The Central Pro/Pre/Per Scriptivisor

[Abdiel OAbdiel]

The reason for the failure of million to speak the
language varieties they need to survive and prosper in
the modern world…inadequate language competence is not
do to poor texts and materials, learner's low
motivation, inadequate learning theories and teaching
methodologies, or the other explanations that are
commonly proposed. Instead, language competence
remains a barrier to employment, education, and
economic well being due to political forces of our own
making…A central mechanism by which this process
occurs is language policy. Traffic laws? Proscriptive.
Prescriptive. Perscriptive. The effects of language
policies that the language mavens support,  is nothing
less than a war on the linguistically marginalized. 
Since the language mavens have admitted that there is
no linguistic reason, no logic, nothing in the nature
of things that supports their nonsensical claims about
language and grammar, we need to consider their
political objective: sustaining existing power
relationships.  

Smitherman, Geneva. "The 'Mis-education of the
Negro'--And You Too." Not Only English:
Affirming America's Multilingual Heritage. Ed. Harvey
A. Daniels. Urbana, Illinois: NCTE, 1990.
109-20.

This essay argues that neither Black nor White
Americans is taught the real history and factual data
about the linguistic and cultural diversity of the USA
and the world. 



Gonzalez,-Roseann-Duenas, ed. 
Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectives on the
Official English Movement. Volume 2: History,
Theory, and Policy. 
2001 

This collection of essays addresses the complicated
and divisive issues at the heart of the debate over
language diversity and the English Only movement in
United States public education. Blending social,
political, and legal analyses of the ideologies of
language with perspectives on the impact of the
English
Only movement on education and in classrooms at all
levels, the collection offers a wide range of
perspectives that teachers and literacy advocates can
use to inform practice as well as policy. The essays
in volume 2 explore the political, legislative, and
social implications of language ideologies, focusing
in
particular on the implications for policymakers and
language-program administrators. Essays in part 1,
Update and Document, are: (1) "Language Legislation
and Language Abuse: American Language Policy
through the 1990s" (Dennis Baron); (2) "Statement on
the Civil Liberties Implications of Official English
Legislation before the United States Senate Committee
on Governmental Affairs, December 6, 1995"
(Edward M. Chen); and (3) "Acquiring a Slice of
Anglo-American Pie: A Portrait of Language Shift in a
Franco-American Family" (Robert S. Williams and
Kathleen C. Riley). Essays in part 2, Language,
Justice, and Law, are: (4) "Social Justice, Language
Policy, and English Only" (David Corson); (5) "The
New American Spanish War: How the Courts and the
Legislatures Are Aiding the Suppression of
Languages Other Than English" (Juan F. Perea); (6)
"Bilingual Individuals and Language-Based
Discrimination: Advancing the State of the Law on
Language Rights" (Guadalupe Valdes); and (7)
"'Shooting Themselves in the Foot': Consequences of
English Only Supporters 'Going to Law'" (Randy H.
Lee, and David F. Marshall). Essays in part 3,
Language and Ideology, are: (8) "Lessons from Colonial
Language Policies" (Alastair Pennycook); (9) "Three
Newspapers and a Linguist: A Folk Linguistic
Journey into the Land of English as the Official
Language" (Lynn M. Goldstein); (10) "The Racializing
Function of Language Panics" (Jane H. Hill); and (11)
"Analyzing the Rhetoric of the English Only
Movement" (Amanda Espinosa-Aguilar). Essays in part 4,
Official English, Official Language, and the
World, are: (12) "Not Only English: English Only and
the World" (Robert B. Kaplan and Richard B.
Baldauf, Jr.); (13) "Language and Democracy in the USA
and the RSA" (Geneva Smitherman); and (14)
"The 'Normalization' of Minority Languages in Spain"
(Cynthia Miguelez). An afterword, "Lessons,
Caveats, and a Way Forward" by Thomas Ricento, is
attached. 

Citations? Linghuists? I can cite a million, but
language mavens are too busy polishing their armor,
dotting their eyes, crossing their fingers behind
their backs. 

"official language snitheried to sanction ignorance
and preserve privlidge is a suit of armor, polished to
shocking glitter, a hust which the knight departed
long ago. Yet there it is: dumb, predatory,
sentimental. Exciting reverence in schollchildren,
providing shelter for despots, summoning false
memories of stability, harmony among the public." 

>From Toni Morrison's 1993 Nobel Prize Lecture and
speech of acceptance



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