appearances and perceptions

[Aileen Kyung Kim]

Hi ELFers,
I hope I picked the right listserv to write to. One of the TESOL students had
a question for me, and I swear I encountered readings about it when I was
studying for the comps, but my memory is going and I can't remember where I
read about it or what the name of the concept is.

The student noticed that her ESL students swore they couldn't understand
African-Americans because they speak in AAVE, even when the speaker was
clearly not speaking in AAVE. It seems that they had constructed perceptions
of what the speaker's language based on the externalities (namely race).

Actually, I experienced something similar while I was advising Korean TESOL
students. After finding out that I came to the U.S. when I was very young,
three students, on the same day, said something to this effect: "No wonder!
You talk like a native speaker!" Well, I would hope so, considering I AM
one. :)

Any help would be appreciated.
Aileen

--
Aileen Kyung Kim
akk at dolphin.upenn.edu
PhD Candidate, Educational Linguistics
Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania