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And Still Our Children Suffer:

The Dilemma of Standard English, Social Justice and Social Access

Rebecca Wheeler, Christopher Newport University

Julia Thomas, The University of Chicago

Abstract

For at least half a century, educational terrains have burned over vernacular

dialects in schools. Three major camps engage: Educators say, ‘eradicate those mistakes.’

Bidialectalists work to add Standard English to the language of the home. African

American Celebrationists urge the meshing of dialects, putting African American

literacies as centerpiece. The latter two camps unite in work to unseat the eradicationist

paradigm of the schools. Yet code-switching bidialectalists and some code-meshing

proponents appear at odds over the role of Standard English in education and on the

national terrain. Specifically, following Sledd (1969), Young has recently (2009)

slammed code-switching as racist, white Supremacy.

This article responds. We take a global view to recast the issue. We share work

from psychology showing that we all form discern in-group vs. out-group membership

and then associate social judgments with these. We share the sociolinguistic work on

diglossia detailing how speakers distinguish High vs. Low dialects in diglossic

communities. We detail the searing personal consequences when speakers fail to style-

shift between low and high varieties as the setting requires. And we recognize the

hegemonic, entrenched reality of dialect prejudice. We show the academic consequences

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when teachers misassess vernacular speaking students’ work, intellectual ability and

academic level. We argue, following Delpit and others, that Standard English is one

necessary life tool, necessary to access reading, education, and the world beyond.

We argue that our first priority and most compelling interest is stopping the

educational misassessment and miseducation of African American children in our

schools.

1. The Problem: “Standard” Language vs. Vernacular English in the

Classroom

Thirty years ago, Shirley Brice Heath (1983) named an already old national and

international dilemma:

In the late 1960s, school desegregation in the southern United States became a

legislative mandate and a fact of daily life. Academic questions about how children

talk when they come to school and what educators should know and do about oral and

written language were echoed in practical pleas of teachers who asked: “What do I do

in my classroom Monday morning?” (1)

And over ten years ago (2000), Leila Christenbury, past president of the National Council of

Teachers of English reiterated the nation’s concern: “[o]ne of the most controversial -- and

difficult -- issues for English teachers is their responsibility to students who speak what is

considered ‘nonstandard’ English, English that violates the usage rules we often mistakenly

call ‘grammar’” (202).

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At the center lies language diversity, specifically, the face-off between high versus

low varieties of a language (Ferguson 1959, Ferguson 2000, Fishman 2000). In apparent

conflict are Standardized English (AKA Standard English (SE), Language of Wider

Communication (LWC), Mainstream English (ME) and so on) and multiple varieties of

vernacular English (Appalachian, Cajun, Southern, African American Vernacular English

(AAVE), etc.). But most contested is AAVE, (AKA African American English (AAE),

African American Language (AAL) and so on), the language of slave descendants.

The battle lines have long been drawn. Positions have become entrenched and

enflamed. The camps can be readily named and associated with a response to vernacular

varieties in the classrooms.

1.1 Educators

Educators traditionally operate through a lens of dominant language ideology (Godley

and Minnici 2008), the belief that Standard English is the only True and Real language, and

that other varieties are degraded and broken, Standard English with mistakes. The

educational establishment including teachers, administrators, reading specialists, textbook

manufacturers, standards and test creators respond to vernacular speakers through a deficit

lens (Labov 1973; Fasold and Shuy 1970), marking vernacular grammatical traits as errors.

Traditional, prescriptive educators seek to eradicate vernacular speakers’ language of nurture

(Gilyard 1991).

1.2 Linguists Proposing Bidialectalism

Linguists proposing a bidialectal approach to dialect diversity assert the linguistic

equality of all dialects while recognizing (and lamenting) the social inequality of vernacular

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dialects. Bidialectalism takes a “both/and approach,” affirming students’ rights to their own

language while adding Standard English to students’ linguistic repertoires. A bidialectal

approach suggests “teachers should help students to make the switch comfortably from one

setting to another” (Fasold and Shuy 1970 xi). Bidialectal education reformers, advocate “for

the rights of all linguistically and culturally diverse students … call for the formulation of a

national language policy for all students who speak a language variety other than Standard

English... [affirming] the cultural, social, and economic value of additive language policies

that foster the development of “Standard English” while maintaining, respecting, and

building upon the home languages of the students” (Ball and Alim 2006 113).

1.3 African American Celebrationists

African American celebrationists name the searing cut of entrenched racism. For

example, linguist Elaine Richardson speaks of an “ideology of White supremacist and

capitalistic-based literacy practices [that] reproduce stratified education and a stratified

society,” an approach that “attempts to erase [African Americans] culturally, word by word"

(2003 8-9). She and others (Macedo 1994) are clear that to teach the academic essay is not to

teach “neutral skills needed to succeed in the corporate education system,” but instead is to

perpetrate a “culturally biased education … [that] trains [African Americans] to sever ties

with Black communities and cultural activities” (Richardson 2003 9). In 1969, James Sledd

spoke this position with acerbic clarity: Sledd accused bidialectalists of racism and duplicity,

of talking dialect equality but walking the hegemonic walk of Standard English as White

supremacy (Sledd 1969).

Speaking against bidialectalism, this camp asserts that “we should not try to change

the speech of nonstandard speakers at all. If anything, we should attack the prejudices against

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nonstandard dialects which Standard English speakers have” (Fasold and Shuy 1970 xi, see

also Richardson 2002 2003; Young 2009; Young and Martinez 2011). These thinkers

promote a curriculum centered in African American literacies.

1.4 Half a Century Detailing Educational Inequity

For just as long, the nation has sought to understand, address and remedy a pernicious

and entrenched “achievement gap” between Black and White students. In 1965, supported

by the U.S. Office of Education, Labov began research into “differences between the

vernacular language of south-central Harlem and the Standard English of the classroom….

[His] major concern was the reading failure that was painfully obvious in the New York City

schools” (Labov 1972 xiv). Labov concluded that “the major causes of reading failure

[among African American learners] are political and cultural conflicts in the classroom, and

dialect differences are important because they are symbols of this conflict” (ibid xiv).

Subsequently, article after article and report after report have detailed the terrain of

educational inequity and failure: The U.S. Department of Education, Institute of Education

Sciences again confirmed in 2009 that “White students… had higher scores than Black

students, on average, on all assessments” (Vannerman et al. 2009 iii). And the most recent

Report Card from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reports again the

entrenched Black/White test score gap cited city by city by city across the United States (See

fig. 1 and fig. 2 respectively).

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Figure 1: Average scores and score gaps in NAEP reading for White and Black fourth

grade public school students, by jurisdiction: 2011.

Figure 2: Average scores and score gaps in NAEP reading for White and Black eighth

grade public school students, by jurisdiction: 2011.

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For fifty years we have observed: On “every measure of academic achievement black

students lag behind their white counterparts” (Smith and Fryer 551). As Purcell-Gates aptly

summarizes,

Researchers around the world have been focused on this problem: the cavernous and

uncrossable ravine that seems to lie between children of poverty (and the adults they

grow up to be) from marginalized, or low-status groups and their full potentials as

literate beings. Overall, the best we have been able to do is to describe the situation

over and over again, using different measures, different definitions of literacy,

different theoretical lenses, different methodologies. Again and again we conclude

that in developed countries and in third-world countries, learners from impoverished

and low-status groups fail to develop as fully and productively literate as compared to

learners from sociocultural groups that hold sociopolitical power and favor.

(Emphasis added 124-125)

According to the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the “share of low-income Black,

Hispanic and Native Americans who score below proficient on the NAEP reading test is

catastrophically high (89%, 87%, and 85%, respectively) and much larger than the share

of low-income white or Asian/Pacific Islander students (76% and 70%). Similar

differences occur at NAEP’s basic achievement level.... Simply put, without a dramatic

reversal of the status quo, we are cementing educational failure and poverty into the next

generation” (emphasis added. Learning to Read, 7).

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2.0 And Still Our Children Suffer: Dialect Prejudice and Mis-Assessment in the

Classroom

For 50 years, these camps have gone round, with vast amounts of research and

educational dollars spent. And still our children suffer. Beyond tsunamic account and recount

of educational statistics, the face of African American children’s suffering is close up and

tragically personal. Here are three examples:

2.1 Tamisha

It was September and Joni was concerned. Her 2nd grade student Tamisha could

neither read nor write; she was already a grade behind. What had happened? Joni

sought out Melinda, Tamisha’s first grade teacher. The answer dropped her in her

tracks. “Tamisha? “Why you can’t do anything with that child,” Melinda sighed. Joni

pursued, “What makes you think that?” Melinda, with some impatience shook her

head, “Haven’t you heard how she talks??!!!” Joni pushed further: “What did you do

with Tamisha?” Melinda was categorical. “Tamisha? Oh, I put her in the corner with

a coloring book.” One beat. Two beats. Three beats passed as Joni processed the

implications. Incredulous, Joni asked, “All year?” “Yes,” the teacher replied. “The

corner. With a coloring book. All year.” (Wheeler 2008 54)

Tamisha (all names are pseudonyms), an African American child in Hampton Roads,

Virginia, knew first-hand the terrible consequences of dialect prejudice. Because Tamisha

spoke African American Vernacular English (AAVE), Melinda, her teacher, assumed that

Tamisha was stupid and incapable. Under the iron hand of linguistic discrimination, Melinda

locked Tamisha out of all first grade educational activities. No reading. No writing. No

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arithmetic or social studies. Melinda assessed Tamisha as non-verbal, capable only of

coloring books (see also Ladson-Billings 2002).

2.2 Abi

An 8th grade student from the Eastern Shore of Virginia, Abi wrote about why her

house was a special place. She had lots to say (fig. 1). Her house was special because it is big

bedroom, the wood make a crackling sound like cereal, The fire is warm like a mitten, it have

a porch, a screen to keep the bugs out, and It cool like the evening breezes.

Figure 3. Teachers correct vernacular grammar in student writing. (Wheeler, 2010

957)

But Janet, her teacher, saw only “errors.” She did not know the grammar of AAVE

and so could not distinguish dialect transfer from mistakes inside Standard English. Through

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the lens of dominant language ideology, Janet misassessed her student’s writing, literacy

knowledge and needs. More profoundly, Janet noticed none of Abi’s beautiful details and

evocative similes; she never recognized the student writer before her.

2.3 Rajid

It is the children who suffer when teachers mistake dialect patterns for errors in

Standard English. Our third example comes from elementary reading assessment. Here, the

consequences of a teacher failing to factor AAVE into reading assessment prove devastating

for the student (Wheeler, Cartwright, and Swords 2012).

Rajid had begun 4th grade right on target, succeeding at DRA 2 level 38 in reading.

Now after a year of instruction, it was April; time for Mary, his teacher, to administer DRA2,

level 40. During Rajid's reading of the text, Mary identified 21 errors, yielding an accuracy

rate of 89.76%. Following directions, Mary ceased administering level 40 and moved to a

level 38 test. Again, in this 227-word text, she noted 23 miscues; apparently Rajid again fell

below the 90% threshold. Finally, Mary dropped the reading level down to 34. There, she

found Rajid to succeed. Mary believed that after a full year of instruction, not only had Rajid

not made reading progress but he had actually lost reading ability (Wheeler, Cartwright, and

Swords 2012).

Nothing could be further from the truth. Rajid never had a chance. His teacher,

untrained in linguistics or in the structures of her students’ community language, AAVE,

never recognized dialect influence in reading. Instead, Mary conflated dialect influence and

mistake in Standard English. Had she known phonetic, morphological and syntactic patterns

of AAVE, Mary would have recognized that Rajid succeeded at level 40 (5 of the miscues

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represented dialect transfer) and he succeeded at level 38 (4 miscues represented dialect

transfer). But instead of recognizing AAVE patterns for past time, plurality, subject verb

agreement, Mary thought Rajid was “leaving off -ed,” “forgetting subject verb agreement,”

and “confused about how to show plurality” And so she rated him far below his actual level.

Mary mis-assessed Rajid’s reading ability. Now at 4th grade, he was mis-labeled a

below grade-level reader. He then would receive phonics remediation he did not need and be

denied targeted SE instruction and the stimulating engagement he merits.

3.0 How Should We Respond in the Dialectally Diverse Classroom?

3.1 Contrastive Analysis and Style-shifting: A Linguistically Informed Response to

Dialect Diversity

Witnessing teacher mis-assessment of African American student writing, and the

consequent long-term fallout for students, Wheeler has sought to bring linguistically

informed understanding and strategies to the dialectally diverse classroom. Specifically,

she developed bidialectal lessons using contrastive analysis and code-switching for the

linguistically diverse classrooms (see fig. 4) (Nota Bene: Following terminological

conventions from the 1979 Black English Trial (Memorandum), Wheeler and Swords use

an extended meaning of code-switching: to code-switch is to choose one's language

variety to fit the conversational context.)

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Figure 4. Showing Possession T-Chart (Wheeler and Swords 2010 28)

Wheeler and Swords help teachers to recognize and respond to high frequency

vernacular patterns transferring into their students’ writing. Instead of ‘correcting’

student writing, teachers lead students to compare and contrast the grammar of the home

to the grammar of the school (see fig. 4) in order to be able to consciously choose the

language patterns to fit the setting. Often (but not always) in school, students choose

Standard English. Often (but not always) in narrative and creative writing, students

choose vernacular to create voice and a sense of place.

Equally important, however, is what teachers learn from the linguistically

informed contrastive approach.

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As the teacher builds a two-column structure, placing vernacular examples in the

left column and their Standard equivalents in the right column, and as she writes “The

Pattern” under each column, she visually represents that AAVE is structured and rule

governed. Therefore, the very structure of the T-Chart serves to unseat dominant

language ideology and dialect prejudice in the classroom.

For over a decade, after professional development sessions, educators have

expressed deep appreciation with the “both/and” approach of Wheeler and Swords’ work.

They report that contrastive analysis and code-switching enable them to affirm both the

language of nurture and the language of wider communication. Educators report that they

had never before realized that children were not using broken grammar. They had never

understood that their AAVE-speaking students’ language followed patterns, just different

patterns from Standard English. Teachers marvel at the respect inherent in contrastive

analysis and code-switching. For example:

I am a 4th grade teacher in North Carolina. I wanted to thank you for your

research and work with dialect diversity in classrooms. I have been using the

contrastive approach this year and my students are responding well. They feel

empowered when I tell them to translate the phrase, rather than feeling put down

when I tell them something is wrong. (A. G. 4th Grade Teacher, L. Elementary

School).

And perhaps most importantly:

Previously, all I saw in my students’ writing were grammar errors. Now, with an

understanding of code-switching, I am able to see my students more broadly, who

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and where they are as writers. I can recognize what my students do know. Code-

switching has given me the tools to respond to my students’ grammar needs AND

with those tools in hand, I am able to see much more deeply the full essays my

students have written. (T.M. St. M. School)

With contrastive analysis and code-switching, teachers learn tools to accurately assess

and effectively respond to the Standard literacy needs of their vernacular speaking

students. Teachers gain confidence to foster the broader student writer, encouraging

students to pursue their ideas and vision in well developed, well structured essays.

Then in the endgame of the writing process, teachers help students edit for Standard

English (Elbow 1999), if that is the language appropriate to the writing task.

Of course, Wheeler and Swords have always encouraged students to use diverse

language styles to build character and voice in narrative essays (Wheeler and Swords

2006). Swords' students are quite expert at choosing language to create character. For

example, commenting on characters’ voices in his story "Spy Mouse and the Broken

Globe," third grader David observed: "I know the difference between formal and

informal English but Spy Mouse doesn't." David had chosen vernacular English for

Spy Mouse, the detective, because that was how he wanted the character to speak

(Wheeler and Swords 2010 xii).

Indeed, the effectiveness of contrastive analysis in teaching Standard English to

vernacular speaking students has been well documented (Fogel and Ehri 2000;

Cummin 1997; Sweetland 2006; Taylor 1989; Wheeler and Swords 2010; Adger and

Reaser 2011, Wilkenson 2011). In our own personal and professional experience, we

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have seen stunning turnarounds in student achievement using these linguistically

informed strategies. In her first five years of teaching, Swords used the traditional

correctionist, approach with her African American students. At grades 2-3, she saw a

persistent Black/White achievement gap of 30%. The very first year Rachel used

contrastive analysis and code-switching, she completely closed the black/white gap

with the results holding firm ever since. Indeed, in the next year-end testing cycle,

100% of Rachel’s African American students passed 100% of the statewide tests

(Wheeler and Swords 2010).

Swords discovered first hand the truth of Charles Fillmore’s observation: “A

child who can say freely, ‘In my dialect we say it like this’ is better able to profit from

a language-learning experience than a child who is simply always told that everything

[she/or] he says is ‘wrong’" (Fillmore nd.).

In sum, the very structure of contrastive analysis and code-switching lessons

interrogates dominant language ideologies while teaching Standard English.

3.2 Code-meshing: A Liberationist Literacy Practice

Seeking to stop dialect discrimination against AAVE, Young calls for code-

meshing, “the blending and concurrent use of American English dialects, in formal,

discursive products such as political speech, student papers, and media interviews”

(Young 2009 51).

Young and Martinez “envision code-meshing as a way to promote the linguistic

democracy of English and to increase the acquisition and egalitarian, effective use of

English in school, in government, in public and at home” (xx). The benefits of code-

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meshing “extend beyond producing better papers. … It will help teachers avoid imposing

the harmful effects of racialization on students, which happens when we view their

linguistic habits as subliterate, fundamentally incompatible with what’s considered

standard. (Your 106 qtd. in Young and Martinez 2011 xxv).

With code-meshing, Young promotes “a thorough, seamless mixture of [African

American English] and [Standard English] that leads to a more natural, less artificial,

well-expressed prose” (Young 2007 106). Exemplifying, he urges “blending dos idiomas

or copping enough standard English to really make yo’ AAE be Da Bomb” (Young 2009

50) and asserts that speakers have “a right to code-mesh -- to blend accents, dialects, and

varieties of English with school-based, academic, professional, and public Englishes, in

any and all formal and informal settings” (Young and Martinez 2011 xxi). He states that

the “ideology behind code-meshing holds that people’s so-called ‘nonstandard’ dialects

are already fully compatible with standard English. Code meshing secures their right to

represent that meshing in all forms and venues where they communicate” (Young 2009

62).

3.3 Bidialectalism Named as Racist

Various scholars attack bidialectalism, in general, and code-switching, in

particular, as pawns of white supremacy. Thus, following in the footsteps of James Sledd

(1969), recent theorists have slammed contrastive analysis and code-switching as

“steeped in a segregationist, racist logic… replicating the same phony logic behind Jim

Crow legislation” (Young 2009 51, 53). Young has claimed that Wheeler and Swords’

work (2006, 2010) “translates the racist logic of early twentieth century legal segregation

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into a linguistic logic that undergirds twenty-first century language instruction” (ibid.

55).

4.0 Taking a Global View: Recasting the Issue

In response, we explore aspects of language processing and the nature of language

variation.

We will see that from infancy, humans use language to draw in-group vs. out-

group distinctions, an apparent inherent psychological component of humankind. This

human discernment of in- vs. out-group membership manifests globally as diglossia, the

stratification of dialects and linguistic forms into high (H) and low (L) language

(Ferguson 1959; Ferguson 2000). In tandem, speakers worldwide routinely style shift

between H and L languages and dialects. Even more generally, monolingual speakers

style shift from situation to situation. And those who are unable to fit their language to

the setting suffer swift social and economic consequences. Accordingly, we suggest that

code-switching or style-shifting reflect, embody and instantiate documented

psychological and socio-linguistic processes, that range far beyond issues of race and

class in the US.

4.1 Globally, and from Birth, We All Form Social Judgments About In-group

Membership

Social judgments, including perceptions based on language, are complex,

reaching into an array of social and psychological dimensions. Babel (2007) writes,

“[a]coustic signals (i.e. speech) contain characteristics that are unique to each individual

as well as phonetic cues for sociolinguistic indexical variables such as gender, regional

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identity, and age. Listeners process this type of type of information, storing it in memory”

(Palmeri et al. 1993). Based on speech, listeners make inferences about group status,

intelligence, political affiliations and even physical traits (Lambert et al. 1960; Lambert et

al. 1966; Dailey, Giles, and Jansma 2005).

Research in social psychology suggests that attentiveness to language and accent

begins in infancy (as early as 5 months) and may be more fundamental in the formation

of infants’ social preferences than race or gender (Kinzler et al. 2009). When asked

whom they preferred as friends, children chose a native-accented, differently raced

individual over a different-accented, same race individual. And by 5 months, infants gaze

longer at a speaker of their native dialect than at a foreign-accented speaker (Kinzler,

Dupoux, and Spelke 2007). Crucially, humans begin to rely on language as a cue to in-

group status well before they have been exposed to (or become aware of) the larger social

implications associated with dialectal language use.

Discernment of in-group vs. out-group status is a global phenomenon. For

example, research on language attitudes in Australia reveals that native speakers of

Australian English are drawn to those who share their native accent and respond

cautiously, perhaps negatively, to those speaking in "accented" English. Other studies

have reported similar findings for Canadian French and Hebrew (Eisenchlas and

Tsurutani 2011; Lambert et al. 1960; Rubin 1992).

Speech production and perception show sensitivity to the anticipated gender and

sexual orientation of the speaker (Munson et al. 2006a, 2006b). Speakers even view speech

as standard or nonstandard depending on the interlocutor’s perceived status as in-group or

‘other.’ For example, Detroit residents attribute nonstandard features to speakers they believe

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to be foreign (Niedzelski 1999). Despite the fact that a particular dialect feature existed in

both Detroit and Canadian speech, Detroit listeners only named the feature as nonstandard

only when they believed the speaker to be from Canada, but not when they believed the

speaker to be from Detroit. Thus, beliefs about what a speaker “should” sound like given

his/her origin may, in fact, take priority over the actual acoustic signal.

In sum, from infancy, as humans process language, we extract acoustic, lexical, and

syntactic information and the social information indexed to these. From the pair of linguistic

signal and social meaning, humans identify diverse in-group and out-group standing and

affiliations.

4.2 Speakers Distinguish High vs. Low Dialects: Diglossia as a Global Phenomenon

For the majority of the world’s speakers, bi- or multilingualism is the norm rather

than the exception. In many societies, multiple languages or dialects co-exist within a

relatively small geographic space and have for centuries upon centuries. Here, situational

diglossia emerges: a scenario in which two different varieties of a language or two

distinct languages are used by some speakers under different conditions (Ferguson 2000).

At the community level, the varieties generally acquire a distinct range of social

functions.

In a diglossic community, a speaker may use one variety for business such as

banking but use a different variety for religious practice. In this way, the varieties fill

what are described as ‘high’ vs. ‘low’ functions of society. High functions tend to be

associated with commerce, political, legal and governmental processes, the high arts such

as literature and poetry. Low functions are associated with the home or personal sphere,

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family communication, and folk literature. Ferguson (2000) describes diglossia between

varieties in diverse nations – Egypt, Switzerland, Greece and Haiti, etc.

Here, we regularly see contests between higher-status Standard languages and

regional or local variants with the associated implications for social access.

For instance, the language of the Qur’ans is believed to be the higher-status Classical

Arabic while Egyptian Arabic is considered low status. And in the early 20th century

Greece, riots broke out when the New Testament when translated into the local variety

(dhimotikí) as opposed to the higher-prestige variety (katharévusa) (Ferguson 2000). In

Hawaii, language prejudice is directed against speakers of pidgin, a variety “still largely

equated with low class, a lack of intelligence, and a willful refusal to learn” (Nettell 2011

169). And native Haitian and MIT linguist, Michel de Graff describes the sociolinguistic

barriers and educational consequences to low variety speakers in Haiti:

To this day, the vast majority of Haitians are born in communities where they're

exposed to only Haitian Creole, which is the language that they'll spend their

entire lives speaking. Even though Creole is now officially the national language

and one of the two official languages (with French), French is still the primary

language of instruction, of exams, of administration, of the justice system and so

on. As a result, the only children who can succeed are those born into a certain

amount of privilege and in families where French is spoken or that can afford the

few good schools. (Driscoll 2011, web interview)

Similarly, very well documented are the H vs. L contrasts in Northern Italy

between Standard Italian and Bergamasco. Unsurprisingly, Standard Italian was expected

in “highly formal contexts ... such as television or radio newscasts or speeches by public

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officials,” (Cavanaugh xvi) whereas Bergamasco was seen as “the language of

‘confidenza’ (social intimacy and emotional connection), the language of friendship and

family” (ibid 7). One speaker, Roberta, described a local person speaking Standard

Italian: “Té, te parlèt ricamàt incö!” (Bergamasco, for Italian “Tu, parli ricamato, oggi!”

(You, you’re speaking fancy today!) (Ibid. 42), revealing her explicit awareness of the

stratified status of the dialects.

Studying diglossia and language ideologies, Cavanaugh explains that in Bergamo,

"speaking in a Bergamasco way indexes values such as home, family and intimacy, but

also peasant-ness, lack of education, and backwardness, while speaking Italian pointed to

values such as personal refinement, educational achievement and formality” (ibid 8).

Thus “Italian and Bergamasco were valued differently… due to what they were

associated with and what they indexed, or pointed to, in the world outside language” (ibid

30).

While proud of their local dialect, Bergamasco speakers also see their local

variety as “limiting their future, … as an obstacle to getting ahead socially” (ibid. 37).

Thus Bergamaschi mothers teach their children Italian because of

[m]oney and power, or more precisely, the possibility of participating in socio-

economic opportunities and state-level institutions and activities conducted in

Italian, such as schooling, interacting with government or private bureaucracy

(like insurance companies), voting, etc. That is, Italian afforded the ability to

interact within a larger sphere than Bergamasco made possible. (58)

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Summarizing aspects of the European linguistic scene, Cavanaugh explains:

“Across Italy, the questione della lingua – language question – has been a vexed

socioeconomic, political, and cultural issue since the time of Dante (Cavanaugh 14) and

she reminds us that the languages we now know as English, Spanish, French, and Greek

are historically the language varieties of the rulers (ibid 14).

Globally, the social status of standard vs. vernacular varieties is rigidly stratified;

Speakers who do not possess a full range of knowledge of the ‘high’ variety suffer the

same sociolinguistic discrimination. In World War II era France, for instance, children

were punished for speaking regional vernaculars called patois as opposed to the Standard

French even when playing with peers (Lodge 1993). Ferguson writes:

The social importance of using the right variety in the right situation can hardly be

overestimated. An outsider who learns to speak fluent, accurate L and then used it

in a formal speech is an object of ridicule. A member of the speech community

whose uses H in a purely conversational situation or in an informal activity like

shopping is equally an object of ridicule (Ferguson 2000 68).

And so again, we see the same familiar pattern of H and L varieties with social judgments

predictably accruing to each.

4.3 Style-shifting

Situationally-appropriate language use is not restricted to societies with multiple

dialects. Speakers in monolingual societies style shift, by fitting their language choices as

appropriate to the setting. Speakers’ styles are fluid and complex, influenced by audience,

event type, physical location, subject matter, relevant social role in the current event, and

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desired identity the speaker wishes to convey. Such shifts in style are greatly nuanced,

and “cannot be reduced to social class, age, gender, or text type” Myers-Scotton (1993).

Speakers engage in style-shifting processes from moment-to-moment, regardless

of how many dialects or languages make up their linguistic repertoires. One example is

the shift from features that educated and literate speakers use orally in conversation, but

not in writing. In French, for instance, je ne crois pas (‘I don’t think so’) is rendered in

conversation or text messages between close friends as crois pas. But in public written

contexts, the full sentence, je ne crois pas remains the situationally-appropriate, standard

practice.

These adjustments emerge very early in vocal shifts and by age four children can

change syntax according to age of addressee (Ervin-Tripp 2001; Shatz and Gelman

1973). Analyzing the style-switching of Stokely Carmichael and Dick Gregory, two

college-educated African-American civil rights leaders, Ervin-Tripp found that each used

both Standard and vernacular varieties, style-shifting for conversation-type, audience

race, and even comedic value. She concludes:

While we think of ideology as a powerful force in the societal processes involved

in language planning, school curriculum decisions, and language maintenance and

shift, such rich individual cases of shifting do not just represent higher and lower

status, more and less educated, white and black, or formality and informality, but

allude to different aspects of the groupings and identities of speakers and their

beliefs. If such style switching exemplifies recurrent iconization, it is not

necessarily simple. Here we see that it requires realigning a complex array of

potential contrasts (Ervin-Tripp 2001 55).

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Speakers capitalize on contrasting social meanings to shift styles. These types of

implicit expectations about the appropriateness of language for the given social context are

always at work. Social stratification of language varieties by social and cultural function is

globally pervasive.

4.4 In Sum: Code-switching is about Considerably More than Race

Young has asserted that “the arguments used to support code switching are

startlingly and undeniably similar to those that were used to support racial separation”

(2009 53). And he declaimed that “code-switching is nothing if not about race” (2009

51).

As we’ve seen, code-switching is about considerably more than race. It is about

diglossia, the global division of languages and language varieties into high and low

varieties. It is about the panhuman psychological proclivity for distinguishing in-group

from out-group membership. And yes, it is about race because racial discrimination

including dialect prejudice involves both H and L language distinctions and the

psychology of in-group and out-group discernments.

Code-switching, for us, is about responding to travesty, travesty in the K-12

classroom committed against African American children. With contrastive analysis and

its interrogation of dominant language ideology, we are trying to stop malignant mis-

assessment of our children. We are trying to use the lever of linguistic knowledge to lift

up the heavy boulder of daily classroom practice that discriminates against and represses

Tamisha, Rajid and Abi.

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Code-switching is about so much more than race, and the stakes are so high, that

at times, even often, we find it necessary to play a shell game as we talk about power,

prestige and prejudice in the schools.

We find that referring to race at all can utterly derail teachers and administrators

from hearing our core message – that vernacular speaking students are NOT making

mistakes in Standard English, but are following the patterns of a different dialect, and that

we must distinguish dialect transfer from mistake in Standard English.

Thus, the third rail of race and ethnically linked language (Sweetland Letter to

Author) is so deadly that the conversation in K-6 schools grinds to a halt at mention of

Black vs. White performance or “disaggregated scores for Black and White students” or

AAVE. For example, in 2002, as Wheeler was speaking to a group of principals about

how Black English could influence students’ performance on statewide tests, one

principle spit back “OUR students don’t speak that garbage, that lazy English.”

No classroom practice could change that day.

Because Wheeler is devoted to stopping educational mis-assessment of vernacular

speaking students, she does not speak of race or AAVE. Instead she talks about language

patterns and moving from the language of the home to the language of the school as fits the

context. In order to get the message across, she sidesteps naming the third rail of naming

ethnically linked language.

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4.5 Dialect Prejudice: Consequences of Not Style-shifting

Stark are the consequences of not style-shifting. Vernacular dialect speakers

suffer not only in education and social settings but also in the labor market. Grogger

(2011) finds that speakers who “sound black” earn 11% less than their peers and White

speakers who “sound black” are found to earn 8% less than their peers. Examining the

use of regionally and ethnically marked speech in job interviews, Atkins (1993) found

that 58% of Appalachian English variables presented and 93% of Black English variables

negatively impacted the job interview. In both cases, non-standard grammatical features

had a greater negative effect than non-standard pronunciations. Such hearer judgments

and subsequent fallout happen with lightening speed. Purnell, Idsardi, and Baugh (1999)

show that a listener can identify AAE or Chicano English and the speaker’s ethnicity

after hearing only a hello. And we know that landlords discriminate against prospective

tenants on the basis of their voice during phone conversations. Examples of the

consequences of linguistic discrimination lamentably abound (Baugh 2003; Boutet 2008;

Massey and Lundy 2001; Lippi-Green 1994).

4.6 Standard English – One Necessary Life Tool

Charity et al. have demonstrated that greater familiarity with Standard English

correlates strongly and positively with reading success (Charity, Scarborough, and Griffin

2004). Indeed, research supports a “dialect-shifting – reading achievement hypothesis,

which proposes that AAE-speaking students who learn to use SAE in literacy tasks will

outperform their peers who do not make this linguistic adaptation” (Craig, Zhang,

Hensel, and Quinn 2009).

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When ought students develop command Standard English? Research indicates that

students’ acquisition of Standard English by the end of 3rd grade is critical to their

success in learning to read. Why? In grades 1-3, school is dedicated to learning to read.

However, beginning in 4th grade, students are reading to learn, using accumulated

reading skills to access the entire school curriculum (Learning to Read, 9). According to

the Children’s Reading Foundation, “up to half of the printed fourth-grade curriculum is

incomprehensible to students who read below that grade level” (Learning to Read, 9),

and matters only go downhill from there.

The importance of competence in Standard English and success in elementary

reading is stunning. The child who falls behind in reading by grade 3 is four times more

likely to drop out of high school than the student who reads at grade level. In turn a

“correlation holds between dropout and incarceration rates nationwide -- 68.1 percent of

state prison inmates in 2003” lacked a high school diploma (State of Emergency). African

American males confront the highest likelihood of becoming trapped in the dropout-to-

prison trajectory.

Hence, students need command of Standard English to access reading. Students

need reading competence to access the rest of the curriculum, to graduate and to move

into the world beyond. Or, in the words of Lisa Delpit: “[h]aving access to the politically

mandated language form will not, by any means, guarantee economic success… but not

having access will almost certainly guarantee failure” (2006 94).

Hodge, an African American urban education consultant, expresses the

expectations for and costs to African American students:

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As an educator in urban American, I am charged with preparing students

for the realities of the world in which we live. I am a black man- a proud

black man. Part of my job is to make sure the young black men and

women who follow me know the rules of the game. Language matters!

Whether we like it or not, we miss opportunities when we misuse

language. When a black man or woman walks into an office for a job

interview, one of the first things the potential employer will critique is his

or her use of language. The misuse of Standard English in a professional

setting casts doubt upon the intelligence and ability of the speaker.

As an educator with a sense of urgency, I don't have the luxury of

debating whether this sociological phenomenon is right or wrong. As we

say on the block, it is what it is. If I send my students to their first

interview linguistically unprepared, I have failed them. In my school, we

called the use of Standard English Speaking Green. Green is the language

of commerce. Whether we call it code-switching or Speaking Green,

Standard English the linguistic code used in the executive's world of work.

Its use makes you no less black. As a black man in today's world, I don't

get a pass when my subjects and verbs fail to agree, nor will the black

students I mentor. The ability to code-switch is a professional necessity.

John W. Hodge, Ed.D.

President

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Urban Learning and Leadership Center (Personal communication,

December 2011)

We agree with Hodge. It is in "no one’s best interest to deemphasize from

effective teaching of the recognized standard” (Jolliff, Hayde, and Waller 2011 71).

4.7 A Brief Critique of Code-Meshing (Young, 2009, 2011)

We agree “code-meshing offers more expressive possibilities for students in

writing” (Canagarajah, 2011 276). Indeed, Vaquera-Vásquez’s, “Meshed América:

Confessions of a Mercacirce” (e.g. “Suspended, too, entre idiomas” (258); “Nuestra

América, Adapted, Meshed” (261)) offers a glory of code-meshed invention as do others

(most notably, Smitherman 2000; Alim 2005). But exactly how do these writers mesh

heritage language with Standard English?

We agree with Graff (2011) who notes that “Young’s arguments leave a number

of questions unanswered” and asks “what does competent code-meshing look like in

student writing and speaking, and how will teachers determine the difference between

successful and effective code-meshing and awkwardly cobbled together mixes of formal

and vernacular English” (Graff 16). Linguists would inquire “which code-meshed

utterances are well-formed and which are not.” Indeed, even Canagarajah wonders if

“code-meshing is teachable” and inquires how to “distinguish between code-meshing and

error” (2011 277). Canagarajah says, “I must confess that I am myself unsure of how to

practice what I preach” (2006 613). And Stanford cautions that it “may be unwise to have

our students work out experimental writing strategies for us, especially with a strategy

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that, as far as we know, may not work” (Stanford 2011 129). As example, cites to “the

most famous” example of code-meshing, a 400 year old text meshing Quechua and

Spanish, a text which failed to reach an audience, as its message was ignored for one

expressed in Standard Spanish (ibid 129). Young has asserted that code-meshing

produces “more natural”, “less artificial” text. What does that mean?

Clearly, a theory of code-meshing is still beyond our reach.

But the consequences of practicing code-meshing in the world are starkly real.

From Louisiana where the L variety, Cajun Canaille, is in competition with the H variety,

Standard English, Stanford observes, “if we do succeed in creating small semester long

utopias where it is safe for students to code-mesh, we still have not changed the standards

our students will face” (ibid. 129).

Young has asserted that students have the “right to code-mesh… in any and all

formal and informal settings” (Young and Martinez 2011 xxi). Ok. We agree that all

speakers have the right to choose whichever language variety or style they prefer. But

speakers must then accept the consequences of their choices. ALL speakers who choose

a socially stigmatized language style will be subject to social standards about

appropriateness of language use in context and Blacks in the United States are especially

subject to these social judgments.

5.0 The Goals of Wheeler and Swords’ Contrastive Analysis and Code-switching

Since its inception in 1996 with the Oakland Ebonics Controversy, the purpose of

Wheeler and Swords’ work has been to:

1) Stop teachers’ mis-assessment of AAVE in students’ reading and writing.

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31

To do so, they have sought to demonstrate that AAVE speaking students are

not making mistakes inside Standard English, but instead are following the

patterns of a different dialect – the variety linguists call African American

Vernacular English. Since students are not speaking ‘broken’ SE, correction

(of dialect transfer) is not appropriate.

2) 0ffer teachers linguistically-based classroom strategies for teaching Standard

English to vernacular speakers. The core strategy is contrastive analysis -- the

comparison and contrast of language patterns from two dialects for the

purpose of students becoming explicitly conscious of both and able to choose

the variety to fit the setting.

3) Invite students use metacognitive skills to ‘code-switch’ by choosing the

language style to fit the setting.

4) Affirm students’ use of their home dialects in casual school settings, among

friends, and in classroom conversation.

5) Affirm use of vernacular in dialogue of narrative essays, and in early drafts as

students write research paper.

6) Require Standard English in final drafts of students’ research papers.

In short, Wheeler and Swords’ goal is that there never be another Tamisha, Abi,

or Rajid who suffer educational failure because their teacher lacks basic content

knowledge from linguistics: all languages are structured, if a person speaks a language,

he or she speaks a dialect of that language; all dialects are structured; all dialects are

linguistically equal but socially very unequal; discrimination against dialects is called

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dialect prejudice; African American Vernacular English is NOT Standard English with

mistakes; we must distinguish dialect feature from Standard English error.

6.0 A Call for Collaboration, A Context for Moving Forward

We believe that linguists, cultural theorists and African Celebrationists can all

agree on the following four points:

1. Language varieties worldwide are socially stratified, with the H variety

corresponding to the power elite and the L variety linking to intimate, familiar

spheres. Thus, Standard dialects worldwide are hegemonic.

2. Societies place a heavy and unequal burden on speakers of vernacular and

regional varieties, requiring them to learn the Standard dialect.

3. Dominant language ideology permeates traditional classrooms; globally,

educational establishments disdain, downgrade, and mis-assess the performance

of vernacular speakers.

4. In the US, for over half a century, as a result of hegemony and dominant language

ideology in the schools, African American children have suffered disastrously,

with life-long and society-wide consequences.

5. Educational malpractice (defined in Baugh 1999) against African American

learners must stop.

We all want to stop the dialect prejudice and discrimination against African

American children. We all want the richness of African American literature and culture to

be honored and celebrated in the classroom. And many of us are clear that Standard

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33

English mastery is one tool required for engagement in school and in the broader world

beyond the local community.

We do not have the luxury of debating whether the hegemony, socially stratified

dialects, and dialect discrimination is right or wrong, just or unjust. Of course such

stratification is unjust. But as educational consultant, John Hodge observed, “it is what it

is.”

Vital questions remain: How can we stop the mis-assessment of our African

American children? It has long been suggested that teachers need to know fundamental

linguistics (Fillmore and Snow 2000), and research has shown that even one course in

linguistics at the college level serves to dramatically reduce teachers’ dialect prejudice

and challenge entrenched dominant language ideology (Sweetland 2006; Blake and

Cutler 2003).

But one college course in linguistics does not sufficiently equip teacher education

students to accurately distinguish dialect influence from reading error, in real time. For

example, in a recent Masters of Teaching seminar, Wheeler had worked with students on

Rajid’s 4th grade reading assessment. The classroom teacher had failed to distinguish

dialect transfer from reading error, and had labeled Rajid as failing when actually he was

on grade level. Wheeler taught the graduate students the AAVE patterns transferring into

Rajid’s oral reading, patterns they would need with their own future school children.

Students witnessed the difference between an accurate and inaccurate assessment of

Rajid’s reading performance. Then, Wheeler paused and asked for students’ thoughts.

One young woman replied: “This is too hard. You don’t really expect us to do this do

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34

you? To distinguish AAVE from error inside Standard English? I’m not going to. I’m just

going to mark it all wrong.”

Wheeler was dumbfounded. “But you would be mis-assessing the child, marking

them as failing when they are succeeding at reading.” The student didn’t care. It was too

hard to distinguish dialect transfer from reading error. Too hard to teach the needed

Standard English equivalents.

Should we require a course in African American language, Literacies and Culture

for all teacher education students throughout the US? Or a course in the language and

literacies of the local region? We say ‘YES!” Sledd named the need 40 years ago:

Teachers able to respond to dialect diversity in the classroom would “require a more

serious study of grammar, lexicography, dialectology, and linguistic history than our

educational system now provides (Sledd 1315).

Questions continue: How can we affect teacher education competencies and

standards? How can we build linguistically informed perspectives into the national

standards movement? Following the lead of Reaser and Wolfram’s ground breaking

educational work, Voices of North Carolina: From the Atlantic to the Appalachians, can

we band together to create a Voices of series for each of the 50 states? Voices of the

Pacific Northwest is already emerging through the work of linguists Kristin Denham and

Ann Lobeck. Imagine the impact such dialect awareness programs could have across the

nation.

For far, far too long, we have left our African American children alone to confront

the monsters of derogatory linguistic dismissal at school. And still our children suffer. In

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the words of the Annie E. Casey Foundation: “Simply put, without a dramatic reversal of

the status quo, we are cementing educational failure and poverty into the next generation”

(Learning to Read, 7). Let us join together to seek social justice and social access. Now.

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