...THE MYTHS OF LANGUAGE USE AND THE HOMOGENIZATION OF BILINGUAL WORKERS’ IDENTITIES KARI GIBSON University of Hawai‘i Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act protects against discrimination in employment on the basis of race, color, sex, religion and national origin. However when the judicial system has examined English only workplace policies in light of Title VII, it has generally determined that such policies are not discriminatory if an employee is able to speak English. Although plaintiffs have argued that language is inextricably linked to national origin and cultural identity, the courts have stated that the use of a language other than English is detrimental to the morale of monolingual English speakers and a single language is necessary to ensure workplace harmony and proper management. This paper examines the court cases where English Only workplace policies have been challenged, and identifies the prevalent myths and ideologies held by businesses and the courts about language use, identity, and bilingual speakers. Through the process of homogeneism, linguistic diversity is rejected as monolingual English speakers are able to create and enforce rules that favor themselves as they construct the identity of “American” in their own image. Language is a central feature of human identity. When we hear someone speak, we immediately make guesses about gender, education level, age, profession, and place of origin. Beyond this individual matter, a language is a powerful...
Words: 21473 - Pages: 86
...OUR INDIGENOUS LANGUAGE AND ITS IDENTITY Language is species specific and species generic possession that is uniquely human. It is peculiar to human beings and it can be both an individual property (when it exists as knowledge) and a social property, (when it manifests to perform its functions). The survival of the language of a people is very vital to the people's survival on the whole. In 2012, the United Nations held a forum on ‘The Study on the role of languages and culture in the promotion and protection of the rights and identity of indigenous peoples’. The importance of language is summed up in the following quote: “Language is an essential part of, and intrinsically linked to, indigenous peoples’ ways of life, culture and identities. Languages embody many indigenous values and concepts and contain indigenous peoples’ histories and development. They are fundamental markers of indigenous peoples’ distinctiveness and cohesiveness as peoples.” This is because "Language is not only a vehicle through which a peoples culture can be expressed but also a medium of one's thought, imaginations, creativity, aspirations, desires, emotions, indeed the entire human need and capacity" (Banjo, 1971). According to Hale in Orkar (2006:5), losing one's language entails losing one's "culture, intellectual wealth, a work of art etc. It is like dropping a bomb on a museum." Language captures the entire essence of man. It makes man who he is and what he will become. Chomsky in Banjo...
Words: 2151 - Pages: 9
...Language forms an integral part of the formation of identity and the gradual development of personal esteem. Despite the ubiquitous nature of lingua franca such as the English language, people who are conscious of their indigenous identity are keen to incorporate aspects of their mother tongue in common languages. However, not all individuals feel proud of expressing their forms of synthesized language. The relationship between cultural identity and language is mutual. Language plays a vital role in placing an individual in an appropriate societal position (Val and Vinogradova 2). Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue and Anzaldua Gloria’s, “How to Tame a Wild Tongue” are exquisite examples of the formation of language and cultural identities due to interactions with American culture. A comparative analysis of both texts can reveal that each author...
Words: 1629 - Pages: 7
...WITWATERSRAND LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY: INVESTIGATING THE LANGUAGE PRACTICES OF MULTILINGUAL GRADE 9 LEARNERS AT A PRIVATE DESEGREGATED HIGH SCHOOL IN SOUTH AFRICA. Submitted by: Nomakhalipha Margaret Nongogo Student Number: 0309644N Supervised by Dr Carolyn McKinney Research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the degree of Masters of Arts in Applied English Language Studies. 2007 ABSTRACT This research report engages with the concern that African learners attending English medium, multiracial schools are losing their proficiency in African languages. In so doing, the report explores the language practices of four multilingual Grade 9 learners at a desegregated private high school in Gauteng. In a school environment that does not overtly support the use of African languages, I explore the extent to which multilingual learners use African languages in the school context, to position themselves and others, as an identity building resource, and the extent to which the use of African languages is implicated in their identities. I also explore the possible influence of the learners’ cultural and ethnic backgrounds on their language practices, and related to this, the expression of their identities. I look at how their language practices help them shift identities with space and purpose, and the contradictions therein. The study draws on poststructuralist theories of language and identity (Weedon, 1997;...
Words: 38460 - Pages: 154
...Literature 3 Theories 3 Identity Formation of a Teacher 3 Language and Identity 4 Poststructuralist Perspectives on Identity 5 Positioning 7 Pronunciation factor of learners 7 Culturally relevant pedagogy 9 Conclusion 10 Works Cited 11 Introduction With rise in economic globalisation and information technology, the need for a common language became a necessity for all. It wasn’t possible to trade and have subsidiaries in foreign countries without being able to converse. Now, world has become a global village and IT has further reduced the regional barriers, that is why English came up as a common language to communicate. English became a global language and it became the necessity for every country to be equipped with English performance (Khamkhien, 2010). It has been seen that with the rise of globalization of English language teaching, the total of Non Native English Speaking (NNES) in the US who are graduated in the TESOL teaching programs have increased at a massive rate (Brain, 2004). From the last decade a considerable growth has been observed in the research of NNES and their experiences in school and society. Experts gave their views related to non-native English speaking and its advantages and drawbacks in TESOL, NNESs attitude and their behaviour in classroom, challenges to credibility of NNESs, their perceptions, behavioural difference of NNES and NES in classrooms etc (Lu, 2005). NNESs are seen to face various issues of language adeptness, and also they...
Words: 5600 - Pages: 23
...Frederick Douglass, An American Slave to examine identity. From its first page, The ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas’ is set up as an exploration of Identity; The main purpose of the novel being to establish the truth of Frederick Douglass’s public identity and ‘set [himself] right before the public in the United States’ (Blassingame, 1979, p. 251). In fact, the text was described by Albert Stone as the “first native American autobiography to create a black identity in a style and form adequate to the pressures of historical black experience” (Stone, 1973, p. 213). As Kimberly Drake explains, “Slaves' (or more accurately, ex-slaves') autobiographies record the process in which the ex-slave writes his or her self into an existence recognized by dominant American society. The author portrays the way he or she overcomes the slaveholding society's continuing attempts to eradicate his or her identity; simultaneously, s/he rewrites that identity to fit the dominant culture's norms, despite the fact that these norms tend to conflict with his/her own experiences during and after slavery. These autobiographies thus provide dramatic models of the textual construction and development of "American" identity”. (Drake, 1997) In essence, Drake argues that Douglass has used his ‘Narrative’ to chronicle the death and consequent rebirth of his identity. The novel uses language, pacing and symbolism to establish Douglass’s sense of identity as well as moving on to cement Douglass’s experiences...
Words: 800 - Pages: 4
...Theorizing identity in language and sexuality research M A R Y B U C H O L T Z Department of Linguistics 3607 South Hall University of California, Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3100 bucholtz@linguistics.ucsb.edu K I R A H A L L Department of Linguistics Campus Box 295 University of Colorado at Boulder Boulder, CO 80309-0295 kira.hall@colorado.edu A B S T R A C T The field of language and sexuality has gained importance within socioculturally oriented linguistic scholarship. Much current work in this area emphasizes identity as one key aspect of sexuality. However, recent critiques of identity-based research advocate instead a desire-centered view of sexuality. Such an approach artificially restricts the scope of the field by overlooking the close relationship between identity and desire. This connection emerges clearly in queer linguistics, an approach to language and sexuality that incorporates insights from feminist, queer, and sociolinguistic theories to analyze sexuality as a broad sociocultural phenomenon. These intellectual approaches have shown that research on identity, sexual or otherwise, is most productive when the concept is understood as the outcome of intersubjectively negotiated practices and ideologies. To this end, an analytic framework for the semiotic study of social intersubjectivity is presented. (Sexuality, feminism, identity, desire, queer linguistics.)* I N T R O D U C T I O N Within the past decade the field of language and sexuality...
Words: 25968 - Pages: 104
...Whenever a discussion on identity is introduced, the most-cited poem in Korea is “The Flower” by Chunsu Kim. He sings of being himself as becoming a colorful and fragrant flower. To be the flower that will rightly represent his identity, he needs someone to call his name. In this poem, identity is not seen as something that is solid and concrete but as something that is situated and constructed by others, a glimpse of poststructuralist view on identity. Recently, language learning has been seen as participation and negotiation of self (see Higgins, forthcoming; Kinginger, 2004; Lam, 2000; Morita, 2004; Ohara, 2001; Pavlenko & Lantolf, 2000; and Solé, 2007 among others). The trend is resonated in the growing interest in language learner identity and the studies in narratives. In this paper, a case of heritage language learner will be investigated upon the theoretical frame of poststructuralism. Narrative inquiry will be used to analyze how she negotiates her learner identity. The purpose of this paper is two-fold: First, by looking at the struggle a language learner makes to acquire her heritage language, I reclaim the centrality of identity in defining heritage language learners. Second, to widen the horizons of narrative studies to the cyber space as it provides an ample source of easily accessible data and it has become one of the commonplace media of daily communication. Heritage Language Learners and Identity To refer to the Heritage Language Learners (HLLs), various...
Words: 4079 - Pages: 17
...analysis of Spanglish: relating language to identity Jason Rothman and Amy Beth Rell Abstract According to the 2000 census, 35.3 million Hispanics live in the United States. This number comprises 12.5% of the overall population rendering the Latino community the largest minority in the United States. The Mexican community is not only the largest Hispanic group but also the fastest growing: from 1990 to 2000, the Mexican population grew 52.9% increasing from 13.5 million to 20.6 million (U.S. Department of Commerce News, 2001). The influx of Mexican immigrants coupled with the expansion of their community within the United States has created an unparalleled situation of language contact. Language is synonymous with identity (cf. Granger, 2004, and works cited within). To the extent that this is true, Spanish is synonymous with being Mexican and by extension, Chicano. With the advent of amnesty programs such as Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which naturalized millions of Mexican migrants, what was once a temporal migratory population has become increasingly permanent (Durand et al., 1999). In an effort to conserve Mexican traditions and identity, the struggle to preserve the mother tongue while at the same time acculturate to mainstream Americana has resulted in a variant of Spanglish that has received little attention. This paper will examine the variant of Spanglish seen in the greater Los Angeles area and liken it to the bi-national identity under which these Mexican Americans...
Words: 9495 - Pages: 38
...non-peaceful: The establishment/maintenance of own societies and norms- separate cultural identities within a country The protection of a language through the media and education The growth of separate political parties and devolved power Civil disobedience Terrorist violence Civil war International conflict or disturbances The establishment and maintenance of societies and norms with clear separate cultural identities within a country (e.g. the Bretons in France) • The protection of a language through the media and education (e.g. Welsh, Catalan) • The growth of separate political parties and devolved power (e.g. the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists) • Civil disobedience (the Friends of Owen Glendauer) • Terrorist violence (e.g. the Basques, Chechnya) • Civil war (e.g. East Timor, Tamil Tigers) consequences of separatism may be either peaceful or non-peaceful: The establishment/maintenance of own societies and norms- separate cultural identities within a country The protection of a language through the media and education The growth of separate political parties and devolved power Civil disobedience Terrorist violence Civil war International conflict or disturbances The establishment and maintenance of societies and norms with clear separate cultural identities within a country (e.g. the Bretons in France) • The protection of a language through the media and education (e.g. Welsh, Catalan) • The growth of separate...
Words: 1144 - Pages: 5
...research: Ethnic identity switching among Latinos in Queens, NY H. Russell Bernard (PI) and Rosalyn Negron (Co-PI) Project summary Problem statement: As the nation’s ethnic diversity continues to grow, things like the distribution of resources, ethnic conflict, and assimilation can not be understood in terms of neatly packaged identities in competition. Today, an increasing number of people regularly switch from ethnicity to ethnicity in normal discourse, in an attempt to maximize their economic and political interests. I propose to examine ethnographically and in depth the process of identity switching – that is, how people negotiate between multiple ethnic identities in everyday contexts – among Latinos in Queens, NY. Methods and analysis: From January to July, I will collect ethnographic data about ethnic identity invocation trends in the research communities, train a research assistant, select twelve participants for continuous monitoring and work closely with them for two weeks each. From August to September, I will train the research assistant further and use the knowledge gained from the ethnographic data phase to design and pilot test a household survey. Between October and December, this survey will be administered to a representative sample of 200 respondents. Using the data collected from these surveys, inferential statistics –odds-ratios, chi-square, and logistic regression - will be used to test the hypotheses. Intellectual merit: While ethnic identity has long been...
Words: 6083 - Pages: 25
...different languages, have different identities, and are immigrants from different countries. What’s more important is how they conform to the new society due to struggles they face because of the way they speak the dialects of their languages in America. In both essays, language is one of the themes that both authors focus on. Tan and Anzaldua are struggling with speaking their language. Amy Tan is struggling with her mom’s broken English, while Gloria...
Words: 1149 - Pages: 5
...Identity is complicated. It is more than what a person is, identity is their beliefs, their cultures, all things which relate to the person. When a child is displaced or removed from their environment, their cultural identity may be the only thing they have left which relates back to their home land. Respecting this cultural identity has been difficult to accept at times in Australia with the push to have immigrants assimilate. Assimilation means they leave their cultures behind and accept the new countries beliefs (Bowes, Grace, & Hodge, 2012, p.25). In the situation of a child who has only these cultural identities to hold onto, this is not respecting their heritage or their journey. Encouraging multiculturalism rather than assimilation means the child can still maintain their cultural...
Words: 538 - Pages: 3
...3) In the selected verse of Adrienne Rich’s poem “The Burning of Paper Instead of Children,” Rich’s thought-provoking use of words and language relates to the cycle of oppression. Rich believes that through verbal exchanges, individuals are passing down oppressed ideas to one another, furthering the colonization of the mind. In the verse “…knowledge of the oppressor/ this is the oppressor’s language/ yet I need it to talk to you,” Rich depicts the paradoxical nature of society’s colonization of the mind and her conscious effort to be free of such mindset. Rich is fully aware of the knowledge that she is citing and the language that she is speaking is tainted with the oppressor’s – society’s – ideals. Yet she also believes that these two elements are needed in today’s everyday communication. It is dangerous when an act as natural as interacting with others can be oppressive, because language is an extremely powerful tool. All forms of languages, such as verbal exchange, body language and sign languages to name a few, are capable of changing perspectives of others. When used appropriately, people can use languages to end the outcomes of mind colonizing, such as racial stereotypes and racial superiority. However, most people abuse their ability to connect with others and use communication as means of perpetuating judgment of “others” and marginalizing certain groups, which ultimately results in a nonstop cycle of oppression. In the verses “…and they take the book away/ love and...
Words: 675 - Pages: 3
...feminist movement. Anzaldua believed that language was the base of culture, that language both created and destroyed the Chicano identity and that if people were to progress there needed to be tolerance and unity. Anzaldua views language as a base for individual identity and ultimately for culture. Individual identity starts to for at a young age it starts off as a mixture of their likes and what is instituted on them by...
Words: 1022 - Pages: 5
