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First Day of School/Language Attitudes
As part of my teacher-research study I gave my students a language attitudinal questionnaire asking them to discuss criticisms about their home and school languages. I also included a question written in Ebonics by a male speaker, asking students to discuss whether his use of Ebonics was appropriate for speaking, writing formally, or just writing in composition courses. I then took the same excerpt written in Ebonics and had an audio-recorded version of the speaker saying the same thing. I wanted to see if attitudes toward Ebonics changed depending on whether or not the statement was written in Ebonics or spoken in Ebonics. Here are the results I got:
- Based on the written statement, 8 students said it was not at all appropriate for a person to speak that way, 13 said it was somewhat appropriate, and 2 said it was definitely appropriate
- Based on the written statement, 22 said it was not at all appropriate for someone to write this way formally, 1 said it was somewhat appropriate, and 1 said it was definitely appropriate
- Based on the written statement, 14 said it was not at all appropriate to write this way in class (whether formally or informally), 10 said it was somewhat appropriate, and 2 said definitely appropriate
- Based on the spoken (audio taped) statement, 7 said it was not at all appropriate, 15 said it was somewhat appropriate, and 3 said definitely appropriate to speak this way in a composition class
- Based on the spoken (audio taped) statement, 21 said it was not at all appropriate, 1 said it was somewhat appropriate, and 1 said it was definitely appropriate to write this way formally
- Based on the spoken (audio taped) statement, 13 said it was not at all appropriate, 9 said it was somewhat appropriate, and 1 said it was definitely appropriate to write this way (formally or informally) for class.
Based on this quantitative data, then, is there a significant difference between students' attitudes in my course toward spoken or written Ebonics? Because there was typically a difference of 1 person--and no more that two people--responding differently for each question (eg. 22 said the written version of the Ebonics statement was not appropriate for formal writing, while 21 said the spoken version was not appropriate for formal writing) , I'm guessing there would be no significant difference, unlike what I hypothesized. I thought there students would be less accepting of the written version of Ebonics than the spoken version, but their attitudes were typically the same. To be sure, though, I need to do a statistical test to measure significant differences. I'm not ready to do that just yet with such a small data set. More quantitative data to come. Quantitative analysis hurts!PC
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4 comments:
In this questionnaire, did you ask students what or who shaped their attitudes regarding written and spoken English? Could it be that those from specific zip codes or school districts are more likely to conclude that proper English is always appropriate regardless of whether it is written or spoken. Could others of certain groups, zip cods, or school systems, lack knowledge of proper English, or resist proper English because it is seen as trying to be "white." Could their attitude be that any assimilation is selling out, and so I'm gonna "do me" no matter what? Not that I would openly discuss it on my blog, but I am personally interested in the demographics of your sample (race, socioeconomic status, schools attended, U. S. citizens). Perhaps some literature on cultural attitudes regarding "proper English" might give you some further insights into whether there are other variables affecting your hypothesis, and what to expect in the future. In my studies of counseling, we are taught that many minorities use non-standard English, and that most white people believe in standard English whether they use it or not.
Also, could the voice of the person speaking sound like someone of a particular race, and thus feed into other biases? What might happen if it's a white person speaking slang?
I know that this is a lot of research that you have already done, and that you know very well. But, these variables might affect your results, or might explain your results better.
Just some questions.
Yeah, I think you're right to point out these variables. What I can say is that these questions were two from the questionnaire. The other questions focused on their background, beliefs, etc. An interesting study would be to see if there were any differences between races, classes, or genders in their responses to both quantitatively-based questions, and I will probably tackle that quantitative data next. In class discussion of the questionnaire, some students touched on the "talkin' White" or "do me" themes.
I think you also raise a good question about the voice. Lots of students pointed out that they didn't recognize the written Ebonics; some (mostly white) students thought it was "hick English" or Appalachian English, while Black students did recognize the written as Ebonics. But when the speaker said the same thing, the White students then recognized that it was Ebonics, BUT they had relatively the same attitudes for both (before they recognized Ebonics and after the speaker was marked African American). An interesting follow-up questionnaire might be to change the gender of the speaker, and use an African American women speaking Ebonics. Studies show that Black women are less likely to use Ebonics than men, and Black men are often expected to speak Ebonics.
To look at additional variables affecting the results, one obviously would have to triangulate the data. The questionnaire includes qualitative space for students to discuss their backgrounds and attitudes, where they come from, etc. But personal interviews, along with field observations and students' essays can support the quantitative analysis. Good questions though.
cool!!! and yeah i'm interested in hearing the demographics of your class too, especially cuz we are both teaching the same course number.
a nice related article that speaks to using terms as a means of control can be found at:
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/08/07/060807ta_talk_hertzberg
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