The Official Language Movement, Article Writing Example

Sociolinguistic Identity and the Underpinning

Abstract

Language, culture, and the sense of identity share a mutually-inclusive interdependence upon each other. In this paper we will examine the links between the Bilingual and Bicultural Education movements and present the foreign students’ dilemma in the selection of sociolinguistic identity and the impact that this selection has on their sense of personal identity.

Bilingualism and Bicultualism in Education

Bilingualism and Biculturalism can be used interchangeably in the majority of cases. The use of language is a cultural aspect, and the cultural identification desired informs the decision to select a first language (Nordström; Willoughby). “Familiarising the Stranger: Immigrant Perceptions of Cross-cultural Interaction and Bicultural Identity” collaborates identification’s importance, calling it “a set of self-conscious choices” (De Korne, H., Byram, M., & Fleming, M., 2007). This cultural identification is especially crucial to the newcomer, the immigrant, or the other social outsider. Nordström  asserts that, “Multicultural education can both be seen as tools for facilitating social change, as a starting point for reconstructing society”(Willoughby, 2009). This stance precipitated the abolishment of Jim Crow laws and informal segregation during the Civil Rights Movement, and education is no stranger to the concept of students as “agents of social change… participating in the decision about how society needs to change (Ryan, 2008).

Individualistic Impact of the Bilingual and Bicultural Education Movements

The individualistic impact of bilingualism is phenomenal. In schools which encourage bilingualism, the choice of the “heritage language” or an international approach to language determines one’s cultural and social identity (Willoughby, 2009). Nordström presents the following statements:

“all education must be culturally responsive as the individuality of students is deeply entwined with their ethnic identity and cultural socialisation. Strengthening identity, and thus, building sufficient self-esteemare essential, as only people who trust in their skills and abilities are able to effect change in society” (Nordström, 2008).

A five-year case study, which was conducted in a high school in Melbourne, Australia, analyzed the linguistic choices and impacts upon the diverse student body (Willoughby, 2009).

There are three primary, observable actions through which this interactional identification with a sociolinguistic clique can be easily determined: gossiping, crossing, and language brokering. We will explore these actions in the context of the “heritage language” newcomers and the international, established approaches to multilingualism and multiculturalism as delineated in the following paragraphs (Willoughby, 2009).

Heritage Linguists and Newcomers

School experiences are often fraught with uncertainty even in the context one was born into, so- needless to say- when a new student whose primary language is not English arrives, the instinctual urge is to seek out members of their own linguistic, cultural, and social background (Nordström, 2008). Linguistic choices, like many other aspects of children’s education, are based upon comfort. Each language carries with it an individual stylization, intonation, and insider vocabulary which can ostracize a newcomer. Exclusive measures, such as gossiping in the heritage language, secure a feeling of belonging to the group and identification with a particular subset of people (Willoughby, 2009).

Multilingual students especially tend to mix syntactical errors, which can easily produce an ambiguous or misunderstood statement. When in doubt, people of all ages and walks of life revert to their primary language’s structure and vocabulary when uncertain about language usage (Nicoladis, 2010). These linguistic challenges can be humiliating for students and create an atmosphere of ridicule for a beginning “home language” learner, sometimes even halting altogether the acquisition of the language and its social customs (Feng, 2009).

“Home Linguists” and Established Internationalists

On the contrary, the use of the “home language” becomes a source of pride and an initiation into the mainstream culture prevalent in each particular school. Indigenous, natural-born, or well-established students do not generally face this conflict. Because they were born into such diversity there is a freedom to move comfortably within different social cliques, but- due to their established identity- they generally identified with heritage language-newcomers and were indifferent to the social connection of their home language. This is called language brokering (Willoughby, 2009). As these diverse groups interact they imprint on each other and meld together until “there’s no cultural home left to go back to” (De Korne, H., Byram, M., & Fleming, M., 2007).

This process of identification with diverse groups is often the result of formulating their own “secret” vocabulary, much as the heritage-language groups establish with their gossip, which is unintelligible to outsiders. International students will often be taught tidbits- such as jokes, idioms, and swearwords- of an acquaintance’s home language and will incorporate these multicultural concepts into the social language that they share. The acquaintances even mix the words together to form their own, unique vocabulary. A contemporary American example would be the emergence of informal Spanglish in Mexican-American households. This process is called crossing (Willoughby, 2009). Consequently, if a student has no “insider” knowledge of a language, then it is reasonable to conclude that they do not have close, sociolinguistic ties to that culture, because cultural acceptance, like cultural belonging, is “a lived practice” (De Korne, H., Byram, M., & Fleming, M.).

The principle is universal. Diversity is both embraced and feared, and personal identity is a personal choice. According to “Identity, ‘acting interculturally’ and aims for bilingual education: an example from China”, multilingualism and multiculturalism form the basis of socially-equitable “attitudes, skills and commitment needed to participate both within his/her own ethnic or cultural group and within another ethnic or cultural group… as a developmental stage prior to multiculturalism and globalism… antiracist, intercultural, international… and multiethnic education” (Feng, 2009). The dilemma becomes the conflict between rights of equality and freedom, the priorities of self-esteem and fragmentation, between culturally responsible and lower productivity (Ryan, 2008). The battlefield of Education will crown the victor. Then- and only then- will we know.

References

De Korne, H., Byram, M., & Fleming, M. (2007). Familiarising the Stranger: Immigrant Perceptions of Cross-cultural Interaction and Bicultural Identity. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development, 28(4), 290-307. Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.

Feng, A. (2009). Identity, ‘acting interculturally’ and aims for bilingual education: an example from China. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development, 30(4), 283-296. doi:10.1080/01434630802658458.

Nicoladis, E., Rose, A., & Foursha-Stevenson, C. (2010). Thinking for speaking and cross-linguistic transfer in preschool bilingual children. International Journal of Bilingual Education & Bilingualism, 13(3), 345-370. doi:10.1080/13670050903243043.

Nordström, H. (2008). Environmental Education and Multicultural Education – Too Close to Be Separate?. International Research in Geographical & Environmental Education, 17(2), 131-145. doi:10.2167/irgee232.0.

Ryan, Kevin, & Cooper, James. (2008). Those who Can, teach. Wadsworth.

Willoughby, L. (2009). Language choice in multilingual peer groups: insights from an Australian high school. Journal of Multilingual & Multicultural Development, 30(5), 421-435. doi:10.1080/01434630902999174.