Language Learning and the Definition of One's Social, Cultural, and Racial Identity

Abstract

dents at K-12 schools in the United States. These groups typically resettle in urban areas and attend urban schools where a large number of African American students enroll. In the schools they are expected to acquire two forms of English: standard academic English (SAE) as used in the classroom and African American vernacular English (AAVE), the socially accepted language spoken by the majority of their school peers. AAVE is also the linguistic and cultural identity marker for African American students who use language as a way to define their common histories and establish a social, cultural, and linguistic allegiance to their group in and outside the school context. Many ESL newcomers feel pressured to assimilate into the dominant social culture of their schools, causing them to deny their own language and cultural identities (see Cummins 1996; Goto, 1997; Kaser & Short, 1998; Nieto, 2000). For such learners to be admitted into the social milieu of a school, they must first master the social, linguistic, and cultural codes of the dominant group - which exist in a tacit social hierarchy within a school. Often these ESL newcomers are relegated to a subordinate status, partly because they are seen as racially and culturally different, and partly because they do not know the particular choice of words, phrases, and phonological forms that will allow them greater access in the dominant speech community (Alim, 2005; Ogbu, 1987). Kubota (2001) alerts us to the unwelcoming atmosphere (p. 31) encountered by ESL learners in urban schools, who are often victims of ridicule because of their funny accents, their low level of English proficiency, and their dress.