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<TITLE>Re: printability and standardization</TITLE>
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<DIV><SPAN class=678091121-11012004><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Why do
you think that giving them all the linguistic information will not help?
This seems a strange perspective for one who is engaged in the creation of
linguistic knowledge. Is linguistic knowledge itself of no use? Or
is it just of no use to these particular parents for some
reason?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
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<DIV class=OutlookMessageHeader dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Tahoma
size=2>-----Original Message-----<BR><B>From:</B> Christina Paulston
[mailto:paulston+@pitt.edu]<BR><B>Sent:</B> Sunday, January 11, 2004 1:54
PM<BR><B>To:</B> lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu<BR><B>Subject:</B> Re:
printability and standardization<BR><BR></FONT></DIV>I must express myself
extremely badly to be so misunderstood. Of course a person can be literate in
more than one language or dialect - I read some seven languages, eight,
myself. We are not, that is, I am not talking about a linguistic problem
but a social. Of course the LSA comment "from this perspective" they noted,
was perfectly sound. It was the Black community across the country who rose up
in protest at having AAVE imposed on them and you can give them all the
linguistic information you want and it is not going to help.
<BR> What about South Africa, now with 11
official languages? Many Afrikaners for "pedagogically sound" reasons now urge
the African population to send their children to mother tongue schools -
exactly the same policy enforced under apartheid for reasons of segregation.
Parents prefer education in English for their children - are you going
to tell them they suffer from false consciousness ( a singularly brilliant
concept, that)? There are as always other circumstances, quality of teachers,
texts, etc but parents still want English. And I think it should be
their choice.<BR> The problem of course becomes worse
when the children and the parents disagree over that choice - which is not
uncommon with immigrant groups. I just object to linguists playing
omniscient gods and recommending options for life decisions on the basis
of linguistic criteria. Most people want a decent life, at least for
their children, a good job, good health care (Bush should take note), a secure
old age, etc, and if that necessitates another language, they don't care. Of
course they can remain bilingual but the children usually don't think it is
worth it.<BR> Etc. My very last comment,
Christina<BR><BR>----------<BR>From: Ronald Kephart
<rkephart@unf.edu><BR>To: lgpolicy-list@ccat.sas.upenn.edu<BR>Subject:
RE: printability and standardization<BR>Date: Sun, Jan 11, 2004, 11:15
AM<BR><BR><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE>At 11:02 AM -0600 1/10/04, Felicia Briscoe wrote:<BR><BR>
<BLOCKQUOTE>...There also seems to be an underlying assumption in much of
the recent writing that<BR>bilingualism is either very difficult to attain
or that it is someway is detrimental to the person who is bilingual.
I find this a very strange assumption. Why can't a person be fully
literate in AAVE and fully literate in standard English. Why is it
so often posed as an either/or option?<BR></BLOCKQUOTE><BR>I think part of
the answer lies in what anthropological linguist MJ Hardman calls our
linguistic postulates: specifically, the importance of singularity. This
manifests itself in all sorts of ways not only within our language but also
how we think about language, as well as more widely: one "right" answer, one
god, preference for individual over collective work, "most valuable
players," the totalitarian nature of our corporations, even the prescriptive
insistence on "he" rather than "they" as a generic pronoun. And of course,
"one language."<BR><BR>See: Hardman, 1978, Linguistic postulates and applied
anthropological linguistics, in<I> Papers on linguistics and child
language</I>, edited by V. Honsa and M.J. Hardman-de-Bautista, 117-36. The
Hague: Mouton.<BR><BR>-- <BR>Ronald Kephart<BR>Sociology, Anthropology,
& Criminal Justice<BR>University of North Florida<BR><FONT
color=#0000ff><U>http://www.unf.edu/~rkephart<BR></U></FONT><BR></BLOCKQUOTE></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>