DuBord CSEM Fall 2010

“You Are What You Speak”

CSEM 1, Section 21

Monday/Friday 12-12:50

Drew University - Fall 2010

 

Professor: Elise DuBord

Office: Brothers College 212

Office Phone: 973-408-3615

E-mail: edubord@drew.edu

Office Hours: Tuesday 11-12:30, Thursday 9-10:30, or by appointment

 

Course Description:

What is the role of language in defining membership in a society? Do you need to speak English to be an American? In this course, students will explore the intersection between language and society by examining how the language(s) we speak and how we speak them influence our place in society. We will discuss several controversial language issues in the United States, such as our lack of an official national language, the English Only movement, bilingual education, and the growth of Spanish throughout the country. We will also explore how language varieties such as Chicano English, African American Vernacular English (i.e. Ebonics), or Valley Girl English mark their speakers as being members of a particular social group. 

 

College Seminar Learning Objectives
Upon completion of the College Seminar, students will be able to:

• Enter into and participate in a scholarly conversation both orally and in writing;
• Comprehend, evaluate and analyze materials and texts [written, aural, visual numeric] as well as think synthetically and creatively about them;
• Evaluate and explain the appropriate use of different kinds of information from a variety of academic and non-academic sources
• Engage in the topic of language, politics, and identity through discussion and writing in order to reflect on the linguistic experiences of various social groups.
• Reflect on your own language heritage and how it has shaped you as an individual and as a part of broader society.

 

Academic Accommodations
Should you require academic accommodations, you must file a request with the Office of Educational Affairs (BC 114, extension 3327). It is your responsibility to self-identify with the Office of Educational Affairs and to provide me with the appropriate documentation from that office at least one week prior to any request for specific course accommodations.  There are no retroactive accommodations.

 

Academic Integrity
All work in the College Seminar must adhere to the College Standards on Academic Integrity. You must do your own work. You must cite sources appropriately in all papers and presentations. You must acknowledge the contribution of other students to your work. Any student who is in violation of this policy will be referred to the Dean’s Office for further action. The policy can be found at: http://www.depts.drew.edu/composition/Academic_Honesty.htm]
Grading Policy
The College Seminar is a collective exploration of a topic.  Its success depends on the thorough preparation and participation of each of its members.  Missing class means depriving yourself of the insights you will gain through discussion and depriving others in the room of your contributions.  Therefore students are expected to be present at each meeting of the seminar and prepared to participate fully in the conversation.  The College Seminar will be graded as follows:

Attendance and Participation  50% 
Students will not be penalized for absences covered by a Drew Policy (Religious Observance, Athletics, Serious Illness, Death in the Family) (e.g. Athletes are allowed a maximum of two absences, i.e. x/24 rather than x/26). However, it is possible for a student to miss so many classes that they cannot be considered to have taken the class and will not earn credit for it. Participation will be evaluated on the basis of a rubric.

Each student will assign themselves a grade at the end of each class period. The professor will assign each student a participation grade on a scale from 0-10, taking your self-evaluation into consideration. Your active participation is expected during every class session and will be evaluated each day based on your participation, preparation, and respect for others in the classes. Student will receive a “0” for each day absent.

 

Course Assignments 50% (NOTE:  No extra credit will be offered in this class.)

 

Portfolio 40% (Due Friday, December 3)

Formal writing (20%)

• You will complete short Writing to Learn (W2L) exercises in response to readings before you come to class most days. These activities may include: answer a questions posed by the professor, write a thesis statement, write discussion questions, write a letter to the editor, write an abstract summary of a reading, etc. Writing to learn exercises are not counted if you are not in class; missed in-class writing assignments or oral presentations or activities cannot be made up.  At the semester you will select 4 W2L assignments and revise them until they are “outstanding.”  Your goal is to demonstrate critical and creative engagement with the texts including close reading and analytical skill. Include both the original copy and the revised copy.
• A final draft of your written reaction to participating in the Linguistic Landscape project.
• Include a writing assignment you did for you College Writing class that drew on materials from this seminar. This will not be graded.
  

Reflection and self-assessment (5%)

• Introduction: 1-2 page reflection on the topic of the seminar and the writing in your portfolio.
• Self-evaluation: 1-2 page reflection on your general participation in this class and in your first semester at Drew. The purpose of this document is to help you think about what you did well, what you need to work on, what you would like to try to do in the future, and what you might try to avoid.
  

Writing to Learn assignments (15%)

• This includes completing W2L assignments on time, demonstrating you have done the reading and that you have reflected on it.
• W2L assignments will be graded as √+,√, √-, 0.
  

Linguistic Landscape group project (10%)

• You will be divided in groups and will visit a community in the surrounding community in New Jersey/New York with the other members of your group. You will document the linguistic landscape of this community through photos and/or video.
• You will do a group presentation in class on Monday, November 8 about your findings.
• A final draft of your written reaction to participating in the Linguistic Landscape project. (Must be included in Writing Portfolio)
  

DoNUt and Library Training.  This seminar is designed with the assumption that you will have completed both the orientation to the Drew Computing environment (DoNUT) and the orientation to basic use of the Drew Library, both of which are a part of the Common Hour, within the first four weeks of the semester.

 

Grade Distribution

A         93-100                         C+       77-79

A-        90-92                           C         73-76

B+       87-89                           C-        70-72

B         83-86                           D+       67-69

B-        80-82                           D         63-66

                                                D-        60-62

                                                U         0-59

 

Course Policies

• Varsity athletes are allowed to miss two classes for regular season games. Athletic practices do not constitute a valid excuse for missing class or an exam. You will not be allowed to turn in assignments after the due date. You must notify me ahead of time of absences for athletic events.
• If you will miss class for religious observation, you must notify me ahead of time.
• If you come late or leave early you will lose 50% off your daily participation grade.
• Cell phones must be turned OFF during class. If you cell phone rings or you are reading or sending a text message, you will receive a “0” for participation that day.
• Use of laptops is prohibited during class unless otherwise indicated. If you are using your laptop during class to check e-mail, Facebook, surf the internet, etc. you will receive a “0” for participation that day.
• Absolutely no late work will be accepted. If you know that you will miss class, talk to me ahead of time so that you will not miss any assignments.
• Do not wait until the end of the semester if you are having problems in the class. See me!
  

 

Daily Course Schedule

NOTE: This is a tentative schedule for the semester. Daily written assignments will be regularly posted on Moddle. Assignments and due dates are subject to change. It is your responsibility to regularly check the Moodle page for this class in the event of any changes I might make.

 

It is the students’ responsibility to find readings that are available on-line through the Drew library webpage. You will learn how to do this in class. All readings that are not available electronically will be posted as .pdf files on the Moodle site for this course. 

 

Topic 1- Language policy in the U.S. / Bilingual education

Week 1

August 30  - First day of class

September 3

Sandra Del Valle: “A History of Language Rights: Between Tolerance and Hostility” (Intro, Language Rights, Ohio, Penn, California, New Mexico) Language Rights and Law in the United States: Finding our Voices. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2003, p. 9-17.

Week 2

September 6 – Labor Day (no class)

September 10

Ana Celia Zentella “Language policy/Planning and the U.S. Colonialism: The Puerto Rican Thorn in English-Only’s side” Edited by Thom Huebner and Kathryn A Davis. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing p. 155-164

Week 3

September 13

Friederike Baer “Speaking American” American History. August 2007 p. 60-64.

September 17

Eduardo Hernández-Chávez. “Language policy in the United States: A history of cultural genocide” in Skutnabb-Gangas, Tove and Robert Phillipson. Linguistic Human Rights. Berlin: Monton de Gruyter. 1995, p. 141-158

 

Week 4

September 20

María B. Martin. “Language Policy and the Meskwaki Schooling Experience, 1857-2002” American Educational History Journal, 30, 2003, p. 99-106.

September 24

Schildkraut, Deborah J. “Official-English and the States: Influences on Declaring English the Official Language in the United States.” Political Research Quarterly 54:2 (2001) 445-457. 2001

 

Week 5

September 27

Explore the website for U.S. English: http://www.us-english.org/

Watch the debate about Official English language policy from News Hour with the president of U.S. English Mauro Mujica and linguist Carmen Fought.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/social_issues/jan-june06/english_05-23.html (click on streaming video)

October 1

Topic 2 – Standard English, Language Ideologies, Language Discrimination

Rosina Lippi-Green. “The Standard Language Myth” English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge, 1997, p. 54-62.

“American Accents”

Week 6

October 4

John R. Rickford “Suite for Ebony and Phonics” Originally published in Discover magazine in Dec. 1997. Accessed at: http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers/SuiteForEbonyAndPhonics.html

October 8

Glenn A. Martinez. “Language Ideologies” Mexican Americans and Language: Del dicho al hecho. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. p. 3-19.

Week 7

October 11

Margalit Fox “The way we live now: On language; Dialect” New York Times. Sept. 12, 1999. Accessed at: http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/12/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-9-12-99-on-language-dialects.html?scp=8&sq=&pagewanted=all

Miriam Jordan “Arizona Grades Teachers on Fluency” The Wall Street Journal. April 30, 2010. Accessed at:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575213883276427528.html?KEYWORDS=arizona+grades+teachers+on+fluency

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703572504575213883276427528.html?KEYWORDS=arizona+grades+teachers+on+fluency

Amy Fountain, Thomas Bever and Michael Hammond. Barring teachers with ‘accents' from teaching English is misguided" Arizona Daily Star July 13, 2010, Accessed at: http://azstarnet.com/news/opinion/article_bfb4230b-43b0-5e92-975a-580456386279.html

October 15

Rosina Lippi-Green. “Teaching children how to discriminate: What we learn from the Big Bad Wolf.” English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and discrimination in the United States. London: Routledge, 1997, p. 79-103.

Yvonne Villarreal “Dora: The pint-sized superstar” Los Angeles Times August 7, 2010 Accessed at: http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/la-ca-dora-20100808,0,7198597.story

 

Week 8

October 18 – Reading Days (no class)

Wednesday, October 20 – Monday classes meet

Topic 3 – The status of languages other than English in the United States

Eliane Rubinstein-Avila. Brazilian Portuguese in Massachusetts’s Linguistic Landscape: A Prevalent yet Understudied Phenomenon. Hispania 88.4 (2005) 873-888.

October 22

Jia Jackie Lou “Chinese on the Side: The Marginalization of Chinese in the Linguistic and Social Landscapes of Chinatown in Washington, DC” Elana Shohamy, Eliezer Ben-Rafael and Monica Barni (eds.) Linguistic Landscapes in the City Brisol UK: Mulilingual Matters, 2010, p. 96-113.

Week 9

October 25

Background research for Linguistic Landscape Project

October 29

Ningsheng Xia “Maintenance of the Chinese Language in the United States” Bilingual Review/La Revista Bilingüe 17.3 (1992) 195-209.

Yuliya Chernova “Chinese on Menu for Elementary Kids” The Wall Street Journal September 27, 2010. Accessed at: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704082104575516082963460938.html?KEYWORDS=chinese+on+menu+for+elementary+kids

Week 10

Nov. 1

Aleya Rouchdy “Language Conflict and Identity: Arabic in the American Diaspora” Studies in Linguistic Sciences 31.1 (2001) 77-93.

Note: You can skip the section on “Borrowings and Interference” p. 81-85.

Tanveer Ali. “Dearborn schools urged to ban Arabic” The Detroit News January 15, 2009.

Accessed at: http://detnews.com/article/20090115/SCHOOLS/901150395/Dearborn-schools-urged-to-ban-Arabic

Nov. 5

Carole M. Berotte Joseph “Haitians in the U.S.: Language, Politics & Education” Arthur K. Spears and Carole M. Berotte Joseph (eds.) The Haitian Creole Language: History, Structure, Use, and Education. Landham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010.

 

 

Week 11

Nov. 8

            Presentation of Linguistic Landscape projects in class

Nov. 12

Topic 4 – Language and Identity 

Carmen Fought “Language and the construction of Ethnic Identity” Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. P. 19-33.

 

Week 12

Nov. 15

Sonja L. Lanehart “African American Language” Handbook of language and ethnic identity: Disciplinary and regional perspectives. Vol 1. Joshua A Fishman and Ofelia García (eds.) Oxford: Oxford UP. 2010. p. 340-352

Nov. 19

Carmen Fought “Are White people ethnic?: Whiteness, dominance, and ethnicity” Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006 112-131.

Note: Read first part of chapter p. 112-121(Intro, Social Correlates of Being White, Linguistic Correlates of Being White, Consequences of Sounding White)

 

Week 13

Nov. 22

Carmen Fought “Are White people ethnic?: Whiteness, dominance, and ethnicity” Language and Ethnicity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006 121-131.

Note: Read second part of chapter p.121-131(Humor and the Portrayal of Whiteness)

Nov. 26 – Thanksgiving break (no class)

Week 14

Nov. 29

Gloria Anzaldúa “How to tame a wild Tongue” Borderlands/La Frontera: The new Mestiza San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books. P. 75-86.

Dec. 3 – Last day of College Seminar

Reading: TBA

• Final Portfolio due in class
  
  
  
  

Name:___________________________

Daily Participation – College Seminar “You are what you speak” – Fall 2010

Background Research for Linguistic Landscape Project

Complete the three research components and the W2L for Monday, October 25.

 

1. Consult American Factfinder (factfinder.census.gov) and look at the Fact Sheets for the community you are going to visit. The sheets include number and percent of specific races, foreign born, speaking language other than English at home, etc.  (For smaller divisions such as towns - like Madison - the data is drawn from the 2000 census.  For counties, it's coming from the 2006-2008 community survey estimates.) Look at the details page for the Social Characteristics (immigration, country of origin, language, education, etc) and the Demographic Characteristics (ethnicity/race, etc).
   
2. Look for an article in Academic Search Premier in a popular media publication (in a newspaper or news magazine like Time or Newsweek) to find out more about the language and/or ethnolinguistic group you will be observing in the place you will visit. Here’s how to find the Academic Search Premier on the Library’s webpage:
   

• www.drew.edu/home
• Library
• Research Resources
• Resources by Title
• Academic Search Premier
  

Possible search terms: the name of the language, the ethnolinguistic group, neighborhood, city, county or state, etc. You will get both academic articles and popular news media results in your search, but you can stick to reading something from the popular media about the language or ethnolinguistic group.

1. Surf the web and look for information on a business or organization (restaurant, school, community center, social services, non-profit organizations, supermarket, etc.) that serves the ethnolinguistic group you are researching. What kind of business or organization is it? How do they serve the community? Does their website have information in more than one language?
   

W2L: Write a summary of your findings in preparation for your visit to this community. What is the ethnolinguistic composition of the community? What is the history of this particular group in the community? Where might you see visual representations of the language? Where might you hear the language?

 

 

Linguistic Landscape Project – Community Visit

What to do when your group visits the community:

 

• Walk around. You can’t do this project from the seat of a car! Get a feel for the community by walking through its streets. What are the businesses you see? Who are the people? What languages do you hear? What kinds of food do you smell coming out of restaurants?
• Explore. Go into local businesses or organizations. Walk into a restaurant and look at the menu (or take a take-out menu with you), wonder around a grocery store o bodega, visit a community center, church, or temple, etc. Listen to what you hear, observer the physical presence of the language and ethnolinguistic group you are observing. Also make note of the people that are NOT members of the ethnolinguistic group you are observing that you see in the community.
• Ask questions. Talk to shop owners, store clerks, people in parks, street vendors, etc. about the history of the community and the ethnolinguistic vitality of the language.
• Take pictures. Make sure to bring a digital camera or cell phone to take pictures of the community. Take pictures of the signs in front of shops, street signs, people on the street, products sold in stores, etc.
• Take notes. What did you observe and experience? What are your impressions of the community? What did you learn through conversations through members of the community? Take a notebook with you and jot down your impressions, what you learned, and if there is anything about the community you want to look up after your visit.

 

(Note to College Seminar instructors: Students chose the places they wanted to explore: Ironbound (Newark), Little Italy (NYC), Chinatown (NYC), and Speedwell Avenue (Morristown). Each group got themselves to their destinations on their own, primarily using public transportation. There was at least one native-speaker or student of the particular language analyzed in each of the groups: Portuguese, Italian, Chinese, and Spanish. Students really enjoyed doing this project.)

 

Linguistic Landscape Project – Group Presentation

• Each group will give a 10 minute presentation on Monday, November 8 in class. Each member of the group will give approximately an equal portion of the presentation. Watch the time carefully because all four groups are presenting on the same day and we won’t have extra time.
  
• Prepare a powerpoint presentation based on your visit to the community that includes images you want to share.
  
• The components of the presentation will be:
  
•  
  • Brief Historical Background of the community – this could be about the specific neighborhood you visited or a slightly more general about the particular ethnolinguistic group in the region.
    
•  
  • Presentation of your observations and the pictures you took or other images – tell us about what you saw, observed, encountered, experienced, learned, etc. What kind of status does the language have? Did you hear the language spoken? What was the context of what you heard?
    
•  
  • Analysis of what you observed – Go back and look at the article we read by Jia Jackie Lou about the linguistic landscape of Chinatown in Washington DC. Drawing on Lou’s article, analyze several images in your presentation. What kind of presence/presentation does the language have in the community? How does the language appear in relation to English?
    
•  
  • Conclusions -- What is the ethnolinguistic vitality of this community? Look at the definition of ethnolinguistic vitality in Rubinstein-Avila’s article about Brazilians in Massachusetts to inform your response. How important is the language in maintaining the local culture? Are the language and/or culture made into a commodity for outsiders (e.g. tourists) to consume? How?