English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the United States

Front Cover
English with an Accent
Copyright Page
Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Preface
Acknowledgements
Introduction: language ideology or science fiction?
1. The linguistic facts of life
	All spoken language changes
	All spoken languages are equal in linguistic terms
	Grammaticality does not equal communicative effectiveness
	Written language and spoken language are historically, structurally, and functionally fundamentally different creatures
	Variation is intrinsic to all spoken language at every level
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
2. Language in motion
	Changes in progress
	r-less in Manhattan
	The Northern Cities Chain Shift (NCCS)
	Lexical variation
	Variation in verb morphology: strong and weak verbs
	Structured variation: the hidden life of language
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
3. The myth of non-accent
	You’ve got one too
	Perspective
	The Sound House
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
4. The standard language myth
	Standard (American) English
	Words about words
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
5. Language subordination
	A model of the language subordination process
	Rejecting the gift: the individual’s role in the communicative process
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
6. The educational system: fixing the message in stone
	The setting of goals
	Appropriacy arguments
	The results of appropriacy argumentation
	Good enough English
	Teacher talk
	Summary
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
7. Teaching children how to discriminate: (what we learn from the Big Bad Wolf)
	Storytellers, Inc.
	The ubiquitous mouse
	The wolf’s backstory
	Talking the talk
	Time and place
	Disney feature films
	Original study methodology
	Getting the hang of Technicolor
	Lovers and mothers
	In short
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
8. The information industry
	The voice of authority
	Opinion, spin, propaganda
	Bad is stronger than good
	The 2008 presidential election
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
9. Real people with a real language: the workplace and the judicial system
	The nutshell
	The Civil Rights Act
	The legal process
	Discrimination in the workplace
	Selected court cases
	Appendix: the U.S. civil court structure
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
10. The real trouble with Black language
	Grammar: resistance is futile
	Style, authenticity, and race
	Defying the definition
	Anglo attitudes toward AAVE
	African American attitudes toward AAVE
	Where we at
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
11. Hillbillies, hicks, and Southern belles: the language rebels
	Defining the South
	The Southern Trough
	Sounds like home to me
	The map in the mind
	Hostility with a smile
	The seduction of accent reduction
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
12. Defying paradise: Hawai’i
	Hawai’ians talk
	Hawai’ians at school
	Talk story: “Without Pidgin, I would cease to be whole”
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
13. The other in the mirror
	The price of admission
	Who has a foreign accent?
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
14. ¡Ya basta!
	Counting in Spanish
	Diversity over space
	The Spanish universe
	The changing colors of Mexico
	We’re not going anywhere: performing race
	The everyday language of white racism
	A sampling of discriminatory language-focused practices against Latinos/as
	The most vulnerable
	The workplace
	Education in the Southwest
	Hypothetically speaking
	Summary
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
15. The unassimilable races: what it means to be Asian
	Institutionalized aggression
	Half the world
	Stereotypes
	Mockery
	The transmission and rationalization of racism
	I’m sorry, I just refuse to apologize
	In the classroom
	False speakers of language
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
16. Case study 1: moral panic in Oakland
	How to build a moral panic
	Portrait of a folk devil
	African American English in context
	The setting
	The triggering event
	The panic cycle in Oakland
	Postscript: institutionalized mockery
	Speaking up
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
17. Case study 2: linguistic profiling and fair housing
	Tyranny of the Californian majority
	Heard but not seen
	I had you at hello
	A human failing
	Housing discrimination toward Muslims
	Summary
	Discussion questions and exercises
	Notes
	Suggested further reading
18. Conclusion: civil (dis)obedience and the shadow of language
Shortened bibliography
Index