In the world of linguistics, it is well known that all languages are created equal – or should I say "equally"? Yet, the general population has other ideas. Perhaps this stems from the fact that language is such a key tool for expressing identity, which is largely co-constructed with others and expressed in groups. Or perhaps it stems from ideology, which reflects our values and our identity. Language ideologies, in particular, describe sets of beliefs that are shared about the nature and the use of language; in a broad sense, any ideology could be considered a language ideology because language is used to express it. And because linguistic styles emerge in social constructs, it is critical to examine both the styles themselves and the constructs with which they are associated.
Identity is complex and multifaceted, allying us with and distancing us from certain groups; it is what constitutes us as people, both as individuals and as members of various social groups. Language, however, is a double-edged sword; it helps us both to construct our own identities and to judge other people based on the ideologies that we associate with their particular type of speech. And while federal discrimination laws make it illegal for employers to discriminate against job applicants and employees based on age, disability, race, religion, national origin, or gender, to date, no such legislation has been passed to explicitly prevent language discrimination from being added to the list.
Because language is so inextricably linked to various components that contribute to who we are, certain speech styles have come to be associated with particular tropes or stereotypes of people. Linguistic factors such as pronunciation, vocabulary, and syntactic rules, as well as suprasegmental features such as stress and pitch, all serve to distinguish different varieties of speech. Yet the stigmas attached to certain varieties of English – African American (Vernacular) English, Chicano English, and Appalachian English, just to name a few – have enormous social implications for people who speak those dialects or any other that is not considered “mainstream” or “standard”. Discrimination based on language is unfortunately prevalent and is perhaps less acknowledged than it should be. In order for the problem to be addressed, though, some light must be shed on some of the general misconceptions about various dialects.
A quip well known among linguists states that a language is a dialect that has an army and a navy, and this raises a valid point. Dialects – like languages themselves – are all rule-governed, equally complex, and equally capable of expressing any thought or idea; they are forms of a language that are mutually intelligible but that differ in systematic ways. From a linguistic perspective, one variety is not better, worse, purer, or more degraded than any other is, nor is it more or less logical or expressive; it is simply different. When people are separated geographically and socially, language diversity develops, so any judgments as to the superiority or the inferiority of a particular dialect or language are social judgments and have no linguistic or scientific basis.
The dominant dialect in a particular society is often called the standard dialect because of the prestige associated with its speakers. In the United States, people refer to Standard American English (SAE) as the mainstream variety, but it is an idealization based on ideology. People typically associate this dialect with speakers who are white, middle-class, educated, and – between the two genders – male. Yet, numerous speakers of what would be called SAE do not fit into most – if any – of those presumed categories. In reality, SAE itself is not precisely defined; as a result, it is impossible to say that anyone definitively speaks it, though it is undoubtedly a dialect that many Americans nearly speak. Even though a majority of people in the United States may speak some form of English that is similar to SAE, that does not mean that all other varieties of English are “wrong”, “degraded”, “incomplete”, or any other negative (or positive, for that matter) trait. By presuming that speakers of SAE are white, middle-class, and educated, that automatically associates non-white, working class, and uneducated with all other dialects. When people discriminate against others because of their speech variety, they are both affirming their belief in the ideology associated with that type of speech and perpetuating that ideology.
Simply put, language discrimination is wrong because there is no linguistic basis for such a distinction to be made among dialects; one variety cannot be linguistically better or worse than any other. The social implications of language discrimination are as potentially damaging as other officially recognized types of discrimination, such as discrimination based on age, gender, disability, race, religion, or national origin. Dispelling some of the common misconceptions about language and dialects in general is the first step toward raising awareness about the issue of language discrimination. Encouraging people to think about and be more aware of what contributes to the judgments and assessments that they make is an imperative part of working toward reducing the potential repercussions of language discrimination.