Dialectical Diversity
From the class
presentations on the four English dialects, I find a common thread connecting teaching
and understanding language to be learning how to listen to, read and write each
dialect. Our class discussions about
trying not to teach in such a way that makes students feel inferior due to
their dialect is magnified when thinking that one of our goals will be to have
each of them writing in SAE, regardless of their dialect.
From my own
research on Indian English, I found it extremely difficult to know how to say
many of the words that I was reading. By
listening to video and audio clips, I was able to get a much better
understanding of how the language sounds.
This leads me to appreciate efforts in the field of linguistics of
creating a phonetic alphabet. By not
knowing how to pronounce many of the Hindi words written in English, I learned
that I have some cultural biases which affect the way in which I read
English. Furthermore, I can see how the
English language is very complex due to the different sounds letters, and
combinations of letters make. For
example, knowing the difference between “th” in words like “there” and “with,”
what sound does “ph” make, what’s the difference between “read” in the
statements “I read” and “she read,” all point to the intricacies of trying to
learn and teach SAE. Plus, when studying
Indian English there is the spelling differences between British English and
American English: realise versus realize, traveling versus travelling,
etc. These examples plus the examples
presented by the other groups make the idea of standardizing written language
very appealing. Yet the differences
between written languages are inseparable from the identity of the people
writing and speaking them, so it may be best to be able to learn how to read
phonetic translations and thus keep the dialectical diversity intact.
Our
classroom discussions and presentations have shown me how part of our jobs as English
teachers is to always remember that we are teaching language, and with that it
is important to discuss with our students the diversity of all languages and
especially the diversity within the English language. In order to accomplish this it will be
important to provide both written and audio examples. Incorporating a project on dialectical
differences (like the one we just did) will help prepare our students to have a
better grasp of their dialect and an appreciation of others’ dialects.
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