This post was written by Sydney Jo Pedersen, a Humanities Center student fellow.
To live is to breathe,
To breathe is to voice,
To voice is to speak,
To speak is to share,
To share is to love,
To love is to be.
Language reveals. It shares. It unites.
But, it can also divide.
Sitting in a small classroom in the Jesse Knight Building on campus, I hear Dr. Joey Stanley ask a simple question:
“When you hear the word ‘white’ pronounced as ‘hwhaaa-et,’ what assumptions do you make about the speaker?”
As the budding sociolinguist that I am, I’m confident that I have an open mind and a loving heart. I have no assumptions based simply on how someone pronounces the word “white.” However, as Dr. Stanley continues to ask questions, I realize that I have answers.
“Does this speaker own a gun?”
“How did this speaker vote in the 2020 election?”
“How will they vote in this election?”
“What level of education did they receive?”
. . . Okay, so maybe I had some biases, but doesn’t everyone?
Unfortunately, yes.
George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion is a satirical piece set in the early 20th century. It portrays the relationship of a Mr. Higgins, a phonetics expert, and a Miss Eliza Doolittle, a common flower girl. During their first encounter on the streets, Mr. Higgins, upon hearing Miss Doolittle’s Cockney Variety of English, exclaimed, “A woman who utters such depressing and disgusting sounds has no right to be anywhere—no right to live.” The play goes on to depict Mr. Higgins’s efforts to transform Eliza’s speech in the span of six months, with hopes of passing her off as a duchess. Although this piece is a fictional commentary on social class (later adapted into the classic musical My Fair Lady), its portrayal of linguistic discrimination is far from fantasy.
John Baugh, a famous sociolinguist, conducted a study in 1999 in which he attempted to set up appointments to tour available apartments in various neighborhoods. John Baugh grew up speaking Chicano English (ChE), African American Vernacular English (AAVE), and Standard American English (SAE). When he used ChE or AAVE in a predominantly white community, he was less likely to have success setting up an appointment. However, when he called back again using SAE, there was suddenly an opening. People made assumptions about the speaker based solely on the variety of English he used. This means that if someone sounds “Chicano” or sounds “black,” they likely have less opportunity to live in a community considered “white.”
As another example of linguistic discrimination, some children are misdiagnosed with speech disorders simply because they speak a nonstandard variety of English. Diagnostic testing assumes that the child speaks Standard American English. When they do not follow the speech patterns expected of a speaker of SAE, the speech language pathologist may assume that the child’s speech is disordered. Speech language pathologists pull children out of class to attend sessions focused on “eliminating accents” or helping children to speak “grammatically correct.” Although their variety of English has systematic rules and patterns, the child’s English is seen as “broken.” These children may become ashamed of the way they speak at home, even though it is an integral part of their cultural or ethnic identity.
Linguistic bias can even affect the courtroom, as seen in the famous case of State of Florida v. George Zimmerman. A man guilty of second-degree murder walked free. Why? Because the jury did not understand the morpho-syntactic features of African American Vernacular English used by the key witness. Confusing the subjects and objects used by the witness, the jury misunderstood the situation. They wrongly assumed the innocent victim initiated the conflict and believed the defendant acted in self-defense.
Although these examples are awful, to you they may seem far removed. You haven’t refused to show someone an open apartment because of how they speak. You haven’t misdiagnosed a child with a speech disorder. You haven’t let a guilty man walk free because you didn’t bother to understand a witness.
But have you ever made fun of someone because they said “melk” instead of “milk,” or “fill” instead of “feel”? Or maybe called a speaker lazy because they didn’t pronounce the “t” in the middle of a word? Or have you called the way someone speaks “hick” or “backwater”? Or perhaps favored a general conference talk because of the accent of the speaker? Or maybe, even without noticing, have you made assumptions about someone’s intelligence because of their accented English?
Everyone has bias. Everyone makes judgments. But not everyone tries to combat their assumptions.
We live in a world that tries to fight for equality and embrace diversity. We abhor discrimination based on race, ethnicity, nationality, gender, or religion . . . but can we say the same about language? Do we embrace linguistic variation? Is it right to turn someone away from a job because they don’t speak Standard American English? Is it right to judge a person, not by the content of what they say, but by how they said it?
The prophet Abinadi foresaw a time when “every nation, kindred, tongue, and people shall see eye to eye” (see Mosiah 16:1). I look forward to that ideal. May we do our part to bring that time one day closer, by seeking to love, understand, and serve one another, no matter our spoken language or variety.
Let us give room for others to breathe, to voice, to speak, to share, to love, and to be.
