THE IMPORTANCE OF RECOGNIZING LANGUAGE DIVERSITY IN THE 21st CENTURy
CONTENTS
a brief overiew the language of diversity not just one language language as an asset language as a predecessor of discrimination management a monolingual approach practical application
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WHAT WE TALK ABOUT WHEN WE TALK ABOUT DIVERSITY a brief overiew Though diversity may be thought of as an umbrella concept meant to include and welcome people who have been historically discriminated against, Dr. Phillip Joseph, author and expert on African American Literature and Vernacular Language , adds diversity largely in part began as “a way to respond to Eurocentric values, history, and demographics within Western workplaces and institutions. In recent decades, the term began to surface more and more as societies saw a continual rise in ethnic and cultural upbringings. “Although the meanings of cultural diversity predate the late 60s and 70s, the frequent use of the term ‘diversity’ begins, I think, with 1970s multiculturalism,” said Joseph in an interview discussing the Language of Diversity. Political and educational movements seeking to recognize this growth followed giving light to a new term ‘multiculturism.’ Thus, it was around the 1970s where diversity began to be used to indicate a social value—the process of bringing Black people and other People of Color (POC) into largely white spaces.1 It wasn’t long after until “diversity became too closely associated with a limited model of multiculturalism,” Joseph says. In terms of race and ethnicity, the standard categories of Black, White, Latino, Asian, and Native American became too limited with our evolving language and many possibilities of identity within any category. And when you factor in where people are from or what religion they practice, it becomes even more difficult to fall under just one. Interviewee Alicita Rodriguez points this picture out how saying how Nigerian and African American fall under Black and both Jewish and Irish fall under white. “What about people who identified as multiracial?” Joseph asks. “My sense is that ‘inclusion’ became associated with a revision within multiculturalism, one that opened up public spaces and curricula to a much wider, and much less predictable spectrum of identity formations,” he added. If anything is to be taken away here, it’s to realize formative adaptability of languages. Language can be a bridge for building relationships and a tool for creating and maintaining divisions across differences. Having a common language that opens the platform for others to enter conversation is essential for breaking down divisions and working towards achieving understanding and partnership.2 When placed in a historical context, recognizing the language origins of our given terms helps us see evolving histories. This in turn can be used to better navigate our increasingly complex societies. When it comes to diversity, addressing language and related criteria should be central in the placement of our larger conversations.
1 Rodriguez, Alicita, and University Communications. “The Language of Diversity Is, Well, Diverse.” CU Denver News, 30 June 2020. news.ucdenver.edu, https://news.ucdenver.edu/the-language-of-diversity-is-well-diverse/. 2 The Language of Diversity – Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, 06 June 2019. https://copdei.extension.org/the-language-ofdiversity/
the language of diversity “Language is always in flux” said Alicita Rodriguez from the University Communications at Colorado Denver. “E-mail becomes email, two spaces after a period becomes one space, gay meaning happy becomes gay meaning homosexual.” For many it can be difficult to keep up with the written rules, spoken dialects, and societal trends of our western culture. It’s worse when we realize language is further complicated by the fact that all words carry denotative (direct translation) and connotative (associative translation) meanings^. And still that meaning gets delivered and registered differently across every user, audience, or context. When we add issues that are especially difficult to discuss such as race, justice, and identity, it’s no wonder why these discussions often get fuzzy and silenced. As Rodriguez puts it, the language of diversity, however, is of critical importance because language itself has been determined by the people in power—and that language has been used to justify discrimination. According to Rachel E. Harding, PHD professor in CU Denver’s Department of Ethnic Studies, “The way we came into being has a long and deep and troubled history with terminology.” “Savages,” said the Europeans to the Native Americas when they colonized the United States; “Slaves,” were what plantation owners called individuals whom they bought and sold to other people; “Girls,” commonly referred to women by businessmen and congressmen in the workplace; “Disabled,” is what educators called students in the classroom. While these examples have been used (and continue) to characterize and dehumanize others, evolutionary forms of their meaning linger in the ways we communicate, coexist, and influence the society we live in today. Citizens who are “holding a vision for a truly multiracial and inclusive democracy,” as Harding writes, can educate themselves about the language of diversity, including its history and shifts. By recognizing the historical lens of language, we can begin to understand how to give control back to the individual in order to elicit change, spark movements, and empower others.
“The way we came into being has a long and deep troubled history with terminology.” – Rachel E. Harding, Department of Ethnic Studies
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SO WHAT IS LANGUAGE/ LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY? AND WHY SHOULD IT MATTER? not just one language The standard way of thinking has it that ethnicity, gender, and race are the predominant merits associated with discussions of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Where this ethos often fall short, however, is in fully realizing the impact language diversity has amongst these conversations. Language diversity is a measure of the density of language, or concentration of unique languages together. It’s estimated that there are approximately 7000 exisiting languages believed to be spoken around the world. These numbers are constantly in flux because everyday we’re learning more about the world’s languages and beyond that, the languages themselves are in flux.1 Since language is shaped by the communities they are spoken by which exist in a world that is rapidly changing, language takes on a dynamic form of living. The map on the far right portrays just how widespread and variable language diversity can be. The highest language diversity in the world can be found in Africa and Asia with more than 2,000 living languages. When we shift over to look at Europe, we see that there are only around 250 living languages and dialects spoken there. Our three largest language groups (Mandarin, Spanish, and English) are spoken by more than 1.5 billion people. Estimates state that two-thirds of the world’s population share only 12 languages. Meanwhile, other estimates state that about 96 percent of the languages are spoken by only 3 to 4 percent of the people. And fascinating enough, 2,000 of the world’s languages have less than 1,000 native speakers.2 All these unique cultural phenomena are what makes this vast form of diversity so remarkable but when compared to its other areas of diversity competencies, there is not an equal level of awareness, understanding, and skill paid attention to. For that reason, this section will cover how practical language diversity can be for you, the reader, in grasping the everyday realities that surround us.
1 “How Many Languages Are There in the World?” Ethnologue, 3 May 2016. www.ethnologue.com, https://www.ethnologue. com/guides/how-many-languages. 2 Hennig, Benjamin David. “Language Diversity.” Views of the World, 19 Nov. 2018. www.viewsoftheworld.net, http://www. viewsoftheworld.net/?p=5663.
Above: Visual Map of Language Diversity across the world.
language as an asset Cognitive scientist and professor at UCSD, Lera Boroditsky, expands our thinking of language in a TED Talk she delivered explaining how linguistic diversity reveals just how ingenious and flexible the human mind is. Giving cultural, mathematical, and everyday case by case scenarios, she highlights how language can influence and have big effects on how we perceive even the most basic perceptual decisions such as color. In her talk, Boroditsky connects these ideas to bigger implications within our daily lives giving examples of how speakers from varying backgrounds can process ideas and remember eyewitness events differently. Applying this to our largest discussions of diversity and inclusion, the greatest takeaway we can note here is just how different language abled people can think or conceptualize events not seen by another individual, group, or organization When recognizing the value this can bring in a workplace setting, we can understand why language often can serve as a point in favor of an employee or potential hiring candidate. Maybe that company you’re looking to work for after graduation might just want to hear more of what you have to say.
Above: Graphic from the the 2006 Canadian Census sampling employment rates for different language abled users.
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Above: LERA BORDITSKY at a TEDWomen event delievring her presentation “How language shapes the way we think”
language as a predecessor of discrimination From the Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, researchers Regina Kim, Loriann Roberson, Mercello Russo, and Paolo Briganti stress why global leaders and managers should embrace multilingual backgrounds more as a way to leverage diversity in our increasingly globalized society. Their article, “Language Diversity, Non-native Accents, and Their Consequences at the Workplace” addresses the type of challenges native and nonnative speakers face, how a lack of linguistic diversity can negatively affect intraorganizational dynamics, and why it has been overlooked these past few decades. Their research design and data collection approach involved inquiring 99 respondents’ experiences through semistructed interviews and open-ended survey question formats. They concluded that failure in recognizing the value this brings can create obstacles in creating an inclusive environment that performs at its best. Worse yet, Kim et al argue that it can create subtle forms of discrimination, the undervaluation of foreign employees, and fewer opportunities in careers for nonnative speakers. The block quotes on the following page give a glimpse of their findings:
“[talking with nonnative speakers] causes delays and errors many times costing more hours to fix what has been done wrong. I get frustrated” [MNS02].
“...[nonnative speakers] causes too many problems and issues inside the company while trying to effec-tively communicate to them” [MNS23]
“. . .I did feel really bad that I didn’t understand them through their accent. I had to ask them to repeat themselves a lot, and felt like a jerk for not being able to understand better” [MNS07].
“Talking to a new co-worker, they spoke louder as if I can’t hear them. It’s not I can’t hear them, it’s that fast English is hard for me. I felt a little disre-spected” [MNNS38].
“There was some misunderstanding on specifics and I felt that my accent may have led to this. I felt a lot of regret and disappointment in myself ” [MNNS41].
“. . . she (a native speaking colleague) always made remarks about my accents and it made me feel self-conscious. . . . I felt so vulnerable in many ways . . . the interaction hurt my self-esteem and increased my insecurity” [INNS03].
“I was always afraid that people did not understand me . . . I was nervous and upset . . . [interacting with the native speaker] was stressful for me” [MNNS10].
“There were a few occasions where some of my coworkers seemed annoyed that I was hard to understand or I said words in an improper order” [MNNS10].
“I usually get the smirks [from native speakers], like ha ha my English is inferior to yours. I try to ignore it though” [MNNS06].
Many studies in the past have shown how speakers, particularly those with nonnative accents, can be stigmatized and in turn create negative perceptions of the speaker. In this academic publication, their study analyzed the experiences between both native and nonnative speakers in an organizational workplace setting serving as a model precedent for recognizing sensitive areas of discrimination around language. What makes this study more unique is that each interviewee gives detailed and humane reports prompting the reader to reflect on their own actions. Its inclusivity and ability to hear from various perspectives serve better in empathizing the gist behind the study especially to those who may be unaware of the subject at large. The quotes above cement this idea presenting critical insight of individuals whose voice is rarely included.
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the potential language
difficulties
of
management From the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, researchers Tarja Nikula, Taina Saarinen, Sari Poyhonen and Teija Kangasiervi discuss the potential issues surrounding linguistic diversity and multilingualism in Finland and the European Union. In their article, “Linguistic Diversity as a Problem and a Resource” Nikula et al. analyze public policy documents to see how these institutions have governed and communicated their efforts in handling a rise in problems and disadvantages brought by language diversity. The authors noted that such policies tend to reflect social realities which influence our perception in constructing, ordering, and structuring language narratives. What they concluded, as a result, was that these documents in fact describe different types of multilingualism which can be both ‘good’ and ‘bad’. While most policy documents publicly attributed language as an asset, their interpretation of these documents looked at how language was also being described in an indirect manner. Nikula et al. pointed to the invisible difficulties multiple languages can present when having to preserve traditional (heritage) culture and immigrant languages. Moreover, their research found these policy descriptions on superdiverse areas view language as a potential threat to the ‘social cohesion’ of many local communities due to the management and conformity needed to balance societies. They added that individuals who were more multilingually gifted could view themselves superiorly (as a resource i.e. benefit for society) reinforcing an ‘us’ versus ‘them’ mentality against those from more monolingual backgrounds. This study offers a critical perspective in its analysis to jump and speak between many platforms. The graphic below depicts the complicated many levels of consideration needed when creating policy documents.
a monolingual approach
Above: BBC News capture on the debate of language-only policies in the U.S. In 2010 the Department of Linguistics at the University of Arizona gathered to cosign a public document that responded to an educational policy that removed teachers whose heavily accented or ungrammatical speech were too strong from classes where students were learning English. In their response statement, linguistics professors and academic researchers argued that ungrammatical speech did not mean the same thing as unintelligible. Similarly, based on decades of scientific investigation, they claimed that such a policy undermines the effectiveness in teaching and learning English by nonnative speakers which in turn, may lead to additional harmful socioeconomical effects. The authors list key takeaways in their opening statement where they open the platform to discuss logistics and reason their argument in the later pages of the document. Many valuable points are addressed throughout the document tracing issues back to their origin of thought. Also since the context is set in Arizona, the document is valuable in serving as an in-depth case study for seeing how language plays out in local communities. For further interset on the subject, the statements citations can help uncover new articles and terminology such as explaining what and where language bias comes from. It also alludes to the discriminatory practices characterized by linguistic profiling which connects to other notable works such as that of Dr. John Baugh as described on page 12.
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Above: Addressed cover page from the Depatment of Lingusitics at the University of Arizona (in response to a langauge only policy)
Where We Stand (and speak) Today
Above: JOHN BAUGH at a TEDx event delievring his presentation, “The Significance of Linguistic Profiling”
John Baugh, renowned linguistics expert and academic professor at Stanford University, delivered a TEDTalk in 2019 explaining the significance of linguistic profiling. In his talk Baugh connects to the audience in a variety of ways through narrative vignettes and experiences he’s had in the field of language. Beginning with relevant background and terminology, Baugh starts with his definition of linguistics to later describe what he calls linguistic profiling–a term he coined almost twenty years back. He mentions the specific study that led him to define this form of discrimination which is an act of judgement that denies certain groups of people from equal opportunities based solely on the sound of their voice. Baugh illustrates the influences his findings have had with videos and other forms of media and propaganda that sparked up following his research where certain individuals were denied educational opportunities, fair housing, and equal access to basic services. By establishing this sense of familiarity with the audience, Baugh is successfully able to have them listen, engage and reflect on the experiences they’ve had with language in the past. In doing so, he places the onus and ultimately the ‘cure’ to this form of discrimination onto ourselves as conscious individuals Baugh’s talk is unique because even after two decades, these issues are still critical in addressing ways to overcome discrimination. They become extremely relevant to related conversation of racial profiling, implicit and explicit bias, and stereotyping.
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Above: Comparative of linguistic diversity- ‘English Only’ comic versus Lingusitic Diversity Around the World map
practical application
From the European School Education Gateway, coordinator Naír Carrera introduces an online web course for teachers to embrace language diversity in their classrooms. Presented in four modules, Carrera uses this platform to describe multiple interdisciplinary approaches for teachers to better engage with their students. The first module serves to raise language awareness as a dimensional tool for helping teachers become conscious about the different languages spoken in their classes. The second gives a glimpse of the benefits brought by embracing linguistic diversity and bilingualism in educational fields. Here, the author suggests that teachers adopt a different role than the standard monolingual platform presented in most classrooms in order to change the learning perspective of their pupils. In module three Carrera presents new educational concepts situated around integrated learning where an additional language is used as a medium of instruction for the learning and teaching of both content and language. A series of multilingual classroom projects are developed in module four to give teachers and pupils ideas for working together to promote a multilinguistic environment with projects such as a ‘Language Passport’ and multilingual classroom dictionaries. Overall this course feeds into the topic of linguistic diversity by creatively pooling together a wide range of participants and platforms in mixed-use environments. It is especially valuable considering it helps children develop their perspective of language and the ways it can influence them at such a young age. Like Nikula et. al research on linguistic diversity as a problem and resource, this source highlights the possible challenges and opportunities brought by language with the students in an educational setting. Although it serves better in support of language diversity, acknowledging these challenges is valuable for its ability to add meeting grounds on the issue and prevent potential issues from developing. Its approach towards language diversity in this module setting is structured completely different than the detailed and controlled studies we’ve seen in this issue.
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