Ch. 5 Inquiry

Michael Stubbs’ chapter entitled “Some Basic Sociolinguistic Concepts” mostly recapitulates what we have read in previous chapters, aside from the setting of his studies in Britain. He identifies that a teacher’s evaluative word for nonstandard English “lazy” points to the character judgments that are associated with language. He even suggests that a teacher would judge intellectual capacities “on totally irrelevant information” (67). He also asserts that “the social prestige of groups of speakers, as it were, rubs off on their language,” and I find this compelling because normally one would assume that the individual’s language strengthens or weakens one’s social status (71). But, here he suggests the opposite that the language of those in positions of power becomes the privileged language. It was also interesting that he points out that while no language is inherently superior or inferior, that “some languages are functionally more highly developed” meaning they have a writing system and are used in multiple contexts. Stubbs’ commentary on language varieties is important to note because he states that “everyone is multidialectal and multistylistic” and adapt their language to match the company, situation, and subject of whatever is being spoken about. He also makes a distinction between correctness and appropriateness in regards to speaking nonstandard English. This raises a pragmatic inquiry about how was a teacher can one make a child aware that their speech is not “wrong” but merely inappropriate. How can one teach a student to make linguistic distinctions that are not a part of their dialect, even if they can comprehend those distinctions? How can a teacher who speaks what is considered SE do so without inadvertently condemning the language of the student? How can teaching SE not interfere with children’s dialects? How can we change students’ attitudes towards language differences when we are aware that the prejudice will persist?