Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (Summer 2011)

“Our language has always been a part of our very souls…When we are with our own we revel in the rhythms and cadences of our connection” states Delpit. For many of us, this connection is and will always be our home, our mother’s language. For me it is my British northern roots, where I slide easily into a northern language. Delpit discusses the power of this language and how "self affirming and esteem building" it can be as we identify with those people who speak it.

However, as Delpit outlines, we all pay an emotional price for sounding different or for not using Standard English. Many societies, align a person’s intelligence to their mastery of “the queen’s English”.

I experienced this when my family moved from northern England to ‘down south’ in the UK. Like Dowdy, I too was “giggled and sniggered about”. I said words such as “book” with long, deep vowel sounds and not the clipped, softer short vowels used by my peers. It made no difference that I was a year ahead of them and I had already learned most of the curriculum they had just begun. I did not say the letter “h” correctly therefore, I was deemed less intelligent.

Suddenly, sadly the issue becomes “our concern about what others think” (Delpit).
Michelle Obama’s experience went beyond just the comparison to intellect; it was to race, ‘sounding white’ also equaled sounding more intelligent. Of course, grammar should not have anything to do with race. It is both ignorant and arrogant to think that it should. Unfortunately many people do. Those in society with money and power, what Delpit called “the white folks” tend to validate and create ‘rules’ about how they think certain groups of people should speak in order to gain social acceptance. Whilst no one dialect or language is any more grammatically correct than another (According to Dr. Gill!) those with power can make it appear so.

Delpit’s story about the brilliant computer employee and the company’s inability to look past her ‘southern’ language “to appreciate her expertise” reflects how few of us, if we are honest can truly “listen beyond” language form today. I am certainly guilty of commenting on dialects and probably questioned their intellect. The media also reinforces these stereotypical views. In every aspect of our lives we quickly become aware of how our ‘languages’ must occupy separate spaces. So we create the “mask of language” that Dowdy discusses. We must be “in two places at the same time ‘ovuh dyuh’ and here too”.

The solution to try and alter the inequality that we perceive would be to to continue to do what we strive to do as teachers: To integrate and value both our ‘language of intimacy’ and our standard public one. Delpit’s example of using the hair care products as a way to meaningfully engage student’s attentions is the type of experience we also try to ensure our students have so that they find meaning in the classroom instruction and that it is relevant to their lives and their language. Above all, they have a chance to talk about it. My classroom is very rarely silent, and discussion is a large part of our curriculum.

However, I think we will always code switch. Our language at work is far different from our language at play. I code switch to engage my students, to engage them in learning and to listen to what they have to say. I use their language and experiences to make the learning meaningful. Conversely, I incorporate ‘British’ expressions that I use everyday to develop mutual understanding of language differences not inequalities and the children of various ethnicities in my room do the same. With this balance of language we can more meaningfully explore and understand the world around us.

Karen Massey-Cerda