Class and Education · Letter to a pen-pal Teacher: OK, now, here´s the problem. The ... you...

Class and Education

Karolina Patzwald

Jana Schröder

Jan-Michael Stiegelmeier

Ulrich Welck

Index

Relation of Class and Education

Markers of Class Education

Language Change and Class

Critique of Social Variationist Studies

Relation of Class and Education

Social class

wealth, income, education, type of occupation

Upper class

Upper middle class

Middle class

Lower middle class

Working class

Lower class

Educational sociolinguistics

Deals with relationships within classroom settings

Important: differences between language use in classrooms and at home

Also: cultural differences

Education

“ Education refers to the teaching and learning activities through which members of a society gain access to this information and to these skills.“

Initiation-Response-Evaluation

Mehan(1979):

Initiation by teacher

Response by student

Evaluation by teacher

Frank, 8-years-old

Member of Ute Indian Tribe

Doesn‘t move outside of the IRE-sequence

Dividing by nineTeacher: What is nine times nine?

Frank: Ninety.

Teacher: No, that is too big. We know that nine times nine is eighty-one. What is nine times nine?

Frank: Eighty-one.

Teacher: Eighty-one. You know that nine times nine in eighty-one. Can you get a nine out of here? (motions to the 90 on the board)

Frank: Yes.

Teacher: OK, if we take nine out of here, what do we have?

Frank: Eighty-one.

Teacher: What about eighty-three divided by nine?

Old Ironsides

Nancy: I went to Old Ironsides at the ocean.(…) We also spent our dollars and we went to another big shop.

Teacher: Mm. ´N what did you learn about Old Ironsides?

Nancy: (brief description of the furnishings and guides´costumes) I also went to a fancy restaurant.

Teacher: Haha. Very good.

Nancy: And I had a hamburger, french fries, lettuce and a –

Teacher: (interrupts) OK. All right what´s – Arthur has been waiting and then Paula, OK?

Roberto: working-class Hispanic family

first language: Spanish

learns ESL at school

Letter to a pen-pal

Teacher: OK, now, here´s the problem. The letter goes back to the pen-pal, right? If you answer the questions here – like you put `No dog´ or `yes´, she won‘t know the answer to this question because it‘s not on this letter. You need to answer her letter. Do you understand? OK. So what we need to do is we need to change these into sentences so she‘ll know the answers to these questions.

Teacher: Good. OK, and what do you put at the end of your sentence? `Do you have pets at home?´ And you wrote what?

Roberto: Yes, a (unclear).

Teacher: Yes.

Robert: A monkey.

Teacher: OK, why don´t you explain that to her.

Roberto: I said, `Yes a (unclear)´.

Teacher: So what sentence are you going to write?

Roberto: `Yes I do.´

Teacher: `I do what?´

Roberto: `I do have….´

Teacher: `Have…´ have what?

Roberto: `A dog.´

Teacher: OK, you can tell her that. `I have a dog in (unclear).´ What goes at the end? OK, now you said you have a dog, two cats, and then you put `no dog.´ Do you know why you put that?

Roberto: (unclear)

Teacher: All right, the important thing is that

you understand that when you´re writing bak

to your penpal you have to answer the

questions in your letter, right? ….OK, what I´d

like you to do now, then, is go to your final

copy.

Teacher talk

Primary speakers in class

Tight control over the conversations

Determine the topics for discussion

Regulate amount of time

Markers of class education

Basil Bernstein's code theory

restricted code

vs.

elaborated code

Basil Bernstein- the restricted code

associated with working class

marginalized groups

people with little access to a range of

opportunities within society

Basil Bernstein - the restricted code

short sentences

repetitive and predictable linkage between

sentences (and, then, so)

infrequent and undetailed use of adjectives and

adverbs

constantly seek confirmation (you see, you know)

Basil Bernstein - the elaborated code

middle-class

precise, highly creative and richly expressive

linguistic descriptions

wide range of syntactic and semantic

alternatives

The Elaborated Code_2

imaginative and unpredictable fashion

complex sentences and large vocabulary

drawing

ability to organize experience conceptually

Basil Bernstein middle-class

"Three boys are playing football and one

boy kicks the ball

and it goes through the window

the ball breaks the window

and the boys are looking at it

and a man comes out and shouts at them

because they've broken the window

so they run away

and then that lady looks out of her

window

and she tells the boys off."

(from Bernstein, 1971 p 203 [re-arranged])

working-class

"They're playing football

and he kicks it

and it goes through there

it breaks the window

and they're looking at it

and he comes out

and shouts at them

because they've broken it

so they run away

and then she looks out

and she tells them off"

William Labov's countermovement

Ignorant children

or

ignorant linguists?

Concept of “verbal deprivation“

“as if these children had no language at all“

(Breiter)

receive little verbal stimulation

culturally and therefore verbally deprived

cannot form concepts

cannot express logical thoughts

[12 seconds of silence](What would you say it looks like?)

[8 seconds of silence]A spaceship.(Hmmmmm.)

[13 seconds of silence]Like a je-et.

[12 seconds of silence]Like a plane.

[20 seconds of silence](What color is it?)

Orange. [2 seconds] An’ whi-ite. [2 seconds]An’ green.

[6 seconds of silence](An’ what could you use it for?)

[8 seconds of silence]A je-et.

[6 seconds of silence](If you had two of them, what would you do with them?)

[6 seconds of silence]Give one to some-body.

(Hmmm. Who do you think would like to have it?)[10 seconds of silence]

Cla-rence.(Mm. Where do you think we could get another one of these?)

At the store.(Oh-ka-ay!)

What is the situation that produces it?

defensive behaviour

asymmetrical situation → adult - child

boy wants to achieve the end of interview

capacity to defend himself in a hostile situation

What happens to you after you die? Do you know?

LARRY H: Yeah, I know. (What?) After they put you in the ground, your body

turns into--ah--bones, an' shit.

JL: What happens to your spirit?

LARRY: Your spirit--soon as you die, your spirit leaves you. (And where does the

spirit go?) Well, it all depends. (On what?) You know, like some people say if you

re good an' shit, your spirit goin' t'heaven...'n' if you bad, your spirit goin' to hell.

Well, bullshit! Your spirit goin' to hell anyway, good or bad.

JL: Why?

LARRY: Why? I'll tell you why. Cause. you see, doesn' nobody really know that

it's a God, y'know. 'cause, I mean I have seen black gods, pink gods, white gods,

all color gods. and don t nobody know it's really a God. An' when they be sayin'

if you good, you goin' t'heaven, thas bullshit. 'cause you ain't goin' to no heaven,

'cause it ain't no heaven for you to go to.

Provided arguments

1) Everyone has a different idea of what God is like.

(2) Therefore nobody really knows that God exists.

(3) If there is a heaven. it was made by God.

(4) If God doesn't exist, he couldn't have made heaven.

(5) Therefore heaven does not exist.

(6) You can't go somewhere that doesn't exist.

(not B) Therefore you can't go to heaven.

(C) Therefore you are going to hell.

CR: Do you know of anything that someone can do, to have someone who has passed on visit him in a dream?

CHAS M.: Well, I even heard my parents say that there is such a thing as something in dreams, some things like that, and sometimes dreams do come true. I have personally never had a dream come true. I've never dreamt that somebody was dying and they actually died (Mhm), or that I was going to have ten dollars the next day and somehow I got ten dollars in my pocket. (Mhm.) I don't particularly believe in that, I don't think it's true. I do feel, though, that there is such a thing as--ah--witchcraft. I do feel that in certain cultures there is such a thing as witchcraft, or some sort of science of witchcraft; I don't think that it's just a matter of believing hard enough that there is such a thing as witchcraft. I do believe that there is such a thing that a person can put himself in a state of mind (Mhm), or that--er--something could be given them to intoxicate them in a certain--to a certain frame of mind--that--that could actually be considered witchcraft.

Provided Arguments

(1) Some people say that dreams sometimes come true.

(2) I have never had a dream come true.

(3) Therefore I don't believe (1).

(4) But I believe in witchcraft.

--> extracted to 100 words

Sentences in which AAVE allows deletion of the verb “to be“

Noun phrase She – the first one started us off.

Predicative adjective He – fast in everything he do.

Locative You – out the tape.

Negative But everybody – not black.

Participle He just feel like he – getting

cripple up from arthritis.

Where SAE permits contraction , AAVE permits deletion

*He's as nice as he says he's

*How beautiful you're!

Are you going? *Yes I'm

He's as nice as he says he ---

How beautiful you --

Are you going? * Yes I -

Sentences in which AAVE disallows deletion of the verb “to be“

Where SAE disallows contraction, AAVE disallows deletion

→ governed by same logic

Conclusion

refutes notion of language deprivation among

minorities

AAVE own dialect with proper grammatical rules

no difference in logic or lack of logic)

not better or worse than Standard English

Language Change and Class

Linguistic change

Premise: Language as social behavior correlates with social features (such as class)

Three stages:

Origin of a change

Propagation of the change

Completion of the change

Social forces: awareness of language behavior

Pressure from abovePressure from below the level of coscious awareness

Linguistic change_2

Crucial factor: socioeconmic status

Shape of linguistic behavior changes as the social position changes

Linguistic structures reflect social processes

<th> index

<th> indexVertical axis: percentage of stigmatized

realizations of <th>

stops [t, d] and affricates [t ], [d ]ʃ ʒ

Horizontal axis: informal to formal speech

A) Casual speech, B) Careful speech

C) Reading style, D) Word lists

Classes:

0-1: Lower class

2-4: Working class

5-6:, 7-8: Lower middle class

9: upper middle class

Dense summary

Each value for a given class, in a given style, is lower than the value for the next most informal style, and higher than the next most formal style

The fricative form of <th> is the prestige form in NYC, stops and affricates are stigmatized

All classes use more fricatives in more formal style

→ Regular structure

Rhotic vs. Non-Rhotic

Rhotic vs. Non-Rhotic_2

R-pronunciation is the prestige form in NYC

In casual speech: only upper middle class (about 20%); all other groups virtually no [r]

In more formal styles, the amount of r-pronunciaton rises rapidly for all groups

Minimal pairs (most formal): Lower-middle class even surpasses upper middle class

Crossover pattern

Hypercorrect behaviour of the lower middle class

Hypercorrection

Crossover pattern

The use of more ”correct” (=prestige) forms in formal speech than a higher status group

True for other variables than [r]

(eh) → height of the vowel in bad, ask

(dh) → this, that, those

Suffix -ing

→ not a deviation but rather a recurrent aspect of a regular structure

Lower Middle Class

Linguistic insecurity

Sensitivity towards social pressures

Tendency to adopt prestige forms

Conscious striving for correctness

Strongly negative attitude towards their native speech patterns

Lower Middle Class_2

Wide range of stylistic variation

Greatest tendency towards the introduction of rhoticity

In the most formal level even goes far beyond upper-middle class

Subjective reaction test

Most negative reaction to stigmatized forms

More negative than the upper middle class

Upper Classes

Often absent in sociolinguistic surveys

2 reasons● Smallness of the group● Inaccessibility to outsiders

Not at all insecure about their linguistic behaviour

Upper Classes_2

Style rather than dialect:

Phonologically not much difference to middle class

Prosodic and lexical differences

Laryngealized voice quality

Frequent use of emphatic accent patterns and intensifying modifiers

● Extremely, outstanding● Expresses an expectation of agreement from the

listener

Further factors to be considered

● Gender● Ethnicity● Age● Situation● ...

Critique of social variationist studies

Roland Wardhaugh

“[Studying social variation] was largely in order to widen the limits and repair the flaws that were

perceived to exist in [studies of regional variation].”

“If we are to gain a sound understanding of [..] social variation, we should look at least briefly at

previous work in regional dialectology.”

Social and Regional Variation

➔Problem: Research on social variation largely unrelated to previous research in regional studies.

➔The bigger picture is lost and thus hinders a larger understanding of dialectology.

Roland Wardhaugh

“The Atlas studies were intended partly to find out how speech related to class, but speech

itself was used as one of the criteria for assigning membership.”

➔Problem: Researchers tasked with choosing participants. Bias toward elderly people with little formal education.

➔Focus on rural areas, because of homogeneity➔Results do not represent reality.

Questionable Methodology

●Determining whether someone belongs to a certain social class is not universally verifiable unlike the qualities gender or age.

●Classifications differ from study to study because of different criteria.

Sixth Graders' Understanding of Class

●Top level: Mafia, Supreme Court, President, Government●

●Second level: Army, Military, F.B.I.●

●Third level: Famous People, Pope, CEOs (Business Owners), Celebrities, Heroes (Fire Fighters, Doctors, Military)

●

●Fourth level: CTO (Chief Technology Officer), Entertainment Workers, Fire Fighters, Doctors, Bankers

●

●Fifth level: SSA (Social Security Association), Contractors●

●

●

●Sixth level: Teachers●

●Seventh level: Illegal Immigrants, Homeless

Criteria Issue

To conquer the problem of having so many qualifications for a class, a mixture of those qualities are chosen and a scale for each one measures these traits. Then an overall evaluation takes place. But still, this is bound to a region.

Further Issues

Drawbacks to class-related studies:

●Hard to classify indivividuals using what is meant to be objective criteria designed for masses.●No differentiation of ethnicities, different generations of immigrants, places etc.

But:

●If one were to make all these differentiations, no general statement could be made as easily.

➔In conclusion, we can only make out a stereotype, which might not be reflected by a single individual who has all the traits of that stereotype

Further Issues

On the other hand: Problems arise from the modern mentality of egalitarianism. People especially in bigger cities tend to not like the notion of a social class system and try to not

be associated with only one group.➔People of all backgrounds come to be more alike each other.

Attempted Solution

Lesley Milroy took a different approach:Network relationships.

➔Problem: No two networks are alike. No generalization possible.

Circularity

Circularity

Circularity

Circularity

Circularity

Circularity

Again: A problem arises in the form of circularity.

”His [Trudgill's] study is an attempt to relate linguistic behaviour to social class, but he uses

linguistic behaviour to assign membership in social class.”

Correlation (Susan Gal)“Whatever the social measures, correlations in

themselves reveal little about the processes that bring about, maintain, or change these

correlations.”

Problem: Only looking at correlation can lead to false conclusions.

Wardhaugh:”[...]this has not stopped them from drawing very

strong conclusions, which seem 'obvious' and 'interesting' to them”

Correlation

➔Solution: Long-term observation of individuals in order to find out about why class-dependent speech persists

References

Labov, W. Sociolinguistic Patterns. University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia 2000

Labov, W. Principles of Linguistic Change: Social factors. Wiley-Blackwell 2001

Mesthrie, R. Introducing Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh University Press 2000

Williams, G. Sociolinguistics. A Sociological Critique. T J Press, Padstow, Cornwall 1992

Wardhaugh, Ronald. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. New York, Wiley-Blackwell 1992 (Second Edition)