A topic that people often overlook it language and what make it so important. Language is an important part of everyone identity and says a lot about your history. The way people communicate is also always changing be and evolving. The English from now is nothing like how it was hundreds of years ago. There are so many different accents and variations and even new words that never existed in the past. That is why it makes no sense why people are using language in order to mistreat or segregate people. Immigrants as well as non-English speakers are being targeted and segregated from certain place just because of the way they speak. People have used language to promote segregation and even racism for hundreds of years and while more direct forms of segregation have been eliminated and things have got better some people still have that type of mind set is still not gone, the only way we can get rid of segregation starts with how we speak with one another which is why language is so important.
One way that immigrants are being targeted is because of standard language or English. In the education system it is required that most people take some standard English tests or classes. But the idea of standard English does not make any sense, there are too many various of English to have a standardized version. The only way testing would work is if they had different version of the test for people who have trouble with English. Both Rosina Lippi-Green and Michael Byram have written about the history and evolution and go deeper into this idea.
Language has always been changing this is what American writer Rosina Lippi-Green writes about in her book, English with an Accent Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States. Her book which was published by Routledge, addresses the topic about evolution of language and argues that people use the idea of standard language in order to target people who do not speak it, but because the language is always evolving there is no such thing. Lippi-Green says that “All language changes over time, in terms of lexicon, sound structures, tone, rhythm, the way sentences are put together, the social markings of variants, and the meanings assigned to words” (10). Lippi-Green even include a timeline in her book to show the change of language between 1480 to 1990. She claims the only way a language can become static and not change is if it dies out which mean no one speaks it anymore. So, If the English we speak now is nothing like the original English people spoke hundreds of years ago, clear examples of this are slang or words create for things that never exist. So it makes no sense why some people are target because of an accent or variation in there speak.
People experience language in their own way and it’s a big part of their own personal history. Yet people have used language to make assumption of people and have used it as an excuse to target them. But this isn’t right language is a lot more complex and is something that can be used to make vague assumptions of groups This is the topic in the “Languages and Identities” written by Michael Byram, a professor at Durham university, in his study of language is a more abstract thing that has a lot more to do then words and suggests that the only reason we have multiple language was because we had separate regions and people. In Byram article Bryam goes into detail of why people develop the language that they have stating that “Children are (usually) born into a family and acquire the language variety of the family; they go through the same process with their group of friends and acquire a different language variety of ‘the same’ language” (7). So, the language you learn doesn’t always have to do with your race or heritage you could have learned a completely different language because of your family or friends. Byram appears to write in hopes of teach people of how language empower people identities in order to motivate people to take advantage of it and empower themself with language.
The only to stop this type of segregate we must educate people more about language and culture. People often target immigrant or people who struggle with English because of their language because of a lack of knowledge or a belief of stereotypes. So, if people learn more about these stories, they will think more about how they treat people. It might not work with everyone, but it can stop some people from targeting others. Another problem that has caused non-English speaker a problem is the promotion of English being the superior language to other languages this problem may mostly be in the united states, but it is a growing problem that affects a lot of people.
It is not just average people that target people just because of their language even government has targeted people, use standardized language. Mattew Lynch is a writer, activist who wrote about language barrier the new segregation, which is article that was published by “The Edvocate”. In it he writes about the study about language being used to segregate people mainly when it comes to the education system. Lynch claims is that people that people who have English as their secondary language are being miss treated by school and being excluded from certain programs. Lynch uses Illinois School District U-46, as example explaining that “In this particular district, over 40 percent of the student population is Latino but only 2 percent of the gifted program”. This shows how corrupt the school system a little less than half the student is Hispanic but only 2 percent are is gifted programs. If even the education system is affected by this type of segregation, it’s hard to tell how far it goes.
That wasn’t the last time the school system target student because of their language a blog on Austen public library called the “language of segregation”. it is about an even that happen around 1916 to 1945 which shows the decrease in the access of proper education for Hispanic students. After an increase of Hispanic student during the Mexican revolution there was a new school built in respond rather than just transferring the new student into the new schools, they started a program that would only target the Hispanics” the launch of the program and the new school required the transfer of 105 students from three different schools throughout the city to the new location”. This starts a protest of parent who wanted their children to return to their proper schools because of the new school location being too far away. But the only way student could get back into their school was by meet certain requirements which were never verified. This is clearly student being targeted because of their language.
Talking about how people were being targeted and segregated because they were immigrants does not tell a lot of what is really happening stories like Eugene Volokh an Immigrant who heritage is Ukrainian- American wrote, “My Immigrant Experience”, which is a journal that was published by the Washington post which he writes about his own experience He talks about the reason that his family moved here which was to get away from the Soviet Union and that it was hard work for his family moving to a new country, “My father Vladimir, who was 36 when we came to Los Angeles in 1975, knew Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and German — but not English”. Eugene Volokh says that he was home schooled and that as a kid he had to work. Eventually things got better but his family had to sacrifice a lot more just to get the same life as other people. But it doesn’t always get better for people sometimes it gets worse, for some people even the government makes it harder for them.
Language is a big part of everyone identity no one speaks the same, while two people might speak the same language, they can still have different actions, and everyone has different vocabulary. So, it does seem right to be targeted because of the way you speak it a part of your identity and in the united states where there is freedom of speech it makes so little sense that people or limited because the way they speak. Finding a way to stop this segregation is important and while no one has all the answers of how to stop it but notifying people about the problem is where to start.
Citations
- Green, Rosina Lippi. “English with an Accent Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States.”, Routledge London and New York, 1997, people.cas.sc.edu/dubinsk/LING240/readings/Lippi-Green.1997.Chapter1.English.with.an.accent.pdf.
- Byram, Michael. “Languages and Identities2018.” Https://Www.coe.int/En/Web/Language-Policy/Home, Council of Europe, Oct. 2006, rm.coe.int/preliminary-study-languages-and-identities-intergovernmental-conferenc/16805c5d4a.
- Volokh, Eugene. “My Immigrant Experience.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 20 Apr. 2019, www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/07/13/my-immigrant-experience/.
- “The Language of Segregation.” Austin Public Library, 10 July 2017, library.austintexas.gov/blog-entry/language-segregation-395277.
- Lynch, Mattew. “Language Barriers: The New Segregation?” The Edvocate, 17 Jan. 2017, www.theedadvocate.org/language-barriers-the-new-segregation/.
