Are there any new words or phrases I missed? Please leave them in the comments below.

References

Do you speak corona? A guide to covid-19 slang. (n.d.). The Economist. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from https://www.economist.com/1843/2020/04/08/do-you-speak-corona-a-guide-to-covid-19-slang

Jackson, P. (2020, April 14). Language of a pandemic: A glossary of commonly used words and phrases related to COVID-19. Thetelegram.com. https://www.thetelegram.com/news/local/language-of-a-pandemic-an-glossary-of-commonly-used-words-and-phrases-related-to-covid-19-437420/

Lawson, R. (n.d.). Coronavirus has led to an explosion of new words and phrases – and that helps us cope. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-has-led-to-an-explosion-of-new-words-and-phrases-and-that-helps-us-cope-136909

‌New words list April 2020. (n.d.). Oxford English Dictionary. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from https://public.oed.com/updates/new-words-list-april-2020/

The Coronavirus Slang Words That Are Defining This Outbreak. (n.d.). Dictionary.com. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from https://www.dictionary.com/e/s/new-words-we-created-because-of-coronavirus/#1

Van Herk, G. (2018). What is sociolinguistics? (Second, Ser. Linguistics in the world). John Wiley & Sons.

Is language and social class mismatch really problematic?

Chaoyang Zhang

One millionaire couple who had suddenly risen to a higher economic status but have not gained social acceptance of others in that class were attending a banquet. During the socializing, the wife was asked if she knew Beethoven. “Of course! I know him. I was with him on the bus route 9 to the beach yesterday.” When they got back home that night, the husband told the wife that she embarrassed him and she shouldn’t have spoken that much. As the wife wondered why, the husband replied:” Everyone knows the route 9 doesn’t go to the beach!”

Parvenus of any country or region that are previously associated with long-term lower working class seem to grab others’ attention in a dramatic way, especially when they have to make direct contact with those who have gained steady position in the upper class. The dramatic way here is not necessarily humorous. Basil Bernstein argued in his work (1961, 1972) that upper-class and lower working class communities are so different from each other that their language varieties help their speakers construct different views of the world. The former tends to practice what Bernstein called elaborated code, which involves accurate (standard) syntax, complex sentences, a wide range of adverbs and adjectives and qualifying language. The latter is associated with restricted code, which features poor (non-standard) grammatical constructions that are short and simple.

Social groups are given different values in our society. This process of assigning unequal value is called social stratification, where the upper class usually represent power and desired characteristics and lower class shares the opposite. Because of the nature of these features and the norms of the society, this leads the lower class to feel inferior and the upper class to feel superior. Therefore, prejudice, discrimination and oppression take place. Just as all people have prejudice, all people discriminate (Ozlem Sensoy 2002). While we can’t avoid prejudice, we can work to recognize our prejudices and gain new information and ways of thinking that will inform more just actions.

Have you ever felt that your interlocutor lost interest continuing talking to you because of your ways of constructing language?
Have you ever lost interest in continuing talking to your interlocutor because of her/his ways of constructing language?
If you have experienced any (or both) of the above situation(s), how did you feel?

What makes a dialect a language and vice versa?

Henry Luong

“ Language is a dialect with an army and a navy”.

This sentence actually came from a spectator in one of the sociolinguist – Max Weinreich – lectures in the mid-20th century. Old as this may be, its underlying messages can startle us by how relevant it still is.

To many of us reading this post, I believe it is not difficult to grab the overall idea of this sentence, which implies the arbitrariness between a language and a dialect. Even some of us can list attributing reasons to this distinction, with really sound evidence, both research-based and practice-based. According to Blommaert and Rampton (2011), “mobility, mixing, political dynamics and historical embedding are now central concerns in the study of languages, language groups and communication” (p. 3). Therefore, it is safe to say that languages’ status is significantly affected and determined by a wide range of societal factors. Otherwise, we would find research examining languages independently and separately from social influences.

In his 2018 book, Van Herk pointed out a very fascinating dilemma. On the one hand, a Serb speaks to a Croatian in their own so-called languages yet posing no challenges to mutual intelligibility (despite certain potential different vocabulary). On the other hand, a Mandarin speaker would be in huge trouble in terms of understanding when hearing someone speaking Cantonese. However, Cantonese is often labelled as a Chinese dialect rather than a distinct language. To my memory, about 3 years ago when I was still a student in Vietnam, Google Translate actually made Cantonese a separate language besides Chinese (which is Mandarin). However, I cannot find Cantonese in the list of named languages on Google Translate anymore. And to justify satisfactorily the presence of such dilemma, I am afraid we will have to delve into history events, geographical location, political agendas, social and cultural identity, etc.

To be honest, from a perspective of a language teacher, I am thinking about how we could and should cope with such dilemma if it happened to emerge in our classroom. Obviously, being resourceful enough on such differences, teachers can develop an appropriate attitude towards students’ identity, which could in turn have a positive impact on their performance. However, considering the fact that teachers suffer tremendously from various sources of stress – the amount of workload, family health, loss of control over work and their life to name a few (MacIntyre et al., 2020), I seriously do not think most teachers have enough time and mind to dig deep into such hyper-controversial resources (most of which are history and politics).

How about you? How does the aforementioned dilemma ring true to you?

References

Blommaert, J., & Rampton, B. (2011). Language and superdiversity. Diversities, 13(2), 1–22.

MacIntyre, P. D., Gregersen, T., & Mercer, S. (2020). Language teachers’ coping strategies during the Covid-19 conversion to online teaching: Correlations with stress, wellbeing and negative emotions. System, 94, 102352.

Van Herk, G. (2018). What is sociolinguistics? (Second, Ser. Linguistics in the world). John Wiley & Sons.

How your ways of speaking change when you move around?

Yidan

When you talk to someone who speaks a different version of English than you do, do you keep talking the way you do otherwise or do you find yourself slightly edging towards the way they speak? What about if you travel and you’re surrounded by people with another accent or dialect?

This topic came to my mind because I’ve noticed that my Irish roommate, an exchange student from Dublin, Ireland, who used to have a very strong and distinctive Irish accent is now accommodating to American or Canadian accent and diction. I still clearly remember eight months ago on the first day when we met, greeted and introduced to each other. I couldn’t catch all of what she said because of her strong Irish accent and some of her word use. Basically I was listening to her while guessing, and nodding, pretending I got what she said, which made me feel embarrassed and awkward. Soon after, I told her I went to Ganadara, one of the best Korean restaurants in Montreal. She asked me, “was there a queue?” I was silent for a few seconds while searching the word of queue in my mind since I haven’t heard and used this word for a long time. Then I replied, “yes, there was a very long line” which is typically used in American English. I was impressed again by her Irish English choice of words.

French the language of love

Anne Borgella

According to Google, French is considered to be the language of love because it is the language in which people are more likely to use a romantic expression. However, as a native French speaker, I do not consider French to be the language of love. For myself there is no musicality in French, unless I am reading a poem. Do I consider French as a love language? For me this question has many levels. First, If I am listening to someone speaking French, I am certainly not able to detect the musicality that makes it the language of love. It may be because I speak Haitian Creole, which is a language that has the majority of its roots in French. Therefore, I tend to associate both language with each other, my creole accent makes it difficult for me to see the romantic aspect of French. There is definitely no musicality in the Haitian creole language, I sometimes recall people telling me that when they hear people speaking creole it sounds like they are constantly fighting.

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