28.525, Review: English; Anthro Ling; Socioling: Piller (2016)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-28-525. Thu Jan 26 2017. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 28.525, Review: English; Anthro Ling; Socioling: Piller (2016)

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Date: Thu, 26 Jan 2017 14:12:23
From: Mary Hudgens Henderson [mhudgenshenders at winona.edu]
Subject: Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice

 
Discuss this message:
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Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/27/27-1405.html

AUTHOR: Ingrid  Piller
TITLE: Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice
SUBTITLE: An Introduction to Applied Sociolinguistics
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2016

REVIEWER: Mary Hudgens Henderson, Winona state University

Reviews Editor: Helen Aristar-Dry

SUMMARY

“Linguistic Diversity and Social Justice: An Introduction to Applied
Sociolinguistics” by Ingrid Piller examines the intersection between language
and social (in)justice in various aspects of society (such as work, education,
and civic participation). As an exploration of linguistically-based social
injustice, the author draws attention to how language discrimination compounds
with racism, sexism, classism, and other social hierarchies to reproduce power
structures. Potential reading audiences include students of social justice,
critical pedagogy students, social workers, and others interested in the
effects of globalization and the global spread of English. 

In the Introduction (Chapter 1) Piller presents the conundrum that linguistic
diversity is both celebrated and demonized. The goals of the book are
presented: (1) provide an overview of contemporary research in linguistic
diversity and social justice; (2) call attention to linguistic diversity as a
compelling issue in social justice debates. The book’s focus is primarily on
the relationship between linguistic diversity and economic inequality,
cultural domination, and political participation. 

Chapter 2 explains the term “linguistic difference” and how diversity within a
language is often more socially relevant than between languages. The author
explains that linguistic difference is often hierarchically structured because
the ways in which people communicate are valued differently. The author
presents Abram de Swaan’s language pyramid schema, in which 5,000-6,000 world
languages are categorized as “peripheral” or local languages, used primarily
for conversation. The next layer in the pyramid is around one hundred “central
languages”, which are used for official purposes in many nation-states. About
one dozen “super-central” languages serve international and business purposes,
while English alone sits at the apex of the language pyramid as the
“hyper-central” language. The author explains that local languages often
follow this pyramid hierarchy model among each other as well. The author
points out that everyone is linguistically and culturally diverse, but only a
minority section of the population gets labeled as “diverse” from the
mainstream, thereby contributing to inequality among social groups. The author
gives an example (among others) of Turkey’s attempts to assimilate its various
speakers into one homogenous linguistic group. 

Chapter 3 examines discursive processes through which non-mainstream language
use is subordinated by obscuring it or problematizing it. The author presents
the territorial principle, through which an association is made with language
and state (such as English with the United States). The territorial principle
results in two injustices: 1) real-life speaking practices get subsumed under
a language umbrella (such as Alsatian being categorized as German), and 2)
speakers of languages that do not have long-standing historical ties to a
place (such as Turkish in Germany) are regarded as not belonging. The author
offers the example of the English-only ideology in the United States, where
civic participation and citizenship are tied to speaking English exclusively.
People who are learning or who do not yet know a language are often blamed for
their low proficiency, an injustice which is compounded by the reality that
achieving a high level of language proficiency is mediated by social status of
the learner (age, socioeconomic status, gender, prior education, etc.). The
author emphasizes that judgments about language are ultimately judgments about
speakers. 

The next three chapters focus on linguistic diversity in work, education, and
civic participation. Chapter 4 focuses on how language proficiency is
perceived to be the main barrier to employment. However, the author presents
situations in which migrants are underemployed or unemployed for reasons that
are not connected to target language proficiency. Speakers must follow hidden
pragmatic norms while avoiding racial and gender bias in the interview
process.  Linguistic diversity intersects with race, ethnicity and other
social categories to exclude non-mainstream speakers from the labor force. 

Chapter 5 focuses on education and the monolingual habitus of schools with
multilingual students. Many schools use one mainstream language as the medium
of academic learning without taking into account all students’ language
learning needs. Although the submersion education method has been identified
as a violation of civil rights (Lau v. Nichols 1974), it is still a common
education approach. The author discusses the example of Székely Land in
Romania, in which Hungarian speakers do not receive appropriate mother-tongue
education due to lack of resources. The Székely Hungarians are submersed in
Romanian with inadequate preparation to learn content through a language that
is foreign to them but not foreign to curriculum designers. The collective
underperformance of non-mainstream groups in education is often misinterpreted
as reflective of these students’ abilities, as opposed to the failure of
schools, policy makers and test designers to adequately educate them. 

Chapter 6 discusses community participation and multilingual access to
community services, such as emergency responders. The author outlines examples
in which social organization may convert linguistic diversity into an obstacle
to participation, with a focus on gender. Linguistic discrimination can also
spiral into linguistically-related violence, connected to racial and
gender-based violence. Microaggressions and linguistic alienation compound the
limited participation of linguistically non-mainstream speakers. The author
reminds us of Bourdieu’s assertion that social acceptability is not limited to
grammaticality, but related to knowledge of pragmatic norms. Therefore, it is
not appropriate to blame the victims and assume that disadvantaged speakers
are at fault for not accessing community services because they do not (yet)
speak the language. 

Chapter 7 focuses on the global ramifications of linguistic injustice. A
global language hierarchy places English in a privileged position, and
inner-circle English-speaking countries are privileged compared to
outer-circle English-speaking countries (Kachru 1985). Linguistic imperialism
and promises of economic development promote the dominance of English globally
and the linguistic assimilation of non-mainstream speakers. The intense
valuation of English language education reinforces social hierarchies between
those that have access to high quality English language learning resources and
those who do not. English is correlated with educational excellence because
many top universities are located in center-circle countries; students in
outer-circles are assumed to have low academic capabilities if they do not
speak English proficiently. English has become the main vehicle of knowledge
dissemination, but academic excellence is not guaranteed with English
proficiency. Overvaluation of English can lead to psychological issues such as
shaming, self-marginalization, and linguistic self-depreciation. 

Chapter 8 makes explicit how the linguistic privilege of native English
speakers is related to linguistic domination of other languages and speakers.
Just as racism and sexism are better understood with racial and gender
privilege, linguistically dominant speakers need education regarding their
privilege to promote empathy and ally behaviors. As nations become more
culturally and linguistically diverse, national strength may become inflated
with linguistic homogeneity.  

EVALUATION

“Linguistic diversity and social justice: An introduction to applied
sociolinguistics” meets the author’s goal of linking linguistic discrimination
with other forms of injustice and discrimination. Throughout the book, the
author includes illuminating examples and anecdotes of each concept under
discussion. Examples range from Vietnamese nail salons, the Turkish Language
Reform, sociological studies of migrant women, and how academics from
non-Western institutions play up their experiences with center-circle
institutions. The examples in each chapter are enlightening, surprising, and
heart-breaking. The reader does not need to be a sociolinguist in order to
understand the premise of this book; the book cites very few sociolinguistic
studies, in fact. Most of the reported research is related in some way to what
the field of sociolinguistics has uncovered in the last 50-60 years, namely,
that language varieties are communicatively equal, but they are not socially
equal due to perceptions and social prejudices (cf. Meyerhoff 2011 for an
introduction to sociolinguistics). The author does not include research that
has found specific phonetic variants to trigger social categorizations (e.g.
Mack & Munson 2012), or research in how social information impacts dialect
perception (e.g. Niedzielski 1999), so readers trained in sociolinguistics may
be disappointed. Nevertheless, for readers with no background in
(socio)linguistics, this text is an excellent introduction to how language is
connected to local and global power structures. 

The chapter on education (Chapter 5) does not mention recent efforts in
bringing linguistics into K-12 education, which include teaching students to
recognize the systematicity of non-mainstream language practices (e.g.,
Charity Hudley & Mallinson 2011, Godley & Loretto 2013; West Brown 2009). A
surprising omission was a discussion of ethnic identity development as it
related to language (e.g. Noels 2014); linguistic identity is relevant
considering the focus on discrimination and social injustice. Nevertheless,
the book promotes a critical examination of how language plays a role in
discrimination and prejudice, with concrete examples in each chapter. 

REFERENCES

Charity Hudley, Anne & Mallinson, Christine. 2011. Understanding English
language variation in U.S. schools. New York: Teachers College Press.

Godley, Amanda J. and Loretto, Adam. 2013. Fostering counter-narratives of
race, language, and identity in an urban English classroom. Linguistics and
Education, 24(3). 316-327. 

Kachru, Braj. 1985. Standards, codification, and sociolinguistic realism: The
English language in the outer circle. In R. Quirk & H.G. Widdowson (Eds.),
English in the world: Teaching and learning the language and literatures (pp.
11-30). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 

Mack, Sara and Munson, Benjamin. 2012. The influence of /s/ quality on ratings
of men's sexual orientation: Explicit and implicit measures of the ‘gay lisp’
stereotype. Journal of Phonetics, 40(1). 198-212.
doi:10.1016/j.wocn.2011.10.002

Meyerhoff, Miriam. 2011. Introducing sociolinguistics, 2nd ed. London and New
York: Routledge. 

Niedzielski, Nancy. 1999. The Effect of Social Information on the Perception
of Sociolinguistic Variables. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 18.
62-85. doi:10.1177/0261927X99018001005

Noels, Kimberly A. 2014. Language variation and ethnic identity: A social
psychological perspective. Language & Communication, 35. 88-96.
doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2013.12.001

West Brown, David. 2009. In other words: Lessons on grammar, code-switching,
and academic writing. Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Dr. Mary Hudgens Henderson is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Winona State
University. Her research connects the study of language variation to
educational justice by improving language attitudes and sociolinguistic
awareness in the classroom. For students who do not speak a mainstream
language variety, it is critical for teachers and peers to appreciate the
rule-governed nature of nonstandardized grammars to truly affirm linguistic
and cultural diversity. She investigates language attitudes regarding Spanish,
language contact and change, and second language acquisition. She directs the
Bilingual/Bicultural Education minor program for prospective teachers.





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