Book Chapters

Chapter 3 concludes with authentic speech samples from two vernacular dialects. These are Appalachian Ghost Story and Wild Life. Though in the book, the features of these passages are identified, this activity helps students become more familiar with identifying features as they read the chapter.

What to do:

1. Provide students with clean copies of the stories’ transcripts (below).
2. Next, have students listen to the stories at the following links:

Wild Life

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Child: And then I went home. And then I was watchin,’ um, Wild Life, about animals.

Interviewer: And which animal did you see?

Child: And a elephant and a rhino was fightin’ The elephant kicked the rhino down. And then it start grabbin its whole body with its, with its.

Interviewer: Tusk, trunk.

Child: Yeah, throw him but he couldn’t get him up but it ran. And then it was this little dancing chickens, that do like this, like Indians, so they were jumpin’ up and down doin’ a dance.

Interviewer: Why?

Child: I don’t know.

Interviewer: Were they mad at each other?

Child: No, they was dancin.’

Interviewer: They were happy. Did they have music (makes sound of music)?

Child: Yeah, with they mouth, they go uh uh uh uh and stuff. It was a whole lot of them doin’ it. And then the Indians’ll come out and do it with them.

Interviewer: And then the Indians would dance with the chickens? Wow!

Child: And then we saw a movie with, uh, lions, uh uh cheetah, and um gorillas on it, and they said a, a dog bit the baby and it died.

Interviewer: Bit a real baby?

Child: (Nods yes)

Interviewer: Oh.

Child: And then that man had another tiger, a police came to the house and shot that one and they got another one.

Interviewer: This is all on Wild Life?

Child: (nods)

Interviewer: With the elephant and the rhinoceros? All this happened on Wild Life?

Child: (Nods)

Interviewer: Wow.

Child: And then another one came on about the, uh, white lions and stuff. Don’t you know them white ones?

Interviewer: White lions?

Child: Tigers I mean.

Interviewer: White tigers. Tigers are orange with black stripes, thank you.

Child: No, they white too. Uh huh. They got white—they got white, then they got white, I mean, black stripes goin’ down.

Interviewer: That’s a zebra.

Child: Um uhm, it’s another one, that’s a snow tiger.

Interviewer: Oh, the snow tigers, oh, okay.

Child: And then that man had one. Then, we went to a black, a black panther. It wasn’t no black panther, it was something, black what you call em, I don’t know.

Interviewer: Uh-huh.

Child: And then, it was a um, we was lookin’ at monkeys jumpin’ up and down, had—

Interviewer: Monkeys are funny, huh?

Child: And they were hittin’ each other—and then it was one that went to the doctor’s and he was uh (makes noises). Cause—

Interviewer: A monkey went to the doctor?

Child: Cause he ain’t want to get his shot. Went in his leg. And he said (noises) and he got a needle shot in his leg and he say (noises). And then the man gave him a peppermint so he could suck on it. And then he was bitin’ his glasses. Then he put them on and was lookin’ at the camera. And then when he got home he said that lady said he don’t like to say no so he had bang on the table and all that. And then that lady gave him a sucker and he was suckin’ on it.

Interviewer: Just like a little kid, huh?

Child: And then he had diapers on, had a little jumper.

Interviewer: (laughs) She kept him in her house? Oh, so it was like her pet monkey? Or was it a monkey out in the jungle? Oh.

Child: And then they’d take him places with em, like a diner and all.

Interviewer: Don’t you think the monkey will run away?

Child: He won’t run away.

Interviewer: Did they have him on a leash? Like they do a dog?

Child: No. And then when they got him home, they were jumpin’ on a big trampoline.

Interviewer: All three of them?

Child: No, just one.

Interviewer: Oh, just the monkey?

Child: Yeah.

Interviewer: The lady wasn’t jumpin’ on the trampoline too?

Child: No, she was watchin’ them cause they was jumpin’ up and down, walkin’ around.

Appalachian Ghost Story

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I was always kindy afraid to stay by myself, just me, you know, it was gettin’ about time for me to get in, so Ingo, he’d went over to this man’s house where we carried our water from, and to get some water, and, ooh, the moon was so pretty and bright, and I thinks, heck, hit’s dark, I hear him a-talkin’, a-settin’ over there in the field where the spring is, I’ll just walk down the road and meet him, you know, ooh, it was so pretty and light. I got down there and I hearn something shut the churchhouse door, but I didn’t see a thing, and the moon, oh the moon was as pretty as daylight, and I didn’t see nothin.’ And he come on the walk, pitty-pat, pitty-pat, and I just looked with all my eyes, and I couldn’t see a thing, come out that gate, iron, slammed it and hit just cracked, just like a iron gate, it will just slam it there. And all at once, something riz up right in front of me. Looked like it had a white sheet around it, and no head. I liketa died. That was just a little while before Florence was born. I turned around and I went back to the house just as fast as I could go, and about that time, Ingo come along and he says, “I set the water up,” and he said, “I’m going down the churchhouse,” he said, “I hearn somebody go in,” he said, “They went through that gate.” And he walked across there and he opened the door and he went in the churchhouse. And they had him a-lookin’ after the church, you know, if anybody went in, he went down there. He seen something was the matter with me, I couldn’t hardly talk. I told him, I said, “Well, something or other, I hearn it, I seen it, whenever I started over to meet you, and I couldn’t get no further.” So he went down there and he took his lantern, of course, we didn’t have flashlights then, took his lantern, had an old ladder, just spokes, just to go up beside of the house, he looked all behind the organ, all behind every bench, he went upstairs and looked in the garret, not a thing in the world he could find. Not a thing. Well, it went on for a right smart little while and one day Miss Allen was down there. Her girls come down there very often and sweep the church and clean it. So one evenin’, they come up the house, you know, and I’s tellin’ them. They said, “Honey, don’t feel bad about that,” she said, “Long as you live here, you’ll see something like that,” said “they was, in time of the war, they was a woman, that somebody’d cut her head off and they’d buried her in the grave down there.” And they said there’d been so many people live in the house we live in, would see her, and said “That’s what it was,” said, “it just had a white sheet wrapped around it.” And we didn’t live there very long cause I wouldn’t stay. He worked away and aw heck—I’s just scared to death but still Miss Allen told me, she said, “Don’t be afraid because hain’t a thing that’ll hurt you.”

3. Instruct students to first identify on the transcripts the level of dialect of as many features as possible. They can use a short hand of G = grammar, V = vocabulary, and P = pronunciation.
4. Instruct students to attempt to label with its name the dialect features included in the stories. Students should do this while they read or in reviewing the chapter.
5. When students return to class, have a discussion about which features of each dialect stand out the most either in the oral or written versions of the stories. Ask students what else is distinctive about the dialect beyond the specific linguistic features (rhythm, pitch, cadence, stress, etc.).
6. Ask students how the dialects of these speakers enhanced some aspect of the story the speaker was telling. That is, how would it have been different if these stories were told in a different dialect? For the Wild Life story, did the interviewer seem to have an effect on the child’s dialect usage? What does this exercise changed their view of the dialect, and potentially dialects as a whole, as well as what use this lesson could have in their future classrooms.

By examining the linguistic processes by which new words are created, students learn that language change and development of “slang” happen according to identifiable parameters. This counters two ideas: 1. That language change is a free-for-all and that 2. Slang or other changes indicate a decline in standards. Though examples are provided of words to analyze, students’ own language knowledge may produce many other slang forms that might serve as the basis for additional analysis or discussion.

What to do:

1. Review the word formation processes outlined in Box 3.1 in Chapter 3.
2. Provide students with the following words and ask them to identify and explain the process through which the word formed (if students are unfamiliar with the word, have them look it up online):
• clickbait
• moobs
• YOLO
• vom
• aiyah
• equivalate
• tupperware
• scrumdiddlyumptious
3. Review students’ responses as a class.
4. Next, have students scroll through new entries on the front page of Urban Dictionary (http://www.urbandictionary.com/). Ask them to jot down any words that they see that are a result of the word formation processes in Box 3.1. Alternatively, another source of data are the American Dialect Society’s archive of the Word of the Year vote: http://www.americandialect.org/woty
5. Reflect on the following questions with students:
• Why were these new words were formed?
• What need do they meet that was not being met before?
• How do they communicate the idea differently than standard English?
• What does this indicate about the nature of language?
• Are some word formation processes more common than others?
• Is language change inevitable?
• If using Urban Dictionary: Some slang terms eventually become so widespread they can hardly be considered slang. A few examples include “cool” and “hip.” Are any of the new words on Urban Dictionary likely to become common words?
• If using the American Dialect Society’s archive: Which words from the past years have persisted? Which have faded? Do you see any patterns regarding which words are likely to persist or fade?

Between 1999 and 2003, Harvard Professor Bert Vaux and MIT student Scott A. Golder collected linguistic data from almost 31,000 participants. The survey contained 122 different questions designed to discover more about the regional variation of grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary in American English Dialects. This activity asks students to engage with the results of the Harvard Dialect Survey in order to learn more about regional patterning of dialects.

What to do:

1. Have students spend some time reviewing the results of the complete Harvard Dialect Survey which includes more vocabulary and pronunciation questions as well as grammar questions (https://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/maps.html).
2. Tell students to choose three questions to explore from each of the following categories: Pronunciation (#1-#48), Grammar (#49-#57), and Vocabulary (#58-#122).
3. Have students note for each of their selected language features the distribution of responses and how those responses were regionally distributed.
4. Discuss in groups or with the class the following questions:
• Were you aware of the variation of the features you selected? Did anything surprise you about the alternate forms or the distribution?   
• Did you see correlations among some of the features you chose? For example, examining questions 53 and 105 reveals an overlapping distribution of “coke” and the use of multiple modals.
• Of the features you examined, did one level have a stronger regional distribution than the others? What do you make of this?
• What level of language do you find most interesting? Most easy to recognize?
• What language features and dialects do you expect to encounter most in your classroom?
• How will knowledge of these dialects improve the education of your students?
• Do you notice any potential problems with the questions? Or with the data sample (see here: https://www4.uwm.edu/FLL/linguistics/dialect/staticmaps/states.html)
5. Ask students to think about dialect variation that they are aware of. How might they write questions that elicit responses without biasing the results? How might they design a survey that sought to examine age-based or ethnic variation in language?
6. If students would like to contribute to ongoing efforts to expand the survey, please go here: http://www.tekstlab.uio.no/cambridge_survey/

Though not an interactive activity, per se, this resource allows students to hear a speaker of a dialect that maintains a distinction between the vowels in the words “Mary,” “merry,” and “marry.” This distinction has been lost in the vast majority of American English dialects. The speaker in this exercise is from Philadelphia, PA. Interestingly, while this speaker maintains a distinction between the vowels in these three words, he merges the vowels of the words “merry” and “Maury.” A transcript each track accompanies the link.

Mary, Merry, Marry

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Mary merry marry

Mary

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Mary

Merry

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Merry

Marry

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Marry

In A Sentence

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Mary. Mary had a little lamb. Mary. Merry. Merry Christmas. Merry. Marry. She will marry them. Marry.

All Together Now

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Who did merry Mary marry? Merry Mary married Murray.

Questions for Discussion

• Could you hear the difference between the different pronunciations when they were said in succession?
• Do you think you could pick out which word the speaker was saying without the context?
• Are you able to say the words differently like the speaker? Why do you think it is so difficult to do so?

This activity provides resources like articles and videos that supplement the history of African American English in Chapter 4. The exercise will challenge students to interact with this history by creating visuals that capture key moments in its evolution.

What to do:

• Have students examine the following resources and/or conduct their own internet research on the history of African American English:
• An online article titled “When Worlds Collide”: http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/AAVE/worldscollide/
• A video on the history and linguistics of African American English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkzVOXKXfQk
• A video on the formation of pidgin and creole languages: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqJI7SdS9Gg
• Information on the evolution of African American English from Chapter 4
• As students engage in this research, ask them to note key dates and events that are important to understanding the history of African American English. These events should then be collected and used to create a timeline or other visual representation of the stages through which African American English has evolved.
• Free resource for creating diagrams and timelines: https://www.draw.io/
• After students have shared their findings, discuss the following questions:
• What are some similarities and differences in the ways in which African American English has evolved or is still evolving compared to other dialects, including Standard English?
• How has learning about the history of African American English changed your perception of it?
• In what ways was/is African American English a symbol of solidarity and rebellion?

In this activity, students are asked to examine some data on the usage of uninflected be by African American English speakers. From this investigation, students learn not only the grammatical rules governing the language feature, but also the extent to which the feature is acquired as a natural part of the speakers’ dialects. The activity then engages students in a discussion about the importance of the pattern within the dialect, despite the negative perception many people hold of it.

What to do:

1. Provide students with the following background information about the feature: You will be learning about a dialect pattern in African American English that is sometimes used by young African American speakers in large cities. In this feature, the form be is used where other dialects use “am,” “is,” or “are,” except that it has a special grammatical meaning. You will look at some examples of this feature in use in an attempt to identify a pattern and hypothesize about what its special meaning is.
2. Provide students with the following data
1. (32)       a. They usually be tired when they come home.
   (3)        b. They be tired right now.
2. (31)       a. When we play basketball, she be on my team.
   (4)        b. The girl in the picture be my sister.
3. (4)        a. James be coming to school right now.
   (31)       b. James always be coming to school.
4. (3)        a. My ankle be broken from the fall.
   (32)       b. Sometimes my ears be itching.
3. Share with students that these data come from a group of 35 young speakers of African American English in Baltimore, Maryland, who were asked to choose which sentence in each pair sounded better to them. The number in parentheses before each sentence indicates how many of the young people chose that sentence as the best one in the pair. Notice that they had a definite preference for one sentence versus the other. This strong preference means that there is some sort of pattern guiding the students’ selection.
4.  As your students look through the examples, have them try to identify a pattern that led the speakers to choose one sentence over the other. Allow students time to figure out the pattern that led the young people to make their choices. If students are struggling, tell them to look at the type of action that is involved in each sentence. Ask them if the action takes place at just one time or if the action takes place more than once. They should try to state the regular pattern in terms of the action. A good statement of the pattern might go something like, “Be is used in sentences with repeated or habitual action as opposed to action that happens once or a constant state.”
5. Once students have determined the pattern of this form, tell them that this grammatical feature is called “habitual be” as it signals a regularly occurring action.
6. Now that they know how the form be is used, students should apply the rule to the following sentences. Ask students to determine which of the sentences would allow for the use of uninflected be in African American English and which do not. Write Y for “Yes” if the sentence follows the dialect pattern and N for “No” if it does not.
1. ____The students always be talking in class.
2. ____The students don’t be talking right now.
3. ____Sometimes the teacher be early for class.
4. ____At the moment the teacher be in the lounge.
5. ANSWER KEY: 1. Yes; 2. No; 3. Yes; 4. No
7. Review students’ responses and ask them to justify their answers.
8. Discuss the following questions with students. If time allows, the following video clip may help provide depth to the conversation. Short version (2:45): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqohw8nR6qE
   Longer version (8:50): https://languageandlife.org/vonc/vonc27.mp4
• What does habitual be prove about African American English and other dialects with respect to rules and patterns?
• Despite being rule-governed and patterned, why is African American English still largely viewed so negatively?
• Why might many African Americans be proud of their dialect?

This activity uses four articles about the history and current state of Latino English to counter common myths about Latinos and Latino English. They will connect the implication of these myths to the broader narrative of this community of speakers in today’s society.

What to do:

1. Break students into four groups and assign them one of the following articles to read:
• Carmen Fought’s “Talking with Mi Gente”: http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/chicano/
• Lilly Gonzalez’s “Viva Spanglish!”: http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/spanglish/viva/
• Phillip M. Carter’s “Spanish in the U.S.”: http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/spanglish/usa/
• Betty Bimer’s “Habla Espanol?”: http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/spanglish/threat/
2. After they’ve read their assigned article, have each group of students make a list of common myths about this language variety and note beside it the truth about that misconception that they learned from the article. These myths can be beliefs that the students held before reading the article or beliefs held by larger society.
3. Next, assign each student in the group a different number.
4. Have all the 1s form a group, all the 2s form a group, etc.
5. Each member in the newly formed group should share the myths and facts from their article. The other members of the group should record new findings in their own lists.
6. Allow students to share what they found with the class.
7. To end, discuss the following questions with students:
• Where do you think your belief, or society’s belief, in these myths came from?
• How do those beliefs influence your/others’ perception of Latino English and the Latino community as a whole?
• How does this connect to the idea of implicit biases--the idea that we develop attitudes about language without even knowing it?
• What does being aware of these beliefs enable you to do as an educator?

In this activity, students will hear a brief excerpt from a brother and sister who moved from Mexico to North Carolina when they were young. The two have spent the same amount of time in the United States and have had the same models of English, yet they have acquired very different dialects of American English. This is because the children have very different personal identities and interests. The girl speaker is more academically oriented and liked living in Mexico more than North Carolina. The boy speaker likes North Carolina is interested in traditionally Southern activities like hunting and stockcar racing.

What to do:

1. Tell students that they will be hearing two Latino immigrants, a brother and sister who now live in North Carolina. Tell students that they will hear both siblings count from one to ten, with the sister going first. Ask the students to listen for differences between the siblings’ voices and to think about what these differences say about the personal identities of the two children.
2. Play the following clip, “Latino Siblings Counting” for the students at least two times. If they need additional prompting, ask them questions like, “Which sibling likes school more?” “Which sibling likes living in North Carolina more?” “What interests might each sibling have?”
3. Review with students the key differences in the dialects of the two children. The male speaker has a few prototypical features of Southern English, including the pin/pen merger (heard in “ten”) and the ungliding of the PRICE vowel (heard in “five” and “nine”).
4. Ask students if they are surprised at how different the siblings’ voices are. Discuss with them how individual identities, interests, and communities of practice can affect how people speak.
5. For an extension activity, steer the discussion in the direction of identifying bilingual speakers. Ask students if they could tell these children spoke Spanish as their native language? Is it easier to tell one or the other is bilingual? Students are often surprised to learn how difficult it can be to judge whether a person of Latino heritage is a monolingual Latino English speaker or has learned English as a second language. The following link leads to a quiz and additional information on this topic: http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/chicano/quiz/

Appalachian Ghost Story

View Transcript

I was always kindy afraid to stay by myself, just me, you know, it was gettin’ about time for me to get in, so Ingo, he’d went over to this man’s house where we carried our water from, and to get some water, and, ooh, the moon was so pretty and bright, and I thinks, heck, hit’s dark, I hear him a-talkin’, a-settin’ over there in the field where the spring is, I’ll just walk down the road and meet him, you know, ooh, it was so pretty and light. I got down there and I hearn something shut the churchhouse door, but I didn’t see a thing, and the moon, oh the moon was as pretty as daylight, and I didn’t see nothin.’ And he come on the walk, pitty-pat, pitty-pat, and I just looked with all my eyes, and I couldn’t see a thing, come out that gate, iron, slammed it and hit just cracked, just like a iron gate, it will just slam it there. And all at once, something riz up right in front of me. Looked like it had a white sheet around it, and no head. I liketa died. That was just a little while before Florence was born. I turned around and I went back to the house just as fast as I could go, and about that time, Ingo come along and he says, “I set the water up,” and he said, “I’m going down the churchhouse,” he said, “I hearn somebody go in,” he said, “They went through that gate.” And he walked across there and he opened the door and he went in the churchhouse. And they had him a-lookin’ after the church, you know, if anybody went in, he went down there. He seen something was the matter with me, I couldn’t hardly talk. I told him, I said, “Well, something or other, I hearn it, I seen it, whenever I started over to meet you, and I couldn’t get no further.” So he went down there and he took his lantern, of course, we didn’t have flashlights then, took his lantern, had an old ladder, just spokes, just to go up beside of the house, he looked all behind the organ, all behind every bench, he went upstairs and looked in the garret, not a thing in the world he could find. Not a thing. Well, it went on for a right smart little while and one day Miss Allen was down there. Her girls come down there very often and sweep the church and clean it. So one evenin’, they come up the house, you know, and I’s tellin’ them. They said, “Honey, don’t feel bad about that,” she said, “Long as you live here, you’ll see something like that,” said “they was, in time of the war, they was a woman, that somebody’d cut her head off and they’d buried her in the grave down there.” And they said there’d been so many people live in the house we live in, would see her, and said “That’s what it was,” said, “it just had a white sheet wrapped around it.” And we didn’t live there very long cause I wouldn’t stay. He worked away and aw heck—I’s just scared to death but still Miss Allen told me, she said, “Don’t be afraid because hain’t a thing that’ll hurt you.”

This activity examines a spoken word piece that celebrates the speaker’s mother’s Latino English. It highlights vocabulary and pronunciation features of the dialect and challenges the deficit perspective of this language variety.

What to do:

1. Have students read Denice Frohman’s poem “Accents” (http://www.narrativenortheast.com/?p=1952). Discuss their reactions to the poem.
2. Show students the video of Denice Frohman performing her poem “Accents”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtOXiNx4jgQ. Ask them how their perceptions of the poem changed when they heard it performed.
3. Using the transcript, ask students to identify words they do not know and have them research their meanings online.
4. Next instruct students identify specific words and metaphors that the speaker used to describe her mother’s use of Latino English.
5. Finally, discuss the following questions as a class:
1. What are the ways in which the speaker claims that Standard English is inadequate for her mother?
2. How does the speaker draw a connection between language and identity?
3. What is the value of Latino English in this particular context?
4. What’s the larger issue Frohman is addressing with this poem?
6. Extension Activity: Have students describe their dialect or a dialect they admire through a set of metaphors or another creative writing approach. Ask students what the purpose of celebrating linguistic diversity is and how they plan to enact this in their classrooms.

Slang is most commonly associated with stigmatized dialects, but in this activity, students learn that it is an important part of all dialects, even those associated with so-called “model minority” stereotypes. Students first examine the role of slang in a generalized Asian English dialect. They then examine variations within Asian American Englishes.

What to do:

1. Have students watch a video of “Asian Slang” (does not specify what variety of Asian English) (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O01vYbzUQ9A). As they watch, have them write down the words and the definitions presented in the video as it plays.
2. When they have completed this, ask them to “translate” the slang items into their own dialect. If they do not have a word or phrase, ask them to write a description of how they might convey the concept captured by the slang item.
3. Discuss as a class why these slang words might have developed in this dialect given that for many of them, there are other ways of saying the same thing in standard English. Ask them what role slang plays in Asian American culture, including how it interacts with “model minority” stereotypes.
4. Connect this idea to the formation of both African American English and Latino English discussed previously. Ask students to evaluate whether slang works the same across all these dialects or if it serves different roles due to the social status of the different dialects.
5. Next ask students to explore the different depictions of Asian accents and slang on YouTube by searching for “Accent tag.” Have them try to catalog the differences between various accents and note how slang works differently in the depictions of these dialects. For example, do the depictions of Korean English differ from those of Japanese English?

This activity first asks students to think about the reasons why people have a tendency to romanticize the past (sometimes called “rosy retrospection”). It then challenges students to apply this information to people’s nostalgic treatment of language and the common framing of language changes as language decay or decline.

What to do:

1. Ask students to think about and share examples of times their parents, grandparents, or those of an older generation talked about aspects of culture or society that were “better” during their adolescence than they are now.
2. Next, ask students to share if there are any aspects of their adolescence experiences (music, style, opportunity, etc.) that they believe to be better than what are available today and why. If not, ask students to share if they wish they could have grown up in an earlier era because they believe that it was a better time and why.
3. Finally, ask students how they perceive the current state of the world—would they consider it a more or less peaceful and/or safe than previous eras?
4. Direct students to the following article about the current trends regarding the world’s present state of affairs: http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/the_world_is_not_falling_apart_the_trend_lines_reveal_an_increasingly_peaceful.html. Tell students to scroll through the article and look at the charts that are presented.
5. Discuss the following questions with students:
• What surprised you about the information in the article?
• What do people have a tendency to do when reflecting on the past?
• Why do you believe that people often romanticize the past?
6. Explain that this propensity to perceive the past as inherently better or purer than the present is an effect called “rosy retrospection” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosy_retrospection).
7. To connect this topic to language, have students refer back to the section about language deterioration in Chapter 5 and/or read the following article, “The Endless Decline of the English Language”: http://grammar.about.com/od/readingsonlanguage/a/The-Endless-Decline-Of-The-English-Language.htm.
8. End with a discussion covering the following questions:
• Why do people have a tendency to romanticize language of the past and reject new language changes of the present?
• What are the effects of this mindset with regard to language? How does it connect to beliefs about adhering to specific language standards?
• How does this attitude impact teachers’ approach to language instruction in the classroom? How does this attitude affect their students?

This activity provides online video and article resources to help students better explore descriptivism through the use of dictionaries. Students are challenged to consider how and why language changes and reflect upon the tension between language change and the prescriptive desire to adhere to language norms and standards.

What to do:

1. Ask students how they conceive of dictionaries in terms of their creation and (intended) use:
• What is their purpose? Do some dictionaries have different purposes?
• How did they come to be constructed? Are they all constructed the same?
• Do they ever change or do they remain the same? If they do change, how and why does this happen?
• How/why are words added to a dictionary? How/why are they removed?
2. Provide students with a list of the following words and ask them to write down a “Yes” or a “No” beside it to indicate whether they believe that word is in the dictionary or not (read the entire list before allowing students to discuss their responses): twerk, ain’t, ‘Merica, y’all, hot mess, autotune, handsy, photobomb, jeggings, holla.
3. Review the list of words with students and allow them to share their opinions on whether or not they believe that the word is in the dictionary.
4. After the discussion, share with students that all of these words are in the Oxford English Dictionary.
5. Have student watch the following clip on the difference between prescriptivism and descriptivism from the documentary Do You Speak American? to find out why: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbqkjchOww8
6. Ask students if there was any new information that they learned from the video. Have them describe how lexicographers, persons who compile dictionaries, determine whether or not a word should be included in the dictionary or not.
7. Next, instruct students read the following article in order to learn about ten words that were recently added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2016 (or search for words added in other years): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3785896/Oxford-English-Dictionary-unveils-new-words-2016.html
8. After reading the article, engage students in a discussion around the following questions:
• Have you used any of these words?
• Do you think they deserve to be in the dictionary? Why or why not?
• What is the dictionary’s role in “legitimizing” these words as so-called “real words”?
• How does this affect your perception of who gets to determine language norms?
• Who is ultimately responsible for language change and who determines language use?
9. In order to understand that language has been changing for thousands of years, tell students to read the following article on Shakespeare’s contribution to the evolution of the English language: https://www.buzzfeed.com/lukelewis/words-you-didnt-realise-william-shakespeare-invented?utm_term=.axz8o6bRjn#.nx4QvzLY4x.
10. Ask students to reflect on the following questions:
• What are some reasons for language change?
• How would we be speaking today if language did not evolve or if we did not adopt any changes to our language?
• What are the benefits of accepting new words and other language changes? What does it allow us to do?
• How does language change challenge convictions and commitment to language norms and standards?
11. Extension Activity: Have students watch a TED Talk by Erin McKean, former American editor for the Oxford English Dictionary, in which she explains the process lexicographers use for making decisions about what words they choose to include in the dictionary. If time allows, this video may also be a good substitute for the shorter video in step 5: https://www.ted.com/talks/erin_mckean_redefines_the_dictionary?language=en

This activity provides students with an opportunity to observe and critique the implementation of a deficit-model language program based on the book Ax or Ask? The African American Guide to Better English by Garrard McClendon (2004). They interrogate the effect of this approach on students and are tasked with creating their own lesson that respects dialect differences instead of viewing the vernacular as inadequate or broken. Students are also introduced to a non-deficit based program, the Academic English Mastery Program, with the same goals.

What to do:

1. Have student watch the following video which is an example of a language program aimed at students who speak African American English: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_KKLkmIrDk.
2. After the video, ask students the following questions:
• What is your initial reaction to this man’s language program? What are some things you like or dislike about it?
• Is this a descriptivist or a prescriptivist approach to language instruction? How can you tell?
• Is this a deficit-model or a difference-model approach to teaching language? How can you tell?
3. Then have students watch a video on the Academic English Mastery Program which takes a different approach to accomplishing the same goals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKcukrcw0ks
4. Ask students to compare the approaches of the two programs.
• How do you think each approach to language instruction could impact students’ self-confidence in their linguistic ability?
• How could each approach impact the relationship they have with their teachers and their perception of school?
• How could each approach impact the relationship they have with their family and community?
• How could each approach impact the development of their identity?
5. Which program do you think kids respond better to? Why?
6. Which program is more effective? Why?
7. Which program is more empowering to the students?
8. Provide students with a list of the different features of AAE and Standard English addressed in the video: aks/ask, tesses/tests, learn me/teach me, quitted/quit, birfday/birthday, ain’t got no/don’t have any. Have students choose a feature and design a mini-lesson to teach students about how that language feature is used differently in AAE and Standard English. Students should employ a difference-model approach as discussed in the book.
9. Extension activity: Break students up into five groups and assign them one of the following people from the first video: the news anchors, the program leader (Garrard McClendon), the academy teachers, the academy director, or the students.
10. Have students re-watch the video in the small groups and record quotes said by their assigned person/people that represent a deficit perspective of AAE.
11. Allow students to share their findings with the class and explain how their examples reflect a deficit perspective.

This activity provides resources that get students to explore current norms of language in electronically-mediated communication like texting. Students engage in several discussions about language features and patterns employed in this form of communication, the misconceptions surrounding this medium, and its potential impact on language use today and in the future. This activity can also be adapted to take advantage of students’ internal knowledge of these norms, making them the linguistic expert.

What to do:

1. Have students watch the TED Talk by John McWhorter titled “Txting is Killing Language. JK!!!”: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmvOgW6iV2s
2. Discuss the following questions with students after the video:
• What texting features were analyzed in the TED Talk?
• Are you familiar with these features?
• Have you ever employed these features in your texting?
• What did McWhorter discuss with regard to the perception of language decline?
• What was the overall message and argument of the video?
3. Next have students take out their phones and spend some time looking through their own text message history. Students should take notes on the ways in which they use or don’t use punctuation, capitalization, acronyms, abbreviations, incomplete sentences, emojis, specific vocabulary, ellipses, etc. Also have them note the topic of the conversation and the person with whom they were texting. To see if there are different patterns depending on the person or conversation. It may be useful to consider factors such as age, power differential, or importance of the topic in making these observations.  
4. Based on these observations, tell students to look for any patterns or specific language they employ in their own text messaging use.
5. Discuss the following questions with students:
• What were some patterns or specific language you used in your text messages? Did it vary based on content and audience? How so?
• How might you have communicated these conversations differently through email, over the phone, in person, etc.?
6. Present students with the following image from this link: https://xkcd.com/1083/ Have them reflect on it with these guided questions:
• What point is the image attempting to make?
• Do you agree with its assessment? Why or why not?
• Why is addressing the misconception of how younger generations are perceived to communicate electronically important?
7. Finally, have students read the following article about the ways in which sarcasm is being communicated online or electronically: http://the-toast.net/2015/06/22/a-linguist-explains-how-we-write-sarcasm-on-the-internet/
8. End with a discussion on the following questions:
• What features did the author outline as integral to communicating sarcasm on the internet?
• Does this description align with your personal experiences?
• If innovations in technology offer tools such as predictive typing, predictive emojis, auto-correct, and auto-capitalization, why are people still using nonstandard language features (different spellings, no punctuation, no capitalization, acronyms, etc.) in electronically-mediated communication?
• Do these choices indicate a less sophisticated form of communication? Why or why not?
• How are or might these language changes impact our language use today or in the future?

This activity provides students with resources to analyze different types of prescriptivism and reflect on the effects of these approaches to language on things like language norms and language change. Websites and examples are provided, though additional independent student research would serve to enhance students’ understanding of the concepts.

What to do:

1. Assign groups of students one of the four types of prescriptivism outlined in Chapter 5: standardizing prescriptivism, stylistic prescriptivism, restorative prescriptivism, or politically responsive prescriptivism (from Curzan, 2014).
2. Ask students to revisit the section on prescriptivism in the chapter. Have them focus closely on the segment relevant to their assigned topic.
3. Next have students in each group complete the following tasks to investigate their topic further:
• Standardizing Prescriptivism: Have students write down specific grammar rules they remember learning in school or from parents that would be considered “standardizing prescriptivism.” Students should then use the following website to add to the list: https://www.writingforward.com/grammar/grammar-rules/grammar-rules-every-writer-should-know. Have students reflect on which rule violation they believe to be the most stigmatized.
• Stylistic Prescriptivism: Have students write down suggestions or advice given to them in teacher feedback or peer reviews on written assignments that would be considered “stylistic prescriptivism.” Students should then use the following website to add to the list: http://writingcenter.unc.edu/handouts/style/. Have students reflect on which style tips they believe to be the most commonly suggested and why.
• Restorative Prescriptivism: Have students use the internet to research the etymologies of the following words: symposium, decimate, unique, literally, ovation, and sinister.Students should then reflect on what the effect would be if these words’ historical/etymological origins were restored as the only acceptable meanings. If students finish early, they can find their own examples of etymological fallacies.
• Politically Responsive Prescriptivism: Have students write down examples of intentional changes in words, phrases, or social group labels that would be considered “politically responsive prescriptivism.” Students should then use the following website to add to the list: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Category:English_politically_correct_terms. Have students reflect on the purpose behind these changes and how each shapes our understanding of the concept or group of people.
4. Allow each group to share a definition of their specific type of prescriptivism, examples that they thought of or found, and their reflections on the question posed to them.
5. To end, discuss the following questions with students:
• With which forms of prescriptivism – or prescriptive norms – do you most identify and why?
• What do standardizing, stylistic, and restorative prescriptivism imply about language?
• Why might linguists champion politically responsive prescriptivism but not the other three types?
• What role does each type of prescriptivism commonly play in classrooms? How might you employ them in your own classroom?
• How do teachers’ choices with respect to enforcing various types of prescriptivism change the classroom environment? 

This activity provides resources that allow students to examine the role of language in politics, sports, and popular culture and consider how our language impacts the way we view the world. The first part of the activity focuses on politicians’ strategic use of language to communicate ideas to the public. The second part of the activity focuses on attempts to change language usage as a way of reshaping the public’s conception of a group or topic.

What to do:

Part 1: Politically Responsive Prescriptivism in Politics

1. Explain to students the theory of linguistic determinism—the idea that words and language shape human knowledge and thought—and that if we believe this to be true, then it makes sense that politicians would use specific words and phrases to shape the public’s understandings of their character, beliefs, platform, and policies. Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_determinism
2. Have students read the following article to look at the ways in which Democrats and Republicans use language to form the way people view certain things: http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21581745-how-republicans-and-democrats-use-language-war-words.
3. Discuss the following questions with students after reading the article:
• What were some examples of politically responsive prescriptivism?
• What examples did you find most effective? Why?
• What examples did you find most dishonest? Why?
• In what ways did the language choice affect your perception of the idea?
• Do you believe in the theory of linguistic determinism? Why or why not?

Part 2: Politically Responsive Prescriptivism in Sports and Popular Culture

1. Remind students that one example of politically responsive prescriptivism mentioned in Chapter 5 was the debate about the name of the National Football League’s Washington Redskins. Share that many American Indians and activists have called for the mascot to be changed. Ask students to discuss the effect of the name if they were to accept linguistic determinism is true. Discuss whether such a label could be considered harmful if it is, in fact, shaping people’s thoughts about this ethnic group.
2. Show students the National Congress of American Indians’ promotional video in support of changing the mascot: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mR-tbOxlhvE.
3. [Disclaimer: the next two video clips are satirical news shows and contain mature content] Next, show students one or both of these satirical news shows’ position on the controversy:
• The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loK2DRBnk24
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJKfs4ZnbNE (stop at 3:10 to avoid cursing)
4. After viewing the videos, discuss the following questions with students:
• What are some differences that come to mind when you envision a “Redskin” versus an American Indian?
• With respect to language, what do these sources imply is taking place when the team and fans refer to themselves as “Redskins”?
• What are they inferring about the relationship between language and thought?
• Why might fans or people in general be so resistant to changing their language?

Despite being celebrated today, Shakespeare was not considered the best writer of his time. The most celebrated writers were those who conformed tightly to stylistic and linguistic norms. By these standards, one might consider Shakespeare’s writing to be slangy, imprecise, or even sloppy. However, in modern contexts, Shakespeare’s inventiveness with language has come to be celebrated. This activity asks students to think about a locus of inventiveness in modern English: hip hop.

What to do:

1. Have students re-read the section in Chapter 5 that imagines how Shakespeare might be treated if he were a student in a current English Language Arts classroom. The section highlights some of the “playfulness” and “inventiveness” that Shakespeare used.
2. Discuss with students parallel examples of “playfulness” and “inventiveness” in modern English. What sorts of writers and artists are known for their inventive use of language?
3. Have students take the following quiz to see if they can distinguish between a quote from Shakespeare and a hip hop artist: http://www.sporcle.com/games/the_hmh_project/shakespeare-or-hip-hop.
4. Have students discuss their responses via the following questions:
• Was it hard to tell the difference between the two? Why?
• What surprised you about the quiz?
• What did you learn?
• What does it say about the current state of our language?
• What does it say about the ability of speakers of vernacular dialects to communicate eloquent, poetic ideas?
5. Next, have students explore a graph of the number of unique words used within hip hop artists’ lyrics as compared to Shakespeare and Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (http://poly-graph.co/vocabulary.html). Repeat the questions provided above in relation to this graph.
6. Conclude by asking students if the practice of discourage the use of non-mainstream dialects in our classrooms and other prescriptive approaches might be, as suggested in Chapter 5, “thwarting the next Shakespeare”?

Chapter 6 describes the ONPAR assessment initiative, which was designed to harness technology to overcome language barriers while assessing the science and math reasoning of elementary and middle school English language learners. This activity has students interact with the assessment materials as a means of becoming more familiar with the methods used to overcome potential language issues. Students are then asked to think about what it means to do the work of a content area, and to what extent language plays in being able to do that work.

What to do:

1. Allow students some time to play around with both the mathematics tasks (http://iiassessment.wceruw.org/projects/ONPAR-math-tasks.html) and the science tasks (http://iiassessment.wceruw.org/projects/ONPAR-science-tasks.html). Ask the following questions after they have had a chance to explore:
• What is the test actually measuring versus what other assessments measure that rely heavily on linguistic content?
• Why is this type of assessment so important for English language learners?
• Do you think this is a fair assessment of students’ content knowledge?
• Could these types of assessments be used for speakers of different language varieties?
• Could this approach be adapted for assessing other content areas (social studies, English language arts, or psychology)? Which ones? Which content areas would be ill-suited for assessments of this type?
• Could this approach be adapted for assessing higher grade levels? What challenges might higher grades pose?
2. Ask students to reflect on the assessments to distill the skills needed to “do” math or science. Then ask them what skills are necessary to “do” history or English? Is there a way to conceive of language study as being more similar to science or math?

Perhaps the most important national educational data come from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which has been dubbed “The Nation’s Report Card.” In this activity, students are introduced to the dataset, online tools for analysis, and the survey’s reports.

What to do:

1. As a class, in groups, or individually, have students look through the findings of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) (https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/about/naeptools.aspx). On the page, direct students to try out the following tabs at least once so that they learn how to better navigate the site and locate the information they are most interested in: Data Explorer, State Comparisons, State Profiles, and District Profiles. Have them do comparisons between states and districts of interest.
2. Discuss as a class what trends students found in relation to differences between nations, states, districts, ethnicities, genders, parental education levels, etc. Ask the following questions:
• What did you find out?
• What surprised you?
• What did you expect?
3. Next, have students evaluate the assessments used to collect this data. Using the following link (https://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/itmrlsx/), have students examine released questions, surveys, tests, and prompts. From these sources, ask students to try to distill the expectations for what students at each achievement level are expected to know and do. For help, students might use the questions for evaluating assessments listed in Chapter 5, such as did the assessment claim to be testing? What was it actually testing? What assumptions about language are made in the questions? What kind of language-related tasks were central to participating in the test? Did the test accommodate for language varieties? What are the implications of their evaluation of the results for the data of these assessments?  
4. For a more personalized exercise, locate, if possible, released state-based tests from your local school district/state and have your students examine them with the same questions as in step 3. Allow them to share what they found and if they identified any biases or potential biases against speakers of nonstandard dialects.

In this activity, students lean a little bit about the role language plays in perpetuating system-based or institutionalized racism. One of the key points is that linguistic prejudice does not always extend from prejudiced people, but can extend from systems that are inherently unfair. This understanding is critical for teachers because it radically reframes the role of the teacher. Equipped with this knowledge, teachers understand that it is not enough to be individually non-prejudiced; instead, teachers must be agents of change who interrogate the educational institutions for bias.

What to do:

1. Read or project via an overhead the following quotation from the chapter by researcher Harold Berlak:



“An educational accountability system based on standardized testing--though predicated on ‘standardized’ measurements which are purportedly neutral, objective, and color-blind--perpetuates and strengthens institutionalized racism” (2009, p. 71).

2. Explain that outside of standardized tests, teachers often assess students both informally and formally in their classroom all the while considering themselves “neutral, objective, and color-blind.” However, people have implicit biases and assumptions that they have acquired from a young age about many different facets of culture.
3. Have students watch a video on a famous racial biases test called the doll study (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYCz1ppTjiM).
4. Ask students the following questions:
5. What does this study show us about the development of our attitudes and biases?
6. What is the implicit bias about skin color that these children demonstrated?
7. Where do you think these biases developed?
8. Explain that as educators, we need to be mindful of our unrecognized attitudes towards those of other cultures.
9. Review from the chapter Labov’s critique of oral assessments conducted on speakers of vernacular dialects in the past. Have students excerpt their favorite quotation from this passage and explain why they thought it was powerful.
10. Next have students watch the following example of linguistic prejudice is present outside of the classroom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zup2qlFuCDc. Discuss the following questions:
11. With respect to language, what are some biases we need to be conscious of with different language varieties?
12. Are our biases about language independent from our prejudices concerning other aspects of identity and culture?
13. How does this interrelated concept affect our perceptions of other people, including our students?
14. How can teachers ensure a fair classroom environment?
15. How can teachers work to promote a fair educational environment?

This activity asks students to consider how oral language is evaluated in non-school contexts. The goal is to illustrate how the paradigm typically found in school is quite different than that found in society in general. Students should be pushed to recognize that any framework for evaluating oral language choice that insists Standard English is always an acceptable choice – or the best choice – is insufficient given the importance of nonstandard ways of speaking.

What to do:

1. Draw students attention to this quotation from Chapter 6



“The most effective basis for discriminating dialect difference from language disorder comes from an understanding of normal language variation and specific knowledge about local dialects”

2. Remind students that at this point in their reading, they have learned about many aspects of several language varieties. Here they are asked to put this knowledge action
3. Have students watch a video clip of a young African American boy doing stand-up comedy at The Apollo (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgdgttUWU-A). State that for the purpose of this exercise, students should pretend that this child is a student in their classroom. Their job is to identify African American English features of his dialect and write them down, preferably the full sentence in which the feature is embedded to provide context. If students are able to watch the video on a laptop with speakers, they can ensure they copy the sentences correctly. It may also be useful to assign this task as homework.    
4. Have students keep track of repetition of features’ use to see if they are repeated throughout the clip and are occurring in the same contexts--essentially determine if there is a pattern to them (See chapter 2 for a step-by-step description of data gathering).
5. Finally, have students compare their findings to their overall knowledge of African American English. Students should determine how closely this speaker’s dialect matches what has been described for African American English. Ask students the following questions:
6. What features did you notice?
7. Were they repeated and patterned?
8. Did they match the larger AAE community?
9. Would you identify the speaker’s speech as a dialect difference or a language disorder?
10. If this student used this language in a classroom, how would it be assessed?
11. How would you approach teaching this student after assessing him? Does this instructional method potentially limit the student’s linguistic repertoire? Does it imply a social evaluation of his language or the language of his community?
12. How is this child using his language variety to successfully interact with his audience?
13. How would his performance be received if he were to speak in only Standard English?
14. What does this say about the value of language varieties in different contexts?
15. How might a teacher reframe oral language assessment so that it helps students become better oral language users across a wide variety of contexts?

Chapter 7 argues that teachers may choose from three approaches when considering how to address the language variation in their classrooms. This activity asks students to explore the three approaches as a means of assessing the strengths and problems with each. Through discussion, students have the opportunity to share their beliefs and challenge each other’s positions. They are also asked to move from theory to practice as they think about how their views may manifest in instructional strategies.

What to do:

1. Remind students that, as is outlined in Chapter 7, teachers generally have three options in how they address the oral use of vernacular dialects in their classrooms: the eradication position, the additivist position, and the linguistic pluralism position.
2. Instruct students to review each position as described in the chapter.
3. Next students should create a continuum of the perspectives on a blank sheet of paper. The continuum should include the title of the position, a short description of its stance, and an example of how that teacher with that position would address language instruction in the classroom.
4. Students should then mark themselves on the continuum indicating where they fall with respect to the three positions. Beside this mark, they should put their name, a description of their specific beliefs, and an example of how they plan to address oral use of vernacular dialects in their own classroom.  
5. To reflect on the stances of the class as a whole, draw a continuum on the board with only the label of the three positions (moving from left to right: eradication, additivisit, and linguistic pluralism). Provide students with markers to write their name on the board in the place where they fall on the continuum.
6. Facilitate a conversation about the different positions represented.
• If students seem to cluster in one particular area, invite them to discuss the subtle differences of their opinions. Ask them about the potential drawbacks to each position.
• If many students cluster as “additivists,” consider probing their stance by noting that James Sledd famously called this position “the linguistics of white supremacy.” He argues, in part, that requiring only certain students to add to their linguistic repertoire puts those students at a disadvantage as they have more to learn overall. Invite students to respond to this assertion.
• Ask students to consider whether their position has changed as a result of the discussion. If not, ask students to discuss is they wish they could hold a different position, but feel unable to due to social pressures/requirements.

While code-switching pedagogies have existed since at least the 1960s, code-meshing pedagogies have recently become more prominent. Though related, there are important theoretical and practical differences between the approaches. This activity highlights those differences by having students review examples of both approaches in real-world contexts.

What to do:

1. Remind students that code-switching teaches students that it is appropriate to speak Standard English in certain contexts (at school, work, etc.) and vernacular dialects in others (in the home, community, etc.). Present students with the following resources to better ground their understanding of code-switching:
• The first three paragraphs of the NPR article titled “How Code-Switching Explains the World” by Gene Demby depict the concept of employing one linguistic register at work versus at home: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2013/04/08/176064688/how-code-switching-explains-the-world
• Through a TED Talk, Phoenicia Miracle defends code-switching between Appalachian English and Standard English by stating that the way one should speak depends on the place: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AlLobsNaKlY
• Comedy Central’s Key & Peele discuss the ways in which they code-switch based on their audience (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO-EwelnvxU) as well as perform a skit about code-switching for different purposes (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzprLDmdRlc).
2. Afterwards, discuss the following questions with students:
• What do teachers hope to accomplish by teaching students to code-switch between their home dialect and Standard English?
• How do they believe it will be advantageous for the student?
• What might be problematic about expecting one dialect at home and one at school?
• What does it imply?
• What are the ways in which you code-switch in your life?
• What is the difference between code-switching between parents and peers (something that everyone does) and code-switching between two different dialects?
• How are speakers of dialects more similar to Standard English at an advantage?
• What is the potential effect of encouraging a student to hide a part of their culture and identity at school?
3. Review with students that Chapter 7 also introduced the concept of code-meshing as an alternative to code-switching. In this approach, students are taught and encouraged to employ language features from multiple codes, or dialects within a single episode of speech or writing.
4. Break students into small groups and assign them one of the “hybrid texts” listed below. These texts embody the concept of code-meshing by using features from two codes within a single text—Standard English and a vernacular dialect. Have students identify aspects of Standard English and the nonstandard dialect within the text.  Then have them reflect on whether or not they believe that code-meshing has enhanced the piece and if there is a minimum ratio of standard to non-standard English that makes code-meshing successful.
• Greg Tate’s article “White Freedom” using both standard English and African American English: http://www.villagevoice.com/music/white-freedom-6399147
• Lee A. Tonouchi’s essay “Da State of Pidgin Address” using both standard English and Hawaiian Pidgin: https://www.jstor.org/stable/4140726?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents (Hawaiian Pidgin)
• Gustavo Perez Firmat’s poem “Bilingual Blues” using both standard English and Spanish: http://www.gustavoperezfirmat.com/books/gpf_bilingual-blues.php
5. Now that students have a strong understanding of both code-switching and code-meshing, engage students in a class discussion about the advantages and disadvantages to each approach in the classroom. Ask them to also consider how these approaches better equip students for language use beyond the classroom. They can refer to the arguments outlined in the chapter or construct their own points from individual research, personal experience, or takeaways from the previous activities.

This activity allows students to see code-meshing in action through a spoken word presentation. Students are then invited to annotate a transcript of the talk and contemplate how code-meshing strengthens the author’s purpose. By the end of the activity, students should recognize how “articulate” language use often involves proficiency in and mixing of multiple linguistic codes.

What to do:

1. Review the section on code-meshing in Chapter 7 to ensure that students have a good understanding of the concept.
2. Show students the following TED Talk by Jamila Lyiscott titled “3 Ways to Speak English” in which she uses code-meshing to describe her use of African American English, Jamaican English, and Standard English: http://www.ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_3_ways_to_speak_english?language=en
3. Ask students about their initial reaction to the video—what surprised them, struck them, confused them, excited them, saddened them, etc. Discuss what they liked or disliked about her presentation.
4. Next provide students with a transcript of Lyiscott’s talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_3_ways_to_speak_english/transcript?language=en.
5. Ask students to go through the text and identify the three different codes she employs in the presentation by underlining Standard English, circling Jamaican English, and boxing AAE. Alternatively, students could use three different colored highlighters.
6. Instruct students to translate into Standard English the sentences from AAE and Jamaican English. Ask students to read these rewritten sections out loud to the class.
7. Finally, guide students in a discussion on the following questions:
• What was the overall message of the talk? What point was she trying to make?
• Did Lyiscott’s use of code-meshing—indexing her different dialects throughout the monologue—enhance her message? How so?
• How would removing these indexes to her different linguistic codes impact the presentation?
• How does her use of code-meshing prove that she is “articulate”?

This book argues that when students and teachers learn more about language variation, they might respond differently to vernacular dialects. In this exercise, students are asked to evaluate writing that contains vernacular dialect before and after they learn about language variation. An alternate version of this assignment might make use of an excerpt from literature that contains dialect, such as Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God. For this exercise, we use the authentic student writing sample from the Opening Scenario to chapter 8 of this book. The writing was composed by a ninth grade African American students from a working-class community. The writing sample is reproduced here:

I would prefer living the way the Hunzakuts live. because they live a whole lot longer and they don’t have no crime and they don’t get sick and if you are the age of 60, or 80 you still can play many game like you the age of 6 or 9 and don’t have to worry about Cancer or Heartattacks. Its would be a whole lot better living their way.

1. Before students read Chapter 1, give each a copy of this passage ask them to imagine that this was an assignment turned into them by their ninth grade African American student from a working-class community. Have students grade the writing by assigning it a letter/number grade and marking on the passage. Ask them to also provide the student feedback via a written comment.
2. Then have students create a written reflection justifying the grade they gave the student and explaining the choices they made in providing feedback. For example, students should explain why they marked or didn’t mark what they did, what they hope their markings and comments would convey to the writer, and what they see as the writer’s most pressing needs.
3. Have a class discussion about the students’ decisions in evaluating the writing.
4. Collect the students’ graded passages and written reflection.
5. Return to this assignment to students after they read Chapter 8. Ask them to redo their evaluation of the student’s writing and write a reflection paper about what has changed in their approach between their first and second evaluations of the passage. Discuss with students the assumptions they made about the student and how these assumptions changed or did not change over time.

This activity provides students with the opportunity to analyze real life examples of dialogue journals. They are asked to identify what this strategy offers both the teacher and his/her students. Students then push their thinking even further by justifying their use of dialogue journals to future administrators and colleagues.

What to do:

1. Remind students that dialogue journals are media (physical notebook or electronic) in which teachers and students write back and forth to each other about topics that are of specific interest to the student. Chapter 8 emphasizes that this is an effective strategy to encourage writing by not focusing on the form or grammar of the text but the content.
2. Direct students to the following website which has authentic examples of dialogue journal interactions between a teacher and her students: http://www.cultofpedagogy.com/dialogue-journals/. Ask students to scroll through the article and locate the four excerpts—two that the teacher wrote and two that students wrote.
3. First have students read the students’ entries. Pose the following questions:
• What is this teacher learning about her students both personally and academically? Identify specific examples of each aspect that would catch your eye as their teacher.
• What would you do with the information you gathered from the letter?
• How would it impact your approach in teaching that student, your instructional practices, your curriculum, etc.?
4. Next have students read the teachers’ responses. Pose the following questions:
• What is the student learning about the teacher in these letters?
• How might this impact the student’s relationship with and perception of the teacher?
• What are some specific tactics the teacher is using in the letter to engage the student?
• How is she encouraging literacy in a relevant way?
5. Finally, ask students to imagine that it is their first year teaching and that they have decided to do dialogue journals with their students. Discuss the following questions about this prompt in small groups and then share with the class:
• How would you justify the use of dialogue journals to administrators or other teachers in your content area?
• How would you promote the use of dialogue journals to teachers of other content areas?
• For example, what sorts of pedagogical goals might the use of a dialogue journal accomplish in a chemistry classroom, social studies classroom, etc.?

Teacher’s marking on students’ writing is one of the most common forms of feedback; therefore, it is essential that teachers learn to mark students’ papers in ways that further the language skills of students. This activity first presents students with very negative criticism of student writing. It then asks them to formulate more useful or effective feedback. Students evaluate each strategy and consider how or if they will implement them in the classroom.

What to do:

1. Review with students that there are many ways to provide students with feedback; however, educators have to be conscious of how the evaluation is delivered in order to avoid discouraging students from continuing to work on their craft.
2. Have students read the following blogpost that shares ten examples of the meanest feedback writers have ever received: https://michaelalexanderchaney.com/2013/08/24/meanest-feedback-for-writers-a-worst-ten-list/.
3. After reading the post, discuss the following questions with students:
• Which items did you find the most offensive or discouraging? Why?
• How would you have responded to that feedback as the writer?
• What impact would receiving that type of feedback have on you?
4. Remind students that this chapter offered examples of positive ways to respond to student writing. The chapter also cites Rosen’s (1987), who offers these options for evaluating student writing in the class: 1) ignore errors on a final draft, 2) respond only to certain errors, or 3) circle errors for students to identify on their own.
5. Have students create a “pros” and “cons” chart for each strategy and reflect on what could work well with each approach and what could be a limitation. Ask students to specifically consider how each of these strategies would work with speakers of vernacular dialects. Allow students to share their thoughts with the class.
6. Discuss which option(s) students see themselves using in their classrooms and whether these approaches have to be mutually exclusive.
7. Have students revisit the mean feedback from the link in Step 2. Ask them to reformulate how a more effective teacher might get across the same information but in a nicer, more effective way.

Writing and speaking both employ the same language, but the patterns of use in each mode of communication can be quite different. This activity has students respond to prompts through both speech and writing. They then analyze and reflect on the differences and similarities between the two modes. Finally, students discuss the implications of these differences for students of both mainstream and nonmainstream dialects.

What to do:

1. Present students with the following statements that are likely to generate lively conversation: 1) Guys gossip more than girls and 2) Millennials are the most selfish generation.
2. Instruct students to find a partner (or pair them up). One student will begin by choosing one of the statements above and verbally responding it. While the first student is speaking, their partner will use a phone to record the verbal response. Students should aim to talk for about one minute.
3. Next, have the pair switch roles. Have the second speaker respond to the alternate statement while the first speaker records the audio. Again, students should aim to talk for about a minute.
4. Once both students have been recorded, they will respond to the same prompts as before, but this time they will write down their response. Allow them about 10 minutes to formulate their thoughts and write them down.
5. Finally, have each student play back the audio recording of his/her verbal response and then read his/her written statements directly after. If there is enough time, students could also transcribe their verbal responses underneath their written responses to compare them.
6. Have students analyze the differences between the modes of communication. As a class, reflect on the following questions:
• What are the similarities and differences between writing and speaking?
• What is required of writing?
• What is required of speaking?
• What challenges do students face in producing written forms?
• What specific challenges might speakers of vernacular dialects face in writing?
• Neither of these examples involved a conversational partner. How might a conversational partner affect the language norms of the oral recording?

This activity provides an abbreviated version of a seminal study conducted by Shirley Brice Heath that described how the literacy practices of a child’s community affected their language skills, and in turn their success in school. Students compare and contrast the three communities represented in the book and then discuss how to use this knowledge to better instruction for students from all backgrounds.

What to do:

1. Have students read a chapter-by-chapter summary of Shirley Brice Heath’s book Ways with Words—a study that sought to understand how the culture of children’s home communities impacted their language development and literacy skills: https://revolutionlullabye.wordpress.com/2008/02/18/heath-shirley-brice-ways-with-words/
2. Ask students to create a Venn diagram (a template is provided below) in which they have a circle for the “Trackton” community, the “Roadville” community, and the “townspeople.” Students should note practices and beliefs that are specific to each community as well as any characteristics that overlap between two or all three of the communities.
3. Allow students to share their findings and then discuss the following questions:
• Which community most closely aligned to the literacy practices expected of students in school?
• What are the implications for children raised in communities that differed more from the school culture?
• How do the findings of this study relate to the notion of “language gatekeepers”—people or assessments that determine which dialects are valued and which are not?
• How do the literacy practices of each community impact how students approach reading and writing in school?
• How does each community strengthen the literacy skills of their children in a way that the other communities do not?
• How would students benefit from improving in all of these skills, not just those typically practiced in schools?
• How would having the knowledge of the literacy practices of your students’ communities impact the design of language instruction in your classroom?

The Penn Reading Imitative is the result of an ongoing cooperation of faculty in linguistics and education at the University of Pennsylvania. The program aims to use knowledge of dialect variation to help vernacular speaking children improve their reading skills. Examining the materials and approaches of the program can help teachers refine their approaches to teaching reading.

What to do:

1. Remind students that the Penn Reading Initiative (PRI) is a reading program that was developed for students who speak vernacular dialects. It aims to improve their decoding skills.
2. Direct students to the following website: http://www.ling.upenn.edu/pri/readingroad/downloadall.html.
3. Assign small groups either Chapter 1, 2, or 3. Have them scroll through the chapter and review what students would be learning in that section. Also have them note the methods employed in the materials.
4. Once students are done, have them discuss the following questions as a class:
• How might this curriculum be better designed for struggling readers in low income schools?
• What are some examples of ways in which it adapts and responds to non-mainstream culture and language?
• How does the content and language used in the stories better engage inner city children?
• Do you think a curriculum like this would be more effective for these students than a standard curriculum? Why or why not?
• How might you adapt the methods of this curriculum to different types of classes? Different types of dialects?

Note: This activity may require more planning ahead than most. The overwhelming percentage of children’s books are written in Standard English, including books that have multicultural characters or themes. But books written in the dialects of vernacular students can be an important resource in helping children become better readers. This activity offers a framework for discussing the role of dialect in children’s books.

What to do:

1. In possible, locate a number of children’s books that include vernacular dialect. Perhaps your school has a learning library with a collection. If not, a community library may. Use you school or local librarian to help locate these books. An online resource offers a number of suggestions of titles: https://www.bankstreet.edu/library/children-resources/childrens-book-lists/dialect-variation/
2. Provide groups of students with a few books to examine. Ask them to read the books silently, noting whether the dialect is used throughout, or if it is used only sporadically. If the latter, have students note if it appears the author uses code-switching or code-meshing. Students should take notes on their thoughts as they read the book. Have students pass the books clockwise around their group until all members of the group have read all the books.
3. In the groups, have students discuss the following questions:
• Are these good children’s books? Why or why not?
• What role does the dialect play in the book? Does it enhance the reading experience? Was the dialect accurate?
• Would translating these books into Standard English improve or diminish their quality?
• Would translating these books into Standard English improve or diminish their usefulness?
• What’s the effect on vernacular speakers that the overwhelming number of children’s books written in Standard English?
• What’s the effect of books written in Standard English but exploring multicultural themes or speakers? What does the mismatch between language and culture convey to vernacular speaking students?
• In what ways can books with dialect be used to improve reading decoding for Standard English speakers?
• In your opinion, should elementary (or middle or high) schools make a conscious effort to curate a collection of children’s books that employ vernacular dialect?
4.  Conclude with a class discussion of the same topics.  

Adapted from Reaser & Wolfram, 2007a,p. 3-4

Language is organized on several different levels. One level of organization is pronunciation, which concerns how sounds are used in a language. Different dialects may use sounds in quite different ways. Sometimes this is referred to simply as accent. For example, some people from New England pronounce the word car and far without the r. Also, some people from the South may say greasy with a z sound in the middle of the word, so they pronounce it greazy.

Another level of language organization is grammar. Grammar concerns the particular ways in which speakers arrange sentences and words. Different dialects may arrange words and sentences in different ways. For instance, in some parts of western Pennsylvania, speakers may say The car needs washed, whereas other speakers say The car needs washing. Also, some people from the Appalachian mountains may say The man went a-hunting, whereas other people say The man went hunting. When a person from the Outer Banks says It weren’t me, as opposed to It wasn’t me, we have an example of dialect grammar.

A third level of language involves how different words are used; this is called the vocabulary or lexicon of the language. Speakers of different dialects may use different words to mean the same thing. Thus, some people in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, use the word hoagie in reference to the same kind of sandwich that other people call a sub—or a grinder, torpedo, hero, poor boy, and so forth. Also, a common word might be used with different meanings across dialects. Thus, in some areas, soda is used for a carbonated drink with ice cream; whereas in other areas, soda is used just to refer to a carbonated drink without anything added to it.

Levels of Dialect: Practice

(Teaching time: 20–30 minutes)

This discussion and exercise requires students to apply the definitions discussed earlier. Ask students to review by defining the terms dialect vocabulary, dialect pronunciation, and dialect grammar.

In this exercise, students look at the components that make up a dialect, or dialect levels. In doing this, they examine dialect features from the Outer Banks to Appalachia. In the sentence pairs given next, have students decide whether the difference between the sentences in each pair is at the vocabulary, pronunciation, or grammar level. Have them place a V for vocabulary, a P for pronunciation, and a G for grammar level difference in the blank provided beside each pair.

Worksheet Answer Key and Explanations

1. _P_ That feller sure was tall
   That fellow sure was tall

Background information: This feature, common in many rural Southern dialects, can affect all words that end with an unstressed “o” sound, including yellow, potato, tomato, mosquito, window, elbow, burrito, and so forth. These words would be pronounced with an “r” sound instead of the “o” sound: yeller, potater (or simply tater), tomater (or simply mater), mosquiter (or simply skeeter), winder, elber, and burriter. This pattern does not apply when the “o” sound is stressed, as in throw, go, or bestow. Thus, there is a pattern that determines when this feature can operate and when it cannot.

2. __V That road sure is sigogglin
   That road sure is crooked

Background information: The word sigogglin is found in the speech of people who live in the Appalachian Mountain region of North Carolina. It can mean crooked, askew, or not plumb. Roads, houses, and walls can all be sigogglin. This word is sometimes written sygogglin and sometimes pronounced as “sigoggly.” In other parts of the South, the word catawampus or catterwampus can be used to mean crooked. In other places, such as the South Midland region, some speakers use the word antigogglin. All of these are examples of dialect vocabulary.

3. __G They usually be doing their homework
   They usually do their homework

Background information: There is a special use of be in African American English. The uninflected form of be is used in place of conjugated am, is, or are in sentences that describe habitual or recurring action. In this sentence, the habitual context is denoted by the word usually. In nonhabitual contexts, African American English speakers would use either regularly inflected forms such as am, is, and are, or they would omit the verb altogether.

4. __G I weren’t there yesterday
   I wasn’t there yesterday

Background information: This feature, common in many dialects, is a result of an irregular pattern being made regular. Linguists refer to this as regularization or leveling. Leveling is a natural process that may take place whenever there is an irregularity in a particular pattern. Because the verb to be is irregular in English, there is a natural tendency to favor regularization or leveling of this pattern. Thus, dialects may use was for all past-tense forms—I was, you was, he was, and so forth. In some dialects in North Carolina, affirmative past-tense forms of to be may be leveled to was, but negative past-tense forms are often leveled to weren’t (as in I was, you was, he was, we was, and I weren’t, you weren’t, he weren’t, we weren’t).

5. __V They put their food in a poke
6. They put their food in a bag

Background information: The word poke is used to describe a paper sack or bag in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina northward through western Pennsylvania. It is also found in other parts of the rural South. The word stems from the Scots-Irish influence of this region

6. __P It’s hoi toid on the sound soid
   It’s high tide on the sound side

Background information: The pronunciation of the vowel “eye” as “oy” is perhaps the most noticeable feature of the Outer Banks region of North Carolina. This pronunciation is so prevalent that some people refer to the people who live on the Outer Banks as “Hoi Toiders.” Many people may not realize that this pronunciation extended inland through a large portion of the Coastal Plain at one time. It is still found to a lesser extent in the speech of some people who live along the rural coast of mainland North Carolina.

7. __V I was hanging out with my peeps
   I was hanging out with my friends

Background information: Although many dialect features are regional or culturally based, variation in language is associated with other characteristics, such as age and personal style. Words like peeps are often classified as slang by middle-age adults, but they may be an important part of the dialect spoken by young people. The same types of word innovation processes that shape slang terms in each generation (consider the progression of words that mean good or bad) also shape lexical differences between regional and ethnic dialects.

8. __G They’re to the school right now
   They’re at school right now

Background information: The use of to where Standard English would use at used to be common throughout the United States. This feature, known as “locative to,” has historical roots in Old English, where it was the preferred preposition to indicate the location of something. Locative to can still be found in the speech of older rural Americans in many places, in the speech of some younger speakers along the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and to a lesser extent throughout rural North Carolina.

Teaching tip: If students indicate that Item 8 is a vocabulary difference, ask them to evaluate how the word is functioning grammatically. Although using to for at is “just using a different word,” as students may point out, the lexical choice relates to the grammatical function of the word (preposition) and not to the meaning.

9. __P They caught some feesh
   They caught some fish

Background information: The pronunciation of fish as feesh is common throughout some parts of the South. The use of this feature has declined recently in urban areas. This vowel change, where words with a short i (fish, bit, still, etc.) are pronounced with a long e sound (feesh, beet, steel, etc.), affects many words. The reverse process is also heard in the South. Some words with a long e (steel, field, meat, etc.) are pronounced with a short i sound (still, filled, mit, etc.).

10. G They went hunting and fishing
    They went a-hunting and a-fishing

Background Information: This feature is called “a-prefixing” because the “uh” sound attaches to the beginning of the word. It is most commonly associated with the speech of the Appalachian Mountains, although it is also found in other rural regions. It is a preservation of a linguistic form found in earlier English, which required the use of a preposition on or at before certain verbs. Over time, a sentence such as we were on hunting or we were at hunting became simply we were a-hunting. There are specific rules that determine when a speaker can and cannot use the a- prefixing feature. This pattern is examined in the Patterns of Dialects section of this unit.

Adapted with permission from Reaser and Wolfram, 2007a, pp. 5-6, 10-12

PRONUNCIATION LESSON

This lesson asks students to examine language data and formulate and test hypotheses about how dialects pattern. These hypotheses are refined as students gain authentic knowledge of language patterns.

Overview

Many people are shocked to learn that dialects are patterned and systematic. Even speakers of dialects who conform to the patterns may not be aware of the patterns that govern their speech. The following activities examine a few linguistic patterns from different dialects of English, including New England English, Southern English, and Appalachian English. These activities demonstrate the systematic nature of language variation and help students see language as a topic worthy of scientific study.

Key Ideas

1. All dialects have patterns that govern their use, just as Standard English does.
2. Some individual dialect features pattern in relatively simple ways, whereas others follow multiple rules that govern their use.
3. Linguists study language patterns.
4. Some language patterns can be discovered with help from our linguistic intuitions, whereas others require examining data from dialect speakers.

Teaching Tips

Students may benefit from a quick review of the levels of language or a quiz on the levels of dialect features.

The materials for this lesson may take longer than one day to complete. It is better to go slowly through this material so that students get a thorough understanding of it. Catching up with the lesson schedule is less problematic than filling in gaps in students’ understanding.

How Dialects Pattern

Dialects are patterned and rule-governed, not haphazard. What this means is that the dialects of a language follow their own patterns. The rules that dialects follow state the regular, predictable patterns that dialect forms follow. Sometimes these patterns can be complicated and difficult to figure out. However, the human mind has the capacity to learn all of these intricate patterns unconsciously and follow them. The ability to absorb language patterns and follow them without thinking about the patterns is one of the most amazing things about the human mind.

In this lesson, the class will try to figure out some patterns for different dialect forms. The challenge is to come up with a rule that accurately describes all the examples. If the rule is correct, it should predict how new language forms will be treated.

Both the grammar and the pronunciation of a dialect follow patterns. The class will try to figure out some dialect patterns as they think about language as a linguist does. Linguists study language scientifically in order to figure out the specific patterns of language arrangement. They do not create language patterns, just as other scientists do not create the laws of nature. The language patterns already exist in the minds of those who speak the language. The linguist simply tries to figure out and state the regular, predictable design that guides the use of language, just like the scientist describes the laws of nature.

How Pronunciation Differences Work: Southern Vowel Merger

In some Southern dialects of English, words like pin and pen are pronounced the same. Usually, both words are pronounced as “pin.” This pattern of pronunciation is also found in other words. Examining data from a native speaker of this dialect demonstrates how linguists uncover linguistic patterns. List A has words in which the i and e are pronounced the same in these dialects. Play a recording of a native speaker with this vowel merger for the students.

List A: I and E Pronounced the Same [https://languageandlife.org/vonc/vonc12.mp4]

1. tin and ten
2. kin and Ken
3. Lin and Len
4. windy and Wendy
5. sinned and send

Ask students to examine the word pairs in the two lists and offer hypotheses about when i and e are pronounced the same and when they are pronounced differently. If they are having trouble discovering the pattern, ask them to examine the sounds that are next to the vowels. The pattern is determined by the presence or absence of an n sound. If an n sound follows the vowel, the words are pronounced the same. If there is no n-sound following the vowel, the words are pronounced differently.

Have students use what they have learned about this pronunciation pattern to predict the word pairs in List C that are pronounced the same and those that are pronounced differently in this Southern dialect. Have them mark the word pairs that are pronounced the same with S and the word pairs that are pronounced differently with D. Answers are supplied here.

List C: Same or Different? [https://languageandlife.org/vonc/vonc14.mp4]

    D_ bit and bet

    D_ pit and pet

    S_ bin and Ben

    D_ Nick and neck

    S_ din and den

How Pronunciation Differences Work: Dropping r in English Dialects

In some dialects of English, the r sound of words like car or poor can be dropped. In these words, the r is not pronounced, so that these words sound like “cah” and “po.” However, not all r sounds can be dropped. In some places in a word the r sound may be dropped, and in other places it may NOT be dropped. By comparing lists of words where the r may be dropped with lists of words where it may NOT be dropped, the students can figure out a pattern for r-dropping.

List A gives words where the r may be DROPPED.

List A: Words That Can Drop r [https://languageandlife.org/vonc/vonc15.mp4]

1. car
2. father
3. card
4. bigger
5. cardboard
6. beer
7. court

List B gives words where the r sound may NOT be dropped. In other words, speakers who drop heir rs in List A pronounce the r in the words in List B.

List B: Words That CANNOT Drop r [https://languageandlife.org/vonc/vonc16.mp4]

1. run
2. bring
3. principal
4. string
5. okra
6. approach
7. April

To find a pattern for dropping the r, look at the type of sound that comes before the r in Lists A and B. Does a vowel or a consonant come before the r in List A? What comes before the r in List B? How can you predict where an r may or may not be dropped?

In List C, pick those words that may drop their r and those that may not drop their r. Use your knowledge of the r-dropping pattern that you learned by comparing Lists A and B. Put Y for “Yes” if the word can drop the r and N for “No” if it cannot drop the r.

List C: Applying the Rule for r-Dropping [https://languageandlife.org/vonc/vonc17.mp4]

1.        Bear
2.        program
3.        Fearful
4.        Right
5.       Computer
6.        Party
7.        fourteen

Think of two new words that may drop an r and two new words that may NOT drop an r.

More About r-Dropping Patterns

In the last exercise, you saw that r-dropping only takes place when the r comes after a vowel. Now look at the kinds of sounds that may come AFTER the r in some dialects of English. This pattern goes along with the one you already learned. Now see if you can figure out the pattern.

Here are some words where the r may NOT be dropped even when it comes after a vowel.

List A: Words That Do NOT Drop r [https://languageandlife.org/vonc/vonc18.mp4]

1. bear in the field
2. car over at the house
3. garage
4. caring
5. take four apples
6. pear on the tree
7. far enough

What kinds of sounds come after the r in List A? Are they vowels or consonants?

In List B, the r MAY be dropped. What kind of sounds come after the r in this list?

List B: Words That Drop r [https://languageandlife.org/vonc/vonc19.mp4]

1. bear by the woods
2. car parked by the house
3. parking the bus
4. fearful
5. take four peaches
6. ear by the house
7. far behind

What does the sound that comes after r do to r-dropping?

Use what you know about the pattern for r-dropping to pick the rs in List C that can be dropped. Say why the r can or cannot be dropped. Write Y for “Yes” if the r can be dropped and N for “No” if it cannot be dropped. Remember that the r must come after a vowel to be dropped, but it cannot have a vowel after it.

List C: Words That May or May Not Drop r [https://languageandlife.org/vonc/vonc20.mp4]

1. pear on the table
2. pear by the table
3. park in the mall
4. program in the mall
5. car behind the house

List D: Practicing the r-Drop Pattern

Try to pronounce the two sentences given here according to the r-drop pattern that you learned.

1. The teacher picked on three students for an answer.
2. Four cars parked far away from the fair.

The use of a-prefix (adapted with permission from Reaser & Wolfram, 2007b, pp. 7-9)

In some traditional rural dialects of the South, some words that end in -ing can take an a-, pronounced as uh, in front of the word, as in she went a-fishing. This pattern is called a- prefixing. But not every -ing word can have an a- prefix. There are patterns or rules that determine when the a- prefix can be used and when it cannot be used. You will try to figure out these rules by using your inner feelings about language. These inner feelings, called intuitions, tell you when you CAN and CANNOT use certain forms. The job of linguists is to figure out the reason for these inner feelings and state the exact pattern or rule.

Read each pair of sentences in List A. Decide which sentence in each pair sounds better. For example, in the first sentence pair, does it sound better to say, A-building is hard work or She was a-building a house? For each pair of sentences, place a check next to the sentence that sounds better with the a-.

List A: Sentence Pairs for A- Prefixing

1. a. _____A-Building is hard work.
   b._____She was a-building a house.
2. a. _____He likes a-hunting
   b. _____He went a-hunting.
3. a. _____The child was a-charming the adults
   b._____The child was very a-charming.
4. a._____He kept a-running to the store.
   b._____The store was a-shocking
5. a._____They thought a-fishing was easy
   b._____They were a-fishing this morning

Look at your choices for the a- prefix in each pair of sentences and answer the following questions.

Do you think there is some pattern that guided your choice of an answer? You can tell if there is a definite pattern by checking with other people who did the same exercise on their own. Do you think that the pattern might be related to parts of speech? To answer this, see if there are any parts of speech where you CANNOT use the a- prefix. Look at -ing forms that function as verbs and compare those with -ing forms that operate as nouns or adjectives. For example, look at the use of charming as a verb (The child was charming the adults) and adjective (*The child was very charming) in Sentence 3.

The first rule of the pattern for a- prefix is related to the part of speech of the -ing word, but there is more to the pattern. To discover the second rule, read the sentences in List B, insert the a- before the -ing word, and decide which sentence in each pair sounds better. For each pair of sentences, place a check next to the sentence that sounds better with the a-.

List B: A Further Detail for A- Patterning

1. a. _____They make money by a-building houses
   b. _____They make money a-building houses
2. a. _____People can’t make enough money a-fishing
   b. _____People can’t make enough money from a-fishing
3. a. _____People destroy the beauty of the island through a-littering.
   b._____People destroy the beauty of the island a-littering.

The second rule of the pattern for a- prefix is related to prepositions. But there is still another rule to the pattern for a- prefix use. To discover the third rule, read the sentences in List C, insert the a- before the -ing word and decide which sentence in each pair sounds better. To help you figure out this rule, the stressed or accented syllable of each word is marked with the symbol ´. For each pair of sentences, place a check next to the sentence that sounds better with the a-.

List C: Figuring out a Pronunciation Pattern for A- Prefix

1. a. _____She was a-discóvering a trail
   b. _____She was a-fóllowing a trail.
2. a. _____She was a-repéating the chant
   b. _____She was a-hóllering the chant
3. a. _____They were a-fíguring the change
   b._____They were a-forgétting the change.
4. a. _____The baby was a-recognízing the mother
   b._____The baby was a-wrécking everything.

Say exactly how the three rules determine the pattern for attaching the a- prefix to -ing words.

Rule 1:                                                                                                                         

Rule 2:                                                                                                                         

Rule 3:                                                                                                                         

Using your rules, try to predict whether the sentences in List D may use an a- prefix. Use your understanding of the pattern to explain why the -ing word may or may not take the a- prefix.

List D: Applying the A- Prefix Rule

1. She kept a-handing me more work.
2. The team was a-remémbering the game.
3. The team won by a-playing great defense.
4. The team was a-playing real hard.
5. The coach was a-shocking to the ref

Be in African American English (adapted with permission from Reaser & Wolfram, 2007b, pp. 36-37)

The next task concerns a form in a dialect that is sometimes used by young African American speakers in large cities. The form be is used where other dialects use am, is, or are, except that it has a special meaning. A group of 35 young speakers of this dialect of English in Baltimore, Maryland, chose the sentence that sounded better to them in the following sentence pairs, like you did for a- prefixing. Notice that they had a definite preference for one sentence over the other.

Why do you think that was the case?

The number before each sentence indicates how many of the young people chose that sentence as the best one in the pair:

1. 32 a. They usually be tired when they come home.
   3 b. They be tired right now.
2. 31 a. When we play basketball, she be on my team.
   4 b. The girl in the picture be my sister
3. 4 a. James be coming to school right now
   31 b. James always be coming to school.
4. 3 a. My ankle be broken from the fall.
   32 b. Sometimes my ears be itching.

Try to figure out the pattern that led the young people to make their choices. To do this, look at the type of action that is involved in each sentence. Does the action take place at just one time, or does the action take place more than once? Try to state the regular pattern in terms of the action.

Now that you know how the form be is used, predict which of the following sentences follow the rule for using be in the African American English dialect and which do NOT. Write Y for “Yes” if the sentence follows the dialect pattern and N for “No” if it does not.

1.         The students always be talking in class.
2.         The students don’t be talking right now.
3.         Sometimes the teacher be early for class.
4.         At the moment the teacher be in the lounge.

As you can see, African American English has rules that determine when you can and cannot say be. In other words, there are rules for using be just as there are rules for using a- prefixing (he went a-fishing). Despite the fact that African American English is rule-governed and patterned like all dialects, it is often viewed negatively. But many African Americans are proud of the dialect. In the following video clip, you will see some African Americans who are proud of their dialect, but who also switch to Standard English when they feel it is necessary.

A Video Exercise

As you watch a video (8-minute vignette on African American English from Voices of North Carolina [https://languageandlife.org/vonc/vonc27.mp4]) about African American English, think about the following questions:

1. Why do you think that these African Americans feel they have to change the way they speak sometimes?
2. Do you ever feel that you have to change the way you speak? Why?
3. Think about the different situations in which you change your speech. In what situation(s) do you think you have to talk most formally? In what situation(s) do you think you can talk more casually?