Sociolinguistics Research Summaries Flashcards
McGroarty (1996)
Defines integrative motivation as the desire to learn language to be a part of another culture. Defines instrumental motivation as the desire to learn language to complete a goal. She mentions studies that claim that a mixture of both types will help students be successful. She also cites a study (Snow, Padilla, and Campbell, 1988) that claims that it is not the type of motivation that predicts student success, it is the intensity of motivation (p. 7-8)
McGroarty (1996 in
McKay and Hornberger)
on ATTITUDE
She reviews a case study (Lambert and Tucker, 1972) with Canadian French/English speakers in which people were asked to rate speakers of French and English (bilinguals) on Likert scales of semantic antonyms about honesty, intelligence, kindness, ect. The study found that the participants rated the speakers differently in some categories based on the language the speaker spoke, even though the participant heard the same speaker (a bilingual). This difference was attributed to language attitude. It showed that the participants “downgraded” certain language use in terms of intelligence or achievement, but rated most speakers similarly in categories like kindness and honesty. McGroarty takes this as a proof that the standard form is not “better” (p. 6-7).
Hornberger & Hult (2006)
They argue that not enough connection is made between research and pedagogy when it comes to sociolinguistics and education/educational linguistics. The field should be “transdisciplinary” (i.e. draw from anthropology, psychology, sociology, etc.) since the issue goes beyond the scope of any one field. As a result the field is becoming more transdisciplinary over time.
Leap and Mesthrie
(2000)
Teachers need to investigate differences between home and school language use as the difference can often be the source of classroom language problems. Teachers use and control language in the classroom, such as with the IRE (initiation, response, evaluation) style. They discuss the debate between additive and subtractive learning (tying in with need to support additive bilingualism in the classroom, originally discussed by Lambert, 1972), as well as restricted vs. elaborated codes. Cummins’ (1978) Interdependence Hypothesis (that L1 and L2 development are interlinked) is also mentioned.
Gumperz & Cook-
Gumperz (2005)
Argue that code switching is part of bilingual competence, an “everyday interaction” natural to bilinguals. Bilingual competence should be respected as a type of communicative competence; teachers should allow bilingual peer groups in class to allow use of this resource; bilinguals and monolinguals do not differ in what they do with language, just how they do it; code switching similar to monolinguals’ switching between register and varieties
Hymes (1972)
Linguists viewed “competence” as knowledge of a language and “performance” as encoding and decoding of a language, but Hymes against this artificial separation; children gain knowledge of appropriateness through social experience - linguists’ focus on performance neglects social aspect; old grammaticality vs. acceptability dichotomy changed to possibility/feasibility/appropriateness/performance model; Hult ties in with Canale & Swain (1980) breakdown into: Linguistic, Sociolinguistic, Discourse, and Strategic competencies
Oliver, Haig, &
Rochecouste (2005)
Many teachers are not confident about assessing oral competence; many oral proficiency exams are performance based - often “traumatic” for students; teachers need to investigate and implement better techniques for assessing oral language proficiency and the importance of oral competence needs to be appreciate more in the classroom (at equal level of reading, listening, and writing skills)
Schiffrin (1996 in McKay
& Hornberger)
“Presentation rituals” used to show others how we feel about them; Face saving techniques differ across cultures; Positive face = desire for others to want what you want, Negative face = desire to have others not interfere with your wants; Contextualization cues (originally coined by Gumperz, 1982) smooth when shared between speakers, are often unconscious, connected to background experience/knowledge, and can be source of misunderstanding when not the same between speakers from different speech communities
Chick (1996 in McKay &
Hornberger)
3 possible sources of misunderstanding:
- linguistic differences,
- Sociolinguistic transfer,
- differences in interactional styles;
- continued miscommunication between groups can have a gate-keeping effect - lead to inequality and injustice; teachers cannot teach sociolinguistic rules directly - should help students foster strategic competence to help with reflection on miscommunication and repair misunderstandings when they occur in conversation
Kachru & Nelson (1996
in McKay & Hornberger)
English is the most diffuse language throughout the world; 3 circles:
- Inner circle (native English speaking countries like Britian, US),
- Outer circle (mostly former colonies such as India, Pakistan);
- Expanding circles (countries like China where English is a prominently taught foreign language);
Most speakers of English in the world are using an interlanguage variety, so native speakers need to give up “ownership” of English and respect those interlanguages as being systematic and not deficient; English is a powerful “medium of multiculturalism”
Sridhar (1996 in McKay
& Hornberger)
concept of diglossia (Ferguson, 1959) discussed:
- high status vs. low status languages within a multicultural country,
- languages are “functionally separated”;
- “speech communities” share rules for language conduct and interpretation;
- separate domains often exist (e.g. intimate, formal, intergroup) for different languages and varieties;
- code switching and code mixing are natural and not random, functionally motivated;
- teachers need to revise their own attitudes about multilinguals’ language use in the classroom
Wiley (1996 in McKay &
Hornberger)
3 types of language planning:
- corpus planning (changes to the body of a language),
- status planning (can give official recognition, change context language is used in),
- language acquisition planning (how language is taught, therefore affects number of speakers of a language);
3 goals of language policy:
- language shift,
- language maintenance,
- language enrichment;
- political and economic goals also factor in;
- discusses recommendations for additive bilingualism (e.g. encourage L1 use in school, L1 groupings, L1 tutors, cultural artifacts around school);
- discussed Ruiz’s (1984) Orientations toward Language Planning: 1. Language as a problem, 2. Language as a right, 3. Language as a resource
Rickford (1996 in McKay
& Hornberger)
- English is not static - differences based on background, age, ethnicity;
- “Sociolinguistic markers” (originally Labov, 70’s) indicate regional and social varieties;
- “dialect areas” - where regional dialects occur, share common features;
- social varieties (e.g. AAVE) are often more stigmatized than regional varieties;
- “accent” only refers to pronunciation, not syntax
Mufwene (2001) - “The
Ecology of Language
Evolution”
- white American English vernaculars (WAEV) often not considered “creoles”, less stigmatized than AAVE;
- “language contact” influences development of varieties;
- “founder populations” and segregation influence language evolution
Nichols (1996 in McKay
& Hornberger)
- “Gullah” is an African-American creole variety,
- some white teachers needed translators until they could accommodate;
- pidgins and creoles not usually valued in schools;
- children create creoles from the pidgins of their parents, make more systematic;
- teachers need to understand linguistic backgrounds of their students in order to make curricula that are useful to them
Erickson (1996 in McKay
& Hornberger)
Ethnographic microanalysis - also known as “microethnography”, look at language use in real time, in daily situations; “micropolitics” often affect these interactions; listening influences speakers - we create environments for speakers when we listen; cultural differences can be seen as Boundary or Border: Border = politicized, expected that large gulf exists between people from different cultures, Boundary = differences not politicized, expected eventual understanding despite cultural differences; need to find “co-membership” between teacher and students when cultural differences exist - look for shared aspects of social identity, relevant commonalities
Saville-Troike (1996 in
McKay & Hornberger)
Ethnography of communication used to investigate how speakers learn the systems of shared knowledge and appropriateness that exist in a speech community - look for patterns of organization in communication; “expectations” are standards shared within the speech community; “ethonomethodology” used at smaller scale to research communication rules - without applying this research to the classroom teachers face possibility of alienating students from different backgrounds; “lingua franca” - default or “go-to” language used when no common language exists between speakers of different backgrounds
Hymes (1974)
Every society has multiple styles of speech; “ways of speaking” = relationship between speech acts, personal roles, and context; ethnography of communication can examine: speech situations (e.g. ceremonies), speech events(e.g. conversations), or speech acts (e.g. a joke told within a conversation); SPEAKING acronym used to examine different aspects investigated by an ethnography (e.g. “S” = setting & scene, “P” = participants, etc.)
Garrett & Baquedano-
Lopez (2002)
Language socialization = how we learn to use language appropriately and in the correct context *this sounds quite a bit like what is investigated in an ethnography of communication*; language socialization is not a neutral process - reflects culture in which socialization is occurring in
Heath (1982)
Studied “literacy events” in 3 communities; some communities more likely to help children make connections between text and real world or ask questions/make children predict what will happen; other communities put more emphasis on oral story telling; teachers need to help students make connections with text via the narrative style of students’ communities using their “way of talking”, help them analyze text via the same method
McKay (1996 in McKay &
Hornberger)
Literacy is a “social practice” - it is not neutral; literacy connects individual skills with social knowledge; teacher should be aware of whose literacy they are teaching and minimize culturally-weighted items in assessments; literacy is connected to power to teachers should help students become critical readers (otherwise there is a gate-keeping effect)
Freeman & McElhinny
(1996 in McKay and
Hornberger)
Language shapes our understanding of the social world, relationships, and identities; educators should try to eliminate disadvantages caused by disparate language use toward genders; “naming conventions” - male version often unmarked (e.g. chairman, mankind) but recent push away from that trend; 3 approaches to gender and language: 1. Dominance approach - women’s speech seen as inferior, women are “victims”, 2. Difference approach - women’s speech more valued (e.g. more cooperative speech styles), 3. Dual-culture approach - Men and women’s speech seen as different but both valued; schools are “socializing institutions” so teachers can help students move away from biased language and start new trends in changing conventions
Norton & Pavlenko
(2004)
Teachers cannot assume that all members of the same gender are alike; women often have less access to ESL classes (e.g. forced to stay at home); teachers can help students “imagine alternate realities” where gender is not an issue causing disadvantage in regards to language use
Moll, et al. (1992)
Teachers should investigate students “funds of knowledge” - the cultural and practical knowledge gained through everyday experience in their cultures; helps connect home and classroom practices; helps see students as “whole people” - not somehow deficient because of lack of English proficiency; funds of knowledge allows members of the community to be tapped as sources of information, fight against stereotypes
