Challenges of Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies in the High School English

Classroom
Author(s): Mike Metz
Source: Research in the Teaching of English , May 2018, Vol. 52, No. 4 (May 2018), pp. 455-
477
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/26802707

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 Metz Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies 455

Challenges of Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies

in the High School English Classroom

Mike Metz
University of Missouri

Teachers in classrooms with linguistically diverse students face the difficult challenge of honoring
students’ home languages and dialects while also helping students acquire Standardized English.
This charge is particularly challenging because English classrooms have historically been sites
where Standardized English is held up as the one correct version of English while all other forms
of English are viewed as deviant, deficient, errors. This study explores the teaching and talk about
language of five high school English teachers attempting to promote a critical understanding of
language variation during a literature unit. Data from interviews and classroom observations
illustrate how teachers grappled with dominant language ideologies during moments of teaching
and talk about language. Despite their stated goals, all the teachers but one reinforced dominant
language ideologies by drawing on the available discourses of the Standardized English master
narrative that pervades English classrooms and society at large. Through careful attention to
her speech, one teacher managed to craft a consistent counter-narrative that worked to highlight
existing language hierarchies. Findings highlight teaching situations where language ideologies
are particularly salient and demonstrate how different approaches to talk about language in
those situations communicate different language ideologies. Implications for supporting teachers’
critical language teaching, including major ideological shifts toward thinking about language as
a social process, are considered.

Teachers in culturally and linguistically complex English classrooms face a dif-

ficult task when teaching about language. They are charged with honoring the
linguistic resources students bring from home while also helping students take
up the standardized forms of English expected in schools. Communicating the
value of varied ways of using language is challenging because teaching Standard-
ized English1 (SE) has historically involved framing other dialects of English as
incorrect or deficient (Kirkland, 2010; Smitherman, 1997). Even teachers with
linguistic knowledge struggle against a dominant view of SE that pervades English
classrooms and society at large (Alim, 2005). Teachers who intend to promote
egalitarian views of diverse language practices frequently rely on commonly avail-
able discourses about how language is structured and how language works in the
world (Lippi-Green, 2012). These available discourses—also known as language

Research in the Teaching of English Volume 52, Number 4, May 2018 455

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 456   Research in the Teaching of English     Volume 52    May 2018

ideologies or master narratives (Kroskrity, 2004; Rosa & Burdick, 2017)—shape

the way teachers talk about language.
To help teachers promote the value of diverse English varieties in the face of
prevailing views about the correctness of SE, it is necessary to understand when,
where, and how dominant language ideologies are communicated in English
classrooms. By understanding when teachers draw from master narratives about
Standardized English, we can help them resist those discourses to create counter-
narratives that disrupt hegemonic language practices. At the same time, teachers
need examples of what it looks and sounds like to resist Standardized English mas-
ter narratives and to teach about language practices through a counter-narrative.
This study helps meet these needs by exploring how teachers draw on, or resist,
Standardized English master narratives during teaching and talk about language
as part of literature-based units in high school English classrooms.
The particular research question that drove this study was: When teachers
express an intent to promote a critical awareness of language, what language
ideologies do they communicate to their students and under what conditions?

Language Ideologies, Counter-Narratives, and

Critical Language Teaching
A language ideology is a constellation of beliefs about language as it is used in
society (Kroskrity, 2010). In American society, the prevailing language ideology
is a standard language ideology (Milroy, 2001; Lippi-Green, 2012). The standard
language ideology—or dominant language ideology—coalesces around the belief
that there is a “correct” or “pure” form of a language: Standardized English. This
belief is unquestioned, and the idea that some forms of English are more correct
than others is simply regarded as “common sense” (Schieffelin, Woolard, & Kros-
krity, 1998). Belief in the correctness of SE includes the complementary belief that
other varieties of English are deficient and subordinate.
The dominant language ideology connects language use to the characteristics
of language users; hence, attributes such as intelligence, kindness, truthfulness,
morality, and so on are ascribed to users of Standardized English, while the cor-
responding negative attributes are ascribed to language users who deviate from
these norms (Garrett, 2010).
The various aspects of the dominant language ideology—correctness, social
power, speaker characteristics and morality—weave together to create a master
narrative (Lyotard, 1984). Master narratives are scripts, or storylines (Nasir, Snyder,
Shah, & Ross, 2012), that describe and shape the enactment of social processes.
Because master narratives are taken-for-granted, common-sense assumptions, they
form an implicit set of beliefs shaping peoples’ actions (Philips, 1998).
English classrooms, with their embedded literacy practices, serve as sites that
connect the macro-level master narratives to micro-level interactions (Gee, 2008).
Thus, any teaching and talk about language occurs against the backdrop of the SE
master narrative. In the English classroom, the master narrative serves as an avail-
able discourse for teachers and students to draw on when they talk about language.

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 Metz Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies 457

Narratives that provide alternative ways to think about language, that go

against the standard language ideology, are linguistic counter-narratives (Godley
& Loretto, 2013). As the concept is used in this study, linguistic counter-narratives
make visible and interrogate the assumptions at the core of the dominant language
ideology. Thus, while the dominant language ideology positions SE as the one
correct form of English, a counter-narrative holds that all language varieties are
valid and complete language systems. Further, as the assumed correctness of SE
and its associated prestige are the foundation of a linguistic hierarchy that mirrors
and reinforces social hierarchies (Lippi-Green, 2012), counter-narratives challenge
those hierarchies and provide alternative possibilities for structuring the linguistic
and social order.
The creation and promotion of linguistic counter-narratives in the English
classroom is a key element of critical language teaching. While it is crucial that
teachers explicitly interrogate issues of language and power, including the social
injustices tied to intersections of language, race, ethnicity, and class, it is equally
important that those explicit interrogations are followed up with consistent
counter-narratives that support alternative visions of language in use.
Teaching the validity of diverse language practices, even without explicit atten-
tion to aspects of power and prejudice, serves to construct a counter-narrative. As
Godley and Loretto (2013) explain, “instruction that fosters such counter-narratives
about language falls under the mantel of critical language pedagogy” (p. 316).
When considered through the lens of counter-narratives, implicit messaging that
demonstrates the value of historically stigmatized language practices through their
inclusion in the sanctioned academic space supports a critical language pedagogy.
The novel at the center of this study, Their Eyes Were Watching God, provides
a strong example of the power of counter-narrative as a form of critical pedagogy.
Zora Neale Hurston was criticized during the Harlem Renaissance for writing a
fluffy romance novel rather than taking on the pressing racial issues of the time.
When compared with authors like Langston Hughes or Countee Cullen, who ad-
dressed issues of racism head-on, Zora Neale Hurston’s writing seems innocuous,
even frivolous. Modern critique, however, suggests that Hurston’s work was revo-
lutionary in the way it interrogated the presumed role of Black women in society
through a literal counter-narrative (Harris-Perry, 2011). Harris-Perry (2011) de-
scribes it as “a novel that actively questions issues of power, prejudice, and human
fulfillment” (p. 5). She quotes Sharon Davie (1993), who writes, “Hurston’s text
not only inverts the terms of accepted hierarchies (Black over White, female over
male) but—more significantly—allows readers to question, if only for a moment,
the hierarchical mode itself ” (Harris-Perry, 2011, p. 316).
In the same way that the novel decenters maleness, whiteness, and SE through
a counter-narrative, so too can the everyday talk in a classroom decenter dominant
language ideologies through the counter-narrative communicated by implicit
messaging. This study examines teacher talk about language to identify where
dominant discourses are reinforced, and where counter-narratives are constructed.

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 458   Research in the Teaching of English     Volume 52    May 2018

Teaching about Language Variation

Great strides have been made in how language is addressed in schools. Fifty years
of sociolinguistic research on English language variation has established that all
language varieties are systematic, grammatically valid, and capable of complex
cognitive expression (Fought, 2003; Labov, 1969; Rickford, 1999; Wolfram & Schil-
ling, 2015). Research in linguistic anthropology documents the complexities of
how language and identity operate in schools, taking into account hybrid language
practices and multiracial identities (Irizarry, 2007; Martínez, 2013; Paris, 2009).
Scholars working with English teachers have built on this knowledge base
to propose and implement language-based units intended to address student
knowledge and beliefs about English language variation and linguistic prejudice
(Baker-Bell, 2013; Christensen, 2011; Godley & Loretto, 2013; Reaser & Wolfram,
2007). Reaser and Wolfram (2007) developed a state-adopted social studies cur-
riculum on language variation called Voices of North Carolina. Christensen (2011)
describes an instructional unit for English classrooms interrogating relationships
of language and power through an exploration of language variation in literature
and writing. While these authors describe the thinking and process behind creating
the curriculum, they do not explore classroom implementation.
Both Baker-Bell (2013) and Godley (Godley & Loretto, 2013; Godley &
Minnici, 2008) examined the implementation and impact of lessons for English
classrooms that were explicitly designed to develop students’ critical language
awareness. Baker-Bell worked alongside an AP English teacher to help develop
and implement a set of lessons that would raise students’ awareness of African
American English (AAE), with special attention to the relationship between racial
identity, language, and power. Likewise, Godley’s studies (Godley & Loretto, 2013;
Godley & Minnici, 2008) examined aspects of critical language units she developed
and helped teach in high school English classrooms. Godley and Minnici describe
the critical language pedagogy they implemented as well as how students reacted
to it. The study is one of the first in the field to enact the theoretical approaches
described previously in the literature (Alim, 2005; Rickford, 1999). Godley and
Loretto (2013) analyzed a set of classroom discussions in lessons revised from
Godley’s previous study.
Common characteristics of these studies include that: (1) they consisted of
language-specific units set apart from the traditional curriculum; and (2) the units
were designed with significant input from the researchers, and the researchers
either taught the units or assisted the classroom teachers in teaching the units.
The study at hand takes a different approach. First, this study explores what
happens when teachers teach about language variation on their own. The teachers
did not undergo any training with the researcher, nor did they receive any feed-
back or coaching as they taught. Each teacher taught a literature-based unit they
had developed and taught in years past. Their teaching reflected their own ideas,
beliefs, and instructional decisions.

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 Metz Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies 459

Second, these teachers were not teaching units specifically about language
variation. Instead they were teaching literature-based units around the text Their
Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston. The primary learning goals for the
units varied by teacher. One teacher focused on literary elements, such as symbols
and motifs; two explored universal themes, such as the portrayal of gender roles;
and two examined the text in conversation with other texts written during the
Harlem Renaissance. Examination of language use in the text was a secondary
learning goal for all the teachers.
The choice to examine teaching and talk about language during instruc-
tional units not designed by the researcher and not designed to focus explicitly
on language stems from a desire to understand how regular classroom teachers
wrestle with language variation every day. By highlighting ways that teachers can
support a critical view of language—and avoid reinforcing dominant language
ideologies—during regular classroom instruction, this study seeks to move critical
language teaching forward. Just as other resource pedagogies and multicultural
content need to be integrated throughout the curriculum, so critical language
teaching must be integrated throughout English instruction rather than relegated
to a language-specific unit.

Methods
Researcher Positionality
I come to the work as a product of urban public schools, and a teacher in urban
public schools for fifteen years. A white, middle-class male, I’ve lived most of my life
in majority-minority communities and spent considerable time moving between
linguistically and culturally distinct spaces. My interest in critical language teaching
comes from my experiences as a student, teacher, and researcher witnessing and
dealing with the consequences of racial and linguistic discrimination couched as
“appropriate language.”
I approached teachers in this study as a former teacher empathetic to the chal-
lenges of their work. The teachers knew I was interested in how they taught about
language in general and how they talked with students about the language in Their
Eyes Were Watching God in particular. I made clear that I would be an observer and
listener, and could serve as a sounding board, but that I would not be serving as an
instructional coach or offering feedback during the study. I maintained an open,
supportive, and collegial relationship with the teachers throughout the study, but
did not offer instructional or curricular support until the post-interviews were
completed.
My descriptions of these teachers’ practices should not be misconstrued as
criticism. Small snapshots don’t represent the whole of any teacher’s practice, but
they do provide key illustrations that improve our understanding of the complexi-
ties of teaching. Making these moments visible helps researchers, teacher educators,
and teachers consider the alignment between the intent and potential impact of
instructional practices.

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 460   Research in the Teaching of English     Volume 52    May 2018

The Sample
The analysis in this paper comes from a study of five high school English teachers
in the San Francisco Bay Area (Table 1). The teachers taught at different schools,
although three taught within the same school district. Students in the classes re-
flected the racial, ethnic, economic, and linguistic diversity of the Bay Area, with a
mix of Latinx, African American, Asian, Pacific Islander, and White students from
a wide range of linguistic and class backgrounds.
The teachers were selected based on recommendations from district literacy
coaches, administrators, department chairs, and faculty from university teacher
education programs. These five teachers were selected because each articulated
linguistic counter-narratives during initial interviews. Fortuitously, each teacher
was teaching a literary unit on Their Eyes Were Watching God during the year, so
data collection was arranged to capture teaching around that common text. The
quotes in Table 2, from pre- and post-interviews, provide slices of the evidence
suggesting each teacher (all names are pseudonyms) had a desire to promote
counter-narratives of language, power, and identity.
Data Sources
The interviews and recordings used in this analysis are a subset of data from a
larger study of critical language teaching.
Interviews
After their selection for the study, each teacher participated in a 45-minute pre-
unit interview near the beginning of the school year. This interview explored the
teachers’ path into teaching, their instructional goals for the year, their description
of their students, and their approach to teaching about language. Shortly after the
instructional unit was completed, each teacher participated in a 60-minute post-
unit interview that reviewed some of the earlier topics and also asked teachers to
reflect on their teaching during the unit.

Table 1. Characteristics of Case Study Teachers

Teacher Focal Class Years of Gender Race/ District
Experience Ethnicity
Mrs. Kayle African American Literature – 11th 14 Female White Oak
grade
Mr. Lane AP Literature – 12th grade 13 Male African Oak
American
Mr. Mathers African American Literature – 11th 7 Male White Oak
grade
Mrs. Batar American Literature – 11th grade 14 Female Indian Maple
American
Ms. Saito American Literature – 10th grade 8 Female Japanese Fern
American

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 Metz Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies 461

Table 2. Sample of Teachers’ Language Ideology

Teacher Key Quote about Approach to Language
Mrs. “To change the stigma around [African American English] is important, and to
Kayle have them understand that part, the linguistic part of it, because we’re talking
about language in Their Eyes Were Watching God. Language is part of your identity,
and to take the stigma out of, you know, labeling a community as having broken
English, or being uneducated because of the way they speak, that’s really impor-
tant.”
Mr. “I know that they were picking up on the importance of, you know, not judging
Lane [people by their language.] Because these kids know about being discriminated
and judged. That’s all they’ve lived through, right? So they understand. So once
they can see that this is another form of that, then they have no problem, you
know, understanding what that might feel like if they were in their shoes. None of
it is different, it’s just language.”
Mr. “I try to get them to think about, to question language as it relates to identity and
Mathers is it, is it fair to box people in and say, like, ‘OK, well, these people are supposed to
sound like this; these people are supposed to sound like that; and neither the twain
shall meet,’ and it’s, like, that’s really not it, you know? It’s not that simple. So yeah,
I think they have a strong understanding of language and identity and how they
connect.”
Mrs. “I think that a lot of them think that there’s, like, right and wrong, you know, and
Batar there’s, good and bad; and sometimes they’re surprised when we’ll read something
that’s written in a dialect that is, you know, representative of their own culture.
And that we’re reading it in class, and talking about it as if it’s important. And I
think that takes some of them by surprise, and then it kind of leads us into this
conversation of, like, ‘Well, who decided what’s good and bad, and how do you
know when this is the right thing to say, or this is not?’”
Ms. “I think, understanding where we place value and acknowledging—like, I have
Saito some pretty frank conversations with the sophomores throughout the year. They’re
not planned, but like, ‘No, in our society, like, the society places value; that doesn’t
mean that we need to, but we do understand that when there’s a language of power,
we can choose to play into that in certain contexts. . . . And we don’t need to agree
with that, but we can still join in on that and participate at some degree.’”

Video Recordings
Each teacher’s class was recorded one to three times prior to the start of the
instructional unit to get a sense of class routines and to help acquaint students
and the teacher with the camera. During the unit, nine to eleven class meetings
were video-recorded. The researcher observed and took field notes during each
recorded class.
Data Analysis
Pre- and post-unit interviews were coded for evidence of language ideologies,
language goals, linguistic knowledge, language pedagogy, and the degree to which
teachers valued students’ knowledge and beliefs about language. Information from
the coded interviews was used to create a portrait of each teacher’s beliefs about

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 462   Research in the Teaching of English     Volume 52    May 2018

language and language variation. For the purposes of this paper, the coding of
the interviews established that each teacher intended to enact aspects of critical
language teaching.
The video recordings were coded to identify when and how language ideolo-
gies were expressed in teaching and talk about language. This study uses a unit
of analysis called Episodes of Language Talk (ELTs). ELTs are defined as episodes
where the topic of classroom talk is language. Talk about language includes talk
about the meaning of words, pronunciation, grammar or syntax, and other aspects
of language broadly defined. The important demarcation was that the talk had to
be about language. Language use alone was not considered an ELT.
These episodes could be brief single utterances by the teacher or a student,
such as a stated definition of a word (e.g., “rationale means reasoning”) or they
could be extended, multiparticipant conversations such as a class discussion of
the connotations of the words childlike and childish. The boundaries of the ELTs
were marked by topic. When the topic shifted from being about language to being
about something else, the ELT ended.
Studiocode video analysis software was used to identify the ELTs throughout
the entire 56 hours of classroom video. Each ELT was then coded for multiple
categories. The two categories pertinent to this study are shown in Table 3. (The
complete codebook and information on the larger study are available by request.)
To ensure reliability, a second researcher coded 20% of each teacher’s videos, iden-
tifying the codes for each category with greater than 80% agreement.
Language ideologies were defined in the codebook as shown in Table 4.
Among the language topic codes, only language variation was used to identify
ELTs for this analysis. The language variation code was assigned to any ELTs where
the topic of discussion included features of a particular dialect or comparisons
between dialects. Because all talk about language in these classes occurred against
a societal backdrop of SE as the assumed norm, discussions of the features of SE
were not coded as language variation unless they were compared or contrasted

Table 3. Codes for Episodes of Language Talk

Category Codes Single or Multiple Codes
Language ideology Critical language ideology Single code only
Dominant language ideology
Ambiguous language ideology
Language topic Vocabulary Multiple codes allowed
Language variation
Code-switching
Figurative language
Grammar and conventions
Pronunciation
Connotation
Language and identity
Language culture and worldview

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 Metz Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies 463

Table 4. Dominant and Critical Language Ideologies as Defined in the Codebook

Dominant Language Ideology Critical Language Ideology
Talk that supports the idea that Standard- Talk that supports the idea that all language
ized English is the one correct form of varieties are valid and complete language
English. Talk that suggests other varieties systems. Talk that challenges the existing
of English are deficient and subordinate. linguistic hierarchy and the associated so-
Talk that maintains the existing language cial, economic, and political hierarchies. For
hierarchy and that privileges the current episodes of language talk about vocabulary
social, economic, and political hierarchies. or connotation, the critical language ideol-
This dominant ideology also aligns with ogy code is applied when the meanings,
autonomous models of literacy that frame definitions, and interpretations come from
literacy practices as decontextualized and students rather than a traditional authority.
having meaning apart from the context—
this includes the idea that the teacher or
a dictionary is the ultimate authority on
language and meaning.
Ambiguous Language Ideologies: Talk about language that does not provide enough
evidence to be judged as critical or dominant. This code is also used when dominant and
critical language ideologies seem to occur within the same ELT.

with another language variety. For this same reason, discussions of the features
of other language varieties were included in this code because their descriptions
were always juxtaposed against the assumed norm of SE.
Once patterns were identified in the coded ELTs, representative ELTs from
each teacher underwent additional discourse analysis focused on aspects of the
SE master narrative and counter-narratives as used by the teachers.

Findings
The findings are divided into three sections: an overview of the coded video, a
comparison of talk during the introduction of the language in the novel, and a
comparison of talk during two translation activities.
Overview of Teaching and Talk about Language Variation
Findings from the video coding suggest that teachers don’t talk about language
variation very much. The total amount of time each teacher spent teaching and
talking about language variation is shown in Table 5. Table 5 also shows the break-
down by language ideology.
The criteria by which this sample of teachers was selected would suggest that
these teachers talk about language variation more than the average teacher: these
teachers self-identified as teachers who care about language issues; they used a core
text that centers a historically stigmatized language variety; they volunteered to
host a researcher interested in issues of language variation. Even so, they spent, on
average, 7% of their class time talking about language variation (238 out of 3,356

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 464   Research in the Teaching of English     Volume 52    May 2018

Table 5. Teaching and Talk about Language Variation, by Teacher and by Language
Ideology
Teaching and Talk about Language Drawing on:
Teacher Total Time Total Teaching Critical Language Dominant Language Ambiguous
Observed and Talk about Ideology Ideology Language
(hr:min:s) Language Variation Ideology
Mrs. 10:32:53 85.6 min – 13.5% 69.8 min – 87.3% 10.6 min – 12.4% 5.2 min – 6%
Kayle
Ms. 12:42:25 100.4 min – 13.1% 98.1 min – 97.7% 0 min – 0% 2.2 min – 2%
Saito
Mr. 11:54:59 19.4 min – 2.7% 16.7 min – 91.4% 2.4 min – 8.6% 0 min – 0%
Mathers
Mr. 11:05:49 14.8 min – 2.2% 9.2 min – 62.2% 4.4 min – 29.7% 0.8 min – 5%
Lane
Mrs. 9:40:07 18.3 min – 3.1% 7.3 min – 40% 11 min – 60%0.1 min –
Batar 0.5%
Total 55:56:16 238.5 min – 7% 201.1 min – 84.3% 28.4 min – 12.3% 8.3 min – 3%

recorded minutes). The bulk of this talk was by two teachers, Ms. Saito (13.1%
of recorded minutes spent on language variation) and Mrs. Kayle (13.5%). The
remaining three teachers spent considerably less time (Mr. Mathers, 2.7%; Mr.
Lane, 2.2%; Mrs. Batar, 3.1%).
A second notable finding is the reliance on dominant language ideologies. All
the teachers except Ms. Saito drew on dominant language ideologies during their
teaching about language variation. Mrs. Batar showed the largest percentage of
talk coded as dominant language ideology (60%) and nearly a third of Mr. Lane’s
talk about language variation drew on a dominant ideology. Mr. Mathers and Mrs.
Kayle expressed dominant language ideologies less frequently, but still turned to
dominant discourses despite a commitment to critical language teaching. Only
Ms. Saito had no ELTs coded for dominant language ideology.
The next two sections take a closer look at when and how these dominant ide-
ologies appeared. By contrasting moments where teachers drew on the SE master
narrative with similar moments where Ms. Saito resisted the SE master narrative,
I hope to illustrate the difficulty of, and potential solutions for, maintaining a
consistent counter-narrative in the face of dominant language norms pervasive
in classrooms and the larger society.
Contending with Dominant Ideologies While Introducing Language
Differences
Because all the teachers taught explicitly about language variation during the in-
troduction of the novel, analysis across this common moment reveals particular
ways teachers drew on, or resisted, the dominant language ideology when talking
about language practices enacted through the text.

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 Metz Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies 465

Drawing on Dominant Discourses

As she introduced Their Eyes Were Watching God, Mrs. Batar provided a working
definition of dialect, referencing a short story the students had previously read
by the same author.

1 Batar: We read a short story by Zora Neale Hurston, “Sweat,” with Sikes
and Delia and
2 the snake. Remember it was like, crazy drama. The snake killed
Sikes, and Delia
3 was like, free at last. And remember that book, the way it was
written, it was
4 written in the way that the characters spoke. What was that called?
5 [2 second pause] It starts with a d.
6 Josh: Dialogue.
7 Batar: Close . . .
8 Crystal: Oh, dialect.
9 Batar: Yes, dialect. So the novel we are going to read, similarly, Zora Neale
Hurston
10 wrote in dialect. Most of it, when the characters talk, it sounds
how they
11 actually spoke.

This common-sense definition of dialect—text “written in the way that the

characters spoke” (Line 4)—reflects a dominant language ideology by only marking
the speech of dialects other than SE. The teacher makes it clear she is not referring
to all dialects but to the specific way Hurston writes dialogue in Their Eyes Were
Watching God and “Sweat.” Hurston’s writing is characterized by her extensive use
of eye dialect to recreate the speech of African American residents of Eatonville,
Florida, where Hurston lived and set many of her stories. Eye dialect is writing
that attempts to capture a particular accent, or to visibly show how words sound.
Thus, when Zora Neale Hurston’s character Janie says, “Mah husband is gone tuh
buy a mule fuh me tuh plow,” the spelling of the words “mah,” “tuh,” and “fuh”
encourage the reader to see a particular pronunciation. Mrs. Batar conflates this
particular version of eye dialect with dialect more generally. Thus, even this small
moment of teaching about language reinforces the Standardized English master
narrative by reinforcing the idea that dialect is marked language, in contrast to the
unmarked and “normal” language of the narration written in SE.
During Mr. Lane’s introduction to the language in the novel, he drew on
different aspects of the Standardized English master narrative. Although in prior
lessons, Mr. Lane had used readings and activities that described the validity of
AAE, when it came to describing the language in the novel, his reliance on master
narratives undercut his previous teaching. As he asked students to consider the
language in the text, he said,

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 466   Research in the Teaching of English     Volume 52    May 2018

1 So there’s a narration, so when we look on page—

2 the first page that we looked at and we annotated.
3 That language is all kind of like, formal, intellectual, right?
4 You know very, high sounding, academic type language, right?
5 And then they get into voices, right?
6 And that’s when you have all the Black Language, the dialect,
7 and all type of things happen.
8 So you see the switch.
9 When it’s narration it’s high language,
10 when it’s them speaking it’s kinda this low language, right?
11 We call it quote unquote low language.
12 But on page five, and this should—
13 you guys should be aware of these things because it’s significant.
14 So they’re having a conversation
15 and it’s the third paragraph from the bottom,
16 so Janie is talking and she says,
17 “an envious heart makes a treacherous ear.”
18 There’s nothing wrong with that language at all.
19 Everything else around it is dialect.

In this excerpt, Mr. Lane establishes a clear dichotomy, describing two distinct
types of language, the “voices” (Line 5) and the “narration” (Line 9). And, like Mrs.
Batar, he equates the voices with dialect (Line 6), suggesting, by contrast, that SE
is not a dialect.
Mr. Lane then uses evaluative language to identify a hierarchy. In Lines 3–4,
Mr. Lane calls the narration “formal,” “intellectual,” and “high sounding,” while in
Lines 6–11, he labels the voices as “Black Language,” “dialect,” and “low language.”
In Lines 18–19, Mr. Lane draws on the discourse of correctness by saying,
“There’s nothing wrong with that language at all. Everything else around it is
dialect.” Saying “there’s nothing wrong” with the SE sentence implies there is
something wrong with the language written in other dialects. The idea that SE is
correct and other dialects are deficient or incorrect is at the heart of the dominant
language ideology.
Mr. Lane highlights the racialization of language in Lines 5–6, calling the
“voices” “Black Language.” This cursory treatment of Black Language2 can be
problematic. Hurston’s writing is a careful depiction of language practices from
an African American community in Eatonville, Florida, in the early 1900s. While
key features of Black Language remain stable across time and regions, the version
of Black Language in the novel only marginally represents the language practices
of the African American students in Mr. Lane’s class, or the language practices of
Mr. Lane himself. The ties between language use and racial identity merit explora-
tion in the English classroom. However, the casual pairing of Black Language with
“low language” reinforces racial stigmatization through language.

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 Metz Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies 467

All these aspects of the SE master narrative—dichotomy, hierarchy, correctness,

and racialization—appear when Mr. Lane is trying to make a point about authorial
word choice. The descriptions of language variation are not the main learning goal;
rather, they represent secondary information to support his point about literary
analysis. The hedging language Mr. Lane uses in Lines 10–11 signals that he knows
his description is problematic, but in this moment, he doesn’t have a different set
of labels to draw on. As he describes the “voices,” he expresses ambivalence, saying,
“kinda this low language, right? We call it quote-unquote low language [emphasis
added].” This hedging language makes visible the way a master narrative serves
as a readily available discourse, leading Mr. Lane to talk about language in a way
that goes against his stated and embodied beliefs.
That Mr. Lane drew so heavily on the dominant language ideology is particu-
larly telling because Mr. Lane speaks AAE and frequently comments on the impor-
tance of bringing all types of language into the ELA classroom. In his interview,
he said, “I want to be a different face of what they might think education is. And I
don’t want to walk around with my nose [up in the air]. So I try to speak in ways
that they might—and that I do—and the way I speak is I’m going in and out all
the time.” As a Black man from the East Bay teaching AP English, Mr. Lane wanted
to be a living counter-narrative for his students. Part of that counter-narrative
constituted using multiple language varieties in the formal classroom space. His
value-laden description of the contrasting language varieties in Their Eyes Were
Watching God went against this fundamental goal of his teaching.
The examples from these teachers suggest that, even when teachers strive to
counter the standard language ideology, they tend to draw on the most readily
available discourses about language.
A Consistent Counter-Narrative
Ms. Saito avoided drawing on the SE master narrative, while crafting a consistent
counter-narrative throughout her teaching and talk about language variation. Her
introduction to the language in the novel contrasts with the other teachers’, and
provides a vision of how teachers might confront dominant language ideologies.
Ms. Saito introduced the novel at the end of the first day of the unit after
students had learned about dialects and other linguistic terms related to language
variation through direct instruction. Ms. Saito told students they would “get a
taste of the dialect in Their Eyes Were Watching God” and asked them to turn to
page 2 of the novel. In sharp contrast to the other teachers, Ms. Saito began by
positioning the SE narration as dialect. Because describing SE as a dialect runs
counter to the common-sense definition of dialect, students were confused by
what she was asking them.

1 Saito: I’m going to read the first paragraph,

2 and then I would like Juliana to read the second paragraph.
3 [Ms. Saito reads from the text] “Seeing the woman as she was
made them

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 468   Research in the Teaching of English     Volume 52    May 2018

4 remember the envy they had stored up from other times.”

5 What dialect does this sound like?
6 [3 seconds of silence]
7 [Ms. Saito reads again] “Seeing the woman as she was made
them
8 remember the envy they had stored up from other times. So
they chewed up
9 the back parts of their minds—“
10 What dialect? What dialect of English does that sound like?
11 [3 seconds of silence]
12 [Ms. Saito reads] “Seeing the woman as she was made them
remember—”
13 Does anything about that stand out to you?
14 Like, oh that’s definitely from this place or this group of people?
15 Student 1: It sounds regular.
16 Saito: [Smiling] Regular? But what label would we give?
17 Student 2: I’m confused.

Whereas the other teachers reinforced the common-sense understanding of

dialect that students were already familiar with, Ms. Saito challenged students to
draw the conclusion that SE is a dialect. In Lines 3–4, Ms. Saito reads a line from
the novel written according to Standardized English conventions. Then, in Line
5, she asks them to identify the dialect. The extended silence from students (Line
6) signals their confusion. From the conversation that follows, we can infer that
students don’t see this sentence as written in dialect. Although Ms. Saito has pre-
viously told them that Standardized English is a dialect, they haven’t internalized
that understanding. The students, like the other teachers, still follow the SE master
narrative that leaves SE unmarked, and marks deviations from SE as dialects.
In Line 15, when a student explicitly invokes the SE master narrative by label-
ing the SE sentences “regular,” Ms. Saito makes that language ideology visible. She
repeats the student’s word as a question with a smile—“Regular?” (Line 16)—im-
plying that the students should consider the meaning of that term. She then asks for
a more descriptive label (Line 16). By positioning SE as a dialect and questioning
the idea that SE is “regular,” Ms. Saito contributes to a linguistic counter-narrative.
On the second day of the unit, Ms. Saito introduced the language in the novel
again:

1 Part of what [Hurston’s] doing here is giving us a sense of the dialect

2 that she wanted to preserve in the literature.
3 So it’s one of the best examples of code-switching that exists.
4 There is formal academic English;
5 there’s informal academic English;
6 and there’s a range of registers

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 Metz Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies 469

7 for a mixture of Southern American and Ebonics.

8 We’ve got this expert author here showing us how it’s done.
9 We’re going to look at some of the words first
10 from the mixture of Southern American and African American Vernacular
English
11 that she employs.

This moment from class illustrates how Ms. Saito complicates several promi-
nent dichotomies of the standard language ideology. In Lines 4–5, she disrupts
the belief that SE is formal language while other dialects are informal. By naming
formal and informal academic English,3 she makes explicit the concept that SE
has informal registers. In Line 6, she extrapolates this concept. The SE master nar-
rative erases the ability of historically stigmatized dialects to encompass multiple
registers, often dictating that whole dialects are informal. Ms. Saito challenges this
idea by stating that Southern American English and Ebonics contain “a range of
registers.” Because Ms. Saito provided students with the linguistic terms to talk
about the varieties of English, she was able to name the types of English in the
text specifically. This allowed her to avoid the value-laden language Mr. Lane fell
into, and permitted her to maintain the counter-narrative that held these various
language varieties as equally valid.
Ms. Saito’s use of linguistic terms to avoid reinforcing a language hierarchy
through value-laden descriptions was intentional. In her interview, she explained,

I think both in having the terms and the labels, I think it really helped establish a more
neutral ground. . . . I think what I saw in their exit slips, and then just as we talked about
the novel as we continued, it became much more neutral, and we were much more able
to acknowledge differences in dialect, in how it’s written, but the students seemed to
have less, I don’t know, they weren’t assigning as much value to it.

Ms. Saito was deliberate about using precise descriptive terms to avoid judgmental
language. As she described it, that neutral descriptive language affected the way
her students interpreted the different dialects in the text.
She went on to explain the challenge of maintaining the consistency in her
language talk, acknowledging that she struggled just like her students.

I did feel like kids were kind of using the word dialect incorrectly, because then—and I
do that sometimes, too—to only talk about dialects that aren’t academic English. It’s like,
“Oh, here she’s speaking in dialect!” It’s like, “What type of dialect?” And I do that, too.

Ms. Saito demonstrated that she was actively thinking about how SE was
positioned in relation to dialect. She explained how she tried to respond when
students equated dialect with the version of AAE in the novel. If a student said,
“Oh, here she’s speaking in dialect,” Ms. Saito complicated that understanding by
asking, “What type of dialect?”—forcing students to name their assumptions. She

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 470   Research in the Teaching of English     Volume 52    May 2018

admitted it was a struggle for her as well, saying twice, “And I do that, too.” Thus,
even though Ms. Saito maintained a consistent counter-narrative, it was only
through constant vigilance over her speech.
Contending with Dominant Ideologies in Translation Activities
A second opportunity for comparison across teachers involved translation activi-
ties. Translation activities are an instructional strategy closely related to contrastive
analysis. Contrastive analysis has been both recommended (Wheeler & Swords,
2006) and critiqued (Young, 2009) in the literature. In the examples below, we
see how translation activities can communicate very different language ideologies
based on the talk surrounding them.
Drawing on Dominant Discourses
Mrs. Kayle, who had the most linguistic knowledge of any of the teachers, and who,
like Ms. Saito, used linguistic terms, frequently drew on dominant discourses. Her
attempts to resist the SE master narrative were especially evident during a transla-
tion activity. Mrs. Kayle gave students sentences from Their Eyes Were Watching
God and asked students to “translate” the sentences from AAE into Standard
American English.
At the beginning of the activity, a student asked Mrs. Kayle to clarify the as-
signment:

1 Jaylen: So, we’re correcting it right?

2 Mrs. Kayle: It’s not a matter of correcting; you’re code-switching.
3 Jaylen: Oh yeah, to the correc—to the right form.
4 Mrs. Kayle: To Standard American English.

In this dialogue, when the student asks Mrs. Kayle if they were correcting the sen-
tences, Mrs. Kayle makes clear that code-switching is not “correcting.” In this case,
it is the student drawing on discourses of correctness to frame his understanding
of the assignment. Even when Mrs. Kayle distinguishes between “correcting” and
“code-switching” (Line 2), the student persists in a dominant language ideology,
suggesting that they are code-switching “to the correc—to the right form” (Line
3). Mrs. Kayle does not let this misconception slide, replacing the value-laden term
“right” with the label “Standard American English.”
Mrs. Kayle’s initial description of the activity resisted the master narrative.
However, as the activity continued, Mrs. Kayle gradually reverted to a dominant
language ideology using the very language she had rephrased earlier. Later in the
same activity, she caught herself using evaluative language and self-corrected. She
said, “What is it supposed to be? I don’t like that word ‘supposed.’ What is it in
Standard American English?” Although Mrs. Kayle self-corrected this time, replac-
ing the evaluative word “supposed” with the precise label of “Standard American
English,” it was clear that she was struggling to resist the master narrative that
privileged SE. Still later, Mrs. Kayle asked the class, “How do we fix number 5?”
Thus, although she had made an effort to resist the master narrative and to uphold

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 Metz Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies 471

the correctness of AAE, she fell into the dominant ideology by using the term “fix,”
which clearly positioned AAE as incorrect.
A Consistent Counter-Narrative
Ms. Saito challenged aspects of the SE master narrative during her version of a
translation activity. When talking with students about the way that Hurston wrote
AAE using eye dialect, she had them consider the spelling and pronunciation; she
asked a student to pronounce “Lawd a mussy,” so they could hear it as “Lord have
mercy.” She then asked students to choose another word or phrase written in eye
dialect that they found interesting. One student selected the word “dat.” The ensu-
ing conversation demonstrates how her talk broke down binary views of language
and challenged hegemonic narratives that assign negative characteristics to users
of stigmatized language varieties.

1 Saito: Dat [writes d-a-t, projected on screen]

2 Has anyone ever typed this in a text message?
3 Reina: Yeah.
4 Saito: Interesting.
5 So there’s some crossover.
6 Were you particularly speaking Southern American English, Reina,
7 when you did that?
8 Reina: [laughs] No.
9 Saito: Were you writing in African American Vernacular English?
10 Reina: No.
11 Saito: Why did you write d-a-t in a text message?
12 Reina: I was lazy.
13 Saito: You were lazy.
14 Like, “I’m gonna do one letter instead of two.”
15 So that’s one way.
16 So we see this pattern here of “d” and “t-h” being mixed,
17 and I think some would say
18 it’s also indicative of
19 there’s maybe like this teenager diction going on.
20 In the book, we have “wuz” and “was.”
21 I’ve seen teenagers write that.
22 When I was in high school I used to do that.
23 What are some more? A couple other ones.

In Line 2, Ms. Saito identifies “dat” as a feature of texting language. The students
in the class all relate to that use of this form of the word. Ms. Saito suggests that the
pronunciation and spelling of “dat” for “that” is common across texting language
(Line 2), Southern American English (Line 6), AAE (Line 9), and “teenager dic-
tion” (Line 19). The idea that a particular language feature may apply to multiple

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 472   Research in the Teaching of English     Volume 52    May 2018

dialects complicates the binary view of language and highlights an overlapping

landscape of language use.
In Lines 11–22, Ms. Saito counters negative stereotypes associated with users
of historically stigmatized language varieties. In Line 12, the student names laziness
as her motivation for using “dat” instead of “that.” The ascription of pejorative
characteristics to users of historically stigmatized language varieties is part of the
dominant language ideology. Ms. Saito problematizes this hegemonic view. She
honors the student’s idea in Lines 14–15, but offers a counter-narrative in Lines
17–22. The similar example of “wuz” and “was,” (Line 20), where the number of
letters is the same, refutes laziness as an explanation for linguistic choices. Ms.
Saito then claims use of this language feature herself (Line 22), lending it a degree
of validation and even prestige to further counter Reina’s implication that it is
“lazy” language. These arguments are embedded in a simple story of “teenager
diction.” Highlighting teenage language use suggests an alternative way to think
about language as part of a social process of identity work. While Ms. Saito most
often talked about the form of language, in this moment she began to interrogate
language as a process rather than a “thing,” a profound break from dominant
language ideologies.
As a whole, the findings document teachers’ struggles to resist persistent master
narratives about language. The consistent counter-narrative demonstrated by Ms.
Saito required a particular intentionality and deliberate consideration of how she
talked about language.

Discussion
The questions that drove this research acknowledge the challenges teachers face
in contending with prevailing language ideologies present in the larger institution
of schooling, as well their own ideologies and those of their students. This study
sought to understand when and how attempts to teach and talk about language
practices from a critical perspective may be undercut by the influence of the SE
master narrative, as well as to identify ways teachers resisted that influence.
The first general finding, that teaching and talk about language variation was
rare in most of the observed classrooms, suggests that teachers need help integrat-
ing language variation into the content of ELA classrooms. Since language is at
the heart of all the strands of ELA teaching—reading literature, reading informa-
tional texts, writing, speaking and listening, and grammar/language study—it is
surprising that language variation did not come up more frequently. Because the
code that captured language variation did not account for teaching and talk that
focused solely on SE, we understand that these teachers presented SE as the norm
throughout the majority of their teaching and talk. The teachers in this study
would be expected to talk about language variation more than the average teacher,
based on the criteria by which they were selected. That they addressed language
variation so infrequently suggests that even teachers who understand the validity
of all language varieties and who appreciate the impact of valuing diverse language

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 Metz Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies 473

practices on students’ identity development rarely integrate this knowledge into

their everyday teaching.
Building on an argument Godley and colleagues offered over 10 years ago
(Godley, Sweetland, Wheeler, Minnici, & Carpenter, 2006) to support teachers’
integration of language variation, the focus in teacher preparation must move
beyond content knowledge about linguistics and language variation to include
pedagogical approaches for integrating language knowledge into everyday teaching.
Publication of units and lesson plans that center language, power, and identity (e.g.,
Christensen, 2011) is a starting point, but teachers need additional support with
the talk that accompanies these lessons and units. Without that support, teachers
may unintentionally undermine their explicit teaching by reinforcing dominant
language ideologies.
This study suggests we can support teachers in enacting critical language
teaching by examining key points where dominant language ideologies assert
themselves and exploring ways to craft counter-narratives. One such point involves
defining language differences. This finding adds support to previous studies that
suggest using precise linguistic terms reinforces critical language teaching (Brown,
2006; Godley & Loretto, 2013). As Ms. Saito explained, using the terms dialect and
register helped her describe differences in language features without assigning
value. Without precise linguistic terms, we saw Mrs. Batar and Mr. Lane draw on
readily available discourses that position SE as unmarked, normal, and correct.
For these two teachers, who had the least linguistic knowledge, common-sense
understandings of linguistic terminology limited their ability to craft consistent
counter-narratives.
Linguistic knowledge is not sufficient to disrupt the discourse of dominant
language ideologies, as evidenced during the use of translation or code-switching
activities. Although contrastive analysis is a key tool for learning about language
variation (Devereaux & Wheeler, 2012), when talked about through a dominant
ideology it can reinforce the SE master narrative. The interaction between Mrs.
Kayle and her students extends a finding by Godley and colleagues (Godley, Car-
penter, & Werner, 2007) that when daily editing activities are consistently framed
as moving toward SE, these position SE as correct. Similarly, Mrs. Kayle and her
students showed that “translating” language into SE can feel a lot like correcting.
One challenge inherent in these translation activities is that they generally
focus on the form or structure of language, implying that meaning remains the
same despite a shift in dialect, register, or style. Ms. Saito hinted at an alternative
approach in her talk about the example of dat. The focus of Ms. Saito’s discussion
with students was not on phonological shifts of th to d, nor was it on simple un-
derstanding of surface-level meaning—dat and that have the same connotation;
instead, Ms. Saito raised the idea that a word like dat might be used to signal a
teenager identity when texting. The translation activity transformed from focus-
ing on the form of words, and instead considered language use as a social process
(Makoni & Pennycook, 2007). This represents a foundational change in language
ideology, and may be an important next step in helping teachers enact critical
language teaching.

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 474   Research in the Teaching of English     Volume 52    May 2018

Conclusion and Implications

The purpose of this article is not to demonstrate a comprehensive pedagogy for
critical language teaching, but rather to bring to light the kinds of struggles teach-
ers may face when attempting to promote linguistic counter-narratives through
day-to-day instruction. Even teachers with linguistic knowledge, like Mrs. Kayle,
may find themselves drawing on the dominant language ideologies inherent in the
discourses most readily available to them. Even teachers who believe deeply in the
importance of honoring students’ (and their own) home language varieties, like
Mr. Lane, may find that their beliefs get reappropriated by the linguistic master
narrative, leading them to call the language they value most a “quote unquote,
low language.” The more teachers are aware of these pitfalls, the more they can
promote consistent counter-narratives that help disrupt ideologies that reproduce
inequitable social hierarchies.
Perhaps the most important implications of this study relate to the findings
suggesting that all the teachers, Ms. Saito included, continually skirted the borders
of the SE master narrative. For each teacher, there was a fine line between talking
about language varieties in terms of differences (part of a horizontal landscape of
equal value) or deficits (in a vertical hierarchy with SE on top). As long as teachers
continue to talk about distinct language varieties, the inclination will be to place
those language varieties in a hierarchy. For English teachers to truly break from
the dominant language ideology, they may need a more profound rupture than
the small shift from language deficit to language difference. The instances where
Ms. Saito most naturally resisted the SE master narrative were points where she
highlighted the dynamic nature of language in use. This suggests that a fundamental
shift in how English teachers conceive of language, as a process rather than as a
thing, may be a productive approach.
Rather than reorganizing language varieties in a nonhierarchical fashion,
conceiving of language as a process does away with the idea of bounded languages,
dialects, and language varieties altogether, replacing the noun language with the
verb languaging (Makoni & Pennycook, 2007). Rather than seeking adherence to
prescribed conventions of a single language variety, this approach describes the
use of tools in an individual’s expanding communicative repertoire. Scholars in
literacy (e.g., Beach, 2017; Bloome & Beauchemin, 2016), bilingual education
(e.g., Garcia, 2009; Martin-Beltrán, 2014), and writing (e.g., Canagarajah, 2013;
Horner, Lu, Royster, & Trimbur, 2011) have taken up this view of language as a
social process through the concepts of languaging and translanguaging. Because it
is a dramatic change from traditional conceptions of language, if English teachers
adopt this ideology, there will be less risk that they will unintentionally revert to
dominant discourses.
As teacher educators work with English teachers to promote new ways of
thinking and talking about language variation based in contemporary understand-
ings of language practices, they will benefit from bringing language ideologies to
the forefront. As the linguistic facts regarding language variation become more
widely integrated into English classrooms, English teachers will need to take on a

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 Metz Confronting Dominant Language Ideologies 475

role as the vanguard in promoting a set of language ideologies based on linguistic

understandings unfamiliar to the wider society. Because language ideologies are
tied to social hierarchies, English teachers will need to develop comfort in discuss-
ing issues of race, language, and power. These topics have lived in the literature
and writing of English classrooms for decades, but now we must also acknowledge
them in the most “objective” element of our content area: language itself.
Whatever the ideological underpinning, as teachers prepare to teach about
language variation, they will benefit from additional examples in the research.
We need more studies of teacher talk about language to help teachers anticipate
pitfalls, and to provide examples of approaches to avoid those pitfalls. The teachers
in this study, while imperfect in their approach to critical language teaching, made
thoughtful, concerted efforts to address the wide-ranging linguistic background of
the students they served. All of these teachers were reflective about their practice
and considered ways to better meet their own instructional goals and the needs of
their students. To support teachers whose goal is, as Ms. Saito put it, to “turn this
language-hierarchy on its head,” providing additional research analyzing the suc-
cesses and challenges of classroom teachers undertaking critical language teaching
remains important ongoing work.

Notes
1. I follow Charity Hudley and Mallinson (2010), among others, who use the term Standardized
English, instead of Standard English, to emphasize that there is nothing inherently standard about
Standardized English. The standardization of one dialect of English is an ongoing social process.
The use of Standardized English allows the general idea to be invoked while highlighting that the
construct is problematic.
2. Rickford and Rickford (2000) provide a thoughtful treatment of the various labels for African
American English. While I use AAE throughout the paper, here I use Black Language as that is
the term Mr. Lane uses.
3. Ms. Saito made the intentional choice to use the term academic English to refer to Standardized
English. She did not want to convey the idea of an inherent “Standard” but needed a term for the
variety of English most teachers expect in school. She discussed this problem with her students,
and settled on academic English as an imperfect solution.

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Mike Metz is an assistant professor of English education at the University of Mis-

souri. A former Chicago Public Schools teacher, he uses the lens of language and
language ideologies to explore the process and impact of how student and teacher
identities are constructed and negotiated in schools.

Initial submission: October 4, 2016

Final revision submitted: November 21, 2017
Accepted: December 11, 2017

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