Thinking beyond “standard language”

– Duggirala Vasanta

Much has been written in the sociolinguistic literature about what constitutes a ‘standard’ language and what a ‘dialect/vernacular’. Much has also been said regarding the processes of standardization and the conflicts around “standard versus dialect” in the West and in North America in particular. With most parts of the world gradually becoming bilingual or multilingual, some of the received notions about ‘standard’ and ‘dialect’ are currently being challenged. The focus is slowly shifting from language(s) to language-users and social contexts. I will draw my arguments in this note from existing debates on the so-called standard American English versus African American Vernacular English and the notion called translanguaging used in the context of school education in Europe. I will then conclude with brief comments about the emerging language education possibilities in Telangana.

Standard American English (SAE) versus African American Vernacular English (AAVE)

Standard language is something that is controlled by the dominant community. It is used as a medium of instruction in education. It appears in government policies and in print and electronic media. In order for a language to be recognized as an official language, it must be standardized. This is done through codification. It is only a codified variety of a language that is considered to serve comprehensive communication needs of a speech community. A language gets ‘codified’ in documents accessible to the speech community, which may be thought of as a community that has either already achieved modernization or desires to achieve it. Academic bodies are given responsibilities to formulate rules about publishing documents by setting up linguistic norms through particular agencies such as for instance, the ministry of education. Codification also takes place through free enterprise in private publishing houses and editorial boards, and through professionals who design dictionaries, grammar books, style-manuals and so on. The process of standardization considers three different aspects: (1) the structural properties of a given language, (2) the function it performs in a given society, and (3) the attitude it evokes in people. Standardization is either imposed through official recognition of a language (e.g. both French and English in Canada are official languages) or by tradition (in USA, English spoken by White people became the standard language). This process results in ‘normalization’, that is, only the officially recognized (codified) variety occupies much of the public domain, a point often missed by many linguists. It should be noted that such ‘officialization’ need not and most often does not symbolize identity for many speech communities residing in a given nation. The debate between American English (SAE) and African American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the context of the United States is one of the most commonly cited examples to illustrate the dichotomy between standard language and dialect in sociolinguistics. However, I concur with a few linguists who have argued that the motives and processes of language standardization, and the projected use of the standard variety of a given language must be examined in contexts larger than purely linguistic ones because, after all, language is the concern of different groups of language users, and not just linguists. Some debates around AAVE discussed below should help elaborate the importance of this point.

In December 1996, the Oakland school board in California issued a statement to the effect that it was going to change educational policy so that the teachers would pay more attention to the home language of many school children. It stated that teachers would be trained to appreciate the merits of the spoken language children use at home and try to bring aspects of it into classrooms. Other recommendations by this board included improving parental/community involvement, increased funding and stepping up efforts to hire teachers who also speak the home language of a majority of children. The newspapers reportedly ridiculed these recommendations… “They sneered, they frothed, they flamed, they raged, they lived off the story for weeks”, was how the media response was described by some scholars. Why did media react that way? Because, the home language the board had in mind was the African American Vernacular English (AAVE) used in Oakland, a poor city on the east side of San Francisco Bay where more than 50% of the population is African-American. Most users of Standard American English (SAE) believe that AAVE is an example of bad English, full of mistakes in grammar and pronunciation. An editorial in the New York Times referred to it as ‘Black Slang’! Many commentators were deeply ashamed of the African American speech, and also ignored the most important aspect of California school board’s statement about the need for a change in educational policy. They even ignored the evidence demonstrating that college students in Chicago who received instruction concerning contrasts between AAVE and SAE grammar showed improved writing skills in the so-called academic (standard) English. The public opinion was so hostile that by January 15, 1997, the board was forced to revise its earlier statement by dropping the reference to imparting instruction in the home language of many school children even ignoring the fact that some of their teachers also speak AAVE outside the academic context. An earlier, similar case in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1978 had succeeded in the courts but had failed in the classrooms where tests in standardized language continued to fail Black students. Recently in the year 2012, some researchers have reported that as the number of teachers of colour increased in the USA, there has been a slight shift in attitude towards AAVE in a positive direction. They made a recommendation about initiating teacher education programmes that specifically target and challenge teacher language attitudes.

William Labov, a well known sociolinguist who argued for the ‘logic of non-standard English’ in American courts as far back as early 60’s, recently, in 2010 ventured to shift the terms of the debate drastically. The relevant question according to him was not which language was standard and which a dialect or vernacular. He called attention to the fact that AAVE is not an endangered dialect…in fact it is flourishing because of residential segregation combined with increasing poverty and other features of social life in the inner cities of USA. He presented empirical evidence to argue that one can never understand or remedy the problem of (Black) children’s failure in learning to read/write unless one engages with the endangerment of AAVE users (rather than the language they speak!). Labov went on to state: “AAVE has developed its present form in the framework of the most racial segregation that the world has ever known…the progress of the civil rights movement has given large part of the Black population access to education and jobs along with means to move out of the inner cities. If we focus on residential segregation problem, we could expect AAVE to shift towards other dialects…if Philadelphia schools are integrated, maybe we will reach a time when young Black children use elements of the White Vernacular and take part in the radical sound change that will sweep over the White community”. Notice his deliberate use of ‘White Vernacular’, a rare usage in the academic discourse within linguistics. The point also to be noted is that the conflict between two different systems of linguistic values arise between linguistic minorities and majorities (not necessarily numerical), but it is the linguistic minorities who exhibit plural verbal repertoires.

The concept of translanguaging

In the UK and in Europe, linguists and educationists have theorized that in the multilingual context of the globalized world in the 21st century, there is much fuzziness of language boundaries and fluidity in language identities. Some sociolinguists have proposed a notion called translanguaging in the field of education to refer to the use of multiple languages in formal and informal domains. It is a form of flexible bilingualism where neither language is dominant. Translanguaging focuses not on language but on languaging practices. The term describes hybrid language use that is a systematic, strategic, affiliative, and sense-making process. However this translanguaging facility that many children in multilingual contexts possess is seldom valued by education systems. Translanguaging calls for new educational practices such as having dual language classrooms, mixing children with different language profiles, developing academic language use in more than one variety…practices that might contribute to children developing necessary sociolinguistic security and identity in order to achieve academic success. This would also require planning new kinds of teacher education programmes and multicultural lessons in textbooks.

Conclusion: Need for reflection on languaging in Telangana

The contexts in which SAE and AAVE are debated (institutionalized racism) might not have exact parallels in our context, but I think they might have implications for the language struggles the new state of Telangana is likely to face in the years to come in relation to (1) continued official recognition to “standard” Coastal Telugu and the sidelining of the Telangana “dialect” in social/cultural/educational contexts, and (2) starting English medium education in primary schools.

Across India “standard English”/“Standard Telugu” (or some such)/“Standard Hindi” etc. have always played a hegemonic role in classrooms, print and electronic media, and official government communication channels. However, offering quality education to our children need not be seen as teaching them to read and write only the so-called “standard” variety of one or two languages. Quality education should involve innovative practices such as new lessons in textbooks and designing different kind of language test items – practices in which there should be some scope for mixing different varieties of a given language. However, currently, we know very little about the linguistic resources available to members of different communities for use in socially significant interactions in the multilingual context of India. Research should bring out the translinguistic markers that surface in discourses involving two or more languages. One example of a translinguistic marker is that of a Hindi-English bilingual speaker using paDhna to mean ‘to study,’ and study-karna to mean ‘to conduct research’. Such markers tend to occur in the coming together of languages with different status. This also happens in translations involving English and Indian languages. Translinguistic markers play a role in indicating speaker’s/writer’s identities – whether claimed and emblematic (accepted with pride) or stigmatized. The social meaning of translinguistic markers depend on the context of language practice, and are constantly negotiated and defined. Systematic studies into identification of translinguistic usages in relation to our languages could be one starting point to rewriting textbooks in the new state of Telangana.

Editors Note: The Telangana government has appointed a committee to look into text book production. Members include Sangisetti Srinivas, Nalimela Bhaskar and others who have been saying Telangana Telugu should be used in text books. Small news items have appeared regarding this in Telugu media. This is a step that will counter the sidelining of Telangana language in the textbooks in the new state.

D. Vasanta teaches linguistics at OU.