Anti-English Only

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The Indian Head Bob...explained

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IT HAS ARRIVED...Fabulous Prizes

Multilingual Nations...Some Challenges

India: 437 Languages from 6 Language families

• 1947 (post Independence)
• HINDI (OFFICIAL LANGUAGE); an attempt to pull together disparate ethnic groups & bolster nationalism
• 15 recognized NATIONAL LANGUAGES, state boundaries established by virtue of linguistic homogeneity, but some states have no linguistic majority, so boundaries are disputed.
• Each State can also choose a REGIONAL LANGUAGE to use in local government affairs and education
• WRITING SYSTEMA: 11 different scripts
• ENGLISH, and its role:
• spoken by many
• used as a lingua franca in national government
• marker of advanced (university) education (elite status)
• used in the courts
• NOT associated with any ethnic group (neutral) so avoids increasing prestige of Hindu speakers in the north

• Standardization: Sanskritization of pronounciation
• Coined words for new terms gotten from mass media and formed by compounding, all examples of CHANGE FROM ABOVE
• Aspirin matre (aspirin tablet)
• cancer roga (cancer disease)
• akasavana (radio-voice from above)
• vicara sankirana symposium-thought confirmation)

• Lingusistic Minorities:
• language policies try to encourage uniformity of language and culture
• minority languages are marginalized and so are the people who speak them
• Elites favor English because it is less accessible to the masses
• 3 language formula for education is disputed in many states:
• regional, Hindi, English

•  Canada: French vs English
• Policy: "official bilingualism", blunts Francophone nationalism and economic lure for government jobs. Rejected by the province of Quebec for MONOLINGUALISM in French
• Predjudical stereotypes
• By age 12, people tested through matched guising see English as far superior to French, as well as the people who speak it

• English Only Amendment in the USA
• 1981: HR-123
• Proposition 227 (C); Reversed bilingual education laws
• Why are we so opposed to multilingualism here in the United States?

• Native Americans (US and Elsewhere)
• language attrition and death based on no formal status
• Use of Boarding Schools to Assimilate children
• missionization to facilitate assimilation

• Creole Languages
• Characterized by minimal morphological complexity
• no plurality on nouns
• no gender on pronouns
• no tense on verbs
• aspectal divisions are well-established

• rarely found in monolingual settings, instead characterized by situations of DIGLOSSIA
• low form next to a standard (high). Always associated with poverty, little education, low cultural esteem
• May be adopted as a NATIONAL or OFFICIAL language to express solidarity of a new nation (Jamaica, Haiti, Tanzania)
• examples
• haitian creole/french
• jamaican creole/english
• tagolog/spanish

Multilingual code switching in Hong Kong

Simple Steps to Moral Panic and Other Fun Games

10 SIMPLE STEPS

1. something upsetting or disturbing or frightening happens. The media focus on the event in the course of their usual news cycle. There is significant reader or viewer response and interest; the cycle ramps up.
2. hostility and negativity are expressed openly. the media coverage intensifies focus and discourse on the offending person or thing
3. a person or group standing at the epicenter of a growing moral panic is demonized and its defenders or representatives become folk devils
4. individuals or institutions step forward to serve as moral entrepreneurs; evidence to the contrary are ignored or buried
5. the media coverage intensifies and the press looks aggressively for any stories which may be tied into the triggering event
6. the message moves beyond its original sphere at an ever increasing speed, abetted by the media, politicians, and sometimes those with commercial interest in the outcome
7. definers are identified. these are people who are identified primarily by their credentials and claim to authority
8. criticism accelerates to mockery
9. consensus is reached. On a regional or national level, there is a widespread acceptance and acknowledgement that the group or event in question poses a very real threat to society
10. reactions and suggested remedies are disproportionate, with long term, widespread and in extreme cases, destructive results. Actual resolutions sometimes result. in a change in the law, one designed to further penalize the deviants and put more stringent controls in place 

Language & Immigration: "Hispanics" and "Asians"--Feul for English Only?

Immigration and Immigrants have and continue to be a polarizing topic in this country in general and in this election in particular. This is ironic, considering that we are a nation of immigrants. Since the inception of this nation, certain dialects and languages have been deemed potentially traitorous, unAmerican, Unacceptable.

• Native American Languages Outlawed
• Spanish Outlawed in the Treaty of Guadaloupe (1848)
• Bans by state on German, Polish, Irish and other languages

Hispanic cultures show strong allegiance to HOMELAND, FAMILY, RELIGION (Catholicism) and LANGUAGE (Spanish). Asian cultures as well. What the two have in common is that we homogenize these groups and see them as one culture, indistinct from each other, and their languages. This inability to see or care about the cultural traditions within these groups is at the root of linguistic prejudices that we see expressed.

misconceptions:

1. the idea of a homogeneous Hispanic/Asian community which refuses to learn English
2. the belittling of non-Castilian varieties of Spanish
3. the labeling of second generation bilinguals as semi- or alinguals
4. OFF-WHITES (Ambiguous)

Media portrayals:

1. Latinos
1. violent
2. explosive tempers
3. gang members
4. pimps
5. drug dealers
6. prostitutes
2. Asaians
1. males
1. tricky
2. surreptitious
3. determined
2. females
1. submissive
2. beautiful
3. delicate, needing male direction
3. Good Asian Male: (change)
1. unobtrusive
2. well behaved
3. smart
4. industrious 
5. successful (exhibiting cultural values conducive to socio-economic success)
3. Muslims/Arabs????
1. terrorists?
2. radical Islamist's
3. misogynists

Policy Reactions and Dealing with Immigrants:

We view the world as being composed of MONOLINGUAL NATIONS composed of uncontested , identifiable groups which are natural not only MONOLINGUAL, but also MONO-CULTURAL, so language is associated with nation. This creates an US versus THEM mentality

• Accent Reduction
• Associating language with RACE (Asians, Hispanics)
• English Only movements
• Resentment of "rudeness"
• QUESTION: Is it rude to speak English in front of those who don't understand it? ---English speakers that claim to feel excluded believe that he/she is reasonable in expecting everyone to accommodate to her/him. ENTITLEMENT
• Never have their racial embodiment questioned publicly
• Immigrants have COME OVER HERE (immigrated)
• Immigrants take our jobs and money (others)
• immigrants do not have the grace to learn our language-suggests their lack of commitment to the American Way of Life. AMERICAN=ENGLISH

LANGUAGE SIGNALS SOLIDARITY & IDENTITY

Discriminatory laws against Spanish sample page 265

Discrimnatory acts against Asians:

• Asian Exclusion Act of WWII
• Japanese internment camps in the US
• MOCKERY
• ching chong bing bong
• not understandable
• media and childrens cartoon
• schoolyard chants (also Jews, Blacks, etc)

Education Laws in the Southwest

• linguistic hyper-segregation in Arizona schools
• HR2083 passed in 2000, forbid any language other than English to be used in the public schools
• Tom Horne and the anti-Latino Ethnic Studies movement
• SPANISH ONLY (page 274-275)?

Perpetual Foreigner Syndrome: The Asians

• WHY IMMIGRATE?
• Push and Pull
• target smaller nations to dominate politically and economically  and socially.
• warehouse of goods and services in the colonies
• 
  

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