The English Language past, Present, Future 11.
Question:
In what respect does children’s learning take on a
particular identity as children learn English?
English, the gateway to world knowledge has become
the language of fashion and it opens doors to countless
opportunities. Language is not only a tool to
communicate, language declares one’s identity. The
language you speak become who you are, without language
our identity remains unknown and hidden. As the social
constructionist theory of identity advocates -
language is fundamental to the construction of our identity.
Social constructionists cite a famous example of Nelson
Mandela, the first president of post-apartheid South Africa
who was defined as a ‘terrorist’ when he was imprisoned by
the white South African state and when he was released from
prison he was redefined as a ‘freedom fighter’ by the
society. This does illustrate language play an important
role in communicating our identity. Identity gives us the
awareness of who we are and the conscious continuous sense
of being ourselves.Children's identity development starts
at home, it develops further in school where they
cultivate awareness of English language and its
variations, along with the different attitudes and social
meanings attached to them; they soon learn to emulate
stereotypical linguistic behaviour and code-switch
effectively to assert their personal/social/cultural
identity through the English language.
Children’s identity starts to take shape at home. Through
story telling and dramatizing the narratives, children get
the idea of the social world through its characters, morals
and values. In acting out the different characters, children
become aware of the stereotype good and bad characters in
the adult world. Television also bring a whole new colourful
world to children, for example, Sesame Street, a popular
children show, use animal characters to portray the values of
the adult world. Story telling, roles playing and television
entice children into the world of English language and these
create the awareness of the culture associated with the
English language. Children are also exposed to the different
roles of the family members. They learn to speak differently
to younger siblings using ‘baby talk’ or use an authoritative
tone, polite tone to adults and casually to peers. By
recognising these speech variation and imitating adult
speech, their identity start to take shape. Young speakers
learn about the appropriateness of their choice of
language outside home context. When children start school,
they become aware that different English varieties can
signal membership to certain social groups. Children are
highly aware of the differences in the speech they hear
around them. They would use ‘politeness’ to associate it
with standard Englishused to teachers and less polite
version with friends. Monolingual speakers know the
difference between middle-class and working class English.
A group of 8 years old monolingual English-speaking children
from Sheffield in northern England (Band 6, extract 1)
belongs to the working class families were able to discuss
the class-based attitudes associated with the different forms
of English language and the appropriate context. They observed
that girls ‘talk posh’ to the teacher and ‘normal’ to their
pals, commented on Margaret Thatcher’s distinctive diction
and noticed that Prince Charles’ speech is ‘posher’ than
theirs.
Bilingual children too are conscious of the different
languages they can use and learn how to use them to assert
their identity. They usually speak one other language at
home, with family and relatives and English language in
school. They are also aware of the different varieties of
English used in school. Janet Maybin, 10 years old, bilingual
in Spanish and English explained that she feels like a
different person when she speaks English or when she speaks
Spanish. She said that when she ‘talk English’ she can
explain more, she is more fluent. She further explained
that when she speaks in English she do not move her hands
but when she speaks Spanish she move her hands and when she
gets angry she move her hands even more. This illustrates
that children understand the cultural differences in
expressing emotion in different languages. Spanish, a
passionate language uses more hand gestures than
English language. Another example of a bilingual daughter
resisting her own mother tongue by responding in initially
in silence and then replying in English:
Mother: Chaau faan a. Oy-m-oy?
(Fried rice. Want or not?)
Daughter: (after a 2 second pause) I’ll have some shrimps.
(Li Wei, 1994, p.86)
In responding this way she is asserting her individual)
identity and associating her identity with the English
language. Both monolingual and bilingual children are able
to deduce the different attitudes, identities and social
meanings attached to the English language along with its
different varieties.
Children learn to code-switch to another language or to
different English varieties to gain acceptance into the
social life of a particular group/community. Helen, a
monolingual child, aged 5 grew up in a British middle
-class family who speak standard British English. However,
in an English-medium school she attended in India, she uses
a retroflex pronunciation - a feature of Indian English when
talking to her friends. She also used a strongly marked
rising tone. For example, when she says ‘Why shouldn’t I
be hungry? Let’s go and eat’ there is a markedly rising
tone on ‘shouldn’t’ and ‘eat’(Band 5, extract 1). Her
speech converged towards that of her new Indian friends by
using the English variety of her friends and this indicates
her wish to be part of their social group thus creating
her social identity.
Bilingual children are also able to code switch effectively
to English to achieve their identity goal. Most bilingual
family believe that English is the gateway to a better life.
The grandparent of Bianca Young ( band 6, extract 4),
a South African girl enrolled her in an English-speaking
school that is an hour away instead of the nearby Afrikaan
-speaking school. South African interactions in school
demand standard English and at home with parents or with
friends they communicate in another language (mother tongue)
or a different variety of English. Bianca expresses the
feelings and values she attaches to the English language
and to Afrikaan language. She claims that when she speaks
English she feel more ‘decent’ and speaking Afrikaan she
felt like a ‘straatmeid’ (Afrikaans term for ‘street girl’).
She considered Afrikaan language as ‘low-class’. However
if she speaks English with her friends who speak the
Afrikaan language she would feel so different and not be
able to blend in, so she speaks Afrikaan with them.
Moreover,by explaining that she actually speak English at
home and that she was ‘brought up in an English home’ she
is making a statement that her cultural identity is
associated with the English culture instead of with the
Afrikaan culture.
There are constantly social judgements of what is beautiful,
acceptable or appropriate in our language. Some speakers
of high social status denounce and belittle the speech of
the socially inferior whereas some English varieties are
socially suitable. In social networking, children may code
-switch to mark their identity or upgrade their social
status or to be received in a group or to ascertain intimacy
within their speech community. Language specify a person’s
social class and place of origin. The noteworthy thing about
code-switching is it allows children to identify speakers as
a member of a particular social class which determines their
status.
Besides awareness of code-switching children are also
sensitive to gender differences in their speech pattern and
roles. Children are been explicitly shown the stereotypes and
by judging adults they get their notion of femininity and
masculinity. They observe different behaviour and social
expectations and see how they fit into society through their
use of English. For example, women are more likely to say
adorable and men are more likely to say damn it and that
women are not meant to swear and are more likely to please.
Macaulay (1978) found that as children gets older they speak
more closely like their peers according to the social group
they belong to. Girls tends to sound more middle-class and
use more standard English and have more social conformity
than boys in formal context. In contrast, boys sounded more
working class, and they use more vernacular English to sound
more tough, more masculine and display self-assertiveness.
In this way children learn to adopt gender roles and this
gives distinction to their personal identity.
Children are constantly shown the stereotypical
linguistic behaviour of different social groups hence
children has models to either aspire or not to be inspire
to. Their identity take shape gradually as they consciously
orunconsciously emulate the speech of those social groups
they want to be associated with, or whenever they want to
impress and when they want to get things done. These acts of
social positioning are developed through accent,vocabulary,
grammar of the English language. For example:English variants:
they like the baby; look at their hats Patois variant:
dem like di baby; look at dem hat.
(Edwards, 1986, p 80).
Besides a distinct patois accent we can see the vocabulary
and grammar above have been changed from English to patois
(British Black English) – them to ‘dem’, the to ‘di’ and
notice there is no ‘s’ plural form in hats. Young speakers
learn to vary their speech upon the person they are speaking
to, the context of the setting or the interaction
(formal/casual) and according to the topic being discussed
(serious/casual). Standard English are used for formal,
serious setting or ‘high-status’ interaction whereas
vernacular patois are used in casual situations.
An interesting example Of Mlungisi C. Mabele on his
linguistic Identity gives us a glimpse of life in South
Africa. His parents send him to a white school for an
exclusive education. He grew up with the Zulu language.
Zulu was the only world he knew up to grade 3. In school
the teachers used the Zulu language, he went to Zulu
speaking church and all his friends speak Zulu. His
identity at that point was a ‘parent-honouring,
chore-burdened and Zulu-speaking’ African boy. This was
all he knew, as he had nothing to compare his identity to,
since everyone around him is the same.
His move to a white school was a sharp contrast and his
identity was endowed on him by his new language, English.
It allowed him to see himself in a different context.
According to him Black education was nothing to take pride
in and English was the language of success. He saw his mother
tongue as less important and felt that Zulu was wrong and
inadequate. When he began to express himself in English, it
opened new doors of opportunity for him- new friends; his
first best friend was white. Instead of watching only Zulu
cartoons on TV he began to watch English programs on TV,
it still gave him a new perspective of life
- the white world.
English is a language of empowerment, understanding what
English could do for him in the world of education, it
motivated him to favour it. Language moves the hearts of
people and when a foreigner acquire the language of another country/society, it will enable him to manipulate through
all levels of that society. When his family moved into a
white neighbourhood, he was able to exercise his new English
identity in their social groups and found himself moving away
from his Zulu identity. There were also great changes in his
cultural behaviour. In Zulu culture it is impolite to look at
an adult directly in the eyes or whistle in someone’s home
or wear a hat inside someone’s home, but he kept doing these
things more because it fit in with his new English identity.
Children are constantly learning to emulate the speech of
those social groups they want to belong to. Mixed messages
of different identities and different social meanings are
expressed through different English varieties. Children are
increasingly aware of these subtle language variation and
they use these different varieties to express their distinct
identities as member of social/cultural groups and as
individual. Through code-switching they learn to negotiate
contexts, relationships moment by moment and thus
communicate aspects of their identities. Children need a
sense of belonging to a culture and the English language
offers countless opportunities for achieving and asserting
their identities.
(2014words)
Bibliography:
Graddol D. and Leith D. and Swann J. (2002), English history,
diversity and change, The open university, London, Routledge.
Mercer N., and Swann J. (2002), Learning English: development
and diversity, The Open University, London, Routledge.
Miell D. and Phoenix A. and Thomas K. (2002),Mapping psychology 1,
The Open University, UK, The Bath Press.
Audio cassette 5, Band 5, Learning English: development and
diversity, The open University.
Audio cassette 5, Band 6, Learning English: development
and diversity, The Open University.
http://www.cal.org/resources/digest/ncrcds04.html
http://www.naldic.org.uk/docs/BRB5.doc
http://wrt-intertext.syr.edu/XI/linguistic.html
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