Chapter 3 – Access and Power in Language Learning
Language Standardization and Minoritization in Education
Bibi Halima and Keli Yerian
Preview Questions
- What is standardized language in educational contexts?
- How do educational contexts play a role in promoting standardized varieties over other varieties?
- What are examples of minoritized varieties within a language?
- What is African American English, and how has it influenced other varieties of English?
As we discussed in the last section, languages are not inherently superior or inferior to one another. It is through social processes that their status as a majoritized or minoritized language is determined. One setting where we see these fabricated linguistic hierarchies is in educational contexts, where some languages are routinely privileged over others.
In this section, we will discuss the role the classroom plays in standardizing and subordinating some varieties over others. The classroom can serve as a gatekeeper to linguistic hierarchies. Educational systems, in the guise of promoting social success, can privilege the language of elites while sidelining minoritized varieties, ultimately eroding the linguistic diversity of societies.
Standardized Language in the Classroom
“I was looked down upon by the teachers because I could not speak their language.”
– Zubair Torwali, 2021, a language activist from Pakistan
Imagine a new student who speaks a home language variety that is different than the one most familiar to the others in the classroom. Every time this student speaks, their way of talking is noticed by their peers and teacher. This new student observes that everyone uses a different way of speaking that is validated by the teacher as the correct and appropriate way to communicate. The student questions their own way of speaking and becomes anxious to learn how to talk “right”!
Most educational contexts adhere to a “correct and appropriate” way of using language, which is often called standard or standardized language (Chapter 1). Behrens and Sperling (2010) define standard language as “the most highly valued language form” in a community (p. 12). Those who use a variety closest to this standard at home are advantaged in and outside of the classroom with academic, financial, social, and emotional rewards. However, “those who fall outside the norm are disenfranchised” (ibid., p. 12). Schools and teachers, in their role of gatekeepers to talking right, can intentionally or unintentionally dismiss the linguistic diversity of their students.
Here is the irony,
Educational contexts, which are intended to provide equal opportunities to all students, can end up introducing and reproducing the categories of dominant versus marginal, center versus periphery, and standard-acceptable versus nonstandard-unacceptable. As Lippi-Green (2012) says, “The educational system may not be the beginning, but it is the heart of the standardization process” (p. 68).
These processes of privileging majoritiz