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Critical Language Pedagogy: Interrogating Language, Dialects, and Power in Teacher Educa-
tion demonstrates how critical approaches to language and dialects are an essential
9
part of social justice work in literacy education. The text details the largest and most
comprehensive study ever conducted on teachers’ language beliefs and learning
CRITICAL LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY

about dialects, power, and identity. It describes the experiences of over 300 pre- and
in-service teachers from across the United States who participated in a course on
how to enact Critical Language Pedagogy in their English classrooms.
Through detailed analyses and descriptions, the authors demonstrate how the course
changed teachers’ beliefs about language, literacy, and their students. The book also
presents information about the effectiveness of the mini-course, variations in the
responses of teachers from different regions of the United States, and the varying
language beliefs of teachers of color and White teachers. The authors present the
entire mini-course so that readers can incorporate it into their own classes, making
the book practical as well as informative for teachers, teacher educators, and educa-
tional researchers.
tion provides a much-needed theoretical explanation of Critical Language Pedagogy
and, just as importantly, a detailed description of teacher learning and a Critical Lan-
guage Pedagogy curriculum that readers can use in K-12, college, and teacher educa-
tion classrooms.
AMANDA J. GODLEY, Ph.D., is Professor of English Education and

Language, Literacy and Culture at the University of Pittsburgh. A
former English teacher, she researches issues of equity and litera-
cy learning in high school English classrooms.
GODLEY AND REASER

JEFFREY REASER, Ph.D., is Professor of English at North Carolina
State University where he directs the secondary English education
program and serves as Associate Director of the Language and Life
Project. His work includes the award-winning book Talkin’ Tar Heel
and Dialects at School.
Interrogating Language, Dialects,
www.peterlang.com
and Power in Teacher Education
PETER LANG
AMANDA J. GODLEY AND JEFFREY REASER

Cover image: ©iStock.com/Kubkoo
tion demonstrates how critical approaches to language and dialects are an essential
9
part of social justice work in literacy education. The text details the largest and most
comprehensive study ever conducted on teachers’ language beliefs and learning

about dialects, power, and identity. It describes the experiences of over 300 pre- and
in-service teachers from across the United States who participated in a course on
how to enact Critical Language Pedagogy in their English classrooms.
Through detailed analyses and descriptions, the authors demonstrate how the course
changed teachers’ beliefs about language, literacy, and their students. The book also
presents information about the effectiveness of the mini-course, variations in the
responses of teachers from different regions of the United States, and the varying
language beliefs of teachers of color and White teachers. The authors present the
entire mini-course so that readers can incorporate it into their own classes, making
the book practical as well as informative for teachers, teacher educators, and educa-
tional researchers.
tion provides a much-needed theoretical explanation of Critical Language Pedagogy
and, just as importantly, a detailed description of teacher learning and a Critical Lan-
guage Pedagogy curriculum that readers can use in K-12, college, and teacher educa-
tion classrooms.
AMANDA J. GODLEY, Ph.D., is Professor of English Education and

Language, Literacy and Culture at the University of Pittsburgh. A
former English teacher, she researches issues of equity and litera-
cy learning in high school English classrooms.
GODLEY AND REASER

JEFFREY REASER, Ph.D., is Professor of English at North Carolina
State University where he directs the secondary English education
program and serves as Associate Director of the Language and Life
Project. His work includes the award-winning book Talkin’ Tar Heel
and Dialects at School.
www.peterlang.com
PETER LANG
AMANDA J. GODLEY AND JEFFREY REASER

Cover image: ©iStock.com/Kubkoo
ADVANCE PRAISE FOR
“This is an eloquently written and inspiring book about language and power in
schools and classrooms. This book is a gift—a real gem—for teacher educators and
teachers committed to disrupting injustice and building on the many linguistic assets
of students. The authors insist that we reconsider what we believe we know, redesign
our curriculum practices, rethink our pedagogical moves, and reimagine our
discursive interactions in order to honor and cultivate diverse identity spaces. A
welcome addition to the literature, the book reminds us that White teachers can and
must be prepared to teach for language equity, justice, and humanity.”
—H. Richard Milner IV, Helen Faison Professor of Urban Education,
University of Pittsburgh
“The Critical Language Pedagogy curriculum is timely and necessary for college and
middle- to high-school curricula. The authors do a magnificent job of creating a
curriculum that teachers are hungry for and students need. When I attend
conferences with practitioners, they often buy the message but want to know how to
implement it. This book does that and more. Readers should walk away determining
when to implement the Critical Language Pedagogy curriculum in their teaching. I
know I will.”
—Sonja L. Lanehart, Professor and Brackenridge Endowed Chair in Literature and
the Humanities, University of Texas at San Antonio, and Author of Sista, Speak!:
Black Women Kinfolk Talk about Language and Literacy
“Amanda J. Godley and Jeffrey Reaser have not only developed a wonderful,
sociolinguisically informed resource for teachers in their Critical Language Pedagogy
(CLP) curriculum, but they have field-tested it with 301 teachers from a variety of
racial and regional backgrounds. The feedback they report in this book will be
invaluable in refining CLP for future iterations, and for helping teachers and
researchers who want to attempt similar lesson plans on their own. This highly
innovative book fulfills a real need for those working at the nexus of linguistics and
education.”
—John R. Rickford, Professor of Linguistics and the Humanities at Stanford
University, Past President of the Linguistic Society of America, and Co-author
of the Award-winning Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English
sj Miller & Leslie David Burns
GENERAL EDITORS
Vol. 9
The Social Justice Across Contexts in Education series is

part of the Peter Lang Education list.
Every volume is peer reviewed and meets
the highest quality standards for content and production.
PETER LANG
New York  Bern  Berlin
Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw
Amanda J. Godley and Jeffrey Reaser

PETER LANG
New York  Bern  Berlin
Brussels  Vienna  Oxford  Warsaw
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Control Number: 2017052909
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the “Deutsche
Nationalbibliografie”; detailed bibliographic data are available
on the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de/.
ISBN 978-1-4331-5303-7 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-4331-5305-1 (paperback)
ISBN 978-1-4331-5306-8 (ebook pdf)
ISBN 978-1-4331-5307-5 (epub)
ISBN 978-1-4331-5308-2 (mobi)
DOI 10.3726/b13148
© 2018 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York

29 Broadway, 18th floor, New York, NY 10006
www.peterlang.com
All rights reserved.

Reprint or reproduction, even partially, in all forms such as microfilm,
xerography, microfiche, microcard, and offset strictly prohibited.
table of contents
List of Tables xi
Foreword: Moving beyond Uncritical, Conformist, and
Assimilationist Models of Language Pedagogy xiii
Acknowledgments xxi
List of Abbreviations xxiii
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Research on Dialects 5
The Racial, Cultural and Linguistic Landscape
of U.S. Schools 13
Dialects and Language Ideologies in Schools 13
Instruction on Dialect Diversity 16
Code-Switching and Contrastive Analysis 17
Code-Meshing and Identity 19
Socio-Historical Approaches 20
Critical Language Pedagogy 21
Overview of the Following Chapters 24
Notes25
References25
vi critical language pedagogy
Chapter 2: The Critical Language Pedagogy Curriculum 31

The Design of the Critical Language Pedagogy
Mini-Course32
Content Knowledge 32
Pedagogical Content Knowledge 33
Challenging Current Beliefs 34
Mini-Course Topics 35
The Complete Curriculum 36
Introduction to the Mini-Course 37
Module 1: Teaching about Dialects in Literature 41
Introduction to Module 1 41
CCSS Addressed 42
Opening Scenario 42
Readings and Assignments 43
Day 1 43
Day 2 44
Module 2: Addressing Vernacular Dialects in
Student Writing and Talk 44
CCSS Addressed 45
Opening Scenario 45
Day 1 46
Day 2 47
Reading 1: Talking about Language
Variation with Your Students 49
Reading 2: Discovering Dialect Patterns:
A Special Use of BE in African
American English 52
Reading 3: Errors in Student Writing 54
Module 3: Students’ Investigations of Identity
and Variation in Their Own Language 58
CCSS Addressed 60
Opening Scenario 60
Day 1 60
Day 2 62
table of contents vii
Reading 1: Language Variation and Identity 62

Reading 2: Code-Switching and Code-Meshing 64
Module 4: Responding to Linguistic Discrimination 66
CCSS Addressed 68
Opening Scenario 68
Day 1 70
Day 2 71
Module 4 Activity 72
Note73
References73
Chapter 3: Study Design 75

Timeline, Settings, and Participants 76
Data Collection 78
Questionnaires79
Pre-Questionnaire Overview 79
Language Variation Pre-Questionnaire
(2014 Version) 80
Pre-Questionnaire: New Teaching Scenario
Items (2015–2016 Version) 85
Post-Questionnaires88
Online Discussion 89
Data Analysis 89
Questionnaires89
Online Discussion Boards 94
References94
Chapter 4: Teachers’ Learning about Dialects, Instruction,

Power, and Privilege 97
Participants, Dataset, and Analysis 98
Overview of Preservice Teachers’ Learning 100
Participants’ Sociolinguistic Content Knowledge 101
Participants’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge 105
White Privilege and White Talk 107
Different Learning Trajectories: Austin, Octavia,
Jamie, and Nile 110
viii critical language pedagogy
Austin111
Octavia113
Jamie114
Nile116
Developing Critical Language Pedagogy 118
Note120
References121
Chapter 5: Racial and Regional Differences in How Preservice

Teachers Respond to Critical Language Pedagogy 123
Teachers of Color 123
Questionnaire Responses: Hypothetical
Teaching Scenario 124
Discussion Board Posts 126
Regional Differences 131
Data Sources, Research Sites, and Participants 132
White Talk Discourse Strategies 135
Topic of Post: Ethnic vs. Regional Dialects 136
Topic of Post: Authentic vs. Literary Dialect 136
Preservice Teachers’ Personal and Professional
Identity137
Analysis of White Talk 137
Preservice Teachers’ Use of White Talk
Discourse Strategies 137
Preservice Teachers’ Discussions of Ethnic and
Regional Dialects 141
Preservice Teachers’ Discussions of Authentic
and Literary Dialects 143
Identity Analysis 145
Maintenance of Linguistic Privilege 145
(Not) Complicating Linguistic Privilege 146
Mimicry as Pedagogical Tool 147
Mimicry as Offensive 149
Views on Regional Stigmatization 149
Regional Pride 151
Tensions Between Language and School 152
Note 154
References154
table of contents ix
Chapter 6: Conclusions and Recommendations 157

Participant Opinions on the Course 157
What Students Learned from the Course 158
Suggestions for Instructors 160
Implications for Research 162
Conclusion165
References166
Index 169
tables
Table 2.1: Overview of the Language Variation in ELA

Classrooms Mini-Course 38
Table 3.1: Settings and Participants 77
Table 4.1: Summary of Preservice Teachers’ Sociolinguistic Content
Knowledge 102
Table 4.2: Summary of Preservice Teachers’ Pedagogical Content
Knowledge 106
Table 5.1: Summary of Online Discussions by Site 132
Table 5.2: Cross Regional Comparison of White Talk Discourse
Strategies138
Table 5.3: Cross Regional Comparison of Discourse Strategies for
Challenging White Power 139
Table 5.4: Cross Regional Comparison of Regional Dialect Naming 142
Table 6.1: Summary of Usefulness of Design Elements of the
Mini-Course158
Table 6.2: Most Important Ideas Learned from Mini-Course 159
foreword
Moving beyond Uncritical, Conformist, and
Assimilationist Models of Language Pedagogy
Twenty years ago, I walked into a classroom in Southwest Philly to teach

at Turner Middle School. For those of you who know Philly, that’s way down
there on the green line near 59th and Baltimore. I was bright-eyed and bushy-
tailed (as White folks say) and I was eager to meet all the other teachers
at the school. Upon eagerly presenting my new curricular and pedagogical
ideas to my new colleagues, I was told, flatly and assuredly, “Oh, you’re not
gonna get these kids to write,” and “some of these kids can’t hardly spell their
own names!” Turner’s student body at the time was 99.4% Black (don’t ask
me what the other 0.6% was!), with a majority Black teaching force. This was
back in 1997 in the immediate aftermath of one of the most heated language
educational debates in recent history, “The Oakland Ebonics Controversy.” In
short, the Oakland Unified School District had proposed using the language
patterns of their African American students as resources in teaching them
“standard” English—and for a whole host of complicated reasons dealing with
racism, classism, and widespread societal ignorance about language and edu-
cation, all hell broke loose.
In my senior thesis that same year, I asked with all earnestness: “Is
it not time to begin developing pedagogies that provide new and innova-
tive approaches to stimulate and motivate our students to mobilize towards
xiv critical language pedagogy
educational excellence? How can we begin using pedagogical approaches

that value and preserve the many languages and cultures Americans bring to
school?” As a Hip Hop head—bumpin Wu-Tang Forever all day everyday—I
advocated passionately for the use of Hip Hop language and culture in the
classroom. One of the lasting legacies of Hip Hop culture, of course, has been
to decenter Whiteness, to disrupt White cultural and linguistic hegemony—
to make White people, even if for a moment or in one singular domain, feel
awkward in their own skin. Hip Hop, like Toni Morrison, refused, rejected,
and returned the “White gaze.” See, in nearly every other social, political,
economic and educational domain, White people demand that everyone else
speaks like them in order to gain access to a world of privileges. And since
this point is often difficult for White Americans to grasp, consider this: How
many White speakers, for example, would be able to pass the test of sounding
“authentically” Black? Chances are that most would sound like straight-up
posers unless they grew up in Black communities and/or have intimate Black
friendship networks. There is little, if any, chance that a White person can
“let go” of all of the linguistic markers of his or her Whiteness. And even less
chance of successfully getting a job or housing or a small business loan, for
example, if achieving any of these depended on their mastery of Black lin-
guistic norms.
At that same time, I became acquainted with some of the paradigm-
shifting ideas that also form a pedagogical basis for the book you’re holding
in your hands right now: Carol Lee’s signifying as a scaffold (1993), Gloria
Ladson-Billings’ culturally relevant pedagogy (1995), and of course, Geneva
Smitherman’s revolutionary conceptualization of Black Language in America
(1977). Like Godley and Reaser, I joined the call for educators to build upon
the cultural-linguistic practices of our students for academic success in the
language arts classroom and beyond. In using Hip Hop pedagogies to teach
and learn from 5th and 6th graders at Turner, I came to view Hip Hop Culture
(i.e., the latest manifestation of African American expressive cultures) not
just as a “bridge” for academic success, but as a complex and creative culture
that had the potential to transform the schooling and life experiences of many
of our students. As it turned out, “these kids” could not only write, but they
could write their asses off!
Ten years after those early days in Philly, I would find myself teaching high
school in a small city in the San Francisco Bay Area, all the way across the
country, in that neighborhood “over the ramp.” Despite what I had learned
from my professors about Black Language’s grammatical complexity, the
foreword xv
language of the Black child was consistently viewed as something to eradicate,

even by the most well-meaning of teachers. In fact, I met many teachers that
were genuine about their commitment to seeing all of their students succeed.
These same teachers were often disheartened when their students didn’t do
well, even after hours of drilling on so-called standard English grammar.
Most of these teachers were unaware of how their attitudes and approaches
to Black Language not only didn’t challenge White cultural-linguistic hege-
mony, but upheld it! Teachers often framed their students’ language as some-
thing they combat. They also often went beyond “correcting” their grammar;
some even “corrected” their students’ tone. Black students and their ways of
speaking were often described with adjectives like “abrasive” and “disrespect-
ful.” All the while, I noticed that while teachers were quick to point out their
students’ failure to speak so-called standard English, they almost uniformly
failed to realize that their own speech varieties were not exactly what one
would call “standard.” Further, being untrained in Black Language’s complex-
ity, teachers often failed to hear fine linguistic distinctions in their students’
language, or comprehend the multiple styles they expressed as they moved
through their social worlds.
Somehow, despite linguists’ claims of Black Language’s systematicity over
the past few decades, teachers, like most Americans, continue hearing Black
Language as deficient. After years of working on the frontlines of education
as a teacher-researcher in Philly and the San Francisco Bay Area, there sadly
is one thing I can say for certain: Teachers’ language attitudes have remained
remarkably consistent over the last several decades, particularly in terms of
the language of their Black students.
And this is why this book is so damn important. What Godley and Reaser
have done in this book is a major feat. They have produced, to my knowledge,
the first book-length, large-scale analysis of teachers’ attitudes about language
varieties and teachers’ development of the sociolinguistic knowledge needed
to support critical language approaches. This book follows in a long, strong tra-
dition of critical language scholarship designed to disrupt and transform the
troubling ideologies I encountered from teachers throughout my time in the
classroom (Alim, 2010).
What Godley and Reaser have done is helped revitalize the generally
non-critical American sociolinguistic tradition by drawing from contemporary
social and cultural theorists, and more closely aligning with the British tradi-
tion of Critical Language Awareness (Fairclough, 1995; Wodak, 1995). Crit-
ical Language Awareness views educational institutions as designed to teach
xvi critical language pedagogy
citizens about the current sociolinguistic order of things, without challenging

that order, which is based largely on the ideology of the dominating group
and their desire to maintain social control. This view of education interro-
gates the dominating discourse on language and foregrounds the examination
and interconnectedness of identities, ideologies, histories/herstories and
the hierarchical nature of power relations between groups. Research in this
area attempts to make the invisible visible by examining the ways in which
well-meaning educators attempt to silence diverse languages in White public
space by inculcating speakers of heterogeneous language varieties into what
are, at their core, White ways of speaking and seeing the word/world, that is,
the norms of White, middle-class, heterosexual, northern men.
While American sociolinguistic research has certainly been helpful in
providing detailed descriptions of language variation and change, this is cer-
tainly where it stops (Lippi-Green, 1997). By viewing the role of language
in society through a non-critical lens, the tradition can actually be harming
linguistically-profiled and marginalized students. Most American suggestions
about pedagogy on language attitudes and awareness tend to discuss linguistic
stigmatization in terms of individual prejudices, rather than a discrimination
that is part and parcel of the socio-structural fabric of society and serves the
needs of those who currently benefit the most from what is portrayed as the
“natural” sociolinguistic order of things. Fairclough (1989, pp. 7–8) argues
that the job of sociolinguists should be to do more than ask, “What language
varieties are stigmatized?” Rather, we should be asking, “How—in terms of
the development of social relationships to power—was the existing sociolin-
guistic order brought into being? How is it sustained? And how might it be
changed to the advantage of those who are dominated by it?”
The Critical Language Pedagogy advocated here by Godley and Reaser
moves far beyond the traditional sociolinguistic and educational approaches
that give lip service to “diversity” but continually default in the elevation of
so-called standard English over all other varieties. Further, they draw on Freirian
models and expand them (Freire, 1970), developing a critical language peda-
gogy that aims to educate teachers about more than just how language is used,
but also how language is used to oppress others. Teachers need to be encouraged
to ask critical questions: How is language used to maintain, reinforce, and per-
petuate existing power relations? How can language be used to resist, redefine
and possibly reverse these relations? This approach engages in the process of
consciousness-raising, that is, the process of actively helping teachers becoming
aware of their White privilege, and, importantly, what to do about it.
foreword xvii
These are the kinds of questions that undergird Godley and Reaser’s work
with teachers. This work, they acknowledge, is not easy, particularly in terms
of addressing race and racism. They noted that many of the limitations they
noticed in their teachers’ development of Critical Language Pedagogy “were
caused by an avoidance of discussing systems of discrimination and privilege,
especially White privilege,” with some overtly denying its existence. (p. 71).
As they write, “Understanding how teachers acknowledge or deny this sys-
tem of [White] privilege and its maintenance through language is crucial to
designing effective Critical Language Pedagogy programs for teachers.” They
conclude that unless these topics “are explicitly addressed within teacher edu-
cation curricula and courses, preservice teachers, particularly those who iden-
tify as White, will not have opportunities to develop their understanding of
racism, White privilege, and Critical Language Pedagogy” (p. 74).
While some teachers in their study (predictably) avoided race and had
difficulties (clears throat) addressing White privilege, systemic racism, and
linguistic discrimination, the transformative potential of this pedagogy is evi-
dent in some of their teachers’ responses. One of their teachers, in particular,
Octavia, critiqued typical, non-critical “code-switching” approaches that rely
on the same notions of “appropriateness” that Fairclough critiqued a quarter
century ago:
I think that I would want to bring up discussions about why it is even necessary to be
able to code-switch, and challenge the assumption that it is even necessary … Why
should we just give the students this technique, and say, “do it”? What types of sys-
tems are reinforcing this need to “code-switch”? If language is always changing, who
is to say that what is “mainstream” now will even be mainstream in 20, 50, 100 years?
What is “mainstream” anyway? I think several inquiry discussions would be crucial
to helping students be able to both build their knowledge and “code-switch” while
simultaneously critiquing the need to even do so in the first place. …
This same teacher grew more and more progressive as the course went on,
identifying contradictions in other teachers’ comments and calling for a cri-
tique of—as Chuck D of Public Enemy did decades ago—“the powers that be”:
We want to provide students with the language to access power. What power? The
power of those who deem SWE [Standard White English] appropriate. Who is that?
The powerful white middle class. Why is SWE better? Because they speak it, not
because there is anything inherently better about it, but rather because that’s the way
it’s done by those in power … Ultimately, I do not think we should continually give
in and validate these power codes by teaching them as a necessary means of accessing
power, because if we continue to do so, we can never move forward. We should not
xviii critical language pedagogy
present code-switching as accessing “power” but communicating more clearly to dif-

ferent audiences, because we should not be giving SWE all that “power,” but should
rather encourage critiquing the powers that be.
While teachers like these indeed make me hopeful, as Godley and Reaser
mention, however, this is only where the work begins, not ends. They have
produced a Critical Language Pedagogy in order to transform mainstream
teacher education discourses on language that, wittingly or not, reinforce the
status quo in terms of language and power. As anyone who’s ever worked with
teachers knows, this is not only admirable, it is a huge achievement in and of
itself. Godley and Reaser do more than this, however. Their work urges us to
ask more critical questions.
In its strongest interpretation, Godley and Reaser’s study is a call for us
to move beyond uncritical, conformist and assimilationist models of language
pedagogy. It is a call for us to reframe the object of critique from our children’s
ways of expressing themselves to the oppressive systems that deem their lan-
guages as “unacceptable.” As I have argued with Django Paris (see Paris &
Alim, 2017), our critique needs to be accompanied by a new vision for the
purpose of schooling. Instead of being oppressive, homogenizing forces, how
can we create schools and pedagogies where diverse, heterogeneous practices
are not only understood and valued, but sustained? This book is a giant leap
towards getting us there and its message needs to be amplified by all who read
it. We need more work like this, urgently.
H. Samy Alim
West Hollywood, CA
References
Alim, H. S. (2010). Critical language awareness. In N. Hornberger & S. L. McKay (Eds.),
Sociolinguistics and language education (pp. 205–231). Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
Fairclough, N. (1989). Language and power. London: Longman.
Fairclough, N. (1995). Critical discourse analysis: The critical study of language. London: Longman.
Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York, NY: Seabury Press.
Ladson-Billings, G. (1995). Toward a theory of culturally relevant pedagogy. American Educa-
tional Research Journal, 32(3), 465–491.
Lee, C. D. (1993). Signifying as a scaffold to literary interpretation. Urbana, IL: National Council
of Teachers of English.
Lippi-Green, R. (1997). English with an accent: Language, ideology and discrimination in the United
States. London: Routledge.
foreword xix
Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice
in a changing world. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Smitherman, G. (1977). Talkin and testifyin: The language of Black America. Detroit, MI: Wayne
State University Press.
Wodak, R. (1995). Critical linguistics and critical discourse. In J. Verschueren, J. Ostman,
J. Blommaert (Eds.), Handbook of pragmatics (pp. 204–210). Philadelphia, PA: John
Benjamins.
acknowledgments
The mini-course and this book would not exist without the generous sup-
port of the Spencer Foundation (award #201300128). We are also indebted
to our linguistic consultants, Drs. Carolyn Temple Adger and Julie Sweet-
land. Kaylan Moore, Jeanne Dyches, and Jessica Hatcher all contributed to
various analyses presented in this book, and we thank them for their labors
and insights. We would also like to thank our many colleagues from across
the United States who offered feedback on our ongoing analyses and ideas,
including Rick Donato, Robin Dodsworth, April Baker-Bell, Bonnie Wil-
liams, Amanda Thein, Katrina Bartow Jacobs, Mike Metz, Rebecca Wheeler,
and Loukia Sarroub. The editors at Peter Lang and especially the Social Jus-
tice Across Contexts in Education series editor, Dr. sj Miller, encouraged
us throughout the process of writing this book and continually told us how
important it was. We also thank our families for their ongoing support of this
project and our scholarship, even when it meant that we were analyzing data
or writing rather than driving carpools or making dinner. Finally, we wish to
acknowledge our colleagues around the country who generously responded to
a call to include our mini-course in their classrooms; while privacy concerns
mean they must remain anonymous here, we offer our sincere thanks to each
of them.
abbreviations
AAE African American English

ELA English Language Arts
HUD (Department of) Housing and Urban Development
MAT Masters of Arts in Teaching
SWE Standardized Written English
·1·
introduction
There is something very elitist in thinking a dialect is something someone else

has and that your own personal dialect is the more correct one. It is that same old
message of the privileged trickling over into language as well. Whichever dialect
is the socially accepted or the dialect of the privileged becomes the dialectical
standard.
—Sandy, participating preservice teacher
The English language is diverse and ever-changing. In the United States,

multiple dialects or language varieties have been documented by linguists, each
with distinct patterns of grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary. Some dia-
lects, such as Appalachian English and Southern English, are used by people
with a shared regional affiliation while other dialects such as Latinx1 English
or African American English are used by people with a shared racial or cultural
identity. Linguistic research shows us that all dialects are patterned, equally
grammatically complex, and capable of expressing a wide range of ideas.
Yet many English Language Arts (ELA) teachers, curricula, and assess-
ments often present the English language as if it only has one acceptable form,
Standardized English, which is erroneously thought to be currently and histor-
ically the most “correct” version of English. We use Standardized English to
refer to the spoken and written language varieties that are viewed as most
prestigious in the United States and that are the preferred varieties in most
2 critical language pedagogy
institutional contexts, such as government agencies and schools. Other edu-

cational researchers use terms like Standard English, Mainstream American
English, Dominant American English, and the Language of Wider Communication
to describe the same language variety. We prefer the term Standardized English
to Standard English because this dialect is, in fact, no more “standard” in its
patterns and grammar than any other dialect. Rather, this dialect is contin-
ually standardized—by language pundits, style guides, teachers, and others—
since what counts as the most “correct” version of English changes over time.
Consider, for instance, the recent acknowledgement by the style guides of
many major publications that “they” can be used as a singular pronoun to
refer to a person without specifying gender. Only a decade ago, this would be
considered an error or a feature of “nonstandard” written English.
In many ELA classes, students get mixed messages about the value and
acceptability of dialects other than Standardized English. On one hand, many
grammar textbooks and worksheets present grammatical patterns of other dia-
lects as “incorrect.” On the other hand, the English curriculum is replete with
great literary works by authors such as Amy Tan, Zora Neale Hurston, and
Harper Lee that represent the richness, beauty, and craft of dialects other than
Standardized English. Moreover, students may use and hear their peers use
grammatical features that do not conform to Standardized English when they
voice insightful ideas in class discussions.
Such mixed messages are compounded by widespread attitudes towards dia-
lects other than Standardized English that students often hear in out-of-school
contexts and through the media. From outraged responses to the Oakland
School Board’s 1996 resolution recognizing “Ebonics” as a valid language (see,
e.g., Wolfram, 1998), to jurors’ insistence in the George Zimmerman trial that
they could not understand the dialect of a key witness, Rachel Jeantel, and
thus did not find her credible (Rickford & King, 2016), the public portrayal of
dialects other than Standardized English tends to be overwhelmingly negative.
As in both the examples above, negative attitudes towards dialects and
dialect features that contrast with the patterns of Standardized English often
reflect and reproduce social systems of prejudice and prestige, including race
and social class. For instance, speakers of African American English (a dialect
we define below) are often denied equal access to housing based on how they
sound on the phone (Baugh, 2016) and speakers of Pittsburghese, a dialect
used by many White working class people in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, are
often assumed to be less educated or intelligent than people who speak Stan-
dardized English (Johnstone & Kiesling, 2008). In fact, we would argue that
introduction 3
linguistic prejudice is one of the most harmful and hidden ways that power,
discrimination, and privilege are reproduced in our society—in part because
it is so rarely acknowledged. Further compounding the invisibility of how lan-
guage serves as a vehicle for discrimination is the widespread acceptance of
what Lippi-Green calls “the standard language myth,” in which non-linguists
assume that there is a standard form of the language (2012, p. 57). Accepting
this myth as fact allows non-experts to claim expert status and to use anec-
dotal evidence of standard language conformers and non-conformers as data
for explicit promises (“employers will hire you”) and threats (“no one will
take you seriously”) (Lippi-Green, 2012, p. 70). As we will explore through-
out this chapter and book, these threats and promises are not rooted in lan-
guage ability, but instead in the social valuation of various groups and in the
perpetuation of hierarchical power structures in society. Thus, both accurate
information about dialects and an understanding of how perceptions of dia-
lects support social systems of power and privilege are essential to teaching
and learning ELA.
Educators and researchers have long called for the inclusion of a critical
approach to language instruction in literacy classrooms (Alim, 2005; Delpit,
1988; Godley & Minnici, 2008; Godley, Sweetland, Wheeler, Minnici, &
Carpenter, 2006; Janks, 1999). The approach that is described in this book
draws from Godley and Minnici’s (2008) theory of Critical Language Pedagogy—
that is, pedagogy that guides students to critically examine the widely held
assumptions, or ideologies, surrounding language and dialects, the power rela-
tions such ideologies uphold, and ways to change these ideologies. One widely
held language ideology in U.S. society that Critical Language Pedagogy aims
to disrupt is the belief that Standardized English and the people who use it
are better or more “proper” than other dialects and people. Thus, the goals
of Critical Language Pedagogy dovetail with calls for social justice in literacy
education, including the equitable treatment of students with diverse racial,
cultural, gender/sexuality, and linguistic identities and explicit teaching about
societal inequalities, prejudices, and privileges in service of disrupting them
(Alsup & Miller, 2014).
The purpose of this book is to demonstrate how critical approaches to
language and dialects such as Critical Language Pedagogy are an essential part
of social justice work in literacy education. To make our case, we describe a
university-based course designed to teach preservice teachers how to enact
Critical Language Pedagogy in their ELA classrooms. We describe over
300 secondary ELA preservice teachers’ development of critical perspectives
on dialect diversity and linguistic prejudice over the duration of a four-week

online “mini-course” on language variation taught at eleven universities across
the United States. We describe changes in the content and quality of preservice
teachers’ ideas about dialect diversity throughout the mini-course, the tensions
and challenges we observed in preservice teachers’ discussions, and the effec-
tiveness (or ineffectiveness) of various design elements of the mini-course.
We wrote this book with three goals in mind. First, we wanted to offer
a comprehensive explanation of Critical Language Pedagogy theory and its
importance for social justice work in literacy teacher education. We use both
sociolinguistic and educational theories to offer an interdisciplinary under-
standing of dialect diversity in classrooms and our argument about why Crit-
ical Language Pedagogy is needed in K-12 classrooms and teacher education
programs. We draw on research in sociolinguistics to demonstrate how all
dialects are equally grammatical and valuable. Note that we use the term
“grammatical” here in the linguistic sense, where it means “systematic” or
“patterned.” All dialects follow a set of patterns that are as complex and sys-
tematic as those of Standardized English, as we explain further below. We also
draw on educational research to frame our design of the curriculum and our
understanding of teacher learning.
Second, we wanted to make available to teachers and teacher educators a
detailed description of the Critical Language Pedagogy curriculum used in our
study so that readers could use it in their own classrooms. Chapter 2 includes
the curriculum on which the study was based, including teaching vignettes,
online resources, reading lists, the pre-/post-questionnaires we designed, and
discussion questions. Although portions of the curriculum are geared towards
teachers’ learning, there are many parts of the curriculum that would be
appropriate for K-12 students, too.
Third, given that research on teachers’ learning about language and dia-
lects is sparse, we wanted to share the results of our large empirical study. Thus,
we have included both qualitative and quantitative findings drawn from our
extensive dataset of over 300 preservice teachers’ engagement in the Critical
Language Pedagogy curriculum. We include examples from preservice teacher
discussions about dialects, identity, and power; qualitative and quantitative
analyses of pre-/post-evaluations of teachers’ understandings of language vari-
ation; and case studies of preservice teachers’ growth. This book is the first to
present a large-scale study of teachers’ attitudes toward dialects and of teach-
ers’ development of the sociolinguistic knowledge needed to support critical
approaches and productive responses to dialects in K-12 classrooms.
introduction 5
As the subtitle suggests, this book is about teachers’ roles in perpetuating

or confronting power structures related to language and dialects, a compli-
cated and arguably controversial topic. This topic becomes less controversial
if we accept that part of modern schools’ mission is to expose and undermine
institutional forms of prejudice. Throughout the text, we make the case that
exposing and eroding these power structures is a crucial aspect of modern
teaching. In the remainder of this chapter, we argue for the need for critical
approaches to language instruction in ELA classrooms, starting with the lin-
guistic and sociolinguistic research in which our work is grounded and culmi-
nating in a detailed explanation of Critical Language Pedagogy.
Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Research on Dialects

The foundation of Critical Language Pedagogy lies in research in linguistics
and one of its subfields, sociolinguistics. Linguistics is the study of languages;
sociolinguistics is the study of language use in society and in human interac-
tions. One aspect of sociolinguistics focuses on how various groups of people
use language differently; such uses of language are called dialects. Throughout
this book, we use the terms dialect and language variety interchangeably to refer
to the patterns of language used by a particular group with a shared regional
or social affiliation. A dialect typically has unique grammatical, phonological
(pronunciation), and lexical (vocabulary) patterns that set it apart from other
dialects. The term dialect is commonly assumed to have a pejorative conno-
tation, but we use it without such intention (see Reaser, Adger, Wolfram, &
Christian, 2017, pp. 12–15 for a detailed discussion of popular and scientific
uses of this term). Sociolinguistic research has shown that all varieties of a lan-
guage are grammatical dialects and that everyone speaks a dialect. Therefore,
linguistically, the term refers to all language varieties and not merely those
that are socially marginalized. Decades of research on the dialects, or language
varieties, of American English demonstrate that all dialects are grammatically
and logically equal (Labov, 1969; Reaser et al., 2017).
When it comes to enacting social justice pedagogies related to confront-
ing dialect and language prejudice, ELA teachers and other literacy-related
practitioners (e.g., elementary teachers, speech-language pathologists, literacy
coaches, reading specialists, etc.) are naturally on the frontlines. However, lan-
guage is fundamentally different than many other subjects taught in schools
in that the vast majority of one’s language competency is acquired rather than
learned. Toddlers are not explicitly taught how to speak, but they begin to
construct novel phrases and sentences out of the piece of language they have
observed. For example, toddlers may recognize that the sound associated with
the –ed ending is used to talk about things that happened in the past. Applying
this hypothesis to a new situation, they may utter, “I didn’t breaked it.” Toddlers
do this because they recognize language is patterned, and at a very young age,
children are already sorting out a remarkable number of linguistic patterns with-
out explicit instruction and learning. By the time they arrive in kindergarten
when formal language learning often begins, children have already acquired the
ability to use their talk to retell an event, ask questions, make requests, be per-
suasive, predict, and more. All children (barring some sort of pathology) acquire
and deploy remarkable linguistic competence, all without formal instruction.
That is the good news. The bad news is that the process of acquisition
leaves most people with little conscious knowledge about how their language
actually works; just because you can drive a car does not mean you know how
everything under the hood works. The result is that popular perceptions about
the nature of language variation commonly run contrary to fact, and to further
confound the issue, non-experts often assume or are ascribed expert status on
a topic they have not studied. To extend our analogy, it would be akin to ele-
vating accident-free drivers to the role of master mechanics.
The exact nature of the brain’s language acquisition apparatus remains an
open question, but language acquisition and communication would be impos-
sible if languages were not based on patterns. That all language varieties (i.e.,
dialects and languages) are systematic forms the most basic scientific principle
of language study. Linguists use the term grammar to name the patterns that
make up a language variety. Thus, any description of a dialect as a hodge-
podge, broken, illogical, or ungrammatical is at odds with this fundamental
scientific, linguistic fact.
A number of other linguistic and sociolinguistic facts form the foundation
from which our ideas about language education and dialects in teacher educa-
tion and schools stem. All of these facts are so well-established in linguistics
that we report them here without citation. We list five linguistic facts and then
briefly explain the importance of each. Since we have already discussed the
first fact, that all language varieties are patterned and grammatical, we begin
our explanations with the second.
1. All language varieties are patterned (grammatical).

2. The distinction between a language and a dialect is more political than
linguistic in nature.
introduction 7
3. All languages have variation at any given time.

4. All living languages change over time.
5. All language varieties have roughly the same ability to convey ideas.
The distinction between a language and a dialect is more political than linguistic
in nature. This statement may conflict with commonly held views, includ-
ing the view that different dialects are mutually intelligible while differ-
ent languages are not. In fact, mutual intelligibility exists on a continuum.
For example, Swedish and Norwegian are quite mutually intelligible while
Spanish and Portuguese are only partially mutually intelligible. For any given
English speaker, some dialects of English are easier or more difficult to under-
stand. If one pictures a continuum of mutual intelligibility, it is clear that
deciding where to draw the line between language and dialect would be an
arbitrary decision, which is why there is no universally accepted linguistic cri-
teria for demarcating languages. Political power and national borders are more
commonly what shapes language naming. In fact, a part of the M acedonian
independence movement involved asserting that Macedonian was a distinct
language from both Bulgarian and Serbian (all of which are at least moderately
mutually intelligible). The vast majority of the time when non-linguists use
the term language, they are using it to mean something like “the recognized
standard variety of that language.” So, to them, “English” typically means
“Standardized English.” When linguists use the term language, they use it
to refer to an abstract notion rather than a specific variety of the language.
That is, they may talk about English generally (e.g., “English typically has
subject-verb-object word order”), which does not mean they are talking about
Standardized English or any version of Standardized English, which are in
themselves dialects. In this way, it is reasonable to say that a language is made
up of its dialects or language varieties. Thus, there are no “language” speakers,
only dialect speakers; that is, no one speaks only English and not a dialect of
English. This statement, though perhaps shocking, matches linguistic under-
standing: Everyone is a dialect speaker.
All languages have variation at any given time. Having accepted that every-
one has a dialect is an uncontroversial, factual statement, this second premise
about language variation becomes easy to accept. Certainly it already matches
your understanding of language, as you probably recognize language variations
such as Southern English or Midwestern English. You also probably recognize
that language varies by place and within place. In any given community, there
may be variation by race, socioeconomic status, occupation, family history,
or other factors. The critical point here is to recognize that any hierarchy of
these variations is purely social not grammatical, since linguistically, variation

is natural and neutral. Thus, judging these variations as better or worse reflects
an evaluation of groups of people via their relative social standing in society,
not their “correctness” of their speech.
All living languages change over time. As people acquire a language, they are
exposed to lots of different ways of speaking that language. It is not through
“imperfect learning” but through the complex process of identity construction
that children end up speaking a dialect not quite like that of their parents or
teachers. Over time, some variations in the language will be considered more
prestigious (overtly or covertly), and these forms are likely to persist while less
prestigious forms fade. Historically, the variation in Latin eventually gave way
to the Romance languages we know today as Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and
French. Old English had hundreds (thousands by some counts) of inflectional
endings—word endings that affect grammatical characteristics; present-day
English has eight inflectional morphemes, such as –ed to indicate past tense.
These changes are natural and rarely judged negatively over time. For instance,
no one laments that English no longer uses the ge- prefix (used to mark what we
now think of as a past participle form) found throughout Beowulf. However, in
the short-term and present, language variation and subsequent change is often
described as decay or degradation. Such evaluations deny linguistic reality.
All language varieties have roughly the same ability to convey ideas. While it is
true that there are languages used in remote parts of the world that cannot talk
about, for example, computer circuitry, linguists argue that this is a limitation
of experience and vocabulary, not of the language itself. What this fact means,
then, is that the structures (grammar) of all languages are complex enough to
convey a full range of grammatical information, including noun case (roughly,
the role of a noun in a sentence) and number, verb tense (roughly, when in
time an action occurred), aspect (roughly, how in time an action occurred),
and mood (the speakers’ stance toward what is being said). To put it in a con-
crete but simplified way, all languages can differentiate between completed
and ongoing actions in either the past or present; between speculation, wish,
and certainty; between abstract and concrete ideas. Thus, the grammar of all
languages can talk about computer circuitry once the proper vocabulary has
been introduced—and adding vocabulary is really quite simple. Many Amer-
ican Indian languages have done this very thing so as to allow the full school
curriculum to be taught in that language. The critical takeaway of this fact for
teachers is that no dialect is inherently better or worse for conveying complex
thoughts and ideas.
introduction 9
Summatively, these linguistic and sociolinguistic facts lead to a conclu-

sion of profound importance to the rest of this text: Dialects are a natural part
of a healthy language and in no way do dialect differences reflect deficien-
cies. Another way of saying this is that all dialects are linguistically equal.
And while it may be easy to accept this maxim on a theoretical level, as we
document in the remainder of this book, enacting pedagogies that affirm and
teach this view can be quite challenging since beliefs about language are often
unconscious and deeply embedded. Changing our unconscious responses (also
called implicit attitudes, automatic responses, or System 1) requires extended
time and effort, but given the role teachers play in perpetuating linguistic
inequality—and the role they can plan in upending linguistic inequality—it
is time and effort well spent. As Fairclough (2001) argues,
Ideology is most effective when its workings are least visible. If one becomes aware
that a particular aspect of common sense is sustaining power inequalities at one’s own
expense, it ceases to be common sense, and may cease to have the capacity to sustain
inequalities. (p. 71)
We have already introduced readers to the concept of Standardized English,

but here we wish to introduce a number of other terms related to dialects that
we use throughout this book. We generally refer to dialects of English other
than Standardized English as nonmainstream dialects. We purposefully avoid
using the term non-Standardized English since nonmainstream dialects of English
are systematically patterned and internally logical. We have found in our work
with students and teachers that setting up a dichotomy between “Standard”
and “Non-Standard” English often reinscribes erroneous assumptions about
language as having only one “correct” variety. Furthermore, it ascribes the term
“non-standard,” an inherently disparaging label, to some students’ families or
community members. Finally, we wished to distinguish between nonmain-
stream varieties of English that carry strong social stigmas and those that do
not, since the stigmas connected with particular language varieties, particularly
those spoken by people of color, lead to discriminatory practices in a variety of
areas, such as education, housing, and employment. Thus, we refer to dialects
and dialect features that have a substantial social stigma in most mainstream
contexts as vernacular dialects or vernacular dialect features.
An example of a vernacular dialect feature that carries a strong social
stigma in most mainstream institutional settings is the absence of an –s on
present tense verbs used with third person-singular subjects, as in “She do her
homework every night” instead of “She does …” Many listeners in settings
such as workplaces, schools, and government institutions would view this

usage as inappropriate and reflecting negatively on the speaker. It may even
be described with an evaluative term like “ungrammatical,” “uneducated,”
“ignorant,” or “sloppy.” On the other hand, a nonmainstream dialect feature
that does not carry a strong social stigma is “fixin’ to” as in “She’s fixin’ to do
her homework.” Although a listener might view this feature as “informal,”
“folksy,” or “Southern,” it would likely not be seen as inappropriate or reflect-
ing poorly on the speaker’s intelligence, politeness, or academic/professional
potential. Both of these features might be seen as inappropriate in a piece
of writing that calls for Written Standardized English (such as an academic
essay), but in spoken language, “do” for “does” typically carries much stronger
of a social stigma than “fixin’ to.” The difference in the evaluations of these
verb forms has nothing to do with linguistic regularity or clarity of meaning; it
can be attributed entirely to the social evaluation of the groups of people who
use the forms. Leaving off a third-singular –s typically signals that a person
is a speaker of African American English whereas fixin’ to is associated with
Southern English. In the United States currently, African Americans2 remain
a more subordinate group than Southerners, and the more negative wide-
spread evaluation of the absence of –s on third-person singular verbs reflects
this societal prejudice.
Many of the dialect features that are most status-marking in the United
States are features of dialects spoken by people of color and in low-income
communities (Hairston, 1981; Heath, 1983). This is not a coincidence;
throughout the history of the English language, whatever variety of English
spoken by people in power at that time has been preferred and viewed as the
norm. Conversely, the varieties of English spoken by disempowered and mar-
ginalized communities have been viewed as less “proper” or correct. A clear
illustration of this difference can be seen in how Americans evaluate different
types of the same linguistic feature. People who pronounce “pin” and “pen”
(associated with Southern English) the same way are often ridiculed while few
people notice it when people pronounce cot and caught (associated with Mid-
western English) the same. The same applies to grammatical patterns. While
the irregular subject-verb combination “I is walking” may grate on some peo-
ple’s ears, they most likely would not flinch at the irregular conjugation in
“I’m nice, aren’t I?”
One of the vernacular dialects most studied by sociolinguists is African
American English, a language variety that has historical roots in African
American communities and that is currently spoken to some degree by the
introduction 11
majority of African Americans in the United States (Lippi-Green, 2012).

This language variety is also referred to as African American Language, African
American Vernacular English, Black English, Street Talk, Spoken Soul, or Ebonics.
Not all African Americans use African American English in their everyday
lives or to the same degree, and research is finding that an increasing number
of non-Black youth, particularly in urban areas, regularly use features of Afri-
can American English (Alim, 2006; Cutler, 1999; Paris, 2009; Rose, 1994).
However, African American English continues to be one of the most stigma-
tized vernacular dialects in the United States (Hairston, 1981; Heath, 1983;
Lippi-Green, 2012). Other vernacular dialects that we refer to in our study
include Appalachian English (a dialect spoken in the Appalachian Mountain
region of the United States) and Chicano English (a dialect of American
English spoken primarily by Mexican Americans in the Southwest). Other
nonmainstream dialects include New England dialect and Southern Ameri-
can English, both of which are affiliated with geographic regions.
Though dialects of a language typically share the majority of patterns with
each other, each variety can be distinguished based on lexical, phonological,
and grammatical features (differences also exist in the realm of pragmatics and
discourse patterns, but these are not discussed here). A comparison of three
dialects demonstrates these levels. The term “friend” in Standardized English
may be expressed as, for example, “dawg” in African American English or
“jasper” in Appalachian English (though admittedly, each usage has differ-
ent connotations of familiarity). The term pronounced “flour” in Standard-
ized English may be said as without the final –r in African American English
(“flou’”) or as single syllable, “flar” in Appalachian English. Finally, grammar
and pronunciation combine such that Standardized English’s “He is hunting”
may be said as “He huntin’” in African American English or “He’s a-huntin’”
in Appalachian English. Being able to analyze dialect difference according to
level of language is critical to accurately describing and understanding lan-
guage difference and its meaning.
Throughout this book, we also draw on two other sociolinguistic concepts
to clarify our discussions of dialects with teachers and students: slang and reg-
ister. We have found that teachers and students often use the term slang to
refer to nonmainstream dialects. In our work, we find it useful to distinguish
between the two so that discussions about dialects do not become focused
on particular words in youth culture such as “slay” or “DM” and lose sight of
wider language ideologies and issues of social justice. Thus, we use slang as
sociolinguists do to refer only to new vocabulary that is often developed by
youth, such as “selfie.” Though some dialects do generate more slang than
others, all dialects may create and use slang vocabulary. We have also heard
many teachers and students refer to Standardized English as “formal” and non-
mainstream dialects as “informal.” Because every dialect, including Standard-
ized English and nonmainstream dialects, can be formal or informal, we refer
to formality, informality, and other differences in language use that depend
on the social situation (e.g., church, school, bowling alley, football game) as
registers rather than dialects. Some have speculated that some dialects have
a broader range of registers than others, but all dialects vary along a formal-
informal continuum.
With those basic concepts in mind, the past 50 years of sociolinguistic
research have offered educators a number of important insights about lan-
guage variation and language attitudes in the United States. First, it has
shown the ways in which language use varies in different contexts and com-
munities, creating different types of interpersonal relationships and reflecting
different identities (Heath, 1983; Labov, 1966; Rampton, 2005; Reaser et al.,
2017). For instance, Heath’s research in the Piedmont region of the Carolinas
described how families in two neighboring communities—one working-class
and Black, the other working-class and White—spoke to children differently
in ways that reflected two different perspectives on adult/child relationships.
Heath also demonstrated how the legacies of racism, racial segregation, and
socio-economic segregation caused both communities’ speech patterns to be
seen as inferior to those of the middle-class “Townspeople,” including the
town’s teachers. Focusing on adolescents in the United Kingdom (Rampton,
2005) and United States (Paris, 2009), more recent research has shown how
youth who identify with different racial and ethnic groups, such as African
American, Punjabi, or Latinx, adopt each other’s language varieties as a sign
of solidarity and similar identification as marginalized groups in society. Such
variation is viewed as a natural characteristic of every language.
Second, as described in the studies above, sociolinguists have also docu-
mented how people form strong negative and positive judgments based on the
way others speak (Heath, 1983; Reaser et al., 2017). Negative judgments about
the dialects used by subordinate groups in society, such as African A merican
English, and positive judgments about the dialects used by groups with soci-
etal power, such as Standardized English, both extend from and reinforce
racism and other societal power structures. Rosina Lippi-Green’s (2012) work
details how these socio-political structures perpetuate social inequality. One
specific example comes from John Baugh’s (2016) research that demonstrated
introduction 13
how landlords profile potential tenants based on how they sound on the
phone, regularly telling callers who use features of African American English
and Latinx English that their housing is no longer available. Baugh’s work,
inspired by personal experience, led to a crackdown on linguistic profiling by
the Federal Department of Housing and Urban Development. In workforce
studies, Hughes and Mamiseishvili (2014) and Kushins (2014) have found
that employers can identify the ethnic/racial identity of job seekers from the
sound of their voices with a high degree of accuracy and that they perceive
African American speakers as far less likely to be hired.
Such prejudices are a particularly insidious obstacle to social justice and
disproportionately harm people of color and people from low-income back-
grounds. These prejudices are also widespread in K-12 schools and standard-
ized testing in the United States, as we show below.
The Racial, Cultural and Linguistic

Landscape of U.S. Schools
In addition to the broader social issues described above, another reason for
enacting a new approach to language instruction in K-12 schools is the wide-
spread cultural, racial, and linguistic differences between the majority of
teachers and students in public K-12 schools in the United States. Currently,
over 80 percent of elementary and secondary teachers are White, and the
majority of these teachers come from middle class backgrounds (U.S. Depart-
ment of Education, 2016). Conversely, over 50 percent of students in U.S.
public schools live in poverty and more than 40 percent are students of color
(Suitts, Barba, & Dunn, 2015; U.S. Department of Education). The cultural,
racial, socioeconomic, and linguistic differences between teachers’ and stu-
dents’ backgrounds have been shown to lead to miscommunications and to
teachers’ negative perceptions of low income students and students of color,
who are more likely than White, middle-class teachers to use patterns of non-
mainstream dialects.
Dialects and Language Ideologies in Schools
Multiple studies spanning decades have demonstrated the negative effects

of teachers’ language ideologies and assumptions about dialects other than
Standardized English. Shirley Brice Heath, in her foundational study of
communication patterns in one community, found that the middle-class White

teachers in her study often viewed the communication patterns of lower class
White and Black students as signs of disrespect, lack of creativity, and low
academic potential (1983). Similarly, in Philips’ study of the communication
patterns of American Indian children from the Warm Springs Indian Res-
ervation, teachers often misunderstood the way students used language and
made negative assumptions about their students’ learning. As Philips noted,
“In class, speaking is the first and primary mode for communicating compe-
tency in all of the areas of skill and knowledge that schools purport to teach”
(1992, p. 372). In other words, academic knowledge is often communicated
by students, and judged by teachers, by the way students speak, so the effects
of teachers’ negative views of students’ language use can be quite strong.
More recent research continues to show that many teachers form strong
negative judgments about the intelligence, diligence, and character of students
who use vernacular dialects at school, many of whom are students of color and
low-income students. A number of surveys of teacher attitudes have demon-
strated that many teachers erroneously believe that Standardized English is
more grammatical than vernacular dialects and form negative opinions of
students when they use vernacular dialects (Blake & Cutler, 2003; Cross,
DeVaney, & Jones, 2001). Studies of classrooms have shown how assumptions
about the inherent superiority of Standardized English, also known as standard
language ideology, have negative effects on students of color and low-income
students. Dyson and Smitherman (2009) demonstrated how framing Stan-
dardized English as what “sounds right” and “sounds better” confuses students
for whom vernacular language varieties “sounds right,” which hampers their
literacy learning. Similarly, Bloome, Katz, and Champion (2003) describe
how a young African American girl’s use of African American English while
telling a story during class led the White teacher to cut off her talking and
to negatively evaluate her story—judgments that the teacher did not exhibit
after listening to stories told in Standardized English.
Finally, Godley, Carpenter, and Werner (2007) describe how a White
high school English teacher publicly chastised one of her African American
students for using African American English when talking to a friend about a
feature of Written Standardized English. In response, the student both disen-
gaged from the activity and voiced her own, more sociolinguistically accurate
assessment of the situation, noting that because she was talking to her friend,
she was speaking in “proper slang.” Furthermore, the daily grammar activ-
ity used in the class (Daily Oral Language), which labels vernacular dialect
introduction 15
features as errors of Standardized English, led to no improvements in students’

use of Written Standardized English grammar, despite taking up 15–20 per-
cent of instructional time across an entire school year. These studies highlight
that without understanding that all dialects are grammatically and logically
equal and acknowledging the social and historical reasons why some dialects
are viewed as acceptable and others are not, many teachers (1) assume that
because their students of color do not speak “proper English,” they have less
academic potential than mainstream students and (2) teach about language
and grammar in ways that are actually harmful to students’ literacy learn-
ing. Negative misperceptions about students of color and low-income stu-
dents’ language use continue to underlie some “word gap” research, such as
the influential but problematic work of Hart and Risley (1995; see also Fer-
nald, Marchman, & Weisleder, 2013). Although the deficit views of language
detailed above may seem shocking, versions of the deficit perspective remain
widespread and negatively impact students in profound ways that are some-
times invisible to teachers.
Linguistic biases that disproportionately affect low-income students and
students of color continue to exist in standardized testing, which when left
unexamined, can gird teacher notions about student ability. Given the lan-
guage expectations of standardized tests, many students who speak vernacular
dialects find themselves at a disadvantage on high-stakes assessments. Language
bias can affect standardized assessments in many ways. Norming bias can occur
when non-representative groups are used to determine the expected distribu-
tion of test scores, such as the original Stanford-Binet test, which was normed
on privileged White Californians. Or when Florence Goodenough concluded
based on her mis-normed test that “The use of a foreign language in the home
is one of the chief factors in producing mental retardation” (1926, p. 393).
The language of standardized test items may also be linguistically biased.
One recent and carefully designed study found that second grade Black stu-
dents struggled on math word problems that included the –s form with third
person subjects (e.g., “She drives two miles”) (Terry, Hendrick, Evangelou, &
Smith, 2010). Other standardized tests of Written Standardized English edit-
ing skills use features of vernacular dialects as “distractors” from the correct
answers on multiple choice items. These biases can lower the scores of stu-
dents of color and low-income students on standardized assessments, and low
scores on these tests can negatively affect the students in multiple ways, from
admission to college to being recommended for remedial education at an
early age. Even while awareness of testing bias has increased dramatically over
the past decades, and tests have gotten better, it is still the case that Black
students are two to three times more likely to be diagnosed with a language
disorder than White students (Aud, Fox, & Kewal-Ramani, 2010, p. 40).
Misdiagnosis of Latinx students occurs at even higher rates. Eliminating lin-
guistic bias from language and literacy assessments may be impossible, but
teachers’ and speech practitioners’ awareness of dialect differences can help
interpret standardized scores in culturally responsible ways. One example, the
Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation-Norm Referenced (DELV-NR)
is a diagnostic tool specifically for use with African American students
(Seymour, Roeper, & de Villiers, 2005). This tool draws on linguistic studies
to separate out African American English dialect use from genuine speech dis-
order. Another innovative program has been developed to remove language
bias from math and science content assessments (Kopriva, 2009). And while
standardized assessments can have profound negative impacts on vernacular
dialect speaking students, the accumulative impact of insensitive pedagogy
sustained through the day-to-day instruction of students has an even greater
negative effect.
Another reason that teachers need to know and teach accurate informa-
tion about English dialects is that the language students use is very closely
tied to their identities. Criticizing students’ language can be seen as rejecting
their communities, families, and personal identities. Research documenting
the perspectives of students of color and working class students has demon-
strated that being pressured to adopt the communication patterns of main-
stream school culture is often viewed as being asked to reject one’s own home,
ethnic, or class-based identities. Students can also perceive such messages
as requiring them to “act White” or claim an undeserved higher status than
their peers or community (Fordham, 1999; Godley & Minnici, 2008, Kinloch,
2010; Ogbu 1999). As we show in the next section, instructional approaches
to dialects that acknowledge students’ language repertoires, value all the lan-
guage varieties they use, and explicitly discuss the historical and social reasons
why some dialects are considered “standard” and better than others lead to
more productive learning in ELA classrooms.
Instruction on Dialect Diversity
It is important that all educators understand how languages, including their

dialects, function and evolve, but it is also important that educators know
about the instructional approaches to teaching about dialects that are effective.
introduction 17
As the previous section demonstrated, treating the features of nonmainstream

dialects as errors of Standardized English and ignoring the value of nonmain-
stream dialects are approaches that do not help students’ literacy learning.
In fact, one study found that correcting dialect-based “errors” during reading
resulted in students becoming worse readers over time (Piestrup, 1973). Such
approaches can also hinder students’ literacy learning by giving confusing mes-
sages to students. They may wonder, for instance, why the subject-verb agree-
ment pattern in a statement such as “James don’t know” is considered “wrong”
on grammar worksheets (and such worksheets are common in the urban school
district that Amanda’s children attend). They may wonder why the Southern
dialects portrayed in To Kill a Mockingbird (Lee, 1960) are taught as evidence
of a great author’s craft and strong characterization, but when they use the
same features in their writing, they are circled in red pen as errors. Below we
highlight existing research on more productive approaches to teaching about
dialect diversity, Standardized English, and literacy.
Code-Switching and Contrastive Analysis
As early as mid-1960s, researchers demonstrated the effectiveness of teaching

students about how different language varieties are used in different contexts
and for different purposes (see Fasold & Shuy, 1970; Wolfram & Fasold, 1969).
One excellent demonstration of this approach is found in Heath’s (1983)
study, Ways With Words, which describes how an elementary science teacher
teaching students who spoke two vernacular dialects exposed her students
to various ways of expressing ideas about weather, soil, and plants, including
“ways with words” used by local farmers speaking nonmainstream dialects, the
local press, and academic texts. Heath describes how the teacher led her stu-
dents through a discussion of these different ways with words and the purposes
and audiences motivating them. When students eventually wrote their own
scientific reports, they had a better understanding and more deliberate use of
the Standardized Written English features and academic English style that
they were expected to use.
This approach is often referred to as teaching code-switching or the aware-
ness and skills needed to switch between language varieties for particular pur-
poses and audiences. Although the term code-switching was originally used by
linguists to refer to switching between two languages (Myers-Scotton, 1993),
educational scholars interested in dialect diversity use it to refer to switching
between dialects, language varieties, and even sometimes registers and styles.
Another random document with
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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Moxon's
mechanick exercises, volume 1 (of 2)
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
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you are located before using this eBook.
Title: Moxon's mechanick exercises, volume 1 (of 2)

The doctrine of handy-works applied to the art of printing
Annotator: Theodore Low De Vinne
Author: Joseph Moxon
Release date: November 24, 2023 [eBook #72217]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Typothetæ of the city of New

York, 1896
Credits: deaurider, Brian Wilsden and the Online Distributed

Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images generously made available by The
Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MOXON'S

MECHANICK EXERCISES, VOLUME 1 (OF 2) ***
This certifies that four hundred and fifty
copies only, all on hand-made Holland
paper and printed from types, of this
edition of Moxon’s “Mechanick
Exercises,” in two volumes, were
completed in August, 1896, and that the
types have been distributed.
Joseph J. Little.
S. P. Avery.
Walter Gilliss.
Douglas Taylor.
Theo. L. DeVinne.
David Williams.
W. W. Pasko.
Committee of the
Typothetæ.
MOXON’S
MECHANICK EXERCISES
The true Effigies of Laurenz Ians Kofter
Delineated from his Monumentall Stone Statue, Erected at
Harlem.
The true Effigies of Iohn Guttemberg
Delineated from the Original Painting at Mentz in Germanie.
MOXON’S
MECHANICK EXERCISES
OR THE DOCTRINE OF HANDY-WORKS

APPLIED TO THE ART OF
PRINTING
A LITERAL REPRINT IN TWO VOLUMES OF
THE FIRST EDITION PUBLISHED IN THE YEAR 1683
WITH PREFACE AND NOTES BY

THEO. L. DE VINNE
VOLUME I
NEW-YORK
THE TYPOTHETÆ OF THE CITY OF NEW-YORK
MDCCCLXXXXVI
PREFACE
JOSEPH MOXON was born at Wakefield in Yorkshire, England,
August 8, 1627. There is no published record of his parentage or his
early education. His first business was that of a maker and vender of
mathematical instruments, in which industry he earned a memorable
reputation between the years 1659 and 1683. He was not content
with this work, for he had leanings to other branches of the mechanic
arts, and especially toward the designing of letters and the making of
printing-types.
In 1669 he published a sheet in folio under the heading of “Prooves
of the Several Sorts of Letters Cast by Joseph Moxon.” The imprint
is “Westminster, Printed by Joseph Moxon, in Russell street, at the
Sign of the Atlas, 1669.” This specimen of types seems to have been
printed, not to show his dexterity as a type-founder, but to advertise
himself as a dealer in mathematical and scientific instruments. The
reading matter of the sheet describes “Globes Celestial and
Terrestrial, Large Maps of the World, A Tutor to Astronomie and to
Geographie”—all of his own production. Reed flouts the typography
of this sheet: “It is a sorry performance. Only one fount, the Pica, has
any pretensions to elegance or regularity. The others are so clumsily
cut or badly cast, and so wretchedly printed, as here and there to be
almost undecipherable.”[1] The rude workmanship of these early
types proves, as he afterward admitted, that he had never been
properly taught the art of type-founding; that he had learned it, as he
said others had, “of his own genuine inclination.”
It was then a difficult task to learn any valuable trade. The Star
Chamber decree of 1637 ordained that there should be but four type-
founders for the kingdom of Great Britain, and the number of their
apprentices was restricted. When the Long Parliament met in 1640,
the decrees of the Star Chamber were practically dead letters, and
for a few years there was free trade in typography. In 1644 the Star
Chamber regulations were reimposed; in 1662 they were made more
rigorous than ever. The importation of types from abroad without the
consent of the Stationers’ Company was prohibited. British printers
were compelled to buy the inferior types of English founders, who,
secure in their monopoly, did but little for the improvement of
printing.[2]
It is probable that the attention of Moxon was first drawn to type-
founding by the founders themselves, who had to employ mechanics
of skill for the making of their molds and other implements of type-
casting. In this manner he could have obtained an insight into the
mysteries of the art that had been carefully concealed. He did not
learn type-making or printing in the usual routine. The records of the
Company of Stationers do not show that he was ever made a
freeman of that guild, yet he openly carried on the two distinct
businesses of type-founding and printing after 1669. It is probable
that he had a special permit from a higher authority, for in 1665 he
had been appointed hydrographer to the king, and a good salary was
given with the office. He was then devoted to the practical side of
scientific pursuits, and was deferred to as a man of ability.
He published several mathematical treatises between the years
1658 and 1687; one, called “Compendium Euclidis Curiosi,” was
translated by him from Dutch into English, and printed in London in
1677. Mores supposes that he had acquired a knowledge of Dutch
by residence in Holland, but intimates that he was not proficient in its
grammar.[3]
In 1676 he published a book on the shapes of letters, with this
formidable title: “Regulæ Trium Ordinum Literarum
Typographicarum; or the Rules of the Three Orders of Print Letters,
viz: the Roman, Italick, English—Capitals and Small; showing how
they are Compounded of Geometrick Figures, and mostly made by
Rule and Compass. Useful for Writing Masters, Painters, Carvers,
Masons and others that are Lovers of Curiosity. By Joseph Moxon,
Hydrographer to the King’s Most Excellent Majesty. Printed for
Joseph Moxon on Ludgate Hill, at the Sign of Atlas, 1676.” He then
dedicated the book to Sir Christopher Wren, “as a lover of rule and
proportion,” or to one who might be pleased with this attempt to
make alphabetical letters conform to geometric rules.
There is no intimation that the book was intended for punch-cutters.
It contains specific directions about the shapes of letters, covering
fifty-two pages, as proper introduction to the thirty-eight pages of
model letters that follow, rudely drawn and printed from copper
plates. Moxon says that these model letters are his copies of the
letters of Christopher Van Dijk, the famous punch-cutter of Holland.
He advises that each letter should be plotted upon a framework of
small squares—forty-two squares in height and of a proportionate
width, as is distinctly shown in the plates of letters in this book.[4]
Upon these squares the draftsman should draw circles, angles, and
straight lines, as are fully set forth in the instructions.
These diagrams, with their accompanying instruction, have afforded
much amusement to type-founders. All of them unite in saying that
the forming of letters by geometrical rule is absurd and
impracticable. This proposition must be conceded without debate,
but the general disparagement of all the letters, in which even Reed
joins, may be safely controverted. It is admitted that the characters
are rudely drawn, and many have faults of disproportion; but it must
not be forgotten that they were designed to meet the most important
requirement of a reader—to be read, and read easily. Here are the
broad hair-line, the stubby serif on the lower-case and the bracketed
serif on the capitals, the thick stem, the strong and low crown on
letters like m and n, with other peculiarities now commended in old-
style faces and often erroneously regarded as the original devices of
the first Caslon. The black-letter has more merit than the roman or
italic. Some of the capitals are really uncouth; but with all their faults
the general effect of a composition in these letters will be found more
satisfactory to the bibliophile as a text-type than any form of pointed
black that has been devised in this century as an improvement.
Moxon confesses no obligation to any one for his geometrical
system, but earlier writers had propounded a similar theory. Books
on the true proportions of letters had been written by Fra Luca
Paccioli, Venice, 1509; Albert Dürer, Nuremberg, 1525; Geofroy Tory,
Paris, 1529; and Yciar, Saragossa, 1548. Nor did the attempt to
make letters conform to geometrical rules end with Moxon. In 1694,
M. Jaugeon, chief of the commission appointed by the Academy of
Sciences of Paris, formulated a system that required a plot of 2304
little squares for the accurate construction of every full-bodied capital
letter. The manuscript and diagrams of the author were never put in
print, but are still preserved in the papers of the Academy.
This essay on the forms of letters seems to have been sent out as
the forerunner of a larger work on the theory and practice of
mechanical arts. Under the general title of “Mechanick Exercises,” in
1677, he began the publication, in fourteen monthly numbers, of
treatises on the trades of the smith, the joiner, the carpenter, and the
turner. These constitute the first volume of the “Mechanick
Exercises.” The book did not find as many buyers as had been
expected. Moxon attributed its slow sale to political excitement, for
the Oates plot put the buying and study of trade books away from
the minds of readers. He had to wait until 1683 before he began the
publication of the second volume, which consists of twenty-four
numbers, and treats of the art of printing only. It is this second
volume that is here reprinted, for the first volume is of slight interest
to the printer or man of letters.
Moxon’s book has the distinction of being not only the first, but the
most complete of the few early manuals of typography. Fournier’s
“Manuel Typographique” of 1764 is the only book that can be
compared with it in minuteness of detail concerning type-making, but
he treats of type-making only. Reed says: “Any one acquainted with
the modern practice of punch-cutting cannot but be struck, on
reading the directions laid down in the ‘Mechanick Exercises,’ with
the slightness of the changes which the manual processes of that art
have undergone during the last two centuries. Indeed, allowing for
improvements in tools, and the greater variety of gauges, we might
almost assert that the punch-cutter of Moxon’s day knew scarcely
less than the punch-cutter of our day, with the accumulated
experience of two hundred years, could teach him.... For almost a
century it remained the only authority on the subject; subsequently it
formed the basis of numerous other treatises both at home and
abroad; and to this day it is quoted and referred to, not only by the
antiquary, who desires to learn what the art once was, but by the
practical printer, who may still on many subjects gather from it much
advice and information as to what it should still be.”[5]
During his business life, Moxon stood at the head of the trade in
England. He was selected to cut a font of type for an edition of the
New Testament in the Irish language, which font was afterward used
for many other books. He cut also the characters designed by
Bishop John Wilkins for his “Essay towards a Real Character and a
Philosophical Language,” and many mathematical and astronomical
symbols. Rowe Mores, who describes him as an excellent artist and
an admirable mechanic, says that he was elected a Fellow of the
Royal Society in 1678.[6] There is no known record of the date of his
death. Mores gives the year 1683 as the date of his relinquishment
of the business of type-making, but he was active as a writer and a
publisher for some years after.
The first volume of the “Mechanick Exercises,” concerning carpentry,
etc., went to its third edition in 1703, but the second volume, about
printing, has been neglected for two centuries. During this long
interval many copies of the first small edition of five hundred copies
have been destroyed. A perfect copy is rare, and commands a high
price, for no early book on technical printing is in greater request.[7]
The instruction directly given is of value, but bits of information
indirectly furnished are of greater interest. From no other book can
one glean so many evidences of the poverty of the old printing-
house. Its scant supply of types, its shackly hand-presses, its mean
printing-inks, its paper-windows and awkward methods, when not
specifically confessed, are plainly indicated. The high standard of
proof-reading here exacted may be profitably contrasted with its
sorry performance upon the following pages. The garments worn by
the workmen are shown in the illustrations. Some of the quainter
usages of the trade are told in the “Customs of the Chappel,” and
those of the masters, in the ceremonies of the Stationers’ Company,
and in the festivals in which masters and workmen joined. To the
student of printing a reading of the book is really necessary for a
clear understanding of the mechanical side of the art as practised in
the seventeenth century.
NOTE BY THE PRINTER
This edition of the “Mechanick Exercises” is a line-for-line and page-for-page reprint of the
original text. The only suppression is that of the repetition of the words “Volume II” in the
running title and the sub-titles, which would unnecessarily mislead the reader, and of the old
signature marks that would confuse the bookbinder. Typographic peculiarities have been
followed, even to the copying of gross faults, like doublets, that will be readily corrected by
the reader. The object of the reprint is not merely to present the thought of the author, but to
illustrate the typographic style of his time with its usual defects. A few deviations from copy
that seemed to be needed for a clearer understanding of the meaning of the author have
been specified at the end of the second volume. The irregular spelling and punctuation of
the copy, its capricious use of capitals and italic, its headings of different sizes of type, have
been repeated. At this point imitation has stopped. Turned and broken letters, wrong font
characters, broken space-lines, and bent rules have not been servilely reproduced. These
blemishes, as well as the frequent “monks” and “friars” in the presswork, were serious
enough to prevent an attempt at a photographic facsimile of the pages.
The two copies of Moxon that have served as “copy” for this reprint show occasional
differences in spelling and punctuation. Changes, possibly made in the correction of batters,
or after the tardy discovery of faults, must have been done while the form was on press and
partly printed. The position of the plates differs seriously in the two copies; they do not
follow each other in the numerical order specified. In this reprint the plates that describe
types and tools have been placed near their verbal descriptions.
The type selected for this work was cast from matrices struck with the punches (made about
1740) of the first Caslon. It is of the same large English body as that of the original, but a
trifle smaller as to face, and not as compressed as the type used by Moxon; but it repeats
many of his peculiarities, and fairly reproduces the more important mannerisms of the
printing of the seventeenth century.
The portraits have been reproduced by the artotype process of Bierstadt; the descriptive
illustrations are from the etched plates of the Hagopian Photo-Engraving Company.
Joseph Moxon.
Born at Wakefeild August. 8.
Anno 1627.

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Critical Language Pedagogy

Interrogating Language Dialects and

Qualitative Research Topics in Language Teacher

Scaffolding Language Development in Immersion and Dual

Learner and Teacher Autonomy in Higher Education

Language Teacher Agency 1st Edition Jian Tao

English Language Teacher Education in Changing Times:

Linguistic Landscapes in Language and Teacher

Precarity Critical Pedagogy and Physical Education

Pragmatics Pedagogy in English as an International

CRITICAL LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY

AMANDA J. GODLEY, Ph.D., is Professor of English Education and

GODLEY AND REASER

AMANDA J. GODLEY AND JEFFREY REASER

CRITICAL LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY

AMANDA J. GODLEY, Ph.D., is Professor of English Education and

GODLEY AND REASER

AMANDA J. GODLEY AND JEFFREY REASER

The Social Justice Across Contexts in Education series is

Critical Language Pedagogy

Interrogating Language, Dialects,

Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek.

ISBN 978-1-4331-5303-7 (hardcover)

© 2018 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York

All rights reserved.

Chapter 2: The Critical Language Pedagogy Curriculum 31

Reading 1: Language Variation and Identity 62

Chapter 3: Study Design 75

Chapter 4: Teachers’ Learning about Dialects, Instruction,

Chapter 5: Racial and Regional Differences in How Preservice

Chapter 6: Conclusions and Recommendations 157

Table 2.1: Overview of the Language Variation in ELA

Twenty years ago, I walked into a classroom in Southwest Philly to teach

educational excellence? How can we begin using pedagogical approaches

language of the Black child was consistently viewed as something to eradicate,

citizens about the current sociolinguistic order of things, without challenging

present code-switching as accessing “power” but communicating more clearly to dif-

AAE African American English

There is something very elitist in thinking a dialect is something someone else

The English language is diverse and ever-changing. In the United States,

institutional contexts, such as government agencies and schools. Other edu-

on dialect diversity and linguistic prejudice over the duration of a four-week

As the subtitle suggests, this book is about teachers’ roles in perpetuating

Linguistic and Sociolinguistic Research on Dialects

1. All language varieties are patterned (grammatical).

3. All languages have variation at any given time.

these variations is purely social not grammatical, since linguistically, variation

Summatively, these linguistic and sociolinguistic facts lead to a conclu-

We have already introduced readers to the concept of Standardized English,

such as workplaces, schools, and government institutions would view this

majority of African Americans in the United States (Lippi-Green, 2012).

The Racial, Cultural and Linguistic

Dialects and Language Ideologies in Schools

Multiple studies spanning decades have demonstrated the negative effects

communication patterns in one community, found that the middle-class White

features as errors of Standardized English, led to no improvements in students’

Instruction on Dialect Diversity

It is important that all educators understand how languages, including their

As the previous section demonstrated, treating the features of nonmainstream

Code-Switching and Contrastive Analysis

As early as mid-1960s, researchers demonstrated the effectiveness of teaching

Title: Moxon's mechanick exercises, volume 1 (of 2)

Annotator: Theodore Low De Vinne

Chapter 2: The Critical Language Pedagogy Curriculum 31

Reading 1: Language Variation and Identity 62

Chapter 3: Study Design 75

Chapter 4: Teachers’ Learning about Dialects, Instruction,

Chapter 5: Racial and Regional Differences in How Preservice

Chapter 6: Conclusions and Recommendations 157

Table 2.1: Overview of the Language Variation in ELA