Miami University

Language: it’s more than just a tool for verbal communication. It is also a marker of social and economic status, and when politically advantageous, language can be put to some sinister uses. This much is evident by the rise of the English-only movement in the United States.

Language prejudice, or basing ideas about a person based on the way that they speak, is one of the most common, most accepted form of prejudice used in the U.S. today. We see it in the movies, on the TV, on billboards and sometimes even in the news: stereotyping individuals because of a “slow” southern drawl or a “harsh” Brooklyn accent. People are stereotyped because of the image that the media conveys to the public about people who use different ways of speaking.

It is an ongoing reality that non-native speakers of English receive unfair treatment in this country because of the way talk. Language-based discrimination is especially prevalent in the workplace. In most cases, the victims of such prejudice are not randomly selected, but, rather, come from groups with high immigration rates who are seen as a threat to the white racial majority and a burden to the economy.

In a national speech, Mexican President Felipe Calderon said, in rough translation, “Where there is a Mexican, it is Mexico.” Much of the rest of his speech was critical of the ‘securing’ of the border that is such a huge concern in American politics. International politics aside, the issue of cross-border culture raises some interesting issues that manifest themselves rather strangely in America.

While election primary season may be heating up, while the Bush Administration's power grab political tactics seems to be failing, and while my good friend Paul Wolfowitz has been forced to depart from the World Bank, international events over this summer have created a slightly more important situation than the outcome of the Information Age's YouTube presidential candidate debate. This summer of international politics has culminated in radically shifting power arrangements, institutional and leadership transformations and dangerously misunderstood power positioning.

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.

Social injustice is a concept relating to the perceived unfairness of a society. In the United States, there are many instances of social injustice towards American citizens. Social inequality is seen in our everyday lives, and linguistic injustice is often the most overlooked. In particular, the differences in English spoken throughout the United States, through different dialects or varieties, are strong examples of social injustices towards the individuals speaking anything but the accepted forms of Standard American English.

On Sept. 11, 2001 U.S. history books needed a new chapter. Facts were collected, figures double-checked, all in the hope that future generations would know exactly what happened the day terrorists attacked the United States.