Topic 1:Our Language Prejudices Don't Make No Sense-Raffaella Zanuttini
1. Why do you think Zanuttini mentions both race and poverty in the essay's second paragraph? How does one's use of language relate to these identity categories?
2. Do you think Zanuttini would like grammar-based judgments to be included on the list of "things you just don't say in polite society" (1)? Why or why not? How likely do you think this is?
3. Zanuttini asks readers to "think of grammar as a recipe" (6) and linguistic differences as varieties of bread. How does Zanuttini explain these metaphors? What does she hope thinking of grammar in this way will accomplish? How might it still carry the suggestion that some recipes or breads are better than others? Could you think of another metaphor to describe how we speak?
4. With what groups of speakers does Zanuttini argue that we associate "nega-tive concord" (3)? What types of stigmas and judgments does this association create among those who speak a more prestigious variety of English? What does Zanuttini suggest we learn about "prestige" speakers from their judg-ments against "negative concord"?
5. Zanuttini concludes her essay by asserting- "No one wants to live in a homogeneous white bread world." Does white bread refer only to language as a recipe or variety of bread? What connotative meanings does the phrase carry?What is Zanuttini implying here, and why do you think she chooses n carry? spell it out?
Topic 2:Lost in Translation-Lera Boroditsky
1. Why according to Boroditsky is it difficult to believe in Chomsky's theory of language universals?
2. In paragraph 10 Boroditsky discusses sonic language-thought peculiarities (for us as English speakers) that exist in the Pormpuraaw community of Aus-tralia. In what areas of human experience do researchers find differences?
3. What relationship does Boroditsky point to between English speakers' prior-ity for an agent-based language structure and our criminal justice system? Does knowing about this connection make you more or less optimistic about the recent turn to giving more attention to victims' rights in our society? Explain.
4. Boroditsky says in paragraph 20, "Simply showing that speakers of different languages think differently doesn't tell us whether it's language that shapes thought or the other way around." What does she say researchers now need to do?
5. Why are people who speak more than one language important to language-thought researchers?
connection is so important for us to understand.
6. In your own words, explain why the language-thinking connection is so important for us to understand.
Topic 3:Language Communities:Where Do We Belong?
I. Why does Roberts begin with a discussion of "the village"? Is he referring literally to villages, or does "the village stand for something else? What does his extended example of "Old Village" and "New Village" (34) illustrate? (Glossary: Beginnings and Endings; Examples)
2. Roberts writes: "Baby talk is not so much invented by the child as sponsored by the parent" (8). Explain what he means by this. What arc the most basic, and motivational, factors in a child's language learning?
3. When children go to school, they move into an entirely new speech com-munity, where, according to Roberts, their speech is modified "by forces over which neither they nor their parents nor their teachers have any real control" (13). What arc these forces? What are some of the ways in which the new speech community asserts itself and establishes its own identity?
4. "We speak of America as the melting pot, but the speech communities of this continent are very far from having melted into one" (28), writes Roberts. What factors have contributed to, and continue to foster, the multiplicity of speech Communities across the United States?
5.According to Roberts, the impact in England ofsocial class on shaping speech communities differs considerably from the impact of class on speech com-munities in the United States. What factors contribute to this difference? Do you think thew differences are as relevant today as Roberts assumed they were when he wrote Understanding English?
6. Roberts asks the provocative question: "Aren't sonic of these speech com-munities better than others?" (35). What do you think he means by this? Is he referring to the language of the community, or the community members themselves? What kind of value judgments do you chink we make about oth-ers based on their particular way of speaking?
Topic 4:All-American Dialects:Rechard Lederer
I. How does Lederer use the writer John Steinbeek to introduce the subject of his essay? How dots he bring the essay full circle by returning to Stcinbeck in his conclusion? Did you find this beginning and ending effective? Explain why or why not.
2. What function do paragraphs 3 through 8 serve in the context on Lederer's essay? Why do you suppose that Lederer provides as many examples of vocab-ulary differences as he does?
3. How does Lederer illustrate the idea that Americans don't all sound the same when they speak, that there are pronunciation differences? Which examples of these pronunciation differences did you find most effective and interesting? Explain why
4. Lederer explains how linguist Roger Shuy was able to profile correctly the Unabombcr Ted Kaczynski. What did you find most interesting about Shuy's contextual analysis of Kaczynski's "Manifesto"? Explain.
5. How effective did you find Lederer's pit analogy to explain a language and its various dialects?
6. According to Lederer, what accounts for the gradual disappearance of regional speech differences? What do we risk losing as American English becomes more uniform and homogenized?