Ebonics: Background to the Policy Debate

TERRENCE G. WILEY

This chapter addresses the Ebonics debate within the broader context of language policy and alludes to a number of historical factors. In setting a context for the Ebonics controversy, examples will be shown regarding how governments and schools react to language diversity in other circumstances while attempting to locate it within the broader context of language policy options.

There are in the world today somewhere between 4000 and 5000 languages, and there are many varieties of language (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2000). Those varieties with higher status are called languages, and those with lesser status are usually called dialects. Sociolinguists usually focus on two major types of dialects – regional and social. From a linguistic perspective, there is no conclusive way to resolve the difference between what we consider languages and what we consider dialects. One way to avoid the issue is to refer to both as 'varieties' of language. For the purposes of this discussion, the more salient point is that most varieties of language spoken by students have not been elevated to the status of school languages. In this country languages and dialects are usually considered mutually intelligible forms of a related language. For the Chinese, however, 'dialects' need not be orally mutually intelligible. So there is no absolute consensus on the difference between languages and dialects. Nevertheless, most children around the world enter schools in which there is some difference between the language variety they speak and the language of the school. Quite often, the language of the school is mutually intelligible with the language of the home, but many times it is not. When language differences between the child's and the school's language is acknowledged, consideration of those differences needs to be reflected in instructional and educational policies and instructional plans. Failure to do so merely stigmatizes children as being nonstandard or non-native.

The choice of terms in referring to the language(s) or language varieties children bring from home to school is significant because the choice of terms ascribes a status to them. Despite the fact that dialect and vernacular, as linguists use them, are intended in a neutral or descriptive sense, in popular speech, dialect implies something less than standard that has a lower status. Expressions such as language varieties (Hudson's sociolinguistics, 1980) have been offered as preferable ways to talk about the subject. In this discussion, the terms 'Standard English' and 'school English' will be taken as roughly equivalent.

Normally, acquiring the language of home and community is not a problem. Children do this naturally and quite well in the interaction with their parents and local speech communities. There are far fewer languages that have been standardized as languages of literacy than are spoken. Moreover, there are far fewer languages that have been elevated to the status of school languages. The acquisition of literacy, however, does not always come as naturally. It can, however, be acquired naturally if it is a part of one's environment (Schieffelin & Cochran-Smith, 1984), if literacy is used in a meaningful way. Literacy becomes a problem, however, when the language variety of the home and school differ. Quite frequently, not only the variety of the school and home differ, but so too do the ways in which language is used, as well as the purposes for which it is used. Thus, many children who come to school will be disadvantaged by the perception that they are deficient unless it is recognized that differences are quite natural.

Unfortunately, because many educators view language varieties of the home and community as deficient, they do not believe that children should have a right to their own language (Smitherman, 1995). For those educators, the idea that a child who speaks a minority language or a vernacular should have a right to instruction in his or her language is seen as a novel, if not a heretical notion. However, it is not really a new concept. In 1953, the United Nations passed a resolution to that effect. Unfortunately, despite that resolution, the status of language rights around the world is very tenuous. The legal foundation for language rights is on a very shaky constitutional foundation (Wiley, 2002). When language rights are discussed, the notion tends to be interpreted as meaning something different from freedom of speech – as if freedom of expression was conditional on the use of English. Unfortunately, even though organizations like the UN have taken positions on language rights, all too frequently nations do not act on them because these resolutions are not binding (Skutnabb-Kangas, 2002).

Currently in the USA, the majority of people speak English. Nevertheless, there are about 46 million people, according to the 2000 U.S. Census, who speak other languages. However, results of the 1990 Census indicated that 98% of adults in the USA speak some kind of English at some level (Wiley, 1998). What is meant by 'some kind of English?' Consider several background issues. First, English speakers are the second largest language group in the world right now, and English is the world's principal second language. In the early days of the Republic, Noah Webster did his best to make American English different from British English and to eradicate social and regional dialects (Lepore, 2003). However, today, when one travel's around the USA or around the world in many countries, one finds many native speakers of English who sound and speak differently. There are many Englishes. If that word jumps out at you, do not be surprised because your spellchecker probably will not recognize it either unless you add it, even though there is even a periodical entitled the Journal of World Englishes, which is devoted to the study of the subject. Nevertheless, if one use the word 'Englishes' in a composition for a freshman English class, the transgression will usually get it circled with a red pen, unless there is considerable explanation for which one is using it.

The notion of Standard English raises some technical...