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Originally Posted by Savage Clone
OK, first off, I am glad this is a fun discussion and not a bitter argument, because we're all friends.
Secondly, !@#$%!, I had no idea you were not a native English speaker. Awesome. You're one of the best writers on this board!
I actually have no problem with people teaching in whatever dialect dominates the region the students and teachers live in, but a standardized form of "common English" needs to be learned as well. That way we can all understand each other.
Dialects proved problematic for certain jobs, like ambulance drivers communicating with dispatchers, etc. There is a particular standard of speech that is followed as radio protocol in jobs like that. I don't see how learning "standard english" for writing, for news broadcasts, etc is difficult or problematic.
Teaching in a language that gives people the most education they can absorb is important, but we all live in the same country and it's important to have a universal standard so we can communicate effectively between regions and subcultures.
If you grow up speaking an English dialect in an English speaking country, standard English is hardly a "challenge" to learn to use when you need to use it.
That's all I'm saying.
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This is fun, too much actually. I'm neglecting obligations, I have to get my ass off this board.
I agree with Savage Clone in that in order for American society to function effectively and fluidly, standards need to be adopted. That's just the way it is, and that is a global universality. I might like to speak Spanish (which I do very poorly, if at all really) or pig Latin, but I recognize that in order to operate within any society, I have to conform to its adopted standard of communication in order to be at all functional.
!@#$%!, you may see such enforcement of standardization as a white political agenda. I on the other hand see the resistance to the standard as a reactionary black political agenda.
These language differences have NOTHING to do with race. It's simple practicality. The implementation of a communication standard isn't an attempt to rob anyone of his ethnic identity; I could claim that not being allowed to use Chicago slang in a thesis is discriminatory - why should I have to abandon my cultural roots to conform to a standard of academia? The standard exists to broaden the lines of communication amongst a diverse population. If anything, it is an attempt to narrow cultural gaps rather than widen them. The standard happens to be based upon Anglo English, because for one thing, it's got to be based on something, doesn't it? How the hell else could it exist? And it's based on Anglo English simply because, historically (at least after colonization), THAT IS THE PREVALENT LANGUAGE IN THIS COUNTRY. It would be positively MORONIC to base the standard on a minority language.
But we're all PC and pansy-assed and modern and sensitive these days, so if something popular or mainstream or 'standard' can be attributed to the white majority, well, it must be racist, musn't it?
"White" standard English isn't racist. It's simple logic, convenience, and effectiveness. Claiming that adopting such a standard is the manifestation of a white political agenda is the equivalent of me going to Poland and bitching about not being able to understand anyone.
Like it or not, that's just the way it is. Life's a bitch.