SB1070 Not Xenophobic Enough, Arizona Now Says Teachers Cannot Have Accents
(h/t Emma's Mom)
I've said it more than once...I know that bigotry and racism have always been around, but I really miss the days when people (especially in positions of power) were loath to be so open about their irrational hatred. Is it me, or is Arizona proudly embracing the notion of being the xenophobic capital of the country?
The Arizona Department of Education recently began telling school districts that teachers whose spoken English it deems to be heavily accented or ungrammatical must be removed from classes for students still learning English, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
The crackdown applies to classes deemed to have students who are learning English, mostly as a second language. Federal No Child Left Behind regulations call for students to be taught by persons fluent in English. The determination of fluency is left up to individual states.
Arizona seems to think that includes accents. Of course, they are wrong - accents do not by themselves measure fluency. And almost every person who is a native speaker of another language is going to have an accent when speaking English, unless they learned English at a young age.
"This is just one more indication of the incredible anti-immigrant sentiment in the state," said Bruce Merrill, a professor emeritus at Arizona State University who conducts public-opinion research.
Indeed. Arizona's action against immigrants didn't begin with the recent passage of the "show me your papers" bill, but it emboldened anti-immigrant sentiment in other states around the country, and apparently in the Arizona educational system too.
Arizona's education department has sent people into schools to audit teachers on comprehensible pronunciation, correct grammar and good writing. Teachers who fail are given the chance to improve, but if not, they must be fired or reassigned.
Oy vey. My in-laws immigrated here from Denmark in the 50s. They never lost their accents. My uncle, who immigrated here in the 60s from the Middle East, has never lost his accent (and how many immigrants who aren't children at the time of do?). My eldest's science teacher in middle school is a first generation American, whose family immigrated here from Mexico and for whom Spanish was the primary language spoken at home. She has a slight accent. All of these people I've mentioned were highly intelligent, highly educated people from whom you could learn much. But not in Arizona.
Makes me wonder if Arizona will ban Kindergarten Cop from the area video stores.
I also heard on the pbs news that AZ was going to cancel some of the Latio history classes. If true, I am sure that they replace them with a full A/V show of the KKK.
"Let's talk dirty to the animals"
You mean this tastey little piece of legislation.
Arizona Governor signs bill targeting ethnic studies.
Let's see how far to the right they go before they fall off of the edge of this flat world.
Arizona going Fascist before our eyes...
... Note that these points especially apply TO Arizona.
The other points not listed here can be applied on a more broader sense across America.
R E M E M B E R:
The Good German went along because they believed it was "PATRIOTIC"
http://www.oldamericancentury.org/antifascism...
#2. Disdain for the importance of human rights.
#3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause.
#7. Obsession with national security.
#11 Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts.
#12. Obsession with crime and punishment.
Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
Ask someone from Mississippi if people who live in Arizona have an accent.
The answer is "yes".
So, Arizonians, time to get specific: to which accents do you have an objection?
Technically those are regional dialects...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Dialects are different than accents. Dialects are the use of different words for the same things such as, soda for pop or cola.
Election 2012: Be Educated! Be Active! Vote!
www.phoenixjustice.com
Dialects are also pronouncing words the "wrong" way, like in Boston they say cah, instead of car, potty instead of party, and seem to not pronounce their r's.
Here in Texas the speech tends to be slower with a tendency to drop g's like I'm fixin' I'm goin'.
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ke5Mr5eCF2U
Ever notice how irons have a setting for permanent press? I don't get it.
Steven Wright
n/t
You can't teach Drivers Ed when someone keeps calling an automobile a caaar...
is intended to be a factual statement
What classroom?
Meghan McCain has an accent. She speaks Valley Girl fluently. "Oh, fer sure."
.
In Arizona...
... We are ALL Reasonably Suspect of being GUILTY until we prove our innocence.
Truly Anti-American.
.
Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm2zq3lwh3I
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
... that Jesus Christ would be a middle-eastern looking guy with an accent.
Heh, there was a report a while back of a state senator somewhere saying, "If English was good enough for Jesus, it should be good enough for people who come here."
Or something to that effect.
I wish stupidity were painful.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
"I wish stupidity were painful."
It is painful for everybody but them.
Their stoopid stings me everytime.
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Stupidity is painful, just not necessarily to the person who is stupid. I know my head hurts when I have to endure politicians and pundits saying stupid things (and having others believe them rather than ridicule them).
It is...I know **I** get a stabbing brain pain when I hear some of the stupid things people believe.
OH! You meant...
"Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege."
Unknown
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
It was the governor of Texas (Miriam Ferguson) back in 1920. She said, "“If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for Texans”!"
.
What papers did Christ carry?
.
Starve the WAR Beast...
... Feed Americans.
And you see how he ended up!
[I may just have stuffed cotton for a brain, but even I know this is just wrong...]
Um, I hate to tell them this, but it is impossible to speak any language without an accent.
I've met some people from Arizona. They don't speak English in the same accent as I do, because I grew up in Chicago, and now live on the west coast.
Now, as for the requirement of fluency in standard grammar, I'd almost be willing to bet that it would weed out a lot of the white and/or native-born teachers, since those teachers who learned English as a second language are probably far more familiar with every nuance of the standard dialect. I'd love to see that one backfire on them. :)
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
When I would return to Chicago on break my friends would point out that I had developed an accent. I couldn't hear it, but they could. I would return to Sacramento and be told there that I had come back with an accent. But I still couldn't hear it.
I finally came to the conclusion that I'd taken some habits from both places. Chicagoans are often lazy at the beginnings of words ("Da Bears"), while Californians are often lazy at the end of words. After the influence of both, it's a wonder I could be understood by anyone :)
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Yeah, I was uprooted from Chicago in Jr. High, and moved to So. Cal. I was teased no end about my accent, which eventually morphed into some weird hybrid.
I was from the northern suburbs of Chicago. When I got to California, I discovered that "aw" and "ah" were reversed there. And every time I pronounced a word with "ah" as a syllable, I was told I sounded way too nasal, almost like a horn.
I was the girl from Chi-CAAAAHHHH-go, who drove here in a cAAHHHr, like, oh my gAAAHHHHD!
:)
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
So Jeff Sessions, Jim Demint, etc. don't speak English well enough to teach.
George Bush often doesn't speak English well enough to teach.
or speak
So George W. Bush wouldn't be allowed to teach Arizona schools?
Corruption favors the wealthy.
Sorry. The thought of George W. Bush being allowed to teach in any school anywhere made me faint.
Everyone is equally entitled to the pursuit of happiness. Wasn't that once self evident?
No such thing. Everyone has an Accent. Which accent is not permitted?
Brooklun? (Brooklyn?)
Ailabayama? (Alabama?)
New Hemsha? (New Hampshire?)
Joja? (Georgia?)
New Jehzee? (New Jersey?)
Bastin? (Boston?)
Good grief, what a bunch of idiots these people are.
Consolation prize: Once the oil starts running low, they will all have to leave or starve, and arizona will simply depopulate into something smaller than Alaska.
Downside: they will move where you live.
It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.
-George Carlin
stop vacationing where I live?
Yes, he had brown skin and an accent...he was from India. I'm betting Arizonans would think he was a middle eastern muslim extremist when he was, in fact a Jain (was his last name, too!)
Yes, there were times when we had to ask him to repeat things, but we also LEARNED a helluva lot from this gentle man.
What fools these mortals be....
I had a gentleman from India teaching us English, first year teacher came fresh off the boat. However, his accent was so difficult to get past, that even after repeating things 5 times (slowly) only a portion of the people in the class understood him. It had gotten so bad, he had to write on the boards, but his handwriting was atrocious. Sadly many of the people in the class had to drop it, myself included, because it was physically impossible for us to understand him - either through written or oral communication.
I'll never forget one of my friends from that class. She told me the only reason she passed as well as she did was because she spoke Maliali (phonetic spelling, but probably spelled wrong forgive me) and because of that, she was able to speak to him to clarify anything he said most everyone else didn't catch.
She had to speak to him in his native language to understand his English class, the class that NYU brought him over to teach.
Ah, the good old days...
We all better be alert as to where the long term trends in this country are going or could be heading.
"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Eleanor Roosevelt
Always
"I know that there are people who do not love their fellow
man, and I hate people like that! " ~ Tom Lehrer (1928 - )
Isn't it time that the US secedes from the union and allows Arizona to become an independent nation? I mean... who wants to stay under the same umbrella as those stinkers?
I guess they'll be scrutinizing people from places like "The South" and "The Bronx."
Please ban Kindergarten Cop nationwide!
Why don't they just come out with it and quit pussy footing around. Their true goal is a plain as hell and to miss it you would have to be blind and deaf.
A member of my family is a teacher who has a heavy southern accent and doesn't even try to get her tenses correct. She better never move to Arizona.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
"Is it pronounced Hawaii or Ha-vie-ii"?
"Ha-vie-ii".
"Thank you".
"You're velcome".
Speaking of Hawaii, I guess technically, Barry can't visit that state anymore. Seeing as he's Kenyan and doesn't have a birth certificate.
This isn't just an attack on teachers with accents, this is an attack on children learning American English. I'm assuming that many, if not most, students learning American English in Arizona have Spanish as their first language. A teacher fluent in both languages is not only one of the best people for the job but is likely to have an accent.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
And if after you have an accent at the end of your Engrish as a second language class, you will be given an F and expelled from the school.
just how much more STUPID can this get....
Now if we can just get all the foreign words out of our
EnglishAmerican, how patriotic would that be?...you've never BEEN to Arizona?
This is a 2 on their stupid meter (it goes to 11, donchaknow...)
Its a good thing people in the west speak the purest, most accent-free form of English. Did it ever occur to them that to Arizonans that they have a very discernible accent and their speech is considered to be coarse by other English speakers?
This would be a great topic for John Oliver on the Daily Show.
Is sign language an accent?
Only if you roll your fingers while signing words with "r"s in them.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
When I come to a word that has trilled r's I pick up my cat and squeeze her: "rrrrrrr"
Does the cat have an accent?
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
I never questioned her nationality. Unconditional love being what it is.
but cats are ALL aliens... I mean, just LOOK at them. They've gotta be from another planet or something with their weird little faces. At least my cat is... =D
.
Ok. That reminds me of a Helen Keller joke.
How does Helen Keller masturbate?
With one hand.
She moans with the other.
Actually, if you know Amerslan (American Sign Language), you can tell where in the country another person learned their signing by the specific short-hand they use for certain words.
I guess you'd call that an accent...
[I may just have stuffed cotton for a brain, but even I know this is just wrong...]
Sometimes my fellow liberals can get all in a tither about nothing. Arizona's new ID law is anti-American, hateful, un-constitutional, and about any other epithet one can apply to it. It is proof that bigots abound.
But, fellow travelers, this law is likely not. Speaking any language is hard enough without picking up someone else's mispronunciation due to their accent. It is entirely possible to speak both languages with little or no accent. Better to have a native English speaker who speaks
Spanish fluently (if with an accent) to teach English than the other way around. I remember learning French in high school from an American born teacher who could barely speak the language, which elicited huge guffaws regularly from the one French-Canadian kid in our class who spoke French fluently (it was the 60s and he was required to take the class, go figure).
If I'm learning Spanish I want it from a native Spanish speaker who also speaks English so I can learn correct pronunciation, rather than a native English speaker who speaks Spanish with a bad English accent. I would hope that ESL students would benefit from learning from a native speaker who also speaks their language but can teach them English without an accent.
It may seem like a small thing but it matters. I know await the collective jerking of knees.
Think about this for a minute, please.
(nothing in this post should be construed to exclude the possibility that the bigots in Arizona might not turn this law around and make ESL students learn English from someone who doesn't even speak their language. THAT would be bigoted and thoughtless. But as it has been reported I see nothing wrong with the concept. It remains to be seen if Arizona can turn this into yet another way to bash immigrants but we shouldn't be doing their work for them by overreacting.)
read my post down below (a few posts down, it is a huge wall of text... you can't miss it).
I'm sorry, but you're mistaken about your assumptions. There is NO SUCH THING as "no accent." While I understand what you mean about learning a language from a native speaker, ALL native speakers have some accent or another. Using your example, is the native spanish speaker you are learning from Mexican? Spanish? Argentinean? In all three cases, they would all be speaking Spanish and be "native" speakers, but the pronunciation would be different and even key vocabulary, phrases and grammar would differ. Not so much so that the three different speakers wouldn't be able to understand each other, but damnit, they are different and even "native speakers" have accents.
What you are talking about is that people should learn from a person who speaks in the DOMINANT DIALECT for whatever language you are learning. So, if you were learning British English, you would want to speak "Received Pronunciation." French? You better learn it from the French, not Belgium speakers of speakers in Quebec. Though they are native speakers, those "French" speakers don't speak what SOCIETY deems to be the dominant dialect. The truth is, the dialect that is "dominant" is normally only so by chance and historical crimes (commonly). ALL speakers have accents and speak in dialects. There is no "neutral" version of a language, regardless of perceptions... Do you get it?
I learned Japanese from a Japanese lady. Turns out Japanese is spoken differently by males and females and I now speak Japanese like a Japanese lady. Everyone thinks I must be either a girl trying to pass as a guy, or really, really stupid...
BTW: it's "really, really stupid"...
[I may just have stuffed cotton for a brain, but even I know this is just wrong...]
it's not too big of a deal ... and it's probably a great ice breaker and makes you very approachable and interesting to talk to! I bet they love to find out why that you speak that way ;P
And as somebody who learned Dutch for two years, in the Netherlands... taking "language classes" from the university's "language center," I can tell you that while I was glad my instructors were native speakers, and having them as guides for pronunciation was useful, at a certain point simply hearing the correct way to say the word doesn't mean you will be able to say it that way. There is a certain point where only natives, or chronic smokers, can make some of the "hock up a phlegm" sounds that are found in the Dutch language. Sure, it's great that the native speaker made that sound for me to hear, but that doesn't make it any more likely that I can achieve the impossible and make that awful sound myself (well, I tried and could make a good attempt at it, but it was never quite as good as the natives)...
This stuff is less accepted every day, but the general developmental stages for language acquisition show that if one learns a language early enough, they can normally speak it without a noticeable "non-native" accent. By "early enough," I mean before the age of 5 or 6. Once you pass those ages though, you tend to find the language learner speaks grammatically perfect but they tend to have *some* presence of a "non-native" accent no matter how hard they work to lose it. However, even up into jr. high, if a person starts to learn a language prior to adulthood they can eventually learn to speak it with almost no grammatical problems.
Unfortunately, adult learners always tend to have some kind of "non-native" accent and make small grammatical mistakes no matter how long and extensively they have been studying the language. They may get close to a nearly native fluency (and even mask their non-native accents), but they will NEVER have the same proficiency that they would have if they had only started learning in their early teens (or better yet, when they were a toddler).
Oy, it isn't about learning to speak without an accent but learning a language from a native speaker. Yes, everyone has an accent but internal language accents are different than the standard pronunciation of a language. I remember when some Cuban friends tried to teach me Spanish in Miami. Cubans have pretty dense accented Spanish and even other Spanish speakers can have problems understanding them but even I could notice the difference in how they pronounced the words when they were teaching them to me and when I pointed that out they said they wanted me to learn it the right way.
Local accents are a truly different issue and English classes teaching young children (English speaking) ought to be taught by someone who avoids the local accent when teaching pronunciation. The kids will get that by ear anyway and learning to understand the difference between your own regionalism and generic language is helpful in developing an "ear" to understanding different dialects of any language.
The key to my comment though is that this policy isn't the booga booga all you folks seem to think it is. Yes, there is a possibility of abuse of it and they ought to be called on it if that happens but it strikes me as simply a good idea to maximize the ability of non-native speakers to learn the language in a way that is consistent with the native speakers they will encounter.
then why say:
Speaking any language is hard enough without picking up someone else's mispronunciation due to their accent. It is entirely possible to speak both languages with little or no accent.
Seems to me that I was responding to what you said. And, again, I see that you are writing about regionalism vs. generic language. My original point is that there is no such thing as "generic" language. What's more, "regional language" (we call these dialects, fwiw) are JUST AS VALID as your "generic" language. If you are a corporatist or your only concern for people learning language is that they sound bland and like everybody else, then yes, the "mainstream dialect" is what you hope they would speak.
Don't you think there are benefits to a person learning their regional dialect though? As in, it instills some pride in them? It makes them feel good about who they are, where they live, and where they are from?
My whole point is that all dialects have value, "regional" or "generic" (which, again, is a meaningless term because what you would call "generic" American speech is actually a Midlands dialect/midwestern accent, but I digress...). It's wrong to place one over the other because, underneath it all, language is self-defining.
I am of the thinking that if you value all dialects, when people speak "differently" than the perceived "norm," there won't be any problem. In fact, it is desirable to have MORE dialects and accent present in speaking communities because it promotes growth and vibrancy in the language.
However, people like you, who believe in the myth of "accent-less"/"generic" language, are actually supporting a corporatist position. The whole basis for teaching people "generic" English is to make them sound like "everybody else" so that it makes for uniform business experiences. People like you see it as "progress" to make people all speak the same because you've grown up in a world where the "generic" accent is one of status, privilege and power. Who wouldn't want to speak like that, after all?
Well, I'll tell you who... all the people who DO speak a regional dialect. They are being left out and marginalized because as a society, we are pursuing policies that favor one dialect over all others. If you speak the prized dialect, it opens doors for you. If you don't, you have doors slammed in your face. Until people start to think differently, until people realize there is no such thing as "generic" language, just dialects that are more desirable than others for racists/economic reasons, things will not change.
You know, in Australia they built schools to "Westernize" aboriginals and to teach them English, correct "RP" British English, so that the savages would be civilized and could enjoy progress like anybody else can... Watch the film "Rabbit Proof Fence" if you would like to know more.
Likewise, here in the States, we built "Indian Schools" to teach American Indians how to be "white" and one of the harshest, most overreaching aspects of these schools is that students were forbidden to speak their tribal tongue, and punished severely if they did. Of course, the people at the time and instructors at the schools insisted it was for the benefit of the American Indians that they did this (even when many of the children were dying from disease and just plain homesickness/depression).
It was widely believed at the time that if the "Indian" didn't speak English like whites, they would never have any progress and would forever live in the past and be savages. In reality, these "Indian Schools" are among one of the darkest chapters of our fucked up national history (right up there with internment camps and the Tuskegee experiments, not to mention the forced relocation of Native Americans to reservations and smallpox blankets and all of that madness).
My point in all of this being, if you want to continue to cling to the incorrect, outdated, and prejudice notion that there is such a thing as "generic" speech and that students should be taught in that vs. regional dialects, then you are perpetuating racism and inequality. You might disagree, but I've linked in my original post below a book on the matter and if you actually dug deeper and questioned your assumptions on the matter, you might learn some things.
However, as throughout history, most people think they have it all figured out when it comes to matters linguistic. They make a bunch of ignorant generalizations and talk out of their ass, and then when somebody calls them on it and tries to set them straight, they ignore them and insist on clinging to their wrong-headed beliefs. More power to you is all that I can say. I, for one, am happy to now realize how valid and important all dialects are (even the "Midlands" dialect that you seem to think is "generic"). One should not be prized over others as it creates far more problems than it solves.
What's more, as I tried to explain above, simply hearing somebody speaking in an accent does not automatically mean you can and will speak like them. When you are a baby, as you vocalize and muscles develop in your mouth/throat (not to mention the formation of the hard palate and eventual growth of teeth), you are actually able to make the full range of sounds found in human language (okay, there are times when a baby's mouth is not developed enough to make very difficult sounds that are formed on the backs of teeth and the like). However, as we grow older and are passively exposed to the accents and regional dialects around us, the human ear allows us to specialize and we absorb the little quirks of speech that are later called "accent" or "dialect." THIS IS PASSIVE, THOUGH! It's not like a little kid hears "warsh" everyday instead of "wash" and then actively decides to throw the "R" sound in there. It just happens, osmotically I suppose.
However, when that child grows up and notices the difference between "warsh" and "wash," they *might* be able to change their pronunciation enough to say "wash" instead of what's most comfortable to them "warsh," but it is not just an automatic thing like when they were a toddler. What's more, WHY SHOULD THEY? My whole point is, WHY WHY WHY is "wash" really more valid and desirable than "wash"? When you dig away the bullshit, when you really look at it, it's because "wash" is how white people with education and money say the word, while "warsh" is how hickish country folk say the word. So, of course, it's no surprise which variant society (and you) favor and deem "generic."
My whole point is that there is no "generic" and every accent/dialect is regional (at least originally). It is in valuing one over the others that we run into problem. You may actually believe it is better for people to say "wash" vs. "warsh", and that when they are taught children should only have teachers who say "wash." I am telling you that "warsh" is fine as well, except to closet racists/corporatists, and who is to say that the teacher who says "warsh" isn't brilliant while the teacher who says "wash" might speak "correctly," but is as dumb as a lump on a log? It's a big assumption that a person's speech reflect their intelligence, and that is the very assumption that is made when we legislate a preference for one dialect over others.
That's all. Read it with an open-mind and THINK if you want. Or, continue on your way in ignorance if you must. Most people know NOTHING about language and haven't the first clue about language acquisition. But, opinions are like assholes, after all...
I know something you can give these morons that
doesn't have an accent....
(an extended middle finger).
But this can't be much of a surprise, considering this:
remember that Supreme Court case from a while back?
MIRANDA V. ARIZONA????
go figure.
The people who are supporting this shit take "blissfully ignorant" to a whole new level.
For one, as anybody with half a brain knows, we all have an "accent" of one kind or another. Most people who think they do not have an "accent" only believe so because, surprise surprise, they normally sound (or are close to sounding) like the "desirable" accent of the prevailing culture. The definitions of what that desirable "non-accent" is varies depending on location, culture and socioeconomic status.
For citizens of these United Snakes of AmeriKKKa, that "no accent" accent is commonly referred to as "Standard American English," but when you actually dig deeper into what exactly S.A.E. is by looking someplace other than up your ass (which is apparently where most of the public officials here in AZ look for info. from what I can tell), well, you find that the water is pretty muddy on what "no accent"/SAE is and how many U.S. citizens actually speak it (vs. how many of us believe that we do).
For all intents and purposes, having "no accent" in the U.S. (i.e., speaking SAE) sounds something like what you normally hear on T.V., or the operator voice on the telephone. The funny thing is, this "non-accent" is actually a very distinct melding of many American accents/dialects ("Midlands"), but nobody actually understands that. They just think that if you are educated, wealthy, beautiful -- you speak and sound like what you hear on the television set or radio (well, at least as far as professional broadcasters go). It's why broadcasters with very distinct voices/accents/dialects stood out so much over the years. Their speaking styles set them apart from the vanilla "SAE" broadcasters who all sounded the same (think Dan Rather vs. Joe Schmoe anchorman, for one). There are some very clear biases as far as what people believe about dialects/accents and how "correct" the English is (read, how "corporate" or WASPish if you truly want to know what those in charge desire).
As for the rest of the English speaking world (including many non-natives), the desirable accent, or "flawless English" as the AZ idiots would call it, would have to be "perfect" British "Received Pronunciation" (call it the "Queen's English" or "BBC English" if you want). Even there, many English speakers believe that they speak RP but they actually don't, and a quite small percentage actually do (I can't remember the estimates). The point is, that people perceive "normal" and "correct" based on regional/economic/social values and messages about region/dialects/accents.
Anyway, I say all of this because AZ and the Dept of Edu are trying to mandate the exclusive use of the "midland" dialect above all others. I guess that's okay if you are a prescriptivist who still believes that Latin grammar rules are a reasonable basis for setting our own language's grammar rules, or you believe definitions for words come only from the dictionary and that those definitions don't change, ever. But, if you are a descriptivist (like most sensible linguists and people who know anything about language are), and you realize that language is fluid, changes, and that ALL dialects and grammars are valid and have value when used appropriately depending on the situation and context of speech -- well, then this type of xenophobic trash sucks.
I will tell you the worse part of it all. For those of us who are formally trained in teaching English as a second or other language (TESOL), EVERY SINGLE text, study, methods course that we take hammers home the point that the single most effective way to help students learn a language, and also the content that they need in school, is to USE their native language when possible and appropriate, to lower their anxiety about using their new language by focusing less on "flawless" usage and more on just getting them to try...
What's more, in many cases English Language Learners (ELL's) are first put into intensive courses for 1-2 years to get their "English up to speed" before they are thrown into a "mainstream" classroom and expected to perform at the same level as their peers. For one, these "intensive" classes that they take are normally a joke, but sometimes they are good and their "intensive language class" teacher is bilingual and knows how to bridge from the native language to the new language.
Likewise, sometimes mainstream teachers have an aide in their classroom who is bilingual and helps translate instructions and works with ELLs when they need more direct help. One of the best parts of having these two types of individuals working with ELLs is that they (frequently) have an "accent" and it just makes the students more comfortable that here is somebody who speaks a little bit closer to them, who is respected and accomplished and who is helping them, instead of the "SAE" speaking gringo who speaks "flawlessly" so much so that it makes the students feel dumb and embarrassed to even try.
P.S. For what it's worth, because Arizona is a newer state and a lot of our residents are from out of state, and even the natives are frequently transplants, we have a lot of accents here but people lose those (mostly) over time. This is called "accent leveling" and while Arizonan speech sounds very similar to the Midland/"normal" Midwestern accent (call it "SAE" or "flawless" English or w/e you want), if you really ripped it apart most Arizonans DO NOT speak SAE even when they think that they do. While I am "educated" and speak fair standard American English, there are still words and phrases that I use that are NOT SAE, as "normal" as my speech might sound. This is just stupid fucking politicians butting in on things that they don't understand...
BTW, I don't know how many of you know him, but if you're curious about the enemy, here he is: http://www.ade.state.az.us/administration/sup...
That asshole has been screwing things up for quite awhile now, and he's been toying with a possible run for governor. I tell you what, I fear him just as much as I would fear Arpaio as governor. They are both racist, stupid, ignorant bigots. Horne just wears a suit and seems a lot more benign (which is more dangerous in my estimation as people don't fear it as much)...
P.P.S. Lots of mistakes in this I'm sure, way too long/wordy for anybody to care. But you know what, I don't care. I don't speak SAE and I don't value the rest of the world's love of concision like so many others do. I speak jibberish and I speak it FLAWLESSLY...
Thanks for the work, cw.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
I call it abject, miserable, horrible boredom/loneliness ;P
Thanks anyway, though.
They only seem to speak about English, but Americans speak and write differently: color~colour; airplane~aeroplane; aluminum~aluminium; Head of Arizona's Dept. of Education~arse; and so on.
Corruption favors the wealthy.
;)
Being from Australia, I'm non-rhotic. I don't pronounce all "R"s. Only if a word begins with it, or if a vowel follows it. So car is cah. Would I be permitted to teach?
In a related story.
Aliens Hijacked the Voyager 2 spacecraft
Its sending back data in a new code, format. Its as if Voyager has an accent.
This is the real Republican Party.
Remember how Bush was able to open doors with them and identified with their constituency, partly because he was semi-bi
lingual and everything.
I guess all that is out the window now. the repubs looked at the block of Hispanic voters as a whole and said we don't need any of them.
Oh how I long for the time when Arnold will be back to screwing up Hollywood and stop screwing up California
I grew up hearing an onion being called an urnion. An ear being called an air. There were many more words that I learned growing up in the deep south and by the third grade I realized my pronunciation was way off. I self corrected even though I continued to hear those words from my family.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
"warsh" those "urnions" off first or you'll cry.
FSM help me, I can still sound like a HUGE hick sometimes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC7Sg41Bp-U&fe...
Let a physicist with an accent teach young people, and the next thing you know, they'll be believing that God is nothing but Energy.
This reminds me of Quebec and their language police. If you run a business in Quebec they come to your place of business and you take a French test. If you don't get a certain score they lift your license and you don't get it back until you go to school and improve your French. I only just learned about this from a friend in Montreal who has a classmate who's business was shuttered.
Merde
I bet if you happen to have a good ol' boys southern accent you'll be just fine.
Can you speak fake English?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6C5EZmyJ9ik&fe...
Be sure to click on some of the response vids. Here's a good one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLs6i-2vYpk&fe...
Wow, I am having an "erasmus" moment now... Those videos reminds me of very drunken nights hanging around with people from 4-5 different countries, all of us speaking a weird mix of jibberish, English and international swear words. It's remarkable how little you need to actually speak to make yourself understood ;)
I've been told I have that generic "newsman" non-accent. I guess that might be okay for AZ. Oh no! What if all te teachers in AZ turn out to be as empty-headed as the typical talking head!
we/they are even worse than the typical talking head...
After all, you pretty much HAVE to be empty-headed to teach in a fucked up place like this with so little support in the classroom, so little respect for what you do and for such lucrative pay... xD
something must be done"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2oEmPP5dTM
..My Spanish teacher in high school was a Scot whose name was inappropriately Mr. French. He had a very thick brogue. True story.
To this day when I speak Spanish (which I seldom do, living in Canada and all) I speak it the way they do in Aberdeen. Or rather, the way they don't in Aberdeen. I'm pretty sure there's less call for it there even than there is 100 mi. north of Toronto.
"In theory theory and practice are alike. In practice they are very different."
I decided that all western states should boycott BART because of that BART Cop gun that went off and killed the guy at Fruitvale a year or so ago?
Or
that the Golden Gate Bridge District should be avoided because of GG Bridge suicides?
Or
Noe Valley (SF) should be avoided until there is a cure for AIDS?
Or
Oakland should be avoided because nuisance deer are killed rather than tranquilized in the Oakland Hills?
Or
Let's move-on to Southern California and boycott Sony Studios because of the muggings along Ballona Creek (CC).
Am I sounding stupid enough yet? That's because I'm not and I know a good Boycott from a bad Tea Party.
Interesting that although the president is limited to two four year terms at most, supreme court justices who have lifetime appointments aren't required by the Constitution to be born American...
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
you bring that up.
As long as you're comparing SCOTUS with the president let's compare straw men with birth certificates versus crooks and liars without them.
I'll believe this isn't pure racism if the first teacher fired is a white guy with a strong southern accent.
No 'accents', eh?
One no-no apparently is pronouncing 'th' as a 'd'.
Which would exclude quite a lot of native English speakers who happen to be Irish.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okoReU7LtYw
Diabolus est Deus Inversus
Being from Texas, I have an obvious dialect, but a friendly nature. One day in Dallas, a couple of lady tourists, speaking with a thick German accent, asked me how to get to a local mall. I gave them the easiest directions, which Lady1 repeated back to me. Then Lady2, looking at a map, said "I thought it was back down (local street)...?" I said it was, but I'd given them the easiest directions so that it would be less confusing. Lady2 then asked which way was faster. Since it was about the same, I replied "Either" which, locally, is pronounced "EEE-ther". Lady2 looked at me with a puzzled expression. "What?" "EEE-ther way is fine - it's the same distance." Again with the puzzled look, which she turned to Lady1 and, in their native tongue, asked her what I meant.
Lady1, with a disgusted look on her face replied "He means eye-ther." They thanked me and left. I also left, feeling weird at having my pronunciation corrected by someone who didn't speak English all that well...
[I may just have stuffed cotton for a brain, but even I know this is just wrong...]
To them, you just don't speak British English and that was the "problem."
People here (including the AZ idiots) like to talk about "flawless" English, but are mystified when they go abroad and people treat them like country bumpkins because we don't speak "Received Pronunciation" like the Queen herself... Heaven forbid we not conform to those standards of what "correct" English is.
Part of it is the prestige that the BBC and British English garnered, mostly from the importance of BBC radio broadcasts during WW2 (also, the wealth and power of the British Empire prior to the rise of Pax Americana has a lot to do with the bias for "British" English vs. "American" English throughout most of the world). However, there are examples in business where speakers prefer to learn "American" English instead of RP (especially IT fields, from what I understand).
Still, when generally learning English, most Europeans learn "British" English including how to pronounce words "correctly" from the vantage point of "correct" meaning it sounds like "Received Pronunciation." When they hear how we speak, it sounds very hickish and boorish compared to RP. It is similar when the French listen to "French" speakers in Quebec or Belgium (not to mention speakers from many former French colonies in Africa). The Dutch are the same way with regards to Afrikaans... even the Spanish note differences between Castilian and South American variants of Spanish... Unfortunately, as with your Germanic visitors, most people have this fake idea in their head about what a language "should" sound like and fail to realize that AS LONG AS ITS MUTUALLY INTELLIGIBLE, IT IS VALID!!!
Yes, there are dialects. Yes there are accents. Yes some are more valued and "accepted" than others. That does not mean it is right. Those distinctions and determinations about what is "right"... what is "normal"... what is "appropriate" and "correct"... what is "generic" (as another poster here likes to call it)... those are all code words for whatever conforms to the speaking and cultural norms of the DOMINANT class within a society. In almost every instance, country and culture, the "privileged" class is emulated and placed on a pedastool. Their behavior is viewed as the "norm" and this is exhibited in no place more clearly than in language. All of the assumptions and biases we have based on language reflect hundreds of years of racism, prejudice, and classism.
Unless people stop believing that the ways of the ruling class are "normal"/"generic"/etc., then we will always find ourselves repeating past mistake like Indian Schools or even travesties like turning schools in general into brainwashing academies where all of those who are "less fortunate" and not born into the elite class learn how to suppress their "crude" savage upbringing and be more "civilized" like their masters....
Sometimes, I can barely understand what people from the deep South are saying even though it is supposed to be English. Carried to its ridiculous extreme, the only accent permitted would be an Arizona accent, whatever that is.
the Southern accent equals both ignorance and racism."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_vF9g37FCmk
obama is so stupid
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