Description:
This book examines the social cost of linguistic exceptionalism for the education of speakers of nondominant/subordinated languages in Africa and the African diaspora. The contributors take the languages of Africa, the Caribbean, and the US as cases in point to illustrate the effects of exceptionalist beliefs that these languages are inadequate for instructional purposes. They describe contravening movements toward various forms of linguistic diversity both inside and outside of school settings across these regions. Different theoretical lenses and a range of empirical data are brought to bear on investigating the role of these languages in educational policies and practices. Collectively, the chapters in this volume make the case for a comprehensive language awareness to remedy the myths of linguistic exceptionalism and to advance the affirmative dimensions of linguistic diversity.
Brief description:
Jo Anne Kleifgen is Professor Emerita of Linguistics and Education and a founder of the Center for Multiple Languages and Literacies at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research has focused on multilingual/multimodal practices in school and the workplace. She has authored and edited several books, and her work is widely published in language journals and book chapters. She directed funded research projects on using new media to support Latinx adolescents' language and literacy development. Recently, she supervised the evaluation of a program bringing classrooms in the US and Middle-East/North Africa together for online collaborative learning. She has been a member of the Executive Committee of the International Linguistic Association since 1991, has served twice as president, and is its current vice president. She serves on several editorial boards and has been a visiting scholar at universities in the U.S. and abroad.
Review Quotes:
This is a rich collection of generally convergent, stimulating takes on the "Creole Exceptionalism" thesis. Extending it to African languages and African American English, most of the authors show the disastrous consequences of underrating and marginalizing these vernaculars in school. Other contributors apply the thesis to the profiling of African Americans, making it obvious that attitudes to these varieties reflect social prejudice toward their speakers. Still others show how a better understanding of structural and stylistic peculiarities of these vernaculars can be used profitably in education and the promotion of their speakers. Sadly, both contemporary Black Africa and its Diaspora still suffer from the European colonization's legacy of devaluating the languages and manners of the subjugated populations, thereby disenfranchising them!