Lippi-Green part 2

1
Lippi-Green part 2
2
Five Educational/Language Court Cases

• Sparks vs. Griffin (1972)
• Griffin has bad grammar
• I disagree with Lippi-Greens argument in
  chapters 9 and 10 regarding what she calls
  subordination tactics on the part of northern
  whites to force blacks and southern whites to
  assimilate culturally and linguistically. I think
  her diction is biased and dated. She quotes court
  cases from the 1970s when negro was common
  terminology (Jama)
• Edwards vs. Gladewater School Dist. (1978)
• Mandhare (1985)
• Court skirted issue of languagefocused on other
  technicality
• Hou (1993)
• Higher education
• issue of intelligibility
• Michigan Case (1979)
• Video of principal participants

3
More Lippi-Green Bias? (133-152)

• Media perpetuates ideas of need for homogenous
  society
• mega-malls
• Media uses propaganda
• Language is part of the propaganda campaign
• NBC report p. 135 (again in 2007)
• media coverage of English Only
• keepers of the language appeal to their own
  authority
• BBC good English (tape of film industry)
• Stand. Lang. Ideology seeks to not eliminate all
  dialects languages, but socially unacceptable
  ones
• hypercorrection (Whom, I, intrusive r)
• Before the trial, one might gather that the
  majority of American citizens had never come in
  contact with evolutionary theory. After the
  trial, many of those people were thinking about
  their own beliefs, about science, and about the
  nature of authority and its relationship to
  knowledge (169). (Naomi)

4
Language vs. Dialect Issue

• Ebonics decision in 1998 in Oakland
• Original resolution
• Tie to bilingual education
• Bilingual education debate
• Latinos and English Only
• Newt Gingrich Comment

5
Court issues and business

• Cant fire due to aesthetic judgments
• Appalachia traceable to England and therefore
  protected (national origin discrimination)? p.
  154
• Burden falls on complainant (disenfranchised and
  the unassimilated p. 157)
• Court accepts argument that accent hurts business
• opposite case in India
• Court wont accept opinion of linguists because
  this challenges deep held convictions about
  language (p. 170)

6
Black English

• Briefly because well come back
• Whites note phonology and grammar
• Blacks not just grammar
• Strong quotes p. 183, 186
• Christopher Darden
• I disagree that "the day-to-day pressure to give
  up the home language is something that most
  non-AAVE speakers cannot imagine."  Lippi-Green
  contradicts her own point by noting that there
  are numerous marginalized groups that are
  confronted with the same pressure. (Anna)
• If the destiny of the two language populations is
  indeed intertwined but even people within the
  African-American community are conflicted (like
  Oprah) about the use of AAVE, how are all of us
  to approach the use of AAVE outside of the
  African-American community?  (Laura)
• We all discussed the Clinton incident in AL and
  how they reacted and took offense to it, but how
  is this different from Oprah switching back and
  forth?  Do we say that Oprah is ok with doing it
  because she is just going back to her roots, or
  should the Standard English speakers take
  offense because she is trying to relate to them
  by using their dialect or language? (Kevin)

7
Southern Dialect

• earthy, family values, spiritual
• hick, phony, superstitious
• diagram on page 207 cant say who speaks this
  dialect, but the perception of those who do
• popular culture Andy Griffith, Charles Kuralt
• Kennesaw is mentioned!!
• accent reduction classes
• South and their feelings of guilt
• North says any wisdom in sound is homegrown and
  not due to education
• In real-life terms we see what instinctually and
  objectively we know to be true there is a great
  deal of diversity in the south (Angela)

8
Conclusions

• Cant change system (though we should try) so at
  least draw attention to this form of
  discrimination
• threats of not using MUSE are real
• promises of using MUSE are illusory
• New issue Internet and hypens

9
Agreements

• Unless someone can actually evaluate the employee
  in their setting, how are they to judge if in
  fact they are not fulfilling the requirements?
  (Ashley)
• A realistic goal must be a much smaller one to
  make people aware of the pocess of language
  subordination. To draw their attention to the
  misinformation, to expose false reasoning and
  empty promises to hard questions (Joel)
• On the 16th June 1976, South African police
  opened fire on school children, killing a few and
  sending South Africa into a cycle of violence and
  conflict. The school children were resisting
  being forced to speak and learn in Afrikaans--the
  language of Apartheid. The language policy by the
  Apartheid government had been the final straw for
  the subordination of Africans. (Tania)
• The reasoning seems to be that the logical
  conclusion to a successful civil rights movement
  is the end of racism, not because we have come to
  accept difference, but because we have eliminated
  difference (Sherie)

10
Your disagreements

• Our goal in teaching Standard English to all of
  our students, other than being one of our
  occupational responsibilities, is to provide our
  students with the tools necessary for success in
  todays society. (Ashley)
• I think she has been 'argueing' that every
  variety of English should be accepted on an equal
  footing, with no standards applied to any variety
  because the 'rules' and 'forms' are innate and do
  not interfere with one's ability to clearly
  communicate. I think Secondly, most of the
  examples she discusses at length deal primarily
  with the issue of accent, which, to my way of
  thinking, is a totally different issue than
  grammatical standards.  While grammatical rules
  and forms can be learned and applied in every
  situation, I do not think an individual can
  totally change their native accent or brogue
• she's flipped out in promoting this premise
• Lippi-Green seems to flip her entire premise and
  state that she is not opposed to English
  standards and preferences (Dixie)
• The constant public debate on good English, on
  one right English, is as fruitless an exercise as
  the hypothetical congressional debate on the
  ideal height and weight for all adults (Joel)
• Not a Lippi-Green quote, but . . . I told them
  there was one word that will mark them as
  uneducated (179). (Naomi)

11
More disagreements

• The entire book had me conflicted. She had me
  struggling against my own "elitist" view of
  language and intelligence which was perhaps her
  main goal--to make us think and rethink our own
  positions on language and who we are as speakers
  of our own language. However, I still find
  myself leaning towards my perceptions of
  intelligent sounding language. I think to Winston
  Churchill, Marguerite Poland (a South African
  author whose eloquence in speaking was
  captivating), and the presidential candidates
  now--their ability to manipulate and deliver
  language had and has the power to move audiences.
  Can they do it in AAVE or  in a strong Southern
  accent? (Tania)