Speech Communities and Schools

Abstract

A sound language education policy must be based on an understanding of the speech community in which the school exists. Sociolinguists define speech communities according to various criteria, but for educational purposes it is necessary always to start with the individual school and the community it serves. This becomes clear when one looks at the case of Navajo speaking children on or near the Navajo Reservation. Studies of the language used by six-year-old Navajo children in school revealed that 10% of them had switched almost completely to English and 20% were bilingual. However, two-thirds obviously used only Navajo at home with their parents. These overall results fail to show important local variations. First, there is a correlation between a community's language maintenance, measured by the average language score of the sixyear-olds, and its accessibility, a measure of the ease of access to an off-Reservation town. Children living near the towns are more likely to speak English. Secondly, children in BIA schools know much less English than those in public schools, because of a policy that assigns to the Bureau schools children from more remote areas. These findings point to a need for local flexibility, rather than having a monolithic education policy for a whole ethnic group. One of the key concerns of the field that I prefer to call educational linguistics1 is helping with the development of a language education policy for a school system. While the final decision will usually be political rather than educational, the educational linguist can help clarify the nature of the language situtation and the pressures of the community. Basic to establishing a sound policy is, I am convinced, an understanding of the speech community in which the school exists. While there may be good political and administrative reasons for setting generalized national and regional goals, each school should be able to modify these goals and interpret them according to the needs of its local community. To speak of a single model for a whole nation, or even for a specific sector within the national (all minority speakers, for instance) is most unwise. In order to make this clear, I shall concentrate my remarks on one particular Indian tribe, showing that even in such a seemingly homogeneous group and on such a seemingly small scale, a single model of language education would be a mistake. At the same time, I shall refer to other Indian groups and to other language groups in order to show the wider relevance of the question.