April 10

Language ideologies vary from country to country. The US agrees that everyone should learn and be able to use Standard English for academics and business. I found it interesting that Farr and Song bring up the question of what is Standard English? There are so many different variations of English that what version is considered “standard” does the standard vary regionally? By Ethnic group?
Another point brought up by McKay and Bokhorst-Heng is that even though the United States has no national language there have been many movements and political debates concerning the English only movement. They name Samuel I. Hayakawa as the proposer of Senate Joint Resolution 72. The intent of the resolution was to make English the official language of the United States. He is quoted as saying “a common language unifies, multiple languages divide.” I’m not sure how I feel about this statement but I do know one thing to be true. The United States is built on diversity and freedom. I don’t know how constitutional it is to take away someone’s freedom of language choice by declaring that all citizens speak one language. I think that takes away a person’s freedom. In the United States we are proud to say we preserve our citizen’s freedoms. The English only campaign I think goes against the freedom we are supposed to have as Americans.
On the opposite side of the coin then is education. School is traditionally all in English. Since we only offer English schooling what message does that send? If a school has bilingual programs they are usually only in Spanish. The goal is to create monolingualism through bilingual education. So we are sending the message of an English only society. In other countries around the world bilingual education’s goal is to create bilingual students. I think that it would be interesting if the United States started to offer classes in either Spanish (or another language – I just picked Spanish because it is traditionally what bilingual education uses) or English for students. I know that this will probably never happen since English is a global language and most Americans have no immediate need to speak Spanish. However, I feel that if a choice was offered it would show acceptance of minority students.
There is a great quote on page 104 in the McKay and Bokhorst-Heng book. It says: “There is arrogance among some English speakers who question the need to learn foreign languages or to maintain the language resources that exist” I think that because of this arrogance the importance of bilingual education for the purpose of creating bilingual students will never be a priority for language policy makers. It is a sad, but true reality. The last sentence of the Farr and Song article eloquently states the truth and what should be the basis and starting point for language policy makers, “The reality, then, that the US is a multilingual, multicultural society that includes many people with multiple citizenships and identities should be the starting point for considering any language education policy.”