Blog Pos 13 April 24

I agree with the Matsuda article in the sense that “English has become a dominant language around the world.” English has become a lingua franca through the years and can be known as World English. The context of the use of English can have a large effect on how it is used, whether it’s for reading, writing or speaking. “The use of English among shopkeepers at the market in Singapore is quite different from how Singaporean scientists use English at an international conference in Berlin. The sociolinguistic context of an urban metropolis like Tokyo is unlike the situation in farming communities in Hokkaido, where the number of English users may be small or nonexistent.” Giving students the right information about English can help them make informed decisions. As students learn English as a second language they might not know that you can’t speak in the same way to your teachers as you do when you are casually around your peers. In classrooms, language feedback is a must for native and non-native speakers. Non-native speakers may need more guidance in the classroom, but as a teacher, you have to understand that it will take extra effort in order for them to continue to succeed. What are some methods that can be used in the classroom to provide constructive feedback for native and/or non-native learners? Should the same feedback be used for both or do they need to be different?

The Kubota McKay article did a good job introducing he topic by having an excerpt of someone speaking English in front of people in Tokyo. The thing that stood out the most was when it said (Big Applause) after she was finished. I don’t know if this is completely true, but I feel like it is a big deal to be able to speak a different language that is not your native language, whether you live in the United States or not. It is so strange to me to see the words “foreign language” describing English because it is my language. It is what I have been passionate about for four years of my college career and it doesn’t seem foreign to me at all. To read that three quarters of the world population do not speak English astounds me. I really thought that English was used as a lingua franca. For my cultural report for this class, I interviewed a friend from Russia whose parents don’t speak English. Her dad has told her that the day he speaks English is the day that everyone starts speaking Russian. Let’s be real, we all know that is not going to happen. But people who are native speakers of English are at fault as well. They won’t learn our language and we don’t want to learn theirs. Why does everyone have to learn English? It is obviously an important language to me because I plan on teaching it for the rest of my life but others don’t seem to think learning a new language is important. I am learning Spanish for the sole reason that I know that not everyone knows or wants to know the English language. I have heard friends tell me that people need to learn English if they are going to live here in the United States. Although I agree with them, there is a part of me that is wondering if they don’t have access to learning it or they really just don’t want to learn the language everyone else speaks.

Blog Post 12 April 17

A quote that grabbed my eye from the Lippie-Green readings is, “Nevertheless, it is useful to consider standard language and non-accent both as abstractions and as myths.” I had to read this and the paragraph to follow it. I understood standard language as one language that people speak so they can all understand each other. I am now learning that “standard language need not be understood as any specific language, but as "an idea in the mind rather than a reality - a set of abstract norms to which· actual usage may conform to a greater or lesser extent"! (1991: 22-23).2 We can extrapolate from this position to call non-accent not any particular variety of US English, but a collectively held ideal, which brings with it a series of social and regional associations.” But if standard language is a myth then why is the term still used? Why is standard language a myth? Myths motivate people to think a certain way. When I think of myths I think of ghosts, aliens and Bigfoot. I never thought that concept in the English language could be a myth.

The first thing I think about when I hear the term “accent” is a southern drawl. Being raised in Illinois, I am used to a fast paced atmosphere with fast talking people. Accent just distinguishes different parts of the country but when someone speaks so slowly I just want to say “Out with it already!” because I either want to be done with the conversation or move onto the next topic. Mostly geography is used when we think about accents (Boston accent, New York accent, Texan accent). I liked how they point out that gender, age, religion, income, race and ethnicity are also characteristics that affect someone’s speech. Going off of gender, I even think that your sexuality has to deal with the way you speak, pronounce words and what vocabulary you use. For example, a homosexual male/female may not say the same things or use the same words or slang as a heterosexual male/female. An L1 accent is just structure variation within the language, but an L2 accent depends upon that person’s L1 speak. For example, the L1 speaker speaking an L2 language uses what they have learned from their native language to speak the target language. “Thus far it has been set forth that all spoken human language is necessarily and functionally variable; one of the functions of variation is to convey social, stylistic, and geographic meaning; the majority of the work of variation is carried out below the level of consciousness.” I can say that using your accent from L1 is true when you are speaking an L2 because I know that I do it when I speak Spanish. I know that from taking Spanish classes my native speaking classmates seem to skip over words, but they are just talking so fast because they are used to doing that. I, however, have trouble with pronunciation because I still don’t know all of the words there are in Spanish and I don’t think I ever will. Is it a possibility that people can really gain an authentic accent or even lose one completely?

Blog Post 11 April 10

It is interesting that language ideology and policies are what keep the English language in order. Well, kind of. This doesn’t amount for the slang that is used, especially with native English speakers who are constantly making up words to describe things. For example, people use the word “flame” to describe something that is awesome; it has nothing to do with fire. “Language policy itself is comprised not only of ‘the explicit, written, overt, de jure, official and ‘top-down’ decision-making about language, but also the implicit, unwritten, covert, de facto, grass-roots and unofficial ideas and assumptions’ about language in a particular culture (Schiffman 2006:11), or linguistic culture.” I like the part in this quote where it talks about the unwritten ideas or rules that the language policy has. There are so many unwritten rules that I feel like English Language Learners would not know about when first coming into learning the language. There are so many exceptions to the rule when learning English and this can confuse those when they are learning a secondary language. As I am writing this I am thinking to myself “What really are the exceptions to the rule?” So I used Google to search some. I did not realize until looking at sites, especially one titled “10 Reasons Why English Is a Hard Language”, how many different rules there are because English is my native language. For example, they were stating the phrases “a cute little puppy” and “a little cute puppy” means the same thing, but English speakers are more likely to use the first phrase because the second one just doesn’t sound right.

I think that monolingualism and language standardization could have the ability to destroy the difference through language and culture throughout the world. I am wondering what would happen if everyone spoke the same language. I know personally that my mom has been pushing me to “find some guy to marry that has an accent, preferably Australian or English” so that she can listen to him talk because she thinks these people speak is beautiful. But mono means one, and put that together with linguialism and that means just one universal language. Would this mean that all other languages would be completely lost along with the culture? Would pasta still be known as Italian food and would they still take siestas in Spain if we all had the same language? Culture and language are tied into together as one. “Ideal language was autonomous, stripped of indexical connections to ‘social locations and situated interests’ (Bauman and Briggs 2003:300), and thus contributed to universal rationality and social order.” I think having a monolinguistic language is an awful idea and would strip countries from their culture. I feel like each culture has worked hard to make them what they are today and changing languages would not be realistic. I think the “English Only” debate wasn’t up to par. When adding a language or subtracting a language from an individual, this can affect them personally through their identity, whether it is cultural, social or otherwise. It may seem easier for the United States to make one language in order to make people feel more comfortable around each other but not everyone speak English and I know there are some people who are too stubborn to learn English in the first place.

Blog Post 10 April 3

Something that was interesting about the chapters was the comparison from the English in the United States to the English in England. It is very interesting because a lot of the slang used in America is not used in Britain. Americans might not be able to understand what British people are trying to say because what they say may be used in a different context. After my best friends studied abroad in England, they had their British friends come visit Illinois State University for a week and show them American life. They had never even heard of a turkey sandwich before which I had made with bread, mayonnaise, turkey, lettuce and pickles. They were fascinated by this combination that they had never thought of. They could barely pronounce the ingredients. When we had first met, it was hard to understand their accent and I had to carefully listen to make sure I comprehended what they were saying. Of course, when I am speaking I do not think that I have an accent because I am from the Midwest, but they still say that I have the typical Chicagoan accent.

It said that the British policies were different than in the United States, mainstreaming immigrants immediately and not separating by ability. It argued that the withdrawal classes “establish and confirm social and racial barriers between groups” (32). If students are segregated or separated by ability, students would be able to see which group they belonged to and this might make them discouraged as to where they are placed. It is interesting to see how two different countries who speak the same language go about things so different in the classroom. Of course the ideas of student motivation and teacher competence are both important factors that were also addressed in this section. The idea is that if the students are not separated by ability then the students will lack behind because they are not being adequately taught by their teachers and are not learning the correct rules for the English language. If students can see they are put in the “dumb” section in the classroom or have a room of just lower learners, they might be less likely to want to put forth effort because they feel like their answers will be rejected by their teacher and/or peers. To conclude, if students were to be segregated then that would highlight the differences between the students and may cause more problems among the groups of students.

Blog Post 9 March 27

Chapter One in Interaction English in Its Sociolinguistic Contexts is about the globalization of English. English is spread throughout the world and has become somewhat of a universal language. English is a lingua franca, a language that ties people together who may not speak the same first language. Language and culture are directly correlated and when a language is lost, culture is lost as well. This makes me think about the Latin language and how it is a “lost language” and is no longer spoken. The author brings up the idea that many Asian countries (Korea, Japan, China, etc.) teach English to the students when they are young. After interviewing someone for our cultural project where Russian was her first language, she told me she is happy that she learned English when she was growing up because her father doesn’t know English and she says that he won’t even learn because he is too old. Her father now lives in the United States but wants to live in Ukraine. He barely knows the basics of the English language and doesn’t want to learn them because it would take too long. Some people like Rafaella (the girl I interviewed), put the English language in a positive light, while others (like her father) put it in a negative light because they believe their first language is better than English. According to the text, every time a culture was spread from one area to another, it was called globalized, even if the culture disappeared from its origin.

The majority of Americans think that immigrants are stealing jobs that are rightfully theirs. The economy is so awful right now so even Americans are having a tough time getting jobs. We live in a greedy country where people want money they deserve and don’t want to work at a job that pays minimum wage, which may be why so many jobs are given to immigrants. A quote from the reading, “globalization can be seen as the cause of a loss of cultural and linguistic diversity” is important because we don’t want to lose culture and language. In many countries, especially the United States, being bilingual is a major plus. I know that my mother is a nurse in Oak Lawn, IL and she gets many patients who speak different languages like Polish, Spanish, Italian and many others. She does know some medical terms in Spanish but she said it can be hard when all the family members speak one language that is not English and she can’t understand what they need. The United States seems to welcome some foreign things, like music and food, but the actual immigrants don’t seem to be accepted here because they either don’t want to learn English or they don’t have the ability to. The United States seems to still be called “The Melting Pot”, but is it really? Are we really accepting all cultures?