Cultural Fluency: Language

"In this short film, Who Speaks Wukchumni?, we meet a Native American woman named Marie Wilcox, who is the last fluent speaker of Wukchumni, and the dictionary she created."

Podcast discussion of accents (everyone has one) and how they affect our lives and careers.

"Half the countries of the world have an official language. The United States isn't one of them. The debate over whether we need an official tongue dates back at least to the 1750s."

Using data from the 2012 American Community Survey (ACS), this report examines English use at home and English-speaking ability among the foreign born, focusing on the relationships between English-speaking ability and place of birth, level of education, and years spent living in the United States.

"English is the language spoken by most people in the United States. The official language of many states is English ( Schildkraut, Deborah, 2001, “Official-English and the States: Influences on Declaring English the Official Language in the United States,” Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 2: pp. 445–457.) and it is the language used in nearly all governmental functions. Despite this predominance, many people in the United States speak languages other than English, and there has long been an interest in these groups and in how well they are able to participate in civic life and interact with the English-speaking majority. Beginning in 1890, the U.S. Census Bureau started inquiring about the languages that people spoke...."

"Even setting aside the languages of Native Americans in the area, Spanish was spoken in Texas for nearly a century before English was. With the opening up of Texas to Anglo settlement in the 1820s, however, English quickly became as widely used as Spanish, although bilingualism was not uncommon in early Texas."

"Texas German, once the primary tongue of nearly 100,000 Texans, is on the verge of dying out. The Texas German dialect is quite different from those spoken in Germany, having evolved far from its native soil for more than a century and a half. As its name suggests, it is spoken in no other part of the world."

"Highlights the efforts of Julie Washington to change the way of teaching African-American English. Topics discussed include use of Ebonics as a tool for reading instruction by the school board of Oakland, California...."

Excerpted from J. L. Dillard, Black English: Its History and Usage in the United States
(New York: Random House, 1972), pp.73-138.

"In this article, we focus on instructional support for 91 students who speak African American Vernacular English and who are at high risk for not passing the required state exams. We profile the instruction that was provided and the results from that instruction, providing examples of how students' language was scaffolded such that they could code switch between test language (standard academic English) and the languages of their homes."

The article reports on the growth of dual-language programs across the nation: "39 states and Washington, D.C., offered dual-language education during the 2012-13 school year, with Spanish and Chinese programs cited as the most common. The 'Americanization Movement' in the early 1900s and World War I sparked widespread opinion that foreign language instruction was a 'threat to the integrity and the unity of U.S. society,' said Nelson Flores, an assistant professor in the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education.
Overall, the issue is 'less overtly political' now, Flores said. Whereas in the Civil Rights Era, bilingual education was often framed as a political struggle for the Latino community, 'now it’s … most often framed as something that’s good for all children—something that can help people get jobs as part of the global economy.'”

The findings of an exploratory survey related to students' perceptions of factors, including accent and pronunciation, influencing their learning. Includes suggestions for faculty and students for better teaching/learning.

"More than a quarter of counties in the United States have at least one in 10 households where English is not the language spoken at home." Most common languages: Spanish, Native American languages, German, French, Pacific Island languages, and others. "English is spoken in at least 90 percent of homes in 2,347 counties."

"Of the many indignities international students endure, accent discrimination may be the most mortifying, in part because it is still widely accepted in our society. Like skin color or attire, accent is a characteristic we routinely use to identify someone as unfamiliar or foreign. But while most people understand that discrimination based on visual appearance is wrong, bias against foreign speech patterns is not universally recognized as a form of prejudice."

“'We have entire populations showing up with languages that we have not seen in the United States before,' said Odilia Romero, a Zapotec interpreter who has been an activist with the Binational Front of Indigenous Organizations for the last 20 years."

"Over the last few years, the use of the identifier “Latinx” (pronounced “Latin-ex”), born out of a collective aim to move beyond the masculine-centric “Latino” and the gender inclusive but binary embedded “Latin@,” has received increasing attention and usage in popular to scholarly spheres."

"The article discusses Latinx, a gender-neutral alternative to the labels Latino and Latina. Emphasis is given to topics such as the origins of the term in feminism, its affiliation with the LGBT community, and the history of political labels for Americans with Latin American or Spanish roots including Hispanic."

Includes chart: Top 10 languages other than English spoken in Texas households.

"The Dialect Survey uses a series of questions, including rhyming word pairs and vocabulary words, to explore words and sounds in the English language."

"The MLA Language Map is intended for use by students, teachers, and anyone interested in learning about the linguistic and cultural composition of the United States. The MLA Language Map uses data from the US Census 2000 to display the locations and numbers of speakers of thirty languages and three groups of less commonly spoken languages in the United States."

"Updated May 6, 2019

As the country's most diverse and largest public four-year institution of higher learning, the California State University has a particular obligation in setting the example for inclusiveness."

This stylebook "is intended to complement the stylebooks of individual publications, as well as the Associated Press stylebook, the leading stylebook in U.S. newsrooms.
It reflects NLGJA’s mission to promote fair, accurate and inclusive coverage of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people, and includes words and phrases that have come into recent usage, in addition to earlier entries."
Includes Spanish-language stylebook supplement on LGBTQ terminology, El Manual de Estilo Sobre La Comunidad Lesbiana, Gay, Bisexual y Transgénero

Includes links to guides such as the Disability Language Style Guide, Disability Language Style Guide, National Association of Black Journalists Style Guide, Asian American Journalists Association Handbook, Native American Journalists Association Reporter’s Indigenous Terminology Guide, Religion Newswriters Association’s Religion Stylebook, the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association Style Guide, and the GLAAD Media Reference Guide.

"The United States is now the world’s second largest Spanish-speaking country after Mexico, according to a new study published by the prestigious Instituto Cervantes."

Abstract:
"The article focuses on the offshore recruitment approach in response to shortage of bilingual K-12 teachers in the U.S. Topics discussed include the increase in population of native Spanish speakers in Texas, recruitment of teachers from Spain and Puerto Rico, and adjustment and challenges encountered by teachers."