Use Your Words: Talking About Language Diversity

January 2017

Global Cultural and Linguistic Diversity Demographics

from Rick Noack and Lazaro Gamio. The Worlds Languages in 7 Maps and
Charts. Washington Post. 23 April 2015

National Trends and Demographics

Between 2000-2010, Hispanic population in the United States grew 43% and Asian
population grew 43%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Both groups accounted for
more than half of the entire growth in the U.S. population or 16% of the 2010 total
population of 308.7 million (Edberg 185).

Of the 100 million Americans added to the population between 1967-early 2000s, 53%
were recent immigrants or their descendants (Edberg 185).

The number of international students studying at U.S. colleges and universities jumped
last [academic] year. It's up 10 percent, to roughly 975,000, according to a
new report by the Institute of International Education and backed by the State
Department.

Currents in U.S. Higher Education Pedagogy and Scholarship

Growing numbers of U.S. teachers and scholars of writing recognize that traditional
ways of understanding and responding to language differences are inadequate to the
facts on the ground. Language use in our classrooms, our communities, the nation, and
the world has always been multilingual rather than monolingual. Around the globe, most
people speak more than one language. Indeed, they speak more than one variation of

these languages. In addition, these languages and variations are constantly changing as
they intermingle. The growing majority of English speakers worldwide, including
substantial numbers within the United States, know other languages, and, through
interaction, the Englishes they use vary and multiply. (Horner et al. 2011)
Does this mean the reason aren't any standards? If by "standards" is meant a
desire for quality writing, then no: readers expect, even demand, that writers try to do
their best to communicate to their readers, just as writers expect, and sometimes
demand, that readers work hard to make the best, most generous sense they can of
writers' texts. It does mean that we need to recognize the historicity and variability of
standards, which change over time, vary across genres, disciplines, and cultures, and
are always subject to negotiation (and hence, change). We can and should teach
standards, but precisely as historical, variable, and negotiable. This will help to demystify
(and lessen confusion among students about) what these standards are, and will make
students feel a greater sense of responsibility, as writers, for the writing practices they
engage in (311).
Don't students first need to learn the basics of writing in one language before
taking on the challenges of writing in another language? No. The problem here
resides in assumptions about the basics and fluency. Scholars of basic writing have long
since exploded the notion that adult writing students improve their writing by first
attempting to master the so-called mechanics of writing before working on what are
deemed to be higher-order features of writing. Instead, like all writers, student writers'
command of various features of writing fluctuates: they may have more difficulty with
issues addressed through copyediting as they attempt to write in different genres or
about new topics or to unfamiliar audiences. Likewise, language users' spoken fluency
with a particular languageeven their "home" languagewill fluctuate in relation to the
genre and topic and circumstances of the speech situation.
Rather than put off translingual work, students can investigate, in order to make more
conscious use of, differences in all features of written language, including syntax,
punctuation, formatting, media, organization, and genre, addressing these in terms of
their interrelations. They will gain fluency in working across language differences in all
these areas, instead of attempting to achieve a chimerical fluency in one language alone
(312).
READ MORE:
http://ir.library.louisville.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1065&context=faculty
This statement provides the resolution on language, affirming students' right to their
own patterns and varieties of language -- the dialects of their nurture or whatever
dialects in which they find their own identity and style that was first adopted in
1974. The statement also includes as explanation of research on dialects and usage
that supports the resolution, and a bibliography that gives sources of some of the ideas
presented in the background statement; besides offering those interested in the subject
of language some suggested references for further reading. The publication of this
controversial statement climaxed two years of work, by dedicated members of CCCC,
toward a position statement on a major problem confronting teachers of composition and

communication: how to respond to the variety in their students' dialects (NCTE/CCCC

Students Right to Their Own Language 1974; 2003).
READ MORE:
http://www.ncte.org/cccc/resources/positions/srtolsummary
http://www.ncte.org/positions/statements/affirmingstudents

Current Popular Media on English Language Diversity

Does it make reading easier and faster if people roughly agree on some writing
conventions, rather than everyone picking their own spelling and punctuation
haphazardly? Sure. (Although the haphazard method was basically what happened in
the Middle Ages, and people didn't seem to mind. It's much easier to learn, for one
thing.) And can we still value concise and well-organized speech or writing? Yup. But
from a formal perspective, anything that a speaker says intentionally is part of a
complex, rule-governed mental system, and they're all equally worthy of interest and
respect. So once were at a point where were all understanding each other, especially in
spoken language, how do we form the opinion that isn't is better than ain't, or that ask is
better than aks, or that hyperbolic literally is so much worse than the barely-evenhyperbolic-anymore really or truly? Why does Henry Higgins teach Eliza Doolittle to
speak like a posh lady, instead of her teaching him to speak like a Cockney flowerseller?
What we think of as "good" English is the English historically spoken by people with the
most power. The bumper crop of grammar texts and usage guides that started
proliferating in the mid-18th century were part of an attempt by the growing middle class
to access economic opportunities that were only available to people who spoke like
Henry Higgins. At first, these were primarily a guide to speaking like the upper classes,
although, over the years, various arbitrary preferences have found their way in and
became crystallized as dogma, so much so that, to quote the linguist Stan Carey, "the
aim of these non-rules is to maintain anachronistic shibboleths that allow an in-group to
congratulate itself on knowing them (McCulloch Why Do You Think Youre Right About
Language? Youre Not. Slate. 2014).
READ MORE:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/lexicon_valley/2014/05/30/arguing_over_language_everyone
_has_an_idiolect_standard_english_prescriptivism.html