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I believe in education as a means of empowerment, but I wonder about those who cannot and do not have realistic access to education; how does education preserve or ignore their interests, particularly, what role does Standard English (SE) play? If SE exists and is taught to unite English language users, why do many feel oppressed by it? This question addresses both SE users and non-SE users. The oppression of non-SE users is obvious: SE dilutes their culture by moralizing their language as inferior, it distances them from communicating with others in their culture, and SE acquisition is difficult. The oppression of SE upon SE users is less obvious (possibly because of their fluency with SE): only knowing SE could limit their cultural awareness and their ability to communicate with other language users.
Professor of education, Joel Spring, provides a brief account of the history of English in America, using the term “linguistic genocide” to describe the methods Europeans used to destroy other cultures and assimilate them in the American English culture. English Professor, Gerald Delahunty, continues the history of English, citing Samuel Johnson’s dictionary in 1755 as an attempt to “fix”, or stop the evolution of the English language. Culture is still somewhat preserved in the form of non-standard dialects of English, and the language inevitably continues to evolve.
Why and how did SE emerge? A student of Bob Fecho observes that “white people created SE” not for everyone, but for white people (Fecho 384). Professor Kenneth Lindbloom makes a similar observation, using the beliefs of a 19th century English Professor who concludes that wealthier students have better English than poorer students, blaming the “moralizing” of SE above non-standard forms, citing the terminology of “good” and “bad” English, as well as mentioning a student “ashamed of…her immigrant grandparents” non-standard English (Lindbloom 2). Both Fecho and Lindbloom identify a power dynamic, race and class, that exists between SE and non-standard English.
Evidence of a more inclusive form of English is found among two educators. Professor Deborah Vriend Van Duin manages to encorporate non-standard dialects in her classroom of SE users; the reactions vary. Some of her students are able to “identify grammatical patterns” in the dialects, while a frustrated student translates the non-standard dialects in a more readable SE (Duin 3). ELL paraeducator Trudie McEvoy encorporates her students’ native language, Spanish, into their assimilation of English – a method that contradicts the school’s “English only” ELL policy.