Sociolinguistics and Education

1. Sociolinguistics and Education • Language use in school and community – relationships and differences • Effect of social and economic status on education • Politics of language education

2. Language and school • Classroom discourse – very distinctive • Different social groups have different discourse patterns • Some children better prepared for school than others

3. Aspects of classroom language • Composed of teacher talk and student talk • TT is longer and more complex • ST is often supervised and controlled

4. continued • Often a triadic structure – Initiation, Response, Evaluation • Sometimes repeated initiations • Different languages/cultures may have different rules

5. continued • Different attitudes to silence • Native American cultures & Victorian England – children should not be heard • May be interpreted differently in the classroom

6. Class, ethnicity and language • Shirley Heath found that language was used differently by different groups • MC white parents read aloud to children and asked questions – children answered -- feedback • Are students prepared for classroom dialogue?

7. continued • WC white children read to children but no interaction – not asked questions • Authoritarian family structure – children listen and adults speak • Children not familiar with ST dialogues • How do they behave in school?

8. continued • WC black parents do not read or interact with children • Often single-parent families • welcome spontaneous speech esp. in public • may lead to conflict in the classroom – children do not respond to initiation

9. continued • Also do not wait for initiation • Regarded as hostile and unteachable • Threaten structure of classroom discourse

10. Elaborated and restricted codes • Basil Bernstein, Class, Codes and Control • Children’s language linked to position in social structure • Social class – type of language – behaviour in school – academic success – social class • Social class determined type of language

11. continued • Two different kinds of language – codes or ‘orientations’ (register) • Elaborated codes – middle class • Restricted codes – working class • Not language or dialect any language has or could have an EC + RC

12. Elaborated code • Elaborated code (orientation) – creative, exact, expressive, many synonyms, broad semantic fields, context independent • Accurate grammar, coordination & subordination, prepositions, impersonal pronouns, passive voice

13. continued • Linked to interactive use of language & non-authoritarian family structure • Found in middle class families (Britain 1960s and 1970s) • Code used in education, administration and high domains

14. example • In 2009 I don’t think that life will be much different. There won’t be any robots cooking cleaning and doing other household jobs. Cars wont be flying and huge skyrise buildings. Not many inventions will have been made but one that will be made will be small not very important ones.

15. Restricted Code • Limited range of linguistic resources • Associated with working class and disadvantaged groups • Sentences are short, lot of coordination, few adjectives & adverbs • Frequent confirmations (see, Ok, you know) • Associated with authoritarian communities

16. continued • In the future I recon We are going to live in space and the moon and hovering cars. I said that because might be mostly covered in water and we would be friends with alien beings. • Dinosaurs may rule the earth like tyrannosaurus rex and smilodons (this is a big cat) and new animals may be created….

17. Class, language and culture • Heath suggested class and race determined spoken interaction and this affected school success – suggested school needed to change • Other factors may be involved • Bernstein – class only – affected style – suggested culture needed to change

18. Deficit hypothesis • USA – Bernstein – led to deficit hypothesis • Poor performance of minority children due to a linguistic deficit – needed to be “taught language” • But other factors involved

19. continued • Undermined by sociolinguistic research • AAVE was rule-governed – probably a post-creole rather than derived from white dialects • Labov showed AAVE copula deletion equivalent to SE copula contraction

20. continued • Does not appear to be any language deficit • Minority problems may be cultural rather than linguistic

21. Dialect and language in the classroom • Choice of language/dialect of education is often controversial • Few (any?) monolingual societies • UNESCO recommends early schooling at least should be in child’s first language • Present and future interests of the child may not be the same

22. Educational bilingualism • Balance hypothesis – proficiency in one language reduces proficiency in another • But success of immersion education in Canada • This is additive bilingualism • But education is undermined by subtractive bilingualism – typical of immigrant communities • Interdependence hypothesis

23. Dialects and Education • Demands for teaching in/of AAVE • 1979 court ordered schools to use fluency in “Black English” as a foundation fro teaching SE – but collapsed • 1996 revived in Oakland – proposed “bilingual education” for African American pupils • debate

24. continued • Linguistic Society of America – AAVE is a rule-governed systematic speech variety • The distinction between languages and dialects is a social and political one • Benefits of recognising vernacular varieties in education • Implications for Malaysia