1. Ask several of your friends or family the following questions about the varieties of English that they are familiar with:
a) What is the geographical area whose people, in your opinion, speak the least attractive or least pleasant type of English? You may base your answer on accent, slang, or any other criteria you can think of.
b) Next, what is the geographical area whose people speak the most attractive or most pleasant type of English?
c) Finally, what are the typical characteristics that you associate with the people who speak those varieties of English?
After you describe their answers, explain what the information tells you about normal people’s (people who haven’t studied linguistics!) attitudes about language varieties.
2. If you are an international student with family in an English-speaking country or you live with other non-native speakers of English, or you are a foreign resident whose family speaks another language at home, do any of them (and you) mix English and another language together in the same sentence, or between sentences? Do people switch from English to another language depending on the topic of discussion or some other factor? Or does the mixing seem to be random? Are there people you know who have attitudes, either negative or positive, about mixing two languages together in the same sentence or conversation? Also, which is the most common language used in your home situation? Why do you think this is so?
3. If you or members of your family are part of a minority group that speaks in a different way explain, in linguistic terms, how you are different. Also ask people in your family (or your in-group friends) how they feel about their variety. However, don’t first lecture your family on the systematicity of AAVE or Cockney English and then ask them if it is a legitimate variety. This will slant their answer. Just ask family/friends from the same group how they feel about their own way of speaking. You may be surprised at some of the answers you get.
Suggested Readings
Fought, C., & Eisenhauer, K. (2022). Language and Gender in Children's Animated Films. Cambridge University Press.
Fought, C. (2003). Chicano English in Context. Palgrave Macmillan Inc.
King, S., & Rickford, J. R. (2023). Language on trial. Dædalus, 152(3), 178-193.
MacNeil, R. (2005). Do You Speak American? Films for the Humanities and Sciences. www.films.com
McWhorter, J. (2005). Defining Creole. Oxford University Press.
Rickford, J. R. and Rickford, R. J. (2000). Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English. John Wiley and Sons Inc.
Wolfram, W., & Schilling, N. (2015). American English: Dialects and Variation. John Wiley & Sons.
