Implications for TESOL Which Arise from Research Studies In

DOCUMENT RESUME ED 024 036 AL 001 590 By- Troike, Rudolph C. Social Dialects and Language Learning: Implications for TESOL. Teachers of English to Speakers of other Languages. Pub Date Sep 68 Note- 5p.; Raper presented at the TESOL Convention. March 1968. Available from- TESOL, Institute of Languages and Linguistics, Georgetown University. Washington.D.C. 20007 (1.50). Journal Cit- TESOL Quarterly; v2 n3 Sep 1968 EDRS Price MF-$0.25 HC-$0.35 Descriptors-Bilingualism, Child Language, *Dialect Studies, *English (Second Language). Nonstandard Dialects, Second Language Learning, *Social Dialects, Sociolinguistics, Standard Spoken Usage, *Tenl Identifiers- *Bidialectalism Discussed briefly by the author are some of the "most immediately relevant" implicationsfor TESOL which arise from research studiesindialectology. One phenomenon, which until recently has received little attention, is that of "receptive bi-dialectalism" or "bilingualism." One of the earliest observations of this phenomenon is a passage taken from the writing of Daniel Defoe in 1724. Anindividual, presented with a stimulus in one dialect and asked to repeat it,will respond by producing the form that is native to his own dialect rather than the form which he has heard(or read). The author feels that such evidence should give us pause in attempts toiudge a child's linguistic competence solely or evenlargely on the basis of his production; rather we should begin by attempting to assess the child's receptive competence as the basis from which to proceed in determining appropriate instructional procedures. If the child has an already well-developed receptive knowledge of a moreformal or "mainstream" dialect of the language, much of the instructional task can be seen as guiding him toward an automatic productive control of the "mainstream"dialect. Implicit in this approach is the idea that only positive stimuli and motivationswill be supplied to lead him to develop and practice this control, and that no negativevalues or stigmas will be applied to his useof his native linguistic forms. (AMM) S. -

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Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages Q ru A. R LY

Volume 2 September, 1968 Number 3

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TESOL QUARTERLY A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

TESOL EDITOR OFFICERS 1968-69 President Betty Wallace Robinett Paul W. Bell University of Minnesota Dade County Schools Miami, Florida First Vice President David P. Harris Georgetown Uriiversity EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Second Vice President William Norris Virginia French Allen University of Pittsburgh Temple University EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Marie Esman Barker The officers and University of Texas Edward M. Anthony El Paso, Texas University of Pittsburgh Virginia French Allen Eugene J. Briere Temple University University of Southern California Julia M. Burks U.S. Information Agency J. C. Catford Kenneth Croft University of Michigan San Francisco State College Mary Finocchiaro Mary Finocchiaro Hunter College Hunter College New York, New York New York, New York Harry Freeman San Francisco State College Maurice Imhoof Ball State University Tom R. Hopkins Muncie, Indiana U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs Betty W. Robinett A. Iris Mulvaney University of Minnesota Tucson Public Schools Pauline Rojas Tucson, Arizona Miami, Florida Rudolph C. Troike Bernard Spolsky University of Texas University of New Mexico EXECUTIVE SECRETARY Hadley Thomas James E. Alatis Tuba City Public Schools Georgetown University Tuba City, Arizona

Membership in TESOL ($6.00) includes a subscription to the journal. TESOL QUARTERLY is published in March, June, September, and December. Business correspondence should be addressed to James E. Alatis, Institute of Languagesand Linguistics, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

OFFICE OF EDUCATION

Ewe...we 11. "PERMISSION TO REPRODUCETHIS EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED COPYRIGHTED MATERIALHAS BEEN GRANTED PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT.POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS

STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENTOFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION TO ERIC AND POSITION OR POLICY. ORGANIZATIONS OPERATING UNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE U.S. OffICE Of, EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRODUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM REOUIRES PERMISSION OF Social Dialectsand Language THE COPYRIGHTOWNER." Learning: phenomen Implications for TESOL* The Dere vidual, wh Rudolph C. Trolke it, will re rather th In thispaper I shall discuss some of the implicationsfor TESOL which native fo). arise from researchstudies in dialectology fully to the that can be relatedmeaning- but extend development of actionprograms in the schools, and eral understanding from a gen- example. of the natureof language, language Such r guage variation. Although learning, and lan- it would be possibleto expatiateon this subject an adequa at great length, Ishall focusmy remarks on those major most immediately points whichseem formsan relevant. dialect int As a point ofdeparture, I beginwith a quotation at attempt (best known today from Daniel Defoe as the author of RobinsonCrusoe), takeji fromthe on the basi chapter "A TourThro' Somerset"in his book A Tour Island of Great Through the Whole now largel Britain, publishedin 1724: Instead, competence It cannotpass my Observation here,that, when London, the Dialectof the English we are come this Lengthfrom instruction Tongue, or theCountry-way of expressing themselves, is noteasily understood.. ..It is not possible receptive by Writing,because the Difference to explain this fully is not so much inthe Orthography, guage, muc Tone and Accent;their abridging the as in the an automa Don, for do Speech, Cham, for Iam; Chil, for I will; on, or put on; and Doff,for do off,or put off; and the like. of having t I cannot omita short Story hereon this Subject: Coming House, whowas a Schoolmaster at to a Relation's idea that o Martock in Somersetshire,I went into his School to beg theBoys, or rather theMaster, a Play-day, to develop Cases. I observedone of the lowest Scholars as is usual in such will beapp Usher in a Chapterin the Bible. I was reading his Lessonto the clear to th read it out, and sat down by theMaster, till the Boyhad observed the Boy reada little oddly in the Tone priateness which mademe the more attentive; because, of the Country, were the same, and the on Inquiry, I found thatthe Words versus bad. Orthography thesame, as in all our Bibles.I obseved also the Boy readit out with his Eyesstill on the Book, To the mere Boy, moving from Side and his Head, likea of the sod of to Side, is the Linesreached cross theColumns the Book: HisLesson was in theCanticles of Solomon; ferences, I 'I have put offmy Coat; how shall I put the Woras these; shall I defile them?' it on? I have washedmy Feet; how perceptive t The Boy read thus,with his Eyes,as I say, full on the myth which Text: Thal"a doffed my Coot; how shallI don't? Chav how shall I moil'em?' a washed my Feet; like to illus How the dexterousDunce could form his me by a c Words (which stood Mouth toexpress so readily the right printed in theBook) in his CountryJargon, I could American not but admire. North, even This isone of the earliest observationsI have been able while elsewl cerning a phenomenon to discovercon- speaker, wh which is of thegreatest importanceto teachers of language, but whichuntil recently hasreceived only five, said so scant attention.The was promp * This paper standing ne was presented at the TESOLConvention, March Mr. Troike, Associate 1969. to Daddy a Professor of English atthe University ofTexas in Austin, is the Supervisorof English forForeign Students and,directs show that Texas. He is theauthor of a forthcoming the Dialect Surveyof English Linguisticsfor the Teacher of McGraw-Hill text, AnIntroduction to already lea English. behavior wi 176 Aar,. 444.4 ea. 4414444. 4.4 ' ..i...... 4 .0."

SOCIAL DIALECTS ANDLANGUAGE LEARNING 177 phenomenon I referto is that of receptivebi-dialectalism or bilingualism. have observed in which anindi- The Defoeexample is typical of many we vidual, who is presentedwith a stimulus in one dialectand asked to repeat dialect it, willrespond by producing theform that is native to his own rather than theform which he bas heard or seen.This substitution of native forms forstimulus forms includes not onlyfeatures of phonology, but extends tovocabulary and syntax as well, as maybe seen in Defoe's example. Such responses seem togive unequivocal evidencethat the person has and that he per- anadequate receptive knowledgeof the stimulus dialect, formsand has learned toperforminstantaneous translationfrom that dialect into his nativedialect. Such evidence shouldfurther give us pause judge a child's linguistic competencesolely or even largely at attempts to tests are on thebasis of his production, as we are proneto do, and as our now largelydesigned to do. Instead, we should beginby attempting to assessthe child's receptive competence, as the basisfrom which to proceed indetermining appropriate instructional procedures.Thus, if the child has analready well-developed receptive knowledge of a moreformal or "mainstream"dialect of the lan- of the instructional task canbe seen as guidinghim toward guage, much than an automaticproductive control of the"mainstream" dialect, rther of having to teach it tohim from scratch. Implicitin this approachis the idea that only positivestimuli and motivations willbe supplied to lead him to develop and practicethis control, and that nonegative values or stigmas will be applied to his useof his native linguistic forms.The goal is to make clear to the child that thechoice of dialect is a matterof social appro- priateness and expediencyrather than one of right versus wrong,or good versus bad. To the oft-repeatedobjection that the first-gradechild is too innocent of the social world aroundhim to appreciate thesignificance of dialect dif- far more ferences, I can only reply,"Nonsense!" Five- and six-year-olds are perceptive than adults usuallygive them credit for, and itis only a cultural myth which prevents us fromseeing this fact. With hisindulgence, I should like to illustrate my point with anaccount of an actualevent reported to of mine. As is well known,there are two waysin me by a colleague the American English of pronouncingthe word creek:in large parts of North, even by educatedspeakers, it is pronounced torhyme with pick, while elsewhere it rhymes withpeek. My colleaguehappens to be a "crick" speaker, while his wife is a "creek"speaker. Several years agohis son, then about the "creek" behindtheir home, and five, said something to his father be was promptly reprovedby his four-year-old sister,who happened to standing nearby, with "Don't youknow that you're supposedto say 'crick' to Daddy and 'creek' to Mommie?"Many more examplescould be cited to show that even pre-first-graders arefar from linguisticallynaive and have already learned a great deal aboutthe adaptive significanceof linguistic behavior within their own very realsocial world. vela, 4 .10.

178 TESOL QUARTERLY

Against this background, then,let me sketch briefly whatseem to me to be some of the major implicationsof current researchon non-standard dialects, and of dialectology in general,for teaching English to non-English speakers. First of all, the teacher must realizethat she is a teacher of language, and that all languages spoken bymore than one person have dialects. Dia- lects arise by naturalprocesses beyond the reach of coercive methodsto control, and are specific to particular 1 social groups and particularareas. There is no such thingas a "standard language" as contrasted with"dialects"; there are onlymore or less culturally valued or sociallyprestigious dialects, and more or less formal dialects,of a language. Any otherview simply reflects the ignorance of theone who holds it. Any instructionalprogram, whether in a more widely prestigiousdialect of the native language,or in a second language, must begin withas full an objective knowledge as possibleon the part of the teacher and of the materials preparer of the specific features ofthe native dialect of thelearner. Only in this way canan accurate prediction of the linguistic interference between the native language (or dialect)and the target language (ordialect) be made, and an understanding ofits sources achieved. Withspecific respect to Spanish, there are,as anyone who knows the history of Spanish settlement in the New World mightexpect, different dialects of Spanish spoken today in Puerto Rico, Texas, NewMexico, Arizona, and California. (At this point I should like to disposeonce and for all of the prevalent idea that there is in Texas a supposedly corrupt formof Spanish knownas "Tex- Mex"; this is a dangerous myth and,like most dangerous myths, hasno basis in fact.) Thereare in fact several native dialects of Spanishspoken in Texas aloneeven in a single city suchas San Antonio or El Pasoand most of these are simply local varieties of themuch larger regional dialect of North Mexican Spanish. But thesedialects are enough differentthat we cannot afford to ignore their differences,whether we are teachinga more formal or mainstream dialect of Spanishor whether we are teaching English. To illustrate the relevance of thesedifferences with a single example,the phoneme represented in Spanish orthographyby ch may insome areas have as its phonetic norm [g], the initial sound of ship, whilein other areas the phonetic norm may be [6], the initial soundof chip. In still otherareas, [C] may occur afterpause or a preceding consonant and everywhere else. In teaching Spanish, if the patternused locally should have lesspres- tige than one of the other patterns, theteacher should attempt to guide the student towarda habitual use of the more prestigious pattern. In teaching English, the teacher needs to knowwhich of the patterns is inuse among her students (even individuals in thesame class may differ) in order to arrange and sequence the examples usedto contrast the two sounds. Ob- viously if [g] is thenorm of pronunciation, it is [6] which must be intro- duced and contrasted. If the dialectuses [a] and Di in different positions, then the program for teaching the/ENV contrast in Englishmust be modified accordingly.

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SOCIAL DIALECTS AND LANGUAGELEARNING 179

Those who are teaching theNavajo in New Mexico andArizona must know also that there aredifferent dialects of Navajo, andthat these like- wise need to betaken into account in teaching. Another point which deservesmention because it is so oftenignored is that in teaching either asecond language or a seconddialect, we need to know what syntacticpatterns are or are not inthe repertory of the speaker at different agelevels. Thus, for example, wehave found that some firstgrade Spanishspeakerswhether as a development ordialectal feature we are notsuredo not have the inflectedverb fen for expressingfuturity (Infinitive + Suffix, e.g., cantar-é,"I will sing"), but instead useonly the construction ir a + Infinitive,comparable to the English "begoing to" future: voy a cantar,"I am going to sing."Materials designed either for teaching a more "standard"dialect of Spanish or for teachingEnglish to Spanish-speaking children at thislevel should certainly takesuch matters into account. A primeneed today is for more detailedstudies of the struc- tures present or lackingin the grammar of first gradersof various dialect and language backgrounds.It is patently absurd aswell as frustrating to the learner to base readinglessons or classroom questions onstructures which the child does not yetunderstand or which are absentfrom the dialect. Speaking as an anthropologist,I should also like to emphasizethe cultural and social dimensions of languagelearning as they affect thedisadvan- ta, d child. I think it isimportant that at all times weshow respect for the language the child brings to school,whether it be a language whichdiffers altogether from that of the school or adialect which differs in only afew points of phonology andmorphology from that which serves asthe medium of instruction. Whatever thechild's language, he has workedit out for him- selfand it is a marvelous intellectualachievementas an adaptive mecha- nism for communication within aspecific social and culturalenvironment. When he enters school, he comes incontact for the first timewith a new subculture, or a totally new culture in manyinstances, and has to undergo rapid and sometimes traumaticacculturation, often with littleguidance. But while some of the features of thechild's native culture may beaccepted or at least tolerated inthe school, he often finds hislanguage, that adaptive instrument that has served him so well inhis own environment,suddenly and inexplicably brought underdirect attack. Even where he escapesthis fate, he may discover that his linguisticskills do not serve him adequately in meeting the demands of the newenvironment, and so, baffledand frus- trated, he may withdraw or rechannel hisenergies, and cease to try. Learning the language of a societyWhich is outside the immediateken of the disadvantaged child cannot beleft to chance. We must structurethe child's experience with the new language ordialect in such a way as to opti- mize his chances for internalizingit, and then make surethat sufficient opportunity is provided for intensive practicein the new patterns so that they can become fixed and automatic. Since hislanguage is one of the most important tools the child has foradapting to the demands ofthe new cul-

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tural environment, it isimperative that he be providedwith this toolas rapidly as possible. "Nothingsucceeds like success" isa two-sided coin, and the child's whole attitudetoward academic achievementwill often be fixed before he leaves the firstgrade. To return to the point madeat the beginning of thispaper, receptive know ledge of anotherlanguage or another dialectcan be imparted much more speedily and more efficiently thancan productive control of that language or dialect. Once receptive knowledgehas been developed, itcan be used as the basis fora more efficient and effectiveprogram for developing productive control. Iam strongly persuaded that the onlyway we can hope to develop this receptivecapacity with the speed andefficiency that is needed is through theuse of appropriate motivational materialsinwhich I would particularlyinclude tape-recorded materialsandorganized struc- tural drill, withina carefully worked outprogram which combines instruction in the native andtarget languages inan integral whole rather than in separate-but-parallelsequences. Further, we should not wait until thechild is six to begin that training,for by then he will have lostthe four most crucial years in thelanguage-learningprocess, but rather we should start working with childrenat the ages of two and three,in order to help them achieve the fullest developmentof their linguistic capabilities.When we realize that most academiccasualties are made before thefirst grade, we can't afford to wait. Thereis no time to lose. ',

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Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

Volume 2 September, 1968 Number 3

L 0 01 5 91:1 a. TESOL QUARTERLY A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages

TESOL EDITOR OFFICERS 1968-69 President Betty Wallace Robinett Paul W. Bell University of Minnesota Dade County Schools Miami, Florida First Vice Presklent David P. Harris Georgetown Uriiversity EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Second Vice President William Norris Virginia French Allen University of Pittsburgh Temple University EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE Marie Esman Barker The officers and University of Texas Ed Ward M. Anthony El Paso, Texas University of Pittsburgh Virginia French Allen Eugene J. Briere Temple University University of Southern California Julia M. Burks U.S. Information Agency J. C. Catford Kenneth Croft University of Michigan San Francisco State College Mary Finocchiaro Mary Finocchiaro Hunter College Hunter College New York, New York New York, New York Harry Freeman San Francisco State College Maurice Imhoof Ball State University Tom R. Hopkins Muncie, Indiana U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs Betty W. Robinett A. Iris Mulvaney University of Minnesota Tucson Public Schools Pauline Rojas Tucson, Arizona Miami, Florida Rudolph C. Troike Bernard Spolsky University of Texas University of New Mexico EXECUTIVE SECRETARY Hadley Thomas James E. Alatis Tuba City Public Schools Georgetown University Tuba City, Arizona

Membership in TESOL ($6.00) includes a subscription to the journal. TESOL QUARTERLY is published in March, June, September, and December. Business correspondence should be addressed to James E. Alatis, Institute ofLanguages and Linguistics, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

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