Challenges of Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies in the ...

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Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies

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Challenges of Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies in the High School English Classroom

Mike Metz University of Missouri

Teachers in classrooms with linguistically diverse students face the difficult challenge of honoring students’ home languages and dialects while also helping students acquire Standardized English. This charge is particularly challenging because English classrooms have historically been sites where Standardized English is held up as the one correct version of English while all other forms of English are viewed as deviant, deficient, errors. This study explores the teaching and talk about language of five high school English teachers attempting to promote a critical understanding of language variation during a literature unit. Data from interviews and classroom observations illustrate how teachers grappled with dominant language ideologies during moments of teaching and talk about language. Despite their stated goals, all the teachers but one reinforced dominant language ideologies by drawing on the available discourses of the Standardized English master narrative that pervades English classrooms and society at large. Through careful attention to her speech, one teacher managed to craft a consistent counter-narrative that worked to highlight existing language hierarchies. Findings highlight teaching situations where language ideologies are particularly salient and demonstrate how different approaches to talk about language in those situations communicate different language ideologies. Implications for supporting teachers’ critical language teaching, including major ideological shifts toward thinking about language as a social process, are considered.

Teachers in culturally and linguistically complex English classrooms face a difficult task when teaching about language. They are charged with honoring the linguistic resources students bring from home while also helping students take up the standardized forms of English expected in schools. Communicating the value of varied ways of using language is challenging because teaching Standardized English1 (SE) has historically involved framing other dialects of English as incorrect or deficient (Kirkland, 2010; Smitherman, 1997). Even teachers with linguistic knowledge struggle against a dominant view of SE that pervades English classrooms and society at large (Alim, 2005). Teachers who intend to promote egalitarian views of diverse language practices frequently rely on commonly available discourses about how language is structured and how language works in the world (Lippi-Green, 2012). These available discourses—also known as language Research in the Teaching of English Volume 52, Number 4, May 2018

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ideologies or master narratives (Kroskrity, 2004; Rosa & Burdick, 2017)—shape the way teachers talk about language. To help teachers promote the value of diverse English varieties in the face of prevailing views about the correctness of SE, it is necessary to understand when, where, and how dominant language ideologies are communicated in English classrooms. By understanding when teachers draw from master narratives about Standardized English, we can help them resist those discourses to create counternarratives that disrupt hegemonic language practices. At the same time, teachers need examples of what it looks and sounds like to resist Standardized English master narratives and to teach about language practices through a counter-narrative. This study helps meet these needs by exploring how teachers draw on, or resist, Standardized English master narratives during teaching and talk about language as part of literature-based units in high school English classrooms. The particular research question that drove this study was: When teachers express an intent to promote a critical awareness of language, what language ideologies do they communicate to their students and under what conditions?

Language Ideologies, Counter-Narratives, and Critical Language Teaching A language ideology is a constellation of beliefs about language as it is used in society (Kroskrity, 2010). In American society, the prevailing language ideology is a standard language ideology (Milroy, 2001; Lippi-Green, 2012). The standard language ideology—or dominant language ideology—coalesces around the belief that there is a “correct” or “pure” form of a language: Standardized English. This belief is unquestioned, and the idea that some forms of English are more correct than others is simply regarded as “common sense” (Schieffelin, Woolard, & Kroskrity, 1998). Belief in the correctness of SE includes the complementary belief that other varieties of English are deficient and subordinate. The dominant language ideology connects language use to the characteristics of language users; hence, attributes such as intelligence, kindness, truthfulness, morality, and so on are ascribed to users of Standardized English, while the corresponding negative attributes are ascribed to language users who deviate from these norms (Garrett, 2010). The various aspects of the dominant language ideology—correctness, social power, speaker characteristics and morality—weave together to create a master narrative (Lyotard, 1984). Master narratives are scripts, or storylines (Nasir, Snyder, Shah, & Ross, 2012), that describe and shape the enactment of social processes. Because master narratives are taken-for-granted, common-sense assumptions, they form an implicit set of beliefs shaping peoples’ actions (Philips, 1998). English classrooms, with their embedded literacy practices, serve as sites that connect the macro-level master narratives to micro-level interactions (Gee, 2008). Thus, any teaching and talk about language occurs against the backdrop of the SE master narrative. In the English classroom, the master narrative serves as an available discourse for teachers and students to draw on when they talk about language.


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Narratives that provide alternative ways to think about language, that go against the standard language ideology, are linguistic counter-narratives (Godley & Loretto, 2013). As the concept is used in this study, linguistic counter-narratives make visible and interrogate the assumptions at the core of the dominant language ideology. Thus, while the dominant language ideology positions SE as the one correct form of English, a counter-narrative holds that all language varieties are valid and complete language systems. Further, as the assumed correctness of SE and its associated prestige are the foundation of a linguistic hierarchy that mirrors and reinforces social hierarchies (Lippi-Green, 2012), counter-narratives challenge those hierarchies and provide alternative possibilities for structuring the linguistic and social order. The creation and promotion of linguistic counter-narratives in the English classroom is a key element of critical language teaching. While it is crucial that teachers explicitly interrogate issues of language and power, including the social injustices tied to intersections of language, race, ethnicity, and class, it is equally important that those explicit interrogations are followed up with consistent counter-narratives that support alternative visions of language in use. Teaching the validity of diverse language practices, even without explicit attention to aspects of power and prejudice, serves to construct a counter-narrative. As Godley and Loretto (2013) explain, “instruction that fosters such counter-narratives about language falls under the mantel of critical language pedagogy” (p. 316). When considered through the lens of counter-narratives, implicit messaging that demonstrates the value of historically stigmatized language practices through their inclusion in the sanctioned academic space supports a critical language pedagogy. The novel at the center of this study, Their Eyes Were Watching God, provides a strong example of the power of counter-narrative as a form of critical pedagogy. Zora Neale Hurston was criticized during the Harlem Renaissance for writing a fluffy romance novel rather than taking on the pressing racial issues of the time. When compared with authors like Langston Hughes or Countee Cullen, who addressed issues of racism head-on, Zora Neale Hurston’s writing seems innocuous, even frivolous. Modern critique, however, suggests that Hurston’s work was revolutionary in the way it interrogated the presumed role of Black women in society through a literal counter-narrative (Harris-Perry, 2011). Harris-Perry (2011) describes it as “a novel that actively questions issues of power, prejudice, and human fulfillment” (p. 5). She quotes Sharon Davie (1993), who writes, “Hurston’s text not only inverts the terms of accepted hierarchies (Black over White, female over male) but—more significantly—allows readers to question, if only for a moment, the hierarchical mode itself ” (Harris-Perry, 2011, p. 316). In the same way that the novel decenters maleness, whiteness, and SE through a counter-narrative, so too can the everyday talk in a classroom decenter dominant language ideologies through the counter-narrative communicated by implicit messaging. This study examines teacher talk about language to identify where dominant discourses are reinforced, and where counter-narratives are constructed.


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Teaching about Language Variation Great strides have been made in how language is addressed in schools. Fifty years of sociolinguistic research on English language variation has established that all language varieties are systematic, grammatically valid, and capable of complex cognitive expression (Fought, 2003; Labov, 1969; Rickford, 1999; Wolfram & Schilling, 2015). Research in linguistic anthropology documents the complexities of how language and identity operate in schools, taking into account hybrid language practices and multiracial identities (Irizarry, 2007; Martínez, 2013; Paris, 2009). Scholars working with English teachers have built on this knowledge base to propose and implement language-based units intended to address student knowledge and beliefs about English language variation and linguistic prejudice (Baker-Bell, 2013; Christensen, 2011; Godley & Loretto, 2013; Reaser & Wolfram, 2007). Reaser and Wolfram (2007) developed a state-adopted social studies curriculum on language variation called Voices of North Carolina. Christensen (2011) describes an instructional unit for English classrooms interrogating relationships of language and power through an exploration of language variation in literature and writing. While these authors describe the thinking and process behind creating the curriculum, they do not explore classroom implementation. Both Baker-Bell (2013) and Godley (Godley & Loretto, 2013; Godley & Minnici, 2008) examined the implementation and impact of lessons for English classrooms that were explicitly designed to develop students’ critical language awareness. Baker-Bell worked alongside an AP English teacher to help develop and implement a set of lessons that would raise students’ awareness of African American English (AAE), with special attention to the relationship between racial identity, language, and power. Likewise, Godley’s studies (Godley & Loretto, 2013; Godley & Minnici, 2008) examined aspects of critical language units she developed and helped teach in high school English classrooms. Godley and Minnici describe the critical language pedagogy they implemented as well as how students reacted to it. The study is one of the first in the field to enact the theoretical approaches described previously in the literature (Alim, 2005; Rickford & Labov, 1999). Godley and Loretto (2013) analyzed a set of classroom discussions in lessons revised from Godley’s previous study. Common characteristics of these studies include that: (1) they consisted of language-specific units set apart from the traditional curriculum; and (2) the units were designed with significant input from the researchers, and the researchers either taught the units or assisted the classroom teachers in teaching the units. The study at hand takes a different approach. First, this study explores what happens when teachers teach about language variation on their own. The teachers did not undergo any training with the researcher, nor did they receive any feedback or coaching as they taught. Each teacher taught a literature-based unit they had developed and taught in years past. Their teaching reflected their own ideas, beliefs, and instructional decisions.


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Second, these teachers were not teaching units specifically about language variation. Instead they were teaching literature-based units around the text Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. The primary learning goals for the units varied by teacher. One teacher focused on literary elements, such as symbols and motifs; two explored universal themes, such as the portrayal of gender roles; and two examined the text in conversation with other texts written during the Harlem Renaissance. Examination of language use in the text was a secondary learning goal for all the teachers. The choice to examine teaching and talk about language during instructional units not designed by the researcher and not designed to focus explicitly on language stems from a desire to understand how regular classroom teachers wrestle with language variation every day. By highlighting ways that teachers can support a critical view of language—and avoid reinforcing dominant language ideologies—during regular classroom instruction, this study seeks to move critical language teaching forward. Just as other resource pedagogies and multicultural content need to be integrated throughout the curriculum, so critical language teaching must be integrated throughout English instruction rather than relegated to a language-specific unit.

Methods Researcher Positionality I come to the work as a product of urban public schools, and a teacher in urban public schools for fifteen years. A white, middle-class male, I’ve lived most of my life in majority-minority communities and spent considerable time moving between linguistically and culturally distinct spaces. My interest in critical language teaching comes from my experiences as a student, teacher, and researcher witnessing and dealing with the consequences of racial and linguistic discrimination couched as “appropriate language.” I approached teachers in this study as a former teacher empathetic to the challenges of their work. The teachers knew I was interested in how they taught about language in general and how they talked with students about the language in Their Eyes Were Watching God in particular. I made clear that I would be an observer and listener, and could serve as a sounding board, but that I would not be serving as an instructional coach or offering feedback during the study. I maintained an open, supportive, and collegial relationship with the teachers throughout the study, but did not offer instructional or curricular support until the post-interviews were completed. My descriptions of these teachers’ practices should not be misconstrued as criticism. Small snapshots don’t represent the whole of any teacher’s practice, but they do provide key illustrations that improve our understanding of the complexities of teaching. Making these moments visible helps researchers, teacher educators, and teachers consider the alignment between the intent and potential impact of instructional practices.


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The Sample The analysis in this paper comes from a study of five high school English teachers in the San Francisco Bay Area (Table 1). The teachers taught at different schools, although three taught within the same school district. Students in the classes reflected the racial, ethnic, economic, and linguistic diversity of the Bay Area, with a mix of Latinx, African American, Asian, Pacific Islander, and White students from a wide range of linguistic and class backgrounds. The teachers were selected based on recommendations from district literacy coaches, administrators, department chairs, and faculty from university teacher education programs. These five teachers were selected because each articulated linguistic counter-narratives during initial interviews. Fortuitously, each teacher was teaching a literary unit on Their Eyes Were Watching God during the year, so data collection was arranged to capture teaching around that common text. The quotes in Table 2, from pre- and post-interviews, provide slices of the evidence suggesting each teacher (all names are pseudonyms) had a desire to promote counter-narratives of language, power, and identity.

Data Sources The interviews and recordings used in this analysis are a subset of data from a larger study of critical language teaching.

Interviews After their selection for the study, each teacher participated in a 45-minute preunit interview near the beginning of the school year. This interview explored the teachers’ path into teaching, their instructional goals for the year, their description of their students, and their approach to teaching about language. Shortly after the instructional unit was completed, each teacher participated in a 60-minute postunit interview that reviewed some of the earlier topics and also asked teachers to reflect on their teaching during the unit.

Table 1. Characteristics of Case Study Teachers Teacher

Focal Class

Years of Gender Race/ District Experience Ethnicity

Mrs. Kayle

African American Literature – 11th grade

14

Female White

Mr. Lane

AP Literature – 12th grade

13

Male

Oak

African Oak American White Oak

Mr. Mathers African American Literature – 11th grade Mrs. Batar American Literature – 11th grade

7

Male

14

Ms. Saito

8

Female Indian Maple American Female Japanese Fern American


American Literature – 10th grade

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Table 2. Sample of Teachers’ Language Ideology Teacher

Key Quote about Approach to Language

Mrs. Kayle

“To change the stigma around [African American English] is important, and to have them understand that part, the linguistic part of it, because we’re talking about language in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Language is part of your identity, and to take the stigma out of, you know, labeling a community as having broken English, or being uneducated because of the way they speak, that’s really important.” Mr. “I know that they were picking up on the importance of, you know, not judging Lane [people by their language.] Because these kids know about being discriminated and judged. That’s all they’ve lived through, right? So they understand. So once they can see that this is another form of that, then they have no problem, you know, understanding what that might feel like if they were in their shoes. None of it is different, it’s just language.” Mr. “I try to get them to think about, to question language as it relates to identity and Mathers is it, is it fair to box people in and say, like, ‘OK, well, these people are supposed to sound like this; these people are supposed to sound like that; and neither the twain shall meet,’ and it’s, like, that’s really not it, you know? It’s not that simple. So yeah, I think they have a strong understanding of language and identity and how they connect.” Mrs. “I think that a lot of them think that there’s, like, right and wrong, you know, and Batar there’s, good and bad; and sometimes they’re surprised when we’ll read something that’s written in a dialect that is, you know, representative of their own culture. And that we’re reading it in class, and talking about it as if it’s important. And I think that takes some of them by surprise, and then it kind of leads us into this conversation of, like, ‘Well, who decided what’s good and bad, and how do you know when this is the right thing to say, or this is not?’” Ms. “I think, understanding where we place value and acknowledging—like, I have Saito some pretty frank conversations with the sophomores throughout the year. They’re not planned, but like, ‘No, in our society, like, the society places value; that doesn’t mean that we need to, but we do understand that when there’s a language of power, we can choose to play into that in certain contexts. . . . And we don’t need to agree with that, but we can still join in on that and participate at some degree.’”

Video Recordings Each teacher’s class was recorded one to three times prior to the start of the instructional unit to get a sense of class routines and to help acquaint students and the teacher with the camera. During the unit, nine to eleven class meetings were video-recorded. The researcher observed and took field notes during each recorded class.

Data Analysis Pre- and post-unit interviews were coded for evidence of language ideologies, language goals, linguistic knowledge, language pedagogy, and the degree to which teachers valued students’ knowledge and beliefs about language. Information from the coded interviews was used to create a portrait of each teacher’s beliefs about


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language and language variation. For the purposes of this paper, the coding of the interviews established that each teacher intended to enact aspects of critical language teaching. The video recordings were coded to identify when and how language ideologies were expressed in teaching and talk about language. This study uses a unit of analysis called Episodes of Language Talk (ELTs). ELTs are defined as episodes where the topic of classroom talk is language. Talk about language includes talk about the meaning of words, pronunciation, grammar or syntax, and other aspects of language broadly defined. The important demarcation was that the talk had to be about language. Language use alone was not considered an ELT. These episodes could be brief single utterances by the teacher or a student, such as a stated definition of a word (e.g., “rationale means reasoning”) or they could be extended, multiparticipant conversations such as a class discussion of the connotations of the words childlike and childish. The boundaries of the ELTs were marked by topic. When the topic shifted from being about language to being about something else, the ELT ended. Studiocode video analysis software was used to identify the ELTs throughout the entire 56 hours of classroom video. Each ELT was then coded for multiple categories. The two categories pertinent to this study are shown in Table 3. (The complete codebook and information on the larger study are available by request.) To ensure reliability, a second researcher coded 20% of each teacher’s videos, identifying the codes for each category with greater than 80% agreement. Language ideologies were defined in the codebook as shown in Table 4. Among the language topic codes, only language variation was used to identify ELTs for this analysis. The language variation code was assigned to any ELTs where the topic of discussion included features of a particular dialect or comparisons between dialects. Because all talk about language in these classes occurred against a societal backdrop of SE as the assumed norm, discussions of the features of SE were not coded as language variation unless they were compared or contrasted Table 3. Codes for Episodes of Language Talk Category

Codes

Single or Multiple Codes

Language ideology

Critical language ideology Dominant language ideology Ambiguous language ideology

Single code only

Language topic

Vocabulary Language variation Code-switching Figurative language Grammar and conventions Pronunciation Connotation Language and identity Language culture and worldview

Multiple codes allowed


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Table 4. Dominant and Critical Language Ideologies as Defined in the Codebook Dominant Language Ideology

Critical Language Ideology

Talk that supports the idea that Standardized English is the one correct form of English. Talk that suggests other varieties of English are deficient and subordinate. Talk that maintains the existing language hierarchy and that privileges the current social, economic, and political hierarchies. This dominant ideology also aligns with autonomous models of literacy that frame literacy practices as decontextualized and having meaning apart from the context— this includes the idea that the teacher or a dictionary is the ultimate authority on language and meaning.

Talk that supports the idea that all language varieties are valid and complete language systems. Talk that challenges the existing linguistic hierarchy and the associated social, economic, and political hierarchies. For episodes of language talk about vocabulary or connotation, the critical language ideology code is applied when the meanings, definitions, and interpretations come from students rather than a traditional authority.

Ambiguous Language Ideologies: Talk about language that does not provide enough evidence to be judged as critical or dominant. This code is also used when dominant and critical language ideologies seem to occur within the same ELT.

with another language variety. For this same reason, discussions of the features of other language varieties were included in this code because their descriptions were always juxtaposed against the assumed norm of SE. Once patterns were identified in the coded ELTs, representative ELTs from each teacher underwent additional discourse analysis focused on aspects of the SE master narrative and counter-narratives as used by the teachers.

Findings The findings are divided into three sections: an overview of the coded video, a comparison of talk during the introduction of the language in the novel, and a comparison of talk during two translation activities.

Overview of Teaching and Talk about Language Variation Findings from the video coding suggest that teachers don’t talk about language variation very much. The total amount of time each teacher spent teaching and talking about language variation is shown in Table 5. Table 5 also shows the breakdown by language ideology. The criteria by which this sample of teachers was selected would suggest that these teachers talk about language variation more than the average teacher: these teachers self-identified as teachers who care about language issues; they used a core text that centers a historically stigmatized language variety; they volunteered to host a researcher interested in issues of language variation. Even so, they spent, on average, 7% of their class time talking about language variation (238 out of 3,356


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Table 5. Teaching and Talk about Language Variation, by Teacher and by Language Ideology Teaching and Talk about Language Drawing on: Teacher Total Time Total Teaching Critical Language Observed and Talk about Ideology (hr:min:s) Language Variation

Dominant Language Ambiguous Ideology Language Ideology

Mrs. Kayle Ms. Saito Mr. Mathers Mr. Lane Mrs. Batar

10:32:53 85.6 min – 13.5% 69.8 min – 87.3%

10.6 min – 12.4% 5.2 min – 6%

12:42:25 100.4 min – 13.1% 98.1 min – 97.7%

0 min – 0%

2.2 min – 2%

11:54:59 19.4 min – 2.7%

16.7 min – 91.4%

2.4 min – 8.6%

0 min – 0%

11:05:49 14.8 min – 2.2%

9.2 min – 62.2%

4.4 min – 29.7%

0.8 min – 5%

9:40:07

7.3 min – 40%

11 min – 60%

Total

55:56:16 238.5 min – 7%

18.3 min – 3.1%

0.1 min – 0.5% 201.1 min – 84.3% 28.4 min – 12.3% 8.3 min – 3%

recorded minutes). The bulk of this talk was by two teachers, Ms. Saito (13.1% of recorded minutes spent on language variation) and Mrs. Kayle (13.5%). The remaining three teachers spent considerably less time (Mr. Mathers, 2.7%; Mr. Lane, 2.2%; Mrs. Batar, 3.1%). A second notable finding is the reliance on dominant language ideologies. All the teachers except Ms. Saito drew on dominant language ideologies during their teaching about language variation. Mrs. Batar showed the largest percentage of talk coded as dominant language ideology (60%) and nearly a third of Mr. Lane’s talk about language variation drew on a dominant ideology. Mr. Mathers and Mrs. Kayle expressed dominant language ideologies less frequently, but still turned to dominant discourses despite a commitment to critical language teaching. Only Ms. Saito had no ELTs coded for dominant language ideology. The next two sections take a closer look at when and how these dominant ideologies appeared. By contrasting moments where teachers drew on the SE master narrative with similar moments where Ms. Saito resisted the SE master narrative, I hope to illustrate the difficulty of, and potential solutions for, maintaining a consistent counter-narrative in the face of dominant language norms pervasive in classrooms and the larger society.

Contending with Dominant Ideologies While Introducing Language Differences Because all the teachers taught explicitly about language variation during the introduction of the novel, analysis across this common moment reveals particular ways teachers drew on, or resisted, the dominant language ideology when talking about language practices enacted through the text.


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Drawing on Dominant Discourses As she introduced Their Eyes Were Watching God, Mrs. Batar provided a working definition of dialect, referencing a short story the students had previously read by the same author.

1 Batar: We read a short story by Zora Neale Hurston, “Sweat,” with Sikes and Delia and 2 the snake. Remember it was like, crazy drama. The snake killed Sikes, and Delia 3 was like, free at last. And remember that book, the way it was written, it was 4 written in the way that the characters spoke. What was that called? 5 [2 second pause] It starts with a d. 6 Josh: Dialogue. 7 Batar: Close . . . 8 Crystal: Oh, dialect. 9 Batar: Yes, dialect. So the novel we are going to read, similarly, Zora Neale Hurston 10 wrote in dialect. Most of it, when the characters talk, it sounds how they 11 actually spoke.

This common-sense definition of dialect—text “written in the way that the characters spoke” (Line 4)—reflects a dominant language ideology by only marking the speech of dialects other than SE. The teacher makes it clear she is not referring to all dialects but to the specific way Hurston writes dialogue in Their Eyes Were Watching God and “Sweat.” Hurston’s writing is characterized by her extensive use of eye dialect to recreate the speech of African American residents of Eatonville, Florida, where Hurston lived and set many of her stories. Eye dialect is writing that attempts to capture a particular accent, or to visibly show how words sound. Thus, when Zora Neale Hurston’s character Janie says, “Mah husband is gone tuh buy a mule fuh me tuh plow,” the spelling of the words “mah,” “tuh,” and “fuh” encourage the reader to see a particular pronunciation. Mrs. Batar conflates this particular version of eye dialect with dialect more generally. Thus, even this small moment of teaching about language reinforces the Standardized English master narrative by reinforcing the idea that dialect is marked language, in contrast to the unmarked and “normal” language of the narration written in SE. During Mr. Lane’s introduction to the language in the novel, he drew on different aspects of the Standardized English master narrative. Although in prior lessons, Mr. Lane had used readings and activities that described the validity of AAE, when it came to describing the language in the novel, his reliance on master narratives undercut his previous teaching. As he asked students to consider the language in the text, he said,


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1 So there’s a narration, so when we look on page— 2 the first page that we looked at and we annotated. 3 That language is all kind of like, formal, intellectual, right? 4 You know very, high sounding, academic type language, right? 5 And then they get into voices, right? 6 And that’s when you have all the Black Language, the dialect, 7 and all type of things happen. 8 So you see the switch. 9 When it’s narration it’s high language, 10 when it’s them speaking it’s kinda this low language, right? 11 We call it quote unquote low language. 12 But on page five, and this should— 13 you guys should be aware of these things because it’s significant. 14 So they’re having a conversation 15 and it’s the third paragraph from the bottom, 16 so Janie is talking and she says, 17 “an envious heart makes a treacherous ear.” 18 There’s nothing wrong with that language at all. 19 Everything else around it is dialect.

In this excerpt, Mr. Lane establishes a clear dichotomy, describing two distinct types of language, the “voices” (Line 5) and the “narration” (Line 9). And, like Mrs. Batar, he equates the voices with dialect (Line 6), suggesting, by contrast, that SE is not a dialect. Mr. Lane then uses evaluative language to identify a hierarchy. In Lines 3–4, Mr. Lane calls the narration “formal,” “intellectual,” and “high sounding,” while in Lines 6–11, he labels the voices as “Black Language,” “dialect,” and “low language.” In Lines 18–19, Mr. Lane draws on the discourse of correctness by saying, “There’s nothing wrong with that language at all. Everything else around it is dialect.” Saying “there’s nothing wrong” with the SE sentence implies there is something wrong with the language written in other dialects. The idea that SE is correct and other dialects are deficient or incorrect is at the heart of the dominant language ideology. Mr. Lane highlights the racialization of language in Lines 5–6, calling the “voices” “Black Language.” This cursory treatment of Black Language2 can be problematic. Hurston’s writing is a careful depiction of language practices from an African American community in Eatonville, Florida, in the early 1900s. While key features of Black Language remain stable across time and regions, the version of Black Language in the novel only marginally represents the language practices of the African American students in Mr. Lane’s class, or the language practices of Mr. Lane himself. The ties between language use and racial identity merit exploration in the English classroom. However, the casual pairing of Black Language with “low language” reinforces racial stigmatization through language.


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All these aspects of the SE master narrative—dichotomy, hierarchy, correctness, and racialization—appear when Mr. Lane is trying to make a point about authorial word choice. The descriptions of language variation are not the main learning goal; rather, they represent secondary information to support his point about literary analysis. The hedging language Mr. Lane uses in Lines 10–11 signals that he knows his description is problematic, but in this moment, he doesn’t have a different set of labels to draw on. As he describes the “voices,” he expresses ambivalence, saying, “kinda this low language, right? We call it quote-unquote low language [emphasis added].” This hedging language makes visible the way a master narrative serves as a readily available discourse, leading Mr. Lane to talk about language in a way that goes against his stated and embodied beliefs. That Mr. Lane drew so heavily on the dominant language ideology is particularly telling because Mr. Lane speaks AAE and frequently comments on the importance of bringing all types of language into the ELA classroom. In his interview, he said, “I want to be a different face of what they might think education is. And I don’t want to walk around with my nose [up in the air]. So I try to speak in ways that they might—and that I do—and the way I speak is I’m going in and out all the time.” As a Black man from the East Bay teaching AP English, Mr. Lane wanted to be a living counter-narrative for his students. Part of that counter-narrative constituted using multiple language varieties in the formal classroom space. His value-laden description of the contrasting language varieties in Their Eyes Were Watching God went against this fundamental goal of his teaching. The examples from these teachers suggest that, even when teachers strive to counter the standard language ideology, they tend to draw on the most readily available discourses about language.

A Consistent Counter-Narrative Ms. Saito avoided drawing on the SE master narrative, while crafting a consistent counter-narrative throughout her teaching and talk about language variation. Her introduction to the language in the novel contrasts with the other teachers’, and provides a vision of how teachers might confront dominant language ideologies. Ms. Saito introduced the novel at the end of the first day of the unit after students had learned about dialects and other linguistic terms related to language variation through direct instruction. Ms. Saito told students they would “get a taste of the dialect in Their Eyes Were Watching God” and asked them to turn to page 2 of the novel. In sharp contrast to the other teachers, Ms. Saito began by positioning the SE narration as dialect. Because describing SE as a dialect runs counter to the common-sense definition of dialect, students were confused by what she was asking them.

1 Saito: 2 3


I’m going to read the first paragraph, and then I would like Juliana to read the second paragraph. [Ms. Saito reads from the text] “Seeing the woman as she was made them

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4 remember the envy they had stored up from other times.” 5 What dialect does this sound like? 6 [3 seconds of silence] 7 [Ms. Saito reads again] “Seeing the woman as she was made them 8 remember the envy they had stored up from other times. So they chewed up 9 the back parts of their minds—“ 10 What dialect? What dialect of English does that sound like? 11 [3 seconds of silence] 12 [Ms. Saito reads] “Seeing the woman as she was made them remember—” 13 Does anything about that stand out to you? 14 Like, oh that’s definitely from this place or this group of people? 15 Student 1: It sounds regular. 16 Saito: [Smiling] Regular? But what label would we give? 17 Student 2: I’m confused.

Whereas the other teachers reinforced the common-sense understanding of dialect that students were already familiar with, Ms. Saito challenged students to draw the conclusion that SE is a dialect. In Lines 3–4, Ms. Saito reads a line from the novel written according to Standardized English conventions. Then, in Line 5, she asks them to identify the dialect. The extended silence from students (Line 6) signals their confusion. From the conversation that follows, we can infer that students don’t see this sentence as written in dialect. Although Ms. Saito has previously told them that Standardized English is a dialect, they haven’t internalized that understanding. The students, like the other teachers, still follow the SE master narrative that leaves SE unmarked, and marks deviations from SE as dialects. In Line 15, when a student explicitly invokes the SE master narrative by labeling the SE sentences “regular,” Ms. Saito makes that language ideology visible. She repeats the student’s word as a question with a smile—“Regular?” (Line 16)—implying that the students should consider the meaning of that term. She then asks for a more descriptive label (Line 16). By positioning SE as a dialect and questioning the idea that SE is “regular,” Ms. Saito contributes to a linguistic counter-narrative. On the second day of the unit, Ms. Saito introduced the language in the novel again:

1 Part of what [Hurston’s] doing here is giving us a sense of the dialect 2 that she wanted to preserve in the literature. 3 So it’s one of the best examples of code-switching that exists. 4 There is formal academic English; 5 there’s informal academic English; 6 and there’s a range of registers


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7 8 9 10

for a mixture of Southern American and Ebonics. We’ve got this expert author here showing us how it’s done. We’re going to look at some of the words first from the mixture of Southern American and African American Vernacular English 11 that she employs.

This moment from class illustrates how Ms. Saito complicates several prominent dichotomies of the standard language ideology. In Lines 4–5, she disrupts the belief that SE is formal language while other dialects are informal. By naming formal and informal academic English,3 she makes explicit the concept that SE has informal registers. In Line 6, she extrapolates this concept. The SE master narrative erases the ability of historically stigmatized dialects to encompass multiple registers, often dictating that whole dialects are informal. Ms. Saito challenges this idea by stating that Southern American English and Ebonics contain “a range of registers.” Because Ms. Saito provided students with the linguistic terms to talk about the varieties of English, she was able to name the types of English in the text specifically. This allowed her to avoid the value-laden language Mr. Lane fell into, and permitted her to maintain the counter-narrative that held these various language varieties as equally valid. Ms. Saito’s use of linguistic terms to avoid reinforcing a language hierarchy through value-laden descriptions was intentional. In her interview, she explained, I think both in having the terms and the labels, I think it really helped establish a more neutral ground. . . . I think what I saw in their exit slips, and then just as we talked about the novel as we continued, it became much more neutral, and we were much more able to acknowledge differences in dialect, in how it’s written, but the students seemed to have less, I don’t know, they weren’t assigning as much value to it.

Ms. Saito was deliberate about using precise descriptive terms to avoid judgmental language. As she described it, that neutral descriptive language affected the way her students interpreted the different dialects in the text. She went on to explain the challenge of maintaining the consistency in her language talk, acknowledging that she struggled just like her students. I did feel like kids were kind of using the word dialect incorrectly, because then—and I do that sometimes, too—to only talk about dialects that aren’t academic English. It’s like, “Oh, here she’s speaking in dialect!” It’s like, “What type of dialect?” And I do that, too.

Ms. Saito demonstrated that she was actively thinking about how SE was positioned in relation to dialect. She explained how she tried to respond when students equated dialect with the version of AAE in the novel. If a student said, “Oh, here she’s speaking in dialect,” Ms. Saito complicated that understanding by asking, “What type of dialect?”—forcing students to name their assumptions. She


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admitted it was a struggle for her as well, saying twice, “And I do that, too.” Thus, even though Ms. Saito maintained a consistent counter-narrative, it was only through constant vigilance over her speech.

Contending with Dominant Ideologies in Translation Activities A second opportunity for comparison across teachers involved translation activities. Translation activities are an instructional strategy closely related to contrastive analysis. Contrastive analysis has been both recommended (Wheeler & Swords, 2006) and critiqued (Young, 2009) in the literature. In the examples below, we see how translation activities can communicate very different language ideologies based on the talk surrounding them.

Drawing on Dominant Discourses Mrs. Kayle, who had the most linguistic knowledge of any of the teachers, and who, like Ms. Saito, used linguistic terms, frequently drew on dominant discourses. Her attempts to resist the SE master narrative were especially evident during a translation activity. Mrs. Kayle gave students sentences from Their Eyes Were Watching God and asked students to “translate” the sentences from AAE into Standard American English. At the beginning of the activity, a student asked Mrs. Kayle to clarify the assignment: 1 Jaylen: So, we’re correcting it right? 2 Mrs. Kayle: It’s not a matter of correcting; you’re code-switching. 3 Jaylen: Oh yeah, to the correc—to the right form. 4 Mrs. Kayle: To Standard American English. In this dialogue, when the student asks Mrs. Kayle if they were correcting the sentences, Mrs. Kayle makes clear that code-switching is not “correcting.” In this case, it is the student drawing on discourses of correctness to frame his understanding of the assignment. Even when Mrs. Kayle distinguishes between “correcting” and “code-switching” (Line 2), the student persists in a dominant language ideology, suggesting that they are code-switching “to the correc—to the right form” (Line 3). Mrs. Kayle does not let this misconception slide, replacing the value-laden term “right” with the label “Standard American English.” Mrs. Kayle’s initial description of the activity resisted the master narrative. However, as the activity continued, Mrs. Kayle gradually reverted to a dominant language ideology using the very language she had rephrased earlier. Later in the same activity, she caught herself using evaluative language and self-corrected. She said, “What is it supposed to be? I don’t like that word ‘supposed.’ What is it in Standard American English?” Although Mrs. Kayle self-corrected this time, replacing the evaluative word “supposed” with the precise label of “Standard American English,” it was clear that she was struggling to resist the master narrative that privileged SE. Still later, Mrs. Kayle asked the class, “How do we fix number 5?” Thus, although she had made an effort to resist the master narrative and to uphold


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the correctness of AAE, she fell into the dominant ideology by using the term “fix,” which clearly positioned AAE as incorrect.

A Consistent Counter-Narrative Ms. Saito challenged aspects of the SE master narrative during her version of a translation activity. When talking with students about the way that Hurston wrote AAE using eye dialect, she had them consider the spelling and pronunciation; she asked a student to pronounce “Lawd a mussy,” so they could hear it as “Lord have mercy.” She then asked students to choose another word or phrase written in eye dialect that they found interesting. One student selected the word “dat.” The ensuing conversation demonstrates how her talk broke down binary views of language and challenged hegemonic narratives that assign negative characteristics to users of stigmatized language varieties.

1 Saito: Dat [writes d-a-t, projected on screen] 2 Has anyone ever typed this in a text message? 3 Reina: Yeah. 4 Saito: Interesting. 5 So there’s some crossover. 6 Were you particularly speaking Southern American English, Reina, 7 when you did that? 8 Reina: [laughs] No. 9 Saito: Were you writing in African American Vernacular English? 10 Reina: No. 11 Saito: Why did you write d-a-t in a text message? 12 Reina: I was lazy. 13 Saito: You were lazy. 14 Like, “I’m gonna do one letter instead of two.” 15 So that’s one way. 16 So we see this pattern here of “d” and “t-h” being mixed, 17 and I think some would say 18 it’s also indicative of 19 there’s maybe like this teenager diction going on. 20 In the book, we have “wuz” and “was.” 21 I’ve seen teenagers write that. 22 When I was in high school I used to do that. 23 What are some more? A couple other ones.

In Line 2, Ms. Saito identifies “dat” as a feature of texting language. The students in the class all relate to that use of this form of the word. Ms. Saito suggests that the pronunciation and spelling of “dat” for “that” is common across texting language (Line 2), Southern American English (Line 6), AAE (Line 9), and “teenager diction” (Line 19). The idea that a particular language feature may apply to multiple


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dialects complicates the binary view of language and highlights an overlapping landscape of language use. In Lines 11–22, Ms. Saito counters negative stereotypes associated with users of historically stigmatized language varieties. In Line 12, the student names laziness as her motivation for using “dat” instead of “that.” The ascription of pejorative characteristics to users of historically stigmatized language varieties is part of the dominant language ideology. Ms. Saito problematizes this hegemonic view. She honors the student’s idea in Lines 14–15, but offers a counter-narrative in Lines 17–22. The similar example of “wuz” and “was,” (Line 20), where the number of letters is the same, refutes laziness as an explanation for linguistic choices. Ms. Saito then claims use of this language feature herself (Line 22), lending it a degree of validation and even prestige to further counter Reina’s implication that it is “lazy” language. These arguments are embedded in a simple story of “teenager diction.” Highlighting teenage language use suggests an alternative way to think about language as part of a social process of identity work. While Ms. Saito most often talked about the form of language, in this moment she began to interrogate language as a process rather than a “thing,” a profound break from dominant language ideologies. As a whole, the findings document teachers’ struggles to resist persistent master narratives about language. The consistent counter-narrative demonstrated by Ms. Saito required a particular intentionality and deliberate consideration of how she talked about language.

Discussion The questions that drove this research acknowledge the challenges teachers face in contending with prevailing language ideologies present in the larger institution of schooling, as well their own ideologies and those of their students. This study sought to understand when and how attempts to teach and talk about language practices from a critical perspective may be undercut by the influence of the SE master narrative, as well as to identify ways teachers resisted that influence. The first general finding, that teaching and talk about language variation was rare in most of the observed classrooms, suggests that teachers need help integrating language variation into the content of ELA classrooms. Since language is at the heart of all the strands of ELA teaching—reading literature, reading informational texts, writing, speaking and listening, and grammar/language study—it is surprising that language variation did not come up more frequently. Because the code that captured language variation did not account for teaching and talk that focused solely on SE, we understand that these teachers presented SE as the norm throughout the majority of their teaching and talk. The teachers in this study would be expected to talk about language variation more than the average teacher, based on the criteria by which they were selected. That they addressed language variation so infrequently suggests that even teachers who understand the validity of all language varieties and who appreciate the impact of valuing diverse language


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practices on students’ identity development rarely integrate this knowledge into their everyday teaching. Building on an argument Godley and colleagues offered over 10 years ago (Godley, Sweetland, Wheeler, Minnici, & Carpenter, 2006) to support teachers’ integration of language variation, the focus in teacher preparation must move beyond content knowledge about linguistics and language variation to include pedagogical approaches for integrating language knowledge into everyday teaching. Publication of units and lesson plans that center language, power, and identity (e.g., Christensen, 2011) is a starting point, but teachers need additional support with the talk that accompanies these lessons and units. Without that support, teachers may unintentionally undermine their explicit teaching by reinforcing dominant language ideologies. This study suggests we can support teachers in enacting critical language teaching by examining key points where dominant language ideologies assert themselves and exploring ways to craft counter-narratives. One such point involves defining language differences. This finding adds support to previous studies that suggest using precise linguistic terms reinforces critical language teaching (Brown, 2006; Godley & Loretto, 2013). As Ms. Saito explained, using the terms dialect and register helped her describe differences in language features without assigning value. Without precise linguistic terms, we saw Mrs. Batar and Mr. Lane draw on readily available discourses that position SE as unmarked, normal, and correct. For these two teachers, who had the least linguistic knowledge, common-sense understandings of linguistic terminology limited their ability to craft consistent counter-narratives. Linguistic knowledge is not sufficient to disrupt the discourse of dominant language ideologies, as evidenced during the use of translation or code-switching activities. Although contrastive analysis is a key tool for learning about language variation (Devereaux & Wheeler, 2012), when talked about through a dominant ideology it can reinforce the SE master narrative. The interaction between Mrs. Kayle and her students extends a finding by Godley and colleagues (Godley, Carpenter, & Werner, 2007) that when daily editing activities are consistently framed as moving toward SE, these position SE as correct. Similarly, Mrs. Kayle and her students showed that “translating” language into SE can feel a lot like correcting. One challenge inherent in these translation activities is that they generally focus on the form or structure of language, implying that meaning remains the same despite a shift in dialect, register, or style. Ms. Saito hinted at an alternative approach in her talk about the example of dat. The focus of Ms. Saito’s discussion with students was not on phonological shifts of th to d, nor was it on simple understanding of surface-level meaning—dat and that have the same connotation; instead, Ms. Saito raised the idea that a word like dat might be used to signal a teenager identity when texting. The translation activity transformed from focusing on the form of words, and instead considered language use as a social process (Makoni & Pennycook, 2007). This represents a foundational change in language ideology, and may be an important next step in helping teachers enact critical language teaching.


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Conclusion and Implications The purpose of this paper is not to demonstrate a comprehensive pedagogy for critical language teaching, but rather to bring to light the kinds of struggles teachers may face when attempting to promote linguistic counter-narratives through day-to-day instruction. Even teachers with linguistic knowledge, like Mrs. Kayle, may find themselves drawing on the dominant language ideologies inherent in the discourses most readily available to them. Even teachers who believe deeply in the importance of honoring students’ (and their own) home language varieties, like Mr. Lane, may find that their beliefs get reappropriated by the linguistic master narrative, leading them to call the language they value most a “quote unquote, low language.” The more teachers are aware of these pitfalls, the more they can promote consistent counter-narratives that help disrupt ideologies that reproduce inequitable social hierarchies. Perhaps the most important implications of this study relate to the findings suggesting that all the teachers, Ms. Saito included, continually skirted the borders of the SE master narrative. For each teacher, there was a fine line between talking about language varieties in terms of differences (part of a horizontal landscape of equal value) or deficits (in a vertical hierarchy with SE on top). As long as teachers continue to talk about distinct language varieties, the inclination will be to place those language varieties in a hierarchy. For English teachers to truly break from the dominant language ideology, they may need a more profound rupture than the small shift from language deficit to language difference. The instances where Ms. Saito most naturally resisted the SE master narrative were points where she highlighted the dynamic nature of language in use. This suggests that a fundamental shift in how English teachers conceive of language, as a process rather than as a thing, may be a productive approach. Rather than reorganizing language varieties in a nonhierarchical fashion, conceiving of language as a process does away with the idea of bounded languages, dialects, and language varieties altogether, replacing the noun language with the verb languaging (Makoni & Pennycook, 2007). Rather than seeking adherence to prescribed conventions of a single language variety, this approach describes the use of tools in an individual’s expanding communicative repertoire. Scholars in literacy (e.g., Beach, 2017; Bloome & Beauchemin, 2016), bilingual education (e.g., Garcia, 2009; Martin-Beltrán, 2014), and writing (e.g., Canagarajah, 2013; Horner, Lu, Royster, & Trimbur, 2011) have taken up this view of language as a social process through the concepts of languaging and translanguaging. Because it is a dramatic change from traditional conceptions of language, if English teachers adopt this ideology, there will be less risk that they will unintentionally revert to dominant discourses. As teacher educators work with English teachers to promote new ways of thinking and talking about language variation based in contemporary understandings of language practices, they will benefit from bringing language ideologies to the forefront. As the linguistic facts regarding language variation become more widely integrated into English classrooms, English teachers will need to take on a


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role as the vanguard in promoting a set of language ideologies based on linguistic understandings unfamiliar to the wider society. Because language ideologies are tied to social hierarchies, English teachers will need to develop comfort in discussing issues of race, language, and power. These topics have lived in the literature and writing of English classrooms for decades, but now we must also acknowledge them in the most “objective” element of our content area: language itself. Whatever the ideological underpinning, as teachers prepare to teach about language variation, they will benefit from additional examples in the research. We need more studies of teacher talk about language to help teachers anticipate pitfalls, and to provide examples of approaches to avoid those pitfalls. The teachers in this study, while imperfect in their approach to critical language teaching, made thoughtful, concerted efforts to address the wide-ranging linguistic background of the students they served. All of these teachers were reflective about their practice and considered ways to better meet their own instructional goals and the needs of their students. To support teachers whose goal is, as Ms. Saito put it, to “turn this language-hierarchy on its head,” providing additional research analyzing the successes and challenges of classroom teachers undertaking critical language teaching remains important ongoing work. Notes 1. I follow Charity Hudley and Mallinson (2010), among others, who use the term Standardized English, instead of Standard English, to emphasize that there is nothing inherently standard about Standardized English. The standardization of one dialect of English is an ongoing social process. The use of Standardized English allows the general idea to be invoked while highlighting that the construct is problematic. 2. Rickford and Rickford (2000) provide a thoughtful treatment of the various labels for African American English. While I use AAE throughout the paper, here I use Black Language as that is the term Mr. Lane uses. 3. Ms. Saito made the intentional choice to use the term academic English to refer to Standardized English. She did not want to convey the idea of an inherent “Standard” but needed a term for the variety of English most teachers expect in school. She discussed this problem with her students, and settled on academic English as an imperfect solution.

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Bloome, D., & Beauchemin, F. (2016). Languaging everyday life in classrooms. Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice, 65(1), 152–165.

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Mike Metz is an assistant professor of English education at the University of Mis-

souri. A former Chicago Public Schools teacher, he uses the lens of language and language ideologies to explore the process and impact of how student and teacher identities are constructed and negotiated in schools. Initial submission: October 4, 2016 Final revision submitted: November 21, 2017 Accepted: December 11, 2017


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