As an educator and an anthropologist, I want students to understand the different types of "English" spoken in the world.   In order to be understand and to feel comfortable, they should be able to move from one type of "English" to another. I'd explain this and give them some interesting examples from Chinglish (Cantonese and English from San Francisco Chinatown), Spanglish (Spanish and English) and some Malaysian and Singaporean English which I picked up while doing fieldwork overseas...also the Canadian English which I'm so used to now that I'm having a difficult time trying to find an example.

This explanation needs to be given on the first day of class so students know that that "decoding" is part of goal of the class and not just a personal preference.

Bertie Mo, Ph.D., MPH

povertyracewomen-request at nifl.gov wrote: Send PovertyRaceWomen mailing list submissions to
 povertyracewomen at nifl.gov

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
 http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/povertyracewomen
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Today's Topics:

   1. [PovertyRaceWomen 145] Re: dialect and standard English
      (Angela Orlando)
   2. [PovertyRaceWomen 146] Re: dialect (Andrea Wilder)
   3. [PovertyRaceWomen 147]  love your body poster contest winner
      (Daphne Greenberg)
   4. [PovertyRaceWomen 148]  New from NCSALL (Kaye Beall)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 14:42:08 -0500
From: "Angela Orlando" 
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 145] Re: dialect and standard English
To: 

Message-ID: <4592863F.25AF.007B.0 at jsi.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII

Regarding "dialect" and "standard English"--a provocative and powerful
essay by June Jordan called "White English/Black English: The Politics
of Translation" addresses this dilemma well. The Change Agent reprinted
this in our March 2003 Language and Power issue, page 15. You can get to
the article by downloading the entire PDF (but it's a big file) at
http://www.nelrc.org/changeagent/backissues.htm. There are a couple
of other articles on this dilemma as well in the same issue (page 6 and
7)


Cheers,
Angela Orlando

Angela Orlando
Change Agent Editor
World Education
44 Farnsworth Street
Boston, MA  02210

tel: 617-482-9485
fax: 617-482-0617
email: aorlando at worlded.org

Check out The Change Agent online at: 
www.nelrc.org/changeagent



>>> 

 12/27/2006 10:57 AM >>>
Send PovertyRaceWomen mailing list submissions to
 povertyracewomen at nifl.gov 

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
 http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/povertyracewomen 
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of PovertyRaceWomen digest..."


Today's Topics:

   1. [PovertyRaceWomen 142]  gender differences in pay and dialect
      (Burkett, Barry)
   2. [PovertyRaceWomen 143] Re: gender differences in pay and
      dialect (andreawilder at comcast.net)
   3. [PovertyRaceWomen 144] Re: dialect (Jackson, Wendy P.)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 26 Dec 2006 11:41:47 -0500
From: "Burkett, Barry" 
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 142]  gender differences in pay and dialect
To: "The Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy Discussion List"
 

Message-ID:
 <5B5DF9F227918548AD5FF668A2E84EBC22E6B1 at ED181X1.franklin.ketsds.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Maybe this is jsut the man in me talking, but what I find discouraging
and disheartening is that some people are "less" professional than
others; i.e. Lawyers vs. Professional Teachers, Teachers vs. Bus
Drivers... or in my case "Certified" personnell vs. "Classified"
personnell.
 
As the reporter was eluding to, some women do choose to make less, and
some women strive to make more, as do men.  Maybe another issue is that
some people are more firm at vocalizing what they want, along with being
more insistant that they get it.
 
As far as dialect is concerned instead of using the term "Standard"
English I know many practitioners use the term of "Business" English. 
But similar to what Andrea said in her previous posting, what is the
goal of the teacher, to reinforce miscues or correct.  If one is able to
teach "Standard" and the student owns it, the student will effectively
know two languges, one of their folk and one of business, it is
empowering to know both.  Such as me being college educated, I grew up
in varied urban settings, and more recently began farming, the
backgorund allows me to work and connect people of many different
backgrounds at their level.  Or like many of Hip-Hop's nouveau riche,
who compare their business skills to hustlin to make ends meet;
language, in its varied forms, is a powerful tool.
 
Now, how does dialect and sex tie in with pay?  I think that would be
interesting to find out.
 
Does the Newsweek editorial, "My Black Skin Makes My White Coat
Vanish," from April 3, 2006 have anything to add to the discussion? 
Peoples perceptions... pre-conceived notions, etc.? 

Barry Burkett


________________________________

From: povertyracewomen-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of Andrea Wilder
Sent: Mon 12/25/2006 7:19 PM
To: The Poverty, Race,Women and Literacy Discussion List
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 141] Re: gender differences in pay



This is discouraging and disheartening.

Andrea


On Dec 24, 2006, at 1:50 PM, Daphne Greenberg wrote:


> I thought that some of you may be interested in the following

article

> found at:

> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/business/24gap.html?th&emc=th 

> THE NEW GENDER DIVIDE

> Gender Pay Gap, Once Narrowing, Is Stuck in Place

> By DAVID LEONHARDT

> A decade ago, it seemed that men and women with similar

qualifications

> might soon make nearly identical salaries.

> Today, that is far harder to envision.

> And a quote:

> "Nothing happened to the pay gap from the mid-1950s to the late

'70s.

> Then the '80s stood out as a period of sharp increases in women's

pay.

> And it's much less impressive after that."

> - FRANCINE D. BLAU, a Cornell economist, on gender differences in

pay.

>

> http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/business/24gap.html?th&emc=th 

>

> Daphne Greenberg

> Assistant Professor

> Educational Psych. & Special Ed.

> Georgia State University

> P.O. Box 3979

> Atlanta, Georgia 30302-3979

> phone: 404-651-0127

> fax:404-651-4901

> dgreenberg at gsu.edu 

>

> Daphne Greenberg

> Associate Director

> Center for the Study of Adult Literacy

> Georgia State University

> P.O. Box 3977

> Atlanta, Georgia 30302-3977

> phone: 404-651-0127

> fax:404-651-4901

> dgreenberg at gsu.edu 

> ----------------------------------------------------

> National Institute for Literacy

> Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy mailing list

> PovertyRaceWomen at nifl.gov 

> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to

> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/povertyracewomen 

>


----------------------------------------------------
National Institute for Literacy
Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy mailing list
PovertyRaceWomen at nifl.gov 
To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to
http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/povertyracewomen 


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Message: 2
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 00:08:52 +0000
From: andreawilder at comcast.net 
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 143] Re: gender differences in pay and
 dialect
To: "The Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy Discussion List"
 

Message-ID:
 <122720060008.21094.4591B993000C143E0000526622058860149D0A0B0407990E0A9D0B020E at comcast.net>
 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

OK, so I'll have to go over the article more carefully.

Another thing I find disheartening and discouraging (also curious) is 
the lack of outcry (in print) from the husbands of these women, it's
their bottom line that is affected, too.  Let's see, how much of  a
dollar discrepancy in pay would make a  partner sit up and take notice? 
$5,000?  $10,000? How much of a dollar discrepancy would make women
fighting mad?

Andrea
 -------------- Original message ----------------------
From: "Burkett, Barry" 

> Maybe this is jsut the man in me talking, but what I find

discouraging and 

> disheartening is that some people are "less" professional than

others; i.e. 

> Lawyers vs. Professional Teachers, Teachers vs. Bus Drivers... or in

my case 

> "Certified" personnell vs. "Classified" personnell.

>  

> As the reporter was eluding to, some women do choose to make less,

and some 

> women strive to make more, as do men.  Maybe another issue is that

some people 

> are more firm at vocalizing what they want, along with being more

insistant that 

> they get it.

>  

> As far as dialect is concerned instead of using the term "Standard"

English I 

> know many practitioners use the term of "Business" English.  But

similar to what 

> Andrea said in her previous posting, what is the goal of the teacher,

to 

> reinforce miscues or correct.  If one is able to teach "Standard" and

the 

> student owns it, the student will effectively know two languges, one

of their 

> folk and one of business, it is empowering to know both.  Such as me

being 

> college educated, I grew up in varied urban settings, and more

recently began 

> farming, the backgorund allows me to work and connect people of many

different 

> backgrounds at their level.  Or like many of Hip-Hop's nouveau riche,

who 

> compare their business skills to hustlin to make ends meet; language,

in its 

> varied forms, is a powerful tool.

>  

> Now, how does dialect and sex tie in with pay?  I think that would be



> interesting to find out.

>  

> Does the Newsweek editorial, "My Black Skin Makes My White Coat

Vanish," from 

> April 3, 2006 have anything to add to the discussion?  Peoples

perceptions... 

> pre-conceived notions, etc.? 

> 

> Barry Burkett

> 

> 

> ________________________________

> 

> From: povertyracewomen-bounces at nifl.gov on behalf of Andrea Wilder

> Sent: Mon 12/25/2006 7:19 PM

> To: The Poverty, Race,Women and Literacy Discussion List

> Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 141] Re: gender differences in pay

> 

> 

> 

> This is discouraging and disheartening.

> 

> Andrea

> 

> 

> On Dec 24, 2006, at 1:50 PM, Daphne Greenberg wrote:

> 

> > I thought that some of you may be interested in the following

article

> > found at:

> > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/business/24gap.html?th&emc=th 

> > THE NEW GENDER DIVIDE

> > Gender Pay Gap, Once Narrowing, Is Stuck in Place

> > By DAVID LEONHARDT

> > A decade ago, it seemed that men and women with similar

qualifications

> > might soon make nearly identical salaries.

> > Today, that is far harder to envision.

> > And a quote:

> > "Nothing happened to the pay gap from the mid-1950s to the late

'70s.

> > Then the '80s stood out as a period of sharp increases in women's

pay.

> > And it's much less impressive after that."

> > - FRANCINE D. BLAU, a Cornell economist, on gender differences in

pay.

> >

> > http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/24/business/24gap.html?th&emc=th 

> >

> > Daphne Greenberg

> > Assistant Professor

> > Educational Psych. & Special Ed.

> > Georgia State University

> > P.O. Box 3979

> > Atlanta, Georgia 30302-3979

> > phone: 404-651-0127

> > fax:404-651-4901

> > dgreenberg at gsu.edu 

> >

> > Daphne Greenberg

> > Associate Director

> > Center for the Study of Adult Literacy

> > Georgia State University

> > P.O. Box 3977

> > Atlanta, Georgia 30302-3977

> > phone: 404-651-0127

> > fax:404-651-4901

> > dgreenberg at gsu.edu 

> > ----------------------------------------------------

> > National Institute for Literacy

> > Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy mailing list

> > PovertyRaceWomen at nifl.gov 

> > To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to

> > http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/povertyracewomen 

> >

> 

> ----------------------------------------------------

> National Institute for Literacy

> Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy mailing list

> PovertyRaceWomen at nifl.gov 

> To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to 

> http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/povertyracewomen 

> 

> 

> 



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Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 142]  gender differences in pay and dialect
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------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2006 10:06:13 -0500
From: "Jackson, Wendy P." 
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 144] Re: dialect
To: 

Message-ID:
 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

This question not only applies to African Americans. I live in East
Tennessee where our Southern dialect is tinged with a left over version
of the Scotts-Irish. I was born here, but grew up in Atlanta. My dialect
is tinged with the slow drawl of Georgia and the East Tennessee brogue.
When I was in college at Berry College in Rome, Ga my English Professor
told us that we had to speak in a manner that was understandable to all.
He was from Connecticut and did not speak southern. The phrase "that dog
won't hunt" meant nothing to him. It was not a matter of what was best,
but what was most widely understood. Among family and friends, I tend to
be very southern in my speech (minus the heavy Georgia drawl of my
sisters who have lived in Georgia all their lives). At work and
professional settings, I try to drop the parts of speech that would make
it difficult to follow. My husband says "warsh" for "wash" and  allowed
to learn reading skills under that rule would affect a great many 
 pronunciations. I try to emphasize not right and wrong or best and
worst, but most widely understood. Correction is required for them to be
best understood outside of their cultural/ethnic group.
 
Just my 2 cents...
Wendy  
 
 
Wendy Jackson
Roane County Adult Education
Roane State Community College
1082 N Gateway Ave.
Rockwood, TN 37854
(865) 376-6013
jacksonwp at roanestate.edu 

________________________________


Message: 2
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 08:07:19 -0800 (PST)
From: Kearney Lykins 
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 137] Re: dialect
To: "The Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy Discussion List"
        

Message-ID: <20061224160719.49022.qmail at web39107.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Daphne,

   If indeed it is true that "their dialect is their dialect and is
just as
acceptable as standard english" then their pronunciation needs no
correction.

   I would ask this teacher what her goals are for her students. If her
goal is to bring them "up" to the norms of a culture that is widely
recognized as substandard, then she should let them pronounce words
anyway they like. After all, you wouldn't want to make anyone feel
uncomfortable.
   However, if her goal is to  raise her students' abilities above the
literacy norms of the society in which they have  been conditioned, then
she should correct their every error without remorse.

I cannot believe you are axing this question.

Kearney Lykins




----- Original Message ----
From: Daphne Greenberg 
To: povertyracewomen at nifl.gov 
Sent: Sunday, December 24, 2006 10:31:09 AM
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 136]  dialect

I was recently asked a question from an adult literacy teacher and I
wondered what folks on this listserv think. She teaches basic decoding
skills to adults who read at about the 3rd grade level. In addition to
a
language experience approach, she also spends quite a bit of time
systematically teaching them how to sound out words. Many of her
African
American students, when reading and sounding out words, read certain
words, the way they speak them. So for example, they read "ask" as
"aks"
and "strawberry" as "skrawberry". Since a portion of her class is
focused on teaching letter-sound correspondences and applying it to
decoding new and unknown words should she be concerned about the way
they read those words? She says that during nondecoding time, she is
not
concerned, because their dialect is their dialect and is just as
acceptable as standard english. However, she wondered if she is
teaching
decoding from a standard english point of view, should she be
correcting
the way they read those words?
What do people think?
Daphne
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Message: 3
Date: Sun, 24 Dec 2006 10:48:02 -0600
From: "Catherine B. King" 
Subject: [PovertyRaceWomen 138] Re: dialect
To: "The Poverty, Race, Women and Literacy Discussion List"
        

Message-ID: <001001c7277b$4810cdf0$cad2193f at YOUR85A8F7B8EC>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1;
        reply-type=original

Hello Daphne:

This comes up in my classes frequently--where my teachers are "caught"
between correcting someone's treasured tradition (in how they express
themselves, their dialect, etc.) and what we mean by "Standard
English."

The task is to maintain a high regard for their tradition, while
introducing
them into what Jesse Jackson refers to as the "cash language" of our
time so
that they can operate well in it.  It's not a matter of "either or,"
but
rather of knowing both, as if there were actually two different
languages to
learn, and being able to "walk around" (discourse) in either/both at
the
**appropriate** times.  Their other task is to know which is which.

As a teacher we just let them know that this is the general outline of
their
task, and they will then be able to choose to do it--or not.  As
teachers,
we need not make what amounts to moral or qualitative judgments about
someone's treasured dialect (or suggest that they must make such
judgments
about themselves)--the language that most in their home environment
still
speak, and will continue to speak.

It's sort of like learning how to discourse in technical language (in
any
theoretical or professional field) after having learned "common"
language
and the meaning of its terms.   That is, using common meaning and its
terms
is one thing, and is appropriate when spoken at home or at the grocery
store, etc.; however, using technical meaning is quite another; and
when we
discourse in our field, or in a specific technical-theoretical field,
we are
very specific and defined about what we mean; and we use completely
different meanings for sometimes-similar terms that, to the grocery
clerk,
would come off as sounding completely "weird and foggy."

Like we would not want to replace common with theoretical discourse in
the
grocery store (how awful would THAT be), we often do not want to
suggest
replacing a learner's dialect with what we mean by "Standard English."
Trying to do so puts the learner in the position of having to choose
between
what is "better" (presumably Standard English) all of the time, and
what is
"worse" (presumably, their own dialect and "home language) all of the
time.
And there is often some shame involved--which has been a topic here on
this
forum recently.   This situation is entirely UNnecessary.

On the other hand, there is a great and necessary value to standards,
and of
course to Standard English or any other written language--it's becoming
a
worldwide language.

This is not all there is to it; however, if a learner is going to
operate in
the "cash language," i.e., work in an office, etc., they need to
**also**
know how to speak "Roman as the Roman's do."   <--we must make it what
it
is--to THEIR advantage to do so.  We add a differentiation, and not an

=== message truncated ===







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