What Sort of Knowledge about Language Do

English Teachers Need?

Some years back I came across (as one hopes any compositionist would eventually--though as
recent research has shown, that hope is indeed just that) the 1974 CCCC position statement,
"Students' Right to Their Own Language," a document that, though dated in years, speaks to the
same issues concerning English usage that make up popular and private debates about the
teaching of English today. While the statement was composed to address how teachers ought to
respond to variety in their students' dialects, and serves that purpose extraordinarily well, I was
particularly struck by section 25, whose heading, "What Sort of Knowledge about Language Do
English Teachers Need?" targeted one of the very issues that concerns me most.

I think that every writing teacher, whether teaching at the precollegiate level or above, should be
familiar with the concepts articulated below. For those who are already familiar with these basic
tenets of linguistics, and may regard them as obvious, experience (and, more recently, research
by Smitherman and Villanueva) shows that many graduate students and full time composition
instructors have little awareness or education in them. While those who browse this page are
probably already among the "converted," I think that the clarity and directness of the excerpt
makes it a useful tool for englightening our colleagues both within and outside of the discipline,
and for that reason, among others, I have posted it here. Further, as I have noted elsewhere, this
information is not only what teachers need to know; their students need to know it as well.
(the text below is excerpted from the April, 1974 CCCC position statement "Students' Right to Their Own Language,"
found at http://www.ncte.org/ccc/12/sub/state1.html, and also published in CCC 25, Fall, 1974)

XV. What Sort of Knowledge about Language Do English Teachers Need?

All English teachers should, as a minimum, know the principles of modern linguistics, and
something about the history and nature of the English language in its social and cultural context.
This knowledge can be acquired through reading, through course work, through experience, or
through a combination of these. All teachers should know something about:

A. The Nature of Language as an Oral, Symbolic System by which Human Beings Interact and
Communicate: If teachers understand that the spoken language is always primary and the written
language is a separate and secondary or derived system, they will be able to recognize that
students inexperienced in the written system may still have great competence and facility in the
spoken language. Because both systems are arbitrary, there is no necessary connection between
the words of a language and the things those words symbolize (leche, lait, milk, etc.) nor is there
any necessary connection between the sounds of the word "milk" and the alphabetic symbols we
use to represent those sounds. Once a teacher understands the arbitrary nature of the oral and
written forms, the pronunciation or spelling of a word becomes less important than whether it
communicates what the student wants to say. In speech, POlice communicates as well as
poLICE, and in writing "pollice" is no insurmountable barrier to communication, although all three
variations might momentarily distract a person unfamiliar with the variant.

B. The History of English and How it Continually Changes in Vocabulary, in Syntax, and in
Pronunciation:Teachers should understand that although changes in syntax and pronunciation
occur more slowly than lexical changes, they do take place. The language of the King James
Bible shows considerable syntactic variation from modern English, and linguists have
demonstrated that speakers even as recent as the eighteenth century might be nearly
unintelligible to modern ears. Vocabulary changes are easier for both teachers and students to
observe. As we develop new things, we add words to talk about them-jet, sputnik, television,
smog. From its earliest history, English has borrowed words from the other languages with which
it has come in contact-French, Latin, Spanish, Scandinavian, Yiddish, American Indian-from
sources too numerous to list. Because many of these borrowings are historical, teachers
recognize and respect them as essential parts of the language. Teachers should be equally as
willing to recognize that English can also increase the richness of its word stock by a free
exchange among its dialects. If teachers had succeeded in preventing students from using such
terms as "jazz," "lariat," and "kosher," modern English would be the poorer. Such borrowings
enlarge and enrich the language rather than diminish it.

C. The Nature of Dialects: A dialect shares similarities of pronunciation, syntax, or vocabulary that
differentiates it from other dialects. These similarities within a dialect and differences between
dialects are the product of geographical, social, cultural, or economic isolation. Our perception of
the difference between an acceptable and unacceptable dialect depends on the power and
prestige of the people who speak it. We tend to respect and admire the dialect of people who are
wealthy or powerful. The planter's daughter who asks in a pronounced drawl to be "carried" home
from the dance is charming, the field hand who says "That's shonuff a purty dress" becomes an
object of amusement or scorn. The teacher who realizes that the difference is not in the
superiority of either dialect, but in the connotation we supply, can avoid judging students' dialects
in social or economic terms.

D. Language Acquisition: Although little hard evidence is available about how an individual
acquires language, it is known that in learning a language, we must filter out those sounds that
have no significance in that language and use only those that do; then we learn to put those
sounds into structures that are meaningful in the language. Babies experiment with a multitude of
possible sounds, but by the time they begin to talk they have discarded sound combinations that
don't appear in the dialects they hear. If, later on, they learn a second language, they encounter
problems in hearing and producing sounds and sound combinations that do not exist in their first
language. For instance, native speakers of English who learn Spanish as adults have trouble
distinguishing "pero" and "perro" because the double "r" sound does not appear in any dialect of
English. Although, phonemic differences between dialects of English are not as great as
differences between English and a foreign language, differences do exist and it is unreasonable
for teachers to insist that students make phonemic shifts which we as adults have difficulty in
making.
E. Phonology: Phonology deals with the sound system of a language and the variations within that
system. Teachers who understand phonology will not try to impose their own sound systems upon
their students. They will not make an issue of whether the student says /hwayt hwel/ or /wayt
weyl/ (white whale), nor will they be disturbed by shair-chair, warsh-wash, dat-that. They will not
"correct" a student who says "merry" like "Murray" because they themselves may say "hairy" so
that it is indistinguishable from "Harry." They will realize that even though a student says "ten" and
"tin" exactly alike, nobody will be confused because context makes the meaning clear.

F. Morphology: Morphology deals with the elements of grammatic meaning in a language-tense,

aspect, person, number -and the devices the language employs for indicating them. Just as
context prevents homophones from confusing the listener, so context prevents morphological
variations from becoming an obstacle to communication. The variations between foot and feet in
"6 foot tall," "6 feet tall," or between "Mary" and "Mary's" in such phrases as "Mary hat" and
"Mary's hat" make no difference in our ability to grasp the meaning. Teachers who recognize that
morphological forms vary from dialect to dialect, but that within each dialect the morphology
follows a system, will be less likely to challenge a student whose morphology is different on the
ground that such variations represent "mistakes."

G. Syntax: Syntax refers to the arrangement of words within an utterance. Syntactic patterns are
not the same in all languages (in English, the red dress; in the Chicano dialect of Spanish, el
vestido colorado), nor are the syntactic patterns always the same in different dialects of the same
language. The syntactic patterns, however, are systematic within each dialect, and seldom
interfere with communication between speakers of different dialects within a language. "That girl
she pretty" is just as understandable as "That girl is pretty" and "Don't nobody but God know that"
is not only just as clear as "Only God knows," but in some circumstances its meaning is more
emphatic.

H. Grammar and Usage: Teachers often think grammar is a matter of choosing between lie and
lay, who and whom, everybody/his and everybody/their. Actually these are usage choices, in the
same way as deciding whether to say "I done my work" or "I did my work" is a usage choice.
Grammar, on the other hand, is a description of the system by which a language conveys
meaning beyond the sum of the meanings of the individual words. It includes phonology,
morphology, and syntax. The grammar of one American dialect may require "he is" in the third
person singular present tense; the grammar of another dialect may require "he be" in that slot.
The confusion between usage and grammar grows out of the prescriptive attitude taken by most
school handbooks since the 18th Century. Modern linguists see grammar not as prescriptive but
as descriptive, and teachers who approach the study of grammar as a fascinating analysis of an
intensely important human activity, rather than as a series of do's and don'ts, can often rid their
students of the fear and guilt that accompanied their earlier experiences with "grammar." Perhaps
such teachers can even help their students to find the study of grammar fun.

I. Semantics: Teachers should know that semantics is the study of how people give meaning to
words and the way many of those meanings affect us emotionally rather than rationally. Teachers
well grounded in modern semantics can help their students examine their word choices, not from
the standpoint of right or wrong, proper or improper, but by analyzing the impact possible choices
will have on listeners or readers. In some areas, for instance, some listeners will be turned off by
the word "belly," whereas other listeners will find "stomach" affected and feel more comfortable
with "gut." Students can be led to see why many newspaper readers could support a "protective
reaction strike" but would have been upset by a "bombing attack."

J. Lexicography: Knowing that many words have strong connotative meanings will help teachers
regard dictionaries not as authorities but as guides. Knowing that words are only arbitrary symbols
for the things they refer to, teachers will realize that dictionaries cannot supply the "real" meaning
of any word. Knowing that language changes, they will realize that expressions labeled "non-
standard" or "colloquial" by the dictionaries of fifty years ago may be listed without pejorative
labels in an up-to-date dictionary. Knowing that pronunciations vary, they will use the
pronunciation information in a dictionary as a starting point for class discussion on how most
people in the students' own area pronounce that word. In short, teachers will help their students to
realize that dictionaries describe practice rather than legislate performance. Dictionaries cannot
give rules for using the words of a language; they can only give information about how words
have been used.

K. Experience: Teachers need to ratify their book knowledge of language by living as minority
speakers. They should be wholly immersed in a dialect group other than their own. Although such
an opportunity may be difficult for some to obtain, less definitive experience may be obtained by
listening to tapes and records as well as interviewing sympathetically speakers who use minority
dialects. Empathy with the difficulties often faced by such speakers can be appreciated in indirect
analogies with other situations which make one an outsider. But the most vivid sense of the
students' problem is likely to come from direct experience.

L. The Role of Change: The history of language indicates that change is one of its constant
conditions and, furthermore, that attempts at regulation and the slowing of change have been
unsuccessful. Academies established to regulate language by scholarly authority have little effect
on the dynamic processes of language. Moreover, there is little evidence that languages "evolve"
in the sense that they become more expressive or more regular; that is, they simply change, but
they do not, it seems, become better or worse. Dialect is merely a symptom of change.
Paradoxically, past change is considered normal, but current change is viewed by some as
degradation. From Chaucer to Shakespeare to Faulkner, the language assuredly changed, and
yet no one speaks of the primitive language of Chaucer or the impoverished language of
Shakespeare. Few complain that French and Spanish developed from camp-Latin. Literary
scholars might dispute endlessly over the absolute merits of neo-classical versus romantic poetry,
but no one would argue that literature would be richer if one or the other did not exist. In fact,
there are positive esthetic reasons for arguing in favor of diversity. Such is the case with dialects;
just as variety in modes of poetic perception enriches literature, so variety in dialects enriches the
language for those who are not unreasonably biased in favor of one dialect. Diversity of dialects
will not degrade language nor hasten deleterious changes. Common sense tells us that if people
want to understand one another, they will do so. Experience tells us that we can understand any
dialect of English after a reasonably brief exposure to it. And humanity tells us that we should
allow every man the dignity of his own way of talking.

Committee on CCCC Language Statement