Is my accent a crime? (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Benjamin Zimmer]

This was originally reported in the Wall Street Journal on 4/30:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575213883276427528.html

Here's the response from faculty at the Univ. of Arizona Department of
Linguistics:

http://www.u.arizona.edu/~hammond/ling_statement_final.pdf


On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 1:27 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> The blogosphere is ablaze with condemnations of the "law." I'm beginning to
> wonder very seriously if there even is one:
>
> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/05/22/arizona-seeks-reassign-heavily-accented-teachers/
>
> On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 12:20 PM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> The precise wording of the law is elduing me, but here are a couple of
>> seemingly useful sites. The first gives some background; the second is the
>> CNN report:
>>
>>
>> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/30/arizona-ethnic-studies-cl_n_558731.html
>>
>> http://amfix.blogs.cnn.com/2010/05/24/arizona-wants-to-reassign-teachers-with-accents/
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Aug 2, 2010 at 10:31 AM, George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > > >
>> > > > Arizona has decided that it's unacceptable to have teachers
>> > > > whose spoken English is deemed to be heavily accented or
>> > > > ungrammatical, even
>> > > > though the latter has little to do with the former.

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org