Week 10 Sociolinguistics

Activity Topic 1

Activity 1: Language Variation in the US

I loved the “Can You Guess Where I Am From?” game from the Language Trainers website! Accents and dialects are a fascinating concept. Dialect can vary based on ethnicity or it can be regional. From a personal point of view IPA could be used to capture my “old” New York accent when I used to say the word “water”. I would say it like “wahduh”. Any wor that ended with –er was pronounced like –uh. My grandmother had a New England accent. We used to tease her all the time to say “park my car in the garage”. She would say it like “pahk my cah in the garahge”. I have cousins that live in the Midwest. They have an accent too. It was fun to go through and listen to the different accents depending on the region.

Activity Topic 2

Activity 1: What would you do?

After watching the video, “What Would You Do?” I was not surprised by the behavior of some of the people. I see that kind of attitude here in the Hazleton Area a lot. Many people are of the opinion that the Hispanics come here illegally and collect welfare or come to steal our jobs. I hear this kind of talk in my own school. As a teacher it is sometimes difficult when I hear comments from other teachers about certain races of our students and how certain behaviors are “typical”. I try to gauge the situation and have to make on the spot decisions about what is appropriate to respond, when and if it is appropriate to respond. I have to work with these people everyday…they are not random people in a deli so it make the situation more difficult. I have not always been one to think before I speak and if I was one of the people in that deli I know for sure I would have spoken up....loudly! In a professional work environment there is an expectation of civility that makes that type of situation different. From personal experience i have been on the receiving end of discrimination and I know what it feels like. I am from “the city” and have been treated badly by my peers because of that when I first moved to Pennsylvania as a teenager. I was called a "gangster" and teased about my funny accent. I learned that there are all kinds of discrimination, not just based on race. Many adults were even cruel to my mother at her job because she was a “city transplant”. It saddens me that the attitudes of some adults could be passed on to their children and have a negative effect on the atmosphere in my classroom. I see less of this in the children nowadays because there are now so many city people as well as a growing population of Latinos in our area but the adults are very rigid and do not like the changes in the demographic. I have to admit that the children, in my school in particular, are VERY accepting and welcoming to those that are different. We have a very diverse population and I very rarely see my kids treat each other badly because of their ethnicity or abilities/disabilities. I hope that their attitudes continue to stay this way and as their teacher I hope to be a driving influence to encourage them to do so.

Activity 2: Do you speak American?

The information on these websites were very similar to the topics discussed by O’Grady. I did find the question “Can I be fired for speaking Spanish on the job?’ to be interesting. I have gotten dirty looks and comments from colleagues when I give a command or ask a student a question using my limited Spanish speaking abilities. I would have never given a thought to someone being fired for using another language at their job! I couldn’t believe it when I read that! All of the information in these PBS links are very useful for educators that teach language because it is always good to keep up with current information. That is a benefit of the internet that it can keep up with trends and information that is always evolving.