Attitudinal Judgments of Dialect Traits and Colorism in African Americans

This study demonstrates how language and complexion influence professional and social perceptions of African Americans. This study contains an online verbal-guise survey where participants either saw a photo of a lighter skin-toned African-American male and female or an electronically darkened version. Audio was attached to each photo, which contains traits of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the case of the male and Standard American English for the female. The results suggest African-American females are more likely to experience colorism in professional traits while African-American males are more likely to experience colorism in social traits. Additionally, the respondent’s race influences perceptions of AAVE.

A Comparative Phonological Analysis of Guyanese Creole and Standard American English: A Guide for Speech-Language Pathologists

Purpose Speech-language pathologists (SLPs) are responsible for differentially diagnosing a speech or language difference versus disorder. However, in the absence of data on particular cultural or linguistic groups, misdiagnosis increases. This study seeks to bridge the gap in available resources for SLPs focusing on the phonological features of Guyanese Creole (GC), a Caribbean English–lexified Creole. This study addresses the following question: What are the differences between the phonological features of GC and Standard American English (SAE), which may potentially cause SLPs to misdiagnose Guyanese speakers? Method A contrastive phonological analysis was conducted to identify the phonological differences of GC from SAE. Results The study results indicate differences in vowels, dental fricatives, voiced alveolar liquids, voiceless glottal fricatives, voiced palatal glides, consonant clusters, final consonants, and unstressed syllables. Conclusions The findings of this study support the literature that GC is distinct from SAE in its phonology. The results provide SLPs with data to make informed clinical and educational decisions when assessing the linguistic competencies of children from Caribbean backgrounds, specifically GC speakers.

The Difference between Standard American English Pronunciation and the Interlanguage of English Department Students of the Class of 2015 at Andalas University

This study discusses (1) the differences between the students’ interlanguage and standard American English pronunciation, and (2) the patterns of phonetic shift from the Standard American English into the students’ Interlanguage Pronunciation. The participants of this research were English Department students, the year of 2015, at Andalas University and were selected by using stratified random sampling with academic achievement as the criteria in choosing the sample. The data were collected by using picture description task and analyzed by using Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH) by Eckman (1977) where the markedness relation among the sounds were found by using Markedness Hierarchy by Lombardi (1995, 1998). The result of the analysis showed that the most frequent errors that the participants made were the pronunciation of [ð], [θ], and [v] where the participants replaced [ð] with [d],[θ] with [t], and [v] with [f]. The difficulties of the participants were mostly in line with Eckman’s MDH.

Learning English Rhetoric and Composition as A Vietnamese Student

This study centers around Vietnamese students, with a comparison with East and Southeast Asian students who share the same cultural idea, at higher education level who want to acquire better writing skills in English in and out of academic settings. Since English is not the students' first language, they normally craft an essay from the vocabulary that they know. This is understandable, but a good piece of writing in standard American English is not supposed to be traced word by word. Understanding this fact in-depth and practicing it regularly is the core requirement for English major students. In return, they can join any workplace with their strong writing skills that they have to acquire during their undergraduate years, or more if they attend graduate schools. This group of students is known to be timid since they were raised in a collectivistic community in which many of them make their higher education choices based on firstly the current trend, then what is suitable for them. Thus, by making a bolder choice of declaring English as a major, double major, or minor, they could have better insight into English rhetoric and composition to apply them as a multi-meaning sign to their writings properly.

The Rise and Fall of the Northern Cities Shift

Recent acoustic analyses examining English in the North American great lakes region show that the area’s characteristic vowel chain shift, the Northern Cities Shift (NCS), is waning. Attitudinal analyses suggest that the NCS has lost prestige in some NCS cities, such that it is no longer regarded as ‘standard American English’. Socio-cultural and temporal accounts of capital loss and dialect decline remain unexplored, however. This paper examines F1, F2, and diphthongal quality of TRAP produced by 36 White speakers (18 women) in one NCS city—Lansing, Michigan—over the course of the 20th century. I show that TRAP realization is conditioned by gender and birth year, such that women led the change towards NCS realizations into the middle of the 20th century and then away from them thereafter. I discuss these findings against the backdrop of deindustrialization during this time of linguistic reorganization in Lansing. I show that as the regional industry—(auto) manufacturing—loses prestige, so does the regional variant—raised TRAP. This paper adds to our understanding of North American dialectology the importance of deindustrialization and the Baby Boomers to Generation Xer generational transition to our discussion of regional dialect maintenance.

Texts, white lies and a videotape: white teachers teaching African American literature

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to share my personal memories and emotions of my experience as an African American, a Woman of Color, teacher-peer, teacher-researcher, student and a colonized standard American English speaker, situated in English classrooms as white teachers teach African American literature from a white gaze. I concur with previous researchers on this topic, but from a fresh perspective that traditional educational spaces support racial-socio and linguistic hierarchies by avoiding authentic racial, social and cultural ways of knowing, thus allowing reproduction and perpetuating academic and social inequities targeted toward multilingual learners. Furthermore, I suggest that teachers must acquaint themselves with communities of color to become affective and effective to specifically facilitate multilingual classrooms. Design/methodology/approach This is an autoethnographic inquiry. It examines instances of culturally inexperienced white teachers teaching African American literature to middle school and high school multilingual learners. In adjacent, I share my personal memories and emotions of my experience as an African American, a woman of color, teacher-peer, teacher-researcher, student and a colonized standard American English speaker, situated in English classrooms as white teachers teach African American literature from a white gaze. Findings Undoubtedly, the white gaze influences marginalized persons. It does not merely attack who we be. It counter forms (e.g. influences) the views and ideas of the world around us. Gonzales (2015), shares in her autoethnography how educational practices are unjustly resistant to diversity. The racial-socio hierarchy uses every means necessary to deprive ethnicity (language, practices and beliefs). I did not verbally resist discrimination. Subsequently, some people of color may be guilty of having a slave gaze. I am very cautious and reluctant to use the term slave gaze. Nevertheless, I describe this as the opposite of having a white gaze. Slave gaze is someone who is colonized, dominated, submissive and feels unequal to whites and describes persons of color who have been conditioned to believe that whites are privileged and there is not much that we can do about it. I think this one way that Gonzales’ (2015); definition of double colonization can be extended, the racial-socio hierarchy in education forces marginalized persons to “redefine their identities within the dictates of yet another racial ideology” (p. 50). Undoubtedly, in re-identifying self-inflicts a counter-response to developing a substandard identity. Yet, I am certainly not the only person of color that is wary of challenging whiteness. Dismantling the master’s house will take more time. As white supremacist’s perceptions are embedded deep in the heart of education. Banishing false linguistic, cultural and racial ideologies equate to a mere few bricks of the master’s house. However, with non-traditional methods (e.g. getting to know the community in which the students live), renewed hearts and minds educators (together as a human race) can deconstruct and rebuild an education system fit for all learners. Originality/value This piece is an autoethnography of my experiences as a teacher teaching in multilingual classrooms. These are my original experiences and opinions.

Representations of the English as a Lingua Franca Framework: Identifying ELF-aware Activities in Portuguese and Turkish Coursebooks

The international role of English has made it the most taught foreign language in the world. As a result, standard native varieties have thrived as models within the field of English language teaching, particularly Standard British English and Standard American English, and alongside, the cultures associated with them. Although the majority of English language learners are part of Kachru’s Expanding Circle, teaching materials have continued to focus on native speaker models, neglecting many of the times other examples of successful communication among non-native speakers. Bearing this in mind, it is critical that teaching materials take on a more ELF-aware perspective, where intercultural communicative competence and intercultural awareness are fomented. In view of this, a comparative analysis was conducted between coursebooks in Portugal and Turkey. A locally published (LP) and an internationally published (IP) coursebook of the first year of secondary education from each country was analyzed. The aim of this analysis was twofold: to identify the similarities and differences between (1) Portuguese and Turkish EFL coursebooks and (2) LP and IP coursebooks in Portugal and Turkey, as far as an ELF-aware approach is concerned. After comparing the coursebooks and verifying that much can still be done for a more ELF-aware pedagogy, various implications are put forth for the sake of a more critical approach towards materials development.

Talking “like a race”: Gender, authority, and articulate speech in African American students’ marking speech acts

This study examines how 9- to 13-year old African American students in a Washington, D.C. after-school program use an African American discourse practice called marking to voice adults performing acts of discipline. Using audio-recorded data collected during nine months of ethnographic fieldwork, it shows how students used marking to resemiotize the prestige value of African American Language (AAL) relative to so-called “standard” American English, which is imagined in relation to whiteness as an objectively correct set of linguistic practices. As part of an intersectional raciolinguistic perspective, this study foregrounds how students recruit gender stereotypes to challenge hegemonic ideas about racial and linguistic difference. It also attends to the contradictory nature of everyday acts of resistance: while students transformed hegemonic raciolinguistic ideologies of “articulate” and “appropriate” language in the after school space, they relied on racial and gender stereotypes in order to do so.