The Nine Lives of "Linguistic Deficiency"

[Alexandre Enkerli]

All,

It's probably just a personal attitude rather than an epistemological
principle but I tend to prefer sand- and soap-boxes to crusades.
Neither my father nor John's daughter's teacher went on a crusade but
both did go beyond specific notions about language in formal
education. None of us will ever say that language is unimportant. But,
often, competence related to a specific code (standardised written
English, Japanese, or French, in these cases) is taken for granted as
a prerequisite for any type of learning. Which has the effect of
reinforcing stereotypes about learners.

Richard's post gets me thinking about the relationship between some
prominent language ideologies and labeling theory (maybe because I'm
assigning some Howie Becker in a course, this semester). Social use of
those "Preconceived Notions About Language" that Yaguello catalogued
(2020099136) and that many of us are trying to fight. In academic
contexts at least, fewer people now say that French is more logical
than Bamanankan or that Spanish is more lovely than Schwyzertüütsch.
But many educational specialists still see "mastery of The Language"
as the one and only required building block for the whole foundation
of school learning. (They also see formal learning in schools as the
only way to reach any knowledge, but that's a slightly different
issue.) In much discussion of educational needs, language diversity
isn't taken into account, much.

The larger point has to do, to me, with cognitive and educational
psychologists being confronted with something that we-anthropologists
noticed a while ago. Much of academia is glossocentric (and
scriptocentric). In ethnography, we've understood the importance of
"learning the Language-of-the-Other" early on. Specialists in brain
and learning have understood the primacy of language quite a while
ago, but few of them seem to think of linguistic diversity as worthy
of their consideration.

Yes, it partly has to do with open-mindedness and what intro-level
textbooks call "cultural awareness." It's still an important dimension
to discuss...

No?

On 2/9/07, R Senghas <Richard.Senghas at sonoma.edu> wrote:
>
> On 9 Feb 2007, , at 1:29 AM, John McCreery wrote:
> > Given the choice between taking steps suggested by the language
> > ideologies now current among linguistic anthropologists and the future
> > welfare of my daughter, this conscientious teacher did what
> > Alexandre's father did, chose to focus on the future welfare of the
> > child for whom she felt responsible. I am grateful to her for that
> > choice.
>
> John,
>
> Likely unintentionally, I fear that this sort of response
> mischaracterizes the language ideology work I see in anthropology.
> Very few of the anthropologists who focus on language ideologies (i.e.,
> those I know or work with, which have been quite a few) deny the social
> implications involved when an individual adopts or resists prevailing
> prescriptions.  In fact, these language ideology folks (including me)
> are trying to make explicit that these are indeed (often subconscious,
> but often conscious) moral choices, or choices of social marking and
> identity.  What we are fighting is the perpetuation of false
> "scientific explanations" that one language is superior to another, is
> "more linguistic" than another, etc.  (Ron's "whack-a-mole" description
> feels all too appropriate!)  We are also fighting the stereotypes that
> usually deny the cognitive and other human qualities that linguistic
> minority speakers have, but qualities that they aren't acknowledged as
> having, because of the false stereotypes associated with those in
> subordinate social positions (for whatever reasons).
>
> By explicitly labelling language ideologies, describing them and
> developing accurate explanations of how and why they work (i.e. proper
> theorizing), language ideology folks provide a very useful service to
> society as a whole, and to those individuals who are encountering
> challenges along the way.  "Why do people keep treating me like I am
> stupid when I know I am not?" or "Why do they act as if they don't
> understand me at all when I know that they at least understand some of
> what I say?" or "Why don't they seem to care?" --these questions can be
> answered by such anthropological approaches.
>
> We don't write or speak in certain ways simply because that is the only
> way that works.  We do so for all kinds of reasons, social, cultural,
> psychological, linguistic, etc.  These are choices made by society, and
> by being more informed, we increase our options.  Having more options
> is useful for both the teachers and the learners.
>
> -RJS
>
> Richard J Senghas  (Professor of Anthropology, Sonoma State U,
> California)
> Visiting Researcher, Institutionen för nordiska språk
> Stockholms universitet
> S-106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
> Richard.Senghas at nordiska.su.se
> Richard.Senghas at sonoma.edu
>
>
>


-- 
Alexandre
http://enkerli.wordpress.com/