I realize that, by blogosphere standards, this is going to smack some as being way behind, but you must understand that this post was started and interrupted 4 times already…. 

It seems that some people just want to keep digging themselves deeper…  Reverend J. Wright’s recent comments, far from apologizing or distancing himself from the perceived racist/hateful invective that he has spewed from the pulpit, have poured fuel on the fire.

The bulk of his remarks addressed, however, different groups seeing each other as deficient. He acted out the differences between marching bands at predominantly black and predominantly white colleges. “Africans have a different meter, and Africans have a different tonality,” he said. Europeans have seven tones, Africans have five. White people clap differently than black people. “Africans and African-Americans are right-brained, subject-oriented in their learning style,” he said. “They have a different way of learning.” And so on.

After jokingly mocking the Boston accents of former Presidents John F. and Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., Wright said, “nobody says to a Kennedy, ‘You speak bad English,’ only to a black child was that said.”
Wright said that he believes “a change is going to come, ’cause many of us are committed to change how we see others who are different.”

Ed Morrissey makes the obligatory connection of the above comments to the controversy over The Bell Curve a few years ago.  I just wanted comment on the language-specific comments…

Wright gets it both right and wrong…  In a separate post, Ed points out:

Nobody says it to a Kennedy because the Kennedys speak English correctly, but plenty of white kids speak English badly, too. A language doesn’t have different rules for different ethnicities, although it certainly can have different dialects; American English is a different dialect than British English, but it still has rules of grammar, syntax, and spelling. Those rules don’t rest on the color of the skin of the speaker — and to claim that they do is racist in and of itself.Once again, some “yes” and some “no.”  Wright can legitimately complain that some black (as well as other minority) kids are stigmatized in school as speaking deficient English because they speak a “non-standard” dialect.  The divergence of rules of “Black English” (commonly referred to as BE) vs. standard American English have given rise to the popular misconception that BE is simply “lazy,” and that speakers are “ignoring the rules.”  In fact, BE is very-much a rule-driven system, just as is every other variant of English.  Also, to point, it’s not like BE sprang up ex-nihilo.  Many mistake BE as being derived from African tongues — and indeed some African words infused BE, and most of these loan words, in fact, have spread to standard English as well — however, this is erroneous.  BE has the same roots as most of the other major dialects to be found up and down the Eastern coast of the US.  Most of the divergent grammaticalforms have their roots in regional dialects from England, Wales, and Scotland.  If you consider the fact that, in early colonial history, many of the slaves worked side-by-side with white indentured-servants from poor rural areas in GB, the development of this variant of English makes perfect sense.  BE shares a lot of features with standard southern English which, while somewhat stigmatized in other areas of the country, is still not usually viewed by anyone as being simply incorrect.  There are certainly sociological factors at work, which I doubt would cause offense to anyone if Wright was merely pointing out the double standard by which BE is considered (by some) to be a mark of grammatical ignorance, while other dialects “scoot free” (I had to throw a colloquialism in there!).

However, where many go awry is to claim discrimination against public schools for attempting to ingrain a standard form of English on top of the dialect one learns at home.  The reason why discrimination claims just don’t wash is the fact that this happens to every single child who enters into the public education system.  African Americans are not unique in speaking a distinct dialect.  Every one of us speaks a dialect — we just normally don’t actually become aware of the fact until we encounter a distinct dialect.  One of the major jobs of the public education system is to instill a national language, which entails enforcing agreed-upon language conventions upon everyone in that society.  In English, this takes two forms: the first (and most noticeable) arena of language conformity is in writing.  Written English conventions are rather rigidly enforced (even when a linguistic rationale is notably lacking).  How many times have you heard an English teacher say, “you can’t write like you speak?”  — Right…

The other arena is in speech.  In the US, this effect is much less pronounced than, say, in Germany (where children enter kindergarten speaking dialects differing so much as to be mutually unintelligible, and by the end of elementary school, can all speak “standard German” — in addition to their individual, regional dialects), however we can still see the effects of speech classes and the like teaching formalized English for business, academic, and various professional uses. 

It is not discriminatory for a society to try to ingrain a lingua franca into its citizens.  Discrimination occurs when the government (in any agency) tries to forbid the use of local languages from all domains.  If the US government were trying to exterminate BE, Wright would have a point, but, to be frank, no one cares what dialect one speaks in private domains.  It is beneficial to the individual and to society at large that all young people be taught to express themselves in standardized English in the public sphere,but one always has the freedom to codeswitch into dialect (no matter how divergent) in private. 

Sorry for the delay in the post. This weekend struck with a vengeance.
Today we’re going to look at the phenomenon of “balanced” bilinguals and codeswitching. Strangely enough, and contrary to most people’s ideas, a bilingual does not equal two native speakers. Bilingualism seems to subtly influence the brain, and the speech of a bilingual is distinct from that of a monolingual. One of the most noticeable aspects of this is what is called codeswitching — lit. seemingly random switches between the languages. These switches are actually not random at all. The more balanced someone’s bilingualism is, the more naturally their brains will switch between the two languages. While most people learn to “control” their vocabulary production to avoid annoying/antagonizing their monolingual friends, this is how their brains arrange their thoughts, and in relaxed (familiar) settings, they will naturally switch in and out of their languages. This is very typically a variant of the language they use in family settings. A few examples may be in order:
My wife and I, while neither of us qualifies as raised bilinguals, both tend to blend our conversations together with generous heapings of English (my native lang.), Mandarin (her native lang.), and Taiwanese (which she uses mostly with her immediate family). We don’t expect very many people to completely follow what we say. Even people familiar with all three languages will occasionally have trouble following our conversations because what has been created is a familiar language of intimacy that is all our own. This happens to some extent even with monolingual couplings. Think of the term “couple talk…”
I have a Latina neighbor who was raised in LA. While she is strongest in English, and has no trouble whatsoever speaking entirely in English, having been raised by Spanish-speaking parents (and raising her own children partly in Spanish) has made Spanish a language of intimacy to her. Much like pulling on a favorite old sweatshirt when you’re home, she visibly relaxes when letting drop random Spanish phrases. The more relaxed she becomes, the more codeswitching she uses. This is not dependent on audience. While I speak Spanish and my wife doesn’t, she is just as likely to drop terms like “mija” (text note: col. “mi hija” “my daughter”) on my wife (whom she adores) as she is on me. This sometimes requires a quick translation on my part, as these terms invariably confuse my wife, who usually thinks she is misunderstanding English. Therein lies the dilemma. While I can appreciate this case as our neighbor letting us into her circle of intimacy, her vocabulary choice can potentially confuse or antagonize those without understanding of the meaning of the utterance.

Today we’re going to look at the following scenarios:
2) People speak to you in the target language, but every time they reach a word that they remember in English, they suddenly switch, thinking that this will “help you to understand better.”
3) People switch back and forth between languages with you.

In situation #2, some of the same principles from part 1 may apply. Simply put, a lot of speakers of different languages have a hard time believing that you will actually understand them. They probably think that they’re helping out. The again, they may simply be accessing old language training, and seeking your approval as to whether or not they have remembered correctly. Either way, it’s usually best to nod politely, and carry on with the conversation. You may want to respond with the foreign language equivalent of what they just said in English to 1) acknowledge that you understood (thus making them happy that they successfully recalled the English phrase or word); and 2) it allows them to see that you actually are quite aware of the term in their language. After doing this a few times, they tend to take the point, and speak more directly in their own language.

Situation #3 is much more “hairy.” Usually, this occurs when there is no clear indication as to who has the superior command of foreign language. If your proficiency in the language is roughly at the same level as your conversational partner’s command of English, it only makes sense that the conversation will alternate from one language to another. You can take advantage of this, as I often find that when I’m lacking a vocabulary word, it’s almost guaranteed that the other person will know it and vice versa. This type of mutual level of proficiency (or ignorance, as the case may be) and mutual goal of language development often makes for great friends. I often found myself much more able to relate to people in the target language if they had made serious study of another language themselves. This way, they at least could appreciate the difficulty of my situation. People with some foreign language ability tend to be the best conversational partners, especially when you’re at a low proficiency level. They will be more adept at circumlocution (explaining “around” vocabulary gaps, whether by pointing or explaining the concept) and explanation.
The other possibility of a “serial switcher” is that the person is a very balanced bilingual. People who grow up speaking two languages, or who use a foreign language regularly in their day-to-day life tend to “code-switch” with regularity. They may or may not even be aware of how much they do it, and they are certainly not trying to “hijack the conversation” away from the language you are trying to practice. These people have merely gotten so used to at least certain aspects of the language, that they think in this mixed style. They are simply verbalizing their direct thoughts. A few examples…

Everywhere I’ve ever travelled, I’ve noted that expats (English speakers living in the countries) tend to mix certain expressions from the local language into their daily conversation — regardless of their command of the language! Some of this is innocuous — it would be difficult and confusing to consistently translate place names and food items (for example). Some of the items would take much too much effort to translate or describe, and doing so could lead to misunderstandings. Imagine trying to translate “enchiladas,” for instance. Even if a direct translation equivalent exists, it’s unlikely to be used consistently by expats, to allow a distinction between Anglo and foreign concepts. For example the Chinese and American versions of “chicken soup” are completely different, so in Taiwan, the Chinese type was consistently labeled as “ji rou tang” (lit. “chicken soup”).
Additionally, certain expressions from the local language may become “trendy” and get regularly used and abused by expats. It seems that the lower the expat’s level of proficiency in the language, the more likely he/she will use these types of “buzzwords.” It can actually get quite irritating to those who are pretty proficient in actual language use. An example of this would be the over use of terms like “daijoubu” (lit. “ok”) amongst expats in Japan.

There is an additional type of switcher — the person who actually grows up speaking the two languages (often referred to as a “balanced bilingual”). We’ll look at these people tomorrow….

A frequent complaint I hear from language learners is having problems actually convincing native speakers to talk to them in the foreign language. If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone:

1) People always insist on speaking English to you, claiming they want to “practice” their English.
2) People speak to you in the target language, but every time they reach a word that they remember in English, they suddenly switch, thinking that this will “help you to understand better.”
3) People switch back and forth between languages with you.
4) You listen to someone droning at a painfully slow pace in English. You are positive that you could have a much better conversational experience by switching into that person’s native language, and even make several attempts, but the person simply is not taking the hint.

This week we’re going to look at these situations, some possible causes, and what you can do to alleviate this (and hopefully to get more opportunity to practice your foreign language speaking skills).

In the first scenario, there are several possible reasons why everyone may address you in your native language instead of the language you’re trying to learn.

The first reason is that you may just not be as proficient in the foreign language as you think you are. Be honest with yourself! The goal of most interaction with people is communication, and if the person you’re speaking with happens to speak English (or whatever your native language may be) at a much higher level than you speak your foreign language, then it will make very little sense to speak the other language — unless the primary goal of the interaction is merely to practice your FL skills… While this may be a bitter pill to swallow, if this is the case, it’s probably best to just continue speaking in English, and look for other more remedial opportunities for language practice.

The second reason this may be happening is dependent upon where you are and what language you’re studying, but sometimes the person may decide on racially or culturally-based criterion that there is no possible way that you could ever proficiently speak their language. By and large, I’ve found that speakers of Western languages to be fairly used to foreigners studying and speaking to them in their languages. If you happen to study a non-Western language (often referred to as “less-commonly taught” languages) — especially if you study a language that is typically spoken by a single national/ethnic group (such as Korean, Japanese, etc.) then you may very well find that natives of that language simply do not expect outsiders to be able to communicate in their language beyond a most cursory level. It can be a struggle to get people to believe that you really are capable of a normal conversation. There are a lot of people who will be honestly shocked at people who demonstrate proficiency in their language. A Hungarian I used to work with was tripping for weeks after meeting an American on the streets of Taiwan who spoke proficient Hungarian (Mormon missionary, of course…). This disbelief at the notion of people gaining proficiency in your language can also sometimes cause people to not even recognize their own language when it is spoken to them by someone who is not expected to know it. I’ve had many a run-in with Japanese or Chinese people who got so flustered and nervous when I approached (probably ransacking their brains trying to remember English phrases) that they didn’t even notice when I spoke to them in fluent Japanese/Chinese. When you come across this type of person, it’s very frustrating, but just stick to your guns. Sooner or later, they’re going to realize that you can communicate, and that will be a great life lesson for them.

Final reason (for tonight): The person you’re talking to may simply be really motivated to learn your language. This can be interpreted as being “greedy” (i.e., hogging the conversation time). If it really bugs you, and it’s a person whom you want to/have to continue to deal with, it is well worth your time to talk to the person about this. Most of the time, they simply see you as a God-sent opportunity to practice, but have never really considered that you’d like to learn as well. If you’re spending your time and money trying to learn a language, the person should honor that. Ideally, you may want to set up a time for regular language exchange, which will benefit both of you. The key to language exchanges is to be extremely rigid in approach to when to use each language (for example, if we meet for two hours, the first hour can be in English, and then the next hour in the other language — but stick to the schedule, and make sure to keep the full amount of time).

More tomorrow….