Feb. 28, 2003

Response to Egbo:

Differential Enunciation, Mainstream Language, and the Education of Immigrant Minority Students: Implications for Policy and Practice

     In this article, Egbo expands and contracts the issues surrounding language education. She expands the issues by framing the problems surrounding English-proficient immigrants with differential enunciation as a social-justice language issue. Accents have been subsumed under issues of bilingualism, and the effectiveness of ESL programs; without the legal protection afforded these areas, accents have become a, “backdoor” to discrimination. Having said that, Egbo also contracts the notion of what an ESL student is by arguing that English-proficient immigrants should not be seen as deficient. Rather, policy should illuminate the general public, and most importantly, teachers about the validity of all forms of linguistic capital.

     English-proficient immigrants are often stigmatized due to their accents, often with very harmful effects. These stigmatizations come from the general social world. And, despite that, “it takes more than dialectical differences to account for school failure” (51), teachers often see accents as impediments to school success. Even in an ideal, stress-free situation, immigrants often end up resenting the devaluation of their linguistic capital they experience in schools. Worse, they receive unfair social and school assessments, which shape and constrict their life chances. When difficulties in school do occur, despite a lack of evidence to support this, academic difficulties are misdiagnosed as a result of accent; ironically, attempts to remedy the situation, such as remediation or failure, worsens the more likely causes of difficulty at school, such as the stress of immigration itself, and culture shock. The most worrying result of these practices is that it supports the dominant linguistic capital of the elite. Despite knowledge of the diversity of enunciation within the majority population, awareness of the stratification of society on linguistic lines, and the harmful effects of discouraging the use of one’s mother tongue, students are judged unfavorably due to accents. In essence, while rejecting discrimination based on race, gender, or class, such practices condemn students for not opting into this linguistic hegemony system.

     While I do agree with Egbo for the need to be sensitive to the needs of those with differential enunciation, and to value all forms of linguistic capital, because I take the issue so seriously, I have to take issue with some of her arguments. One strange point is when she states that, “monolingualism in mainstream language is not often a determinant of school or economic success” (56), which begs the question: is there actually a problem? Has the success of immigrants in these cases been despite or because of their adoption of mainstream enunciation patterns? None of this is made clear, and while understanding that this point is made to encourage policy makers about the desirability of language variation, its inclusion weakens the rest of the argument. She should stick to her main point that, yes, there is a large correlation between linguistic enunciation (not to mention language) and economic and social success, and that this blatant form of discrimination should be righted with public education, and exposure to other forms of English.

     Another point of contention that I have is her point about majority language speakers not accepting their share of the two-way process of communication. On the one hand, it could often be that the difference in accent is so wide that adjustment is not possible on either side. On the other hand, I would like to relate a personal experience, which calls into question the focus on language. In one experience that I had, Chinese-looking friend and I were looking for the train station. Having more fluent Mandarin, I asked an older man where the station was. He looked befuddled, and after asking him several times, I told my friend how to ask the same question, and she did. Despite her poor enunciation, the man instantly understood and showed us where to go. His expectation – due to racial features - assisted him in communicating. While this example does not exactly lead us down better roads, I think that racism is often a more salient factor than discrimination based on enunciation. In addition to greater exposure to other forms of English, a solution to the problem described above would also be a greater general exposure of multiple races/ethnicities speaking English, with and without accents.

     One final contention I have is the way Egbo reasons why accents should be considered more seriously. To explain why differential enunciation has been ignored, and to justify why it should not be, Egbo sort of makes the case that grammar and pronunciation be weighted equally. If structural elements of language are emphasized, then at least accents have the freedom to change. If, however, language is seen as a double-pronged equally weighted pole of pronunciation and grammar, then too far on either side will become incomprehensible dialect. This makes the case for standardization of accent all the more potent. Would Egbo accept non-standard grammar in communication? To the degree that it interfered with communication, I imagine she would not. This does not bode well for suggestions about accents.

     To the extent that dialects and accents of English are to be encouraged, at what point does this policy begin to erode the unifying effect of comprehensible language? At what point does an accent become a dialect? There probably needs to be some form of unifying language in a standard form for efficiency, and ease of communication. While I do not wish for stigmatization based on language, I wonder whether or not a “tolerance” (I should be careful with those words) of accents, much less explicitly teaching them could lead to a segmentation of society into various mutually unintelligible dialects. I also wonder to what degree do these practices, by encouraging immigrants not to adopt the dominant ideology-linguistic patterns actually disadvantage these groups by cutting them off from paths to power.