Linguists as Agents for Social Change

© 2008 The AuthorJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Language and Linguistics Compass 2/5 (2008): 923–939, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00081.x

Linguists as Agents for Social Change

Anne H. Charity*The College of William and Mary

AbstractIn this article, I examine and promote the role of linguist as agent for socialchange. I discuss the history and mission of organizations and individual linguistswho are dedicated to service through linguistics. I describe the social and communityservice activities of linguists that may fall just outside of the realm of linguisticscholarship in the most traditional sense. I then provide models for ways in whichlinguists can become even more socially engaged through social service andpublic outreach. I highlight the academic sharing and public dissemination ofknowledge that linguists already possess as a way for all linguists to be sociallyactive. I then describe my own experiences participating in and teaching servicelearning-based research courses.

Introduction: A History of Activism

Linguists have not been shy about promoting social change. Some linguistshave centered their activism efforts on language policy and linguistic rights,and others have worked on social and political activism that falls outsideof the realm of linguistics altogether. Such work includes efforts fromthose who study language from diverse perspectives, including the Teach-ing English as a Second or Other Language community, speech-languagepathologists, and those who work in legal policy and law enforcement.Within linguistics, groups of scholars who have been known for their activismhave come under many names and have utilized varied approaches to theirsocial action. Regardless of linguistic subfield, all linguists have much tocontribute to social change.

Political Activism as Distinct from Linguistic Science

Outside of linguistic research, linguists have engaged in social activism,especially through political and social commentary. Noam Chomsky is thequintessential example of a scholar who is separately a social activist anda linguist. Herman and Chomsky (1988) focused a generation of scholars onthe change in the use of the media from bastion of democracy to potentialagent of propaganda. Chomsky’s linguistic work and political work are

924 Anne H. Charity

© 2008 The Author Language and Linguistics Compass 2/5 (2008): 923–939, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00081.xJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

highlighted by separate websites: http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/chomsky/index.html and http://www.chomsky.info. Regardingthe division, Chomsky (1998) explains:

If there is a connection [between my scientific activities – the study of language– and my political activities], it is on a rather abstract level. I don’t have access toany unusual methods of analysis, and what special knowledge I have concerninglanguage has no immediate bearing on social and political issues. Everything Ihave written on these topics could have been written by someone else. Thereis no very direct connection between my political activities, writing and others,and the work bearing on language structure, though in some measure theyperhaps derive from certain common assumptions and attitudes with regard tobasic aspects of human nature. (p. 3)

In addition, Chomsky has stated his view of the ‘usefulness’ of linguisticsfor social change. Chomsky explains: ‘You’re a human being, and your timeas a human being should be socially useful. It doesn’t mean that yourchoices about helping other people have to be within the context of yourprofessional training as a linguist. Maybe that training just doesn’t helpyou to be useful to other people. In fact, it doesn’t.’ (Chomsky speakingas reported in Olson, Faigley and Chomsky 1991: 30). This quotationdemonstrates that for Chomsky, nothing inherent in the study of languagenecessarily fosters social activism.

While Chomsky’s sentiment recognizes one path that linguists as socialactivists may take – that is, linguist as separate from social activist – theremainder of this article focuses on scholars for whom social activism andtheir training as linguists are inextricably combined.

Linguistically Driven Social Activism

In 1979, Dwight Bolinger wrote an article entitled ‘The Socially MindedLinguist’. In the article, Bolinger defines the socially minded linguist as onewho works to inform the public about linguistics with a mind to curbing theuse of language as a ‘one sided instrument of power’ (1979: 407). Bolingermotivates linguists to contemplate the relationship between language andpower in their examinations of the universality of language. Bolinger challengeslinguists to make the study of language more accessible so that the under-standing of language and communication is integrated into everyday life.

In another example of recognition of the role that linguists can play toeffect language-related social changes, Labov (1982) describes the linguisticcommunity’s commitment to the children of Ann Arbor, Michigan. Theparents of the African-American students represented in the Ann Arborcase sought equal educational protection under the law for their childrento use African-American Vernacular English in the classroom. In describingthe situation that linguists faced in the Ann Arbor trial, Labov asserts that theobjectivity linguists need for scientific research may often lie in oppositionto their commitment to social action. He shows how reconciliation

http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/chomsky/index.html

http://www.chomsky.info


Linguists as Agents for Social Change 925

between the linguist-as-scientist and the scientist-as-activist may occur bybringing linguistic information to communities when they have need ofit and being committed to use information gathered from a communityfor the direct benefit of that same community.

Twenty years after Bolinger’s article and 15 years after Labov’s, an articleby John Rickford entitled ‘Unequal partnership: Sociolinguistics and theAfrican American community’ (1997a) argues that the relationship betweenlinguist and studied community is still not equal, as linguists benefit moredirectly and expediently from the research they conduct in communitiesthan do the communities benefit from the linguistic research. Rickfordchallenges linguists to improve the relationships between themselves andthe communities in which linguists gather information. One example ofa scholar who has put this linguistically based activism charge into effectis Walt Wolfram. Wolfram (1993) introduces ‘the principle of linguisticgratuity’, proposing that linguists give back to the local communitieswhere they conduct their studies. Wolfram (1998, 2000b) also evaluateshis own public outreach measures to see how efforts to give back to thelocal communities of North Carolina have been successful or contestedby local communities.

Organizational Action in Linguistics

THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

The National Science Foundation (NSF), a major source of funding forlinguists, is responding to the need for more direct commitment to publicinterest and has called for more initiatives to add a direct service componentto scholarly research. NSF proposals must include an explanation of the‘broader impacts’ of the proposed activity. Under this initiative, the NSFrequires an explanation of the following questions:

What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?• How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while

promoting teaching, training, and learning?• How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of underrep-

resented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability, geographic, etc.)?• To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education,

such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships?• Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological

understanding?• What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?

(http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/gpg/broaderimpacts.pdf )

Even though gathering new knowledge is deemed necessary for a researchendeavor, the NSF asks for plans for immediate dissemination of theknowledge. These questions also promote awareness on the part of theresearcher of the more immediate value of dissemination versus adhering

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/gpg/broaderimpacts.pdf

926 Anne H. Charity


to a more typical research and dissemination process, which would expectdissemination to happen some time after linguistic information has beenacquired. The efficacy of the addition of the broader impacts statement inlinguistics research, however, has yet to be disseminated by the NSF.

THE LINGUISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA

The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) has promoted social action bytaking formal stands on language issues. The LSA has issued positions andresolutions on topics including Ebonics (LSA 1997), the English OnlyMovement (LSA 1987), and non-sexist language (LSA 1995), and a resolutionstating opposition to the US military’s policy of dismissing linguists, translators,interpreters, or other members of the armed forces on the basis of theirsexual orientation (LSA 2003). Other written materials that the LSA hasproduced include easily accessible pamphlets for the general public onlanguage topics that are of interest to a lay audience, for example, ‘HowCan I Communicate With a Relative Who’s Had a Stroke?’ (http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-stroke.cfm) and ‘How Many Languages AreThere in the World?’ (http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-howmany.cfm).

As an organization, the LSA is also committed to taking a stance onactivism. It has a Social and Political Concerns committee whose pur-pose is to make prominent the LSA’s focus on real world events andapplication of linguistic knowledge in daily life and practice. Similarly, theLanguage in the School Curriculum Committee (http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-comm-curric.cfm) ‘pursues ways in which the linguistics community canhave an effect on school instruction in language-related topics, includinglinguistics.’ Finally, since 1997, the LSA has also encouraged public outreachthrough its Linguistics, Language, and the Public Award. According to theLSA, the award ‘was established to recognize individuals engaged in on-goingefforts to educate the public about linguistics and language’ (http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-awards.cfm – Linguistics, Language, and the PublicAward). Previous award winners Steven Pinker, Eugene Searchinger, GeoffreyNunberg, John Rickford, and Deborah Tannen are all recognized bothwithin and outside of the field for making academic information relevantto individuals and communities. In addition, Rickford and Rickford (2000)won the American Book Award, which is awarded to ‘recognize outstandingliterary achievement from the entire spectrum of America’s diverse literarycommunity’ (see http://www.ambook.org/btw/awards/The-American-Book-Awards---Before-Columbus-Foundation.html).

THE SUMMER INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS

The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) is known to most all linguiststhrough their distribution of invaluable IPA fonts, but its contributions tolinguistics are even more widespread. The SIL describes itself as ‘a faith-based

http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-stroke.cfm

http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-howmany.cfm

http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-comm-curric.cfm

http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-awards.cfm

http://www.ambook.org/btw/awards/The-American-Book-Awards---Before-Columbus-Foundation.html



service organization that works with people who speak the world’s lesser-known languages’ (SIL International 2008). Kenneth Pike served as thefirst president of the SIL from 1942 to 1979, and he led the organizationin its early focus to produce translations of the Bible. He also served for30 years as a professor of Linguistics at the University of Michigan. Pikebiographer Calvin Hibbard describes the mission of the SIL as centeredon ‘service based on a foundation of scientific investigation’ (2008).

The SIL is also responsible for the Ethnologue (Gordon 2005), a searchabledatabase of the world’s languages. Grenoble and Whaley note that while othersources of language information may be individually more accurate, theEthnologue is ‘unique in bringing together speaker statistics on a global scale’(2006). Ethnologue provides easily accessible information about languageuse around the world that those working on language revitalization andeducation programs can use at all stages of linguistic research, languageplanning, and provision of services to speakers of endangered languages.

THE CENTER FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS

The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) ‘is a private, nonprofit organizationworking to improve communication through better understanding oflanguage and culture’ (CAL 2008). CAL was established in 1959 by agrant from the Ford Foundation to the Modern Language Association,to ‘serve as a liaison between the academic world of linguistics and thepractical world of language education and language-related concerns.’ CALhas sponsored many projects and programs that have had great impact inthe areas of language assessment, instruction, and access. CAL houses severaldivisions of research, including Foreign Language Education, Languageand Literacy, and Language in Society. Recent CAL products are foundthroughout the academic and broader community, including a productionof a teacher’s manual (Rickford et al. 2004) to support the ‘Do You SpeakAmerican?’ program (Reaser et al. 2005; Reaser and Adger 2007). In addi-tion, CAL has had a special history of serving English language learningimmigrants who are in a position to learn English in the USA due to waror conflict in their home countries through their Cultural OrientationResource center (http://www.cal.org/co/). Current projects include resettle-ment assistance in the USA for Bhutanese Refugees who were living inNepal and groups from Burma/Myanmar.

Models of Linguistic Research in Communities

ENDANGERED LANGUAGE LINGUISTS’ WORK IN COMMUNITIES

While most linguists who work with speakers of endangered languageshave focused on documentation of the languages, many have also workedon programs to revitalize languages in their local communities through

http://www.cal.org/co/

928 Anne H. Charity


what Fishman (2001) describes as reverse language shift, the re-birth oflocal language use, and balance of the indigenous languages with the useof other languages such as English. Grenoble and Whaley (2006) documentmethodologies used in language revitalization efforts such as languagepreservation through recordings and transcriptions and present models forlanguage revitalization programs through educational programs. They note thatpublicly accessible archives are crucial to the promulgation of endangeredlanguage materials. The Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program(Rosetta Stone 2008) is an example of corporate outreach on the part ofcommunity speakers by providing digital language materials for speakersand language learners.

Ladefoged (2006) acknowledged the crucial contributions of indigenouslinguists, the SIL, and missionaries to his work that documented the soundsof the world’s languages. Along these lines, the Endangered Language Fund(ELF) sponsors research on endangered languages that allows linguists andspeakers of endangered languages to document, preserve, and create materialsfor the preservation of languages through language instruction (http://www.endangeredlanguagefund.org/projects_current.html). The ELF givesout about awards of less than $4,000. Examples of projects funded includethe development of practical language materials for Desano, an EasternTukanoan language spoken by a small number of people among the fewerthan 1,600 who belong to the Desano ethnic group in Brazil (to Wilsonde Lima Silva at the University of Utah), and the creation of audiovisualdocumentation of the Kiliwa language spoken by five people in BajaCalifornia, Mexico (to Heriberto Avelino at the University of Toronto).

SOCIOLINGUISTS’ WORK IN COMMUNITIES

As demonstrated by the organizations described in the previous section,‘linguistics and education’ has been a key area of social activism research,both within and across languages. Many linguists are known for their workto increase educational attainment for speakers whose language they study,both through and in addition to their scholarly work. In this section, Ihighlight the work of several well-known linguists who study languagevariation and change in order to demonstrate the ways that direct socialaction contact has influenced their work.

William Labov has had an instrumental effect on the linguist as socialagent. Labov’s early work in Harlem (e.g., Labov et al. 1968; Labov 1972)was funded by the Office of Education1 and focused on issues of literacyand educational attainment among African-American males in Harlem,New York. In recent years, he has returned to this original objective with hiswork in schools across the country, and this work has lead to the creationof the Individualized Reading Program (IRP) (Labov and Baker 2005).

The IRP is a continuing program for raising reading levels of minoritychildren in inner city schools. According to Labov’s website, ‘The IRP

http://www.endangeredlanguagefund.org/projects_current.html



began as a research project funded by the Office of Education (OERI)from 1998 to 2000, in collaboration with California State Hayward andthe Oakland Unified School Board’ (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/UMRP/UMRP.html). The IRP is designed to discover whether knowledgeof the home dialect of African-American Vernacular English would behelpful for teachers and educators who are interested in improving thereading levels of African-American struggling readers. The research hasbeen combined with academically based service learning courses in whichstudents from the University of Pennsylvania have participated actively inboth tutoring and developing educational materials. As a result of Labov’sefforts, the Linguistics Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania hasalso housed the America Reads program, a nationwide program that recruitscollege students to fulfill their work-study by tutoring students (AmericaReads 2000). Hundreds of undergraduate students have used Labov’slinguistically based methods to tutor struggling readers in Philadelphia.

As another sociolinguist concerned with education, Wolfram has co-authored numerous books and papers for non-academic audiences (e.g.,Wolfram 2000a; Wolfram and Ward 2006). In addition, he has writtenprolifically for speech pathologists and educators (see Wolfram and Adger1993; Wolfram 2005; Adger et al. 2007). Wolfram’s most recent work hascentered on the North Carolina Language and Life Project (NCLLP)(2007), which documents language varieties found in North Carolina andbeyond and seeks to use research data to improve language and culturalinstruction. Wolfram’s outreach to schoolchildren in North Carolinaschools started on the island of Ocracoke,2 and there are now materialsavailable for all North Carolina eighth graders (http://ncsu.edu/linguistics/research_dialecteducation.php) as a result of Wolfram and his team’s efforts.Wolfram and his team also have websites dedicated to educational docu-mentary media (http://www.talkingnc.com/), and a site for general outreachmedia (http://www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/ncllp/outreach.php).

Other sociolinguists’ scholarship has also been pivotal for aidingvernacular communities. John Rickford and John Baugh’s work on languageand education literature includes: Rickford (1997b), Rickford and Rickford(2000), Rickford et al. (2004), and Baugh (2000). Their work has beencentral to strengthening the understanding of African Americans as astructured social and cultural group in linguistics. Their work as scholarsof African-American culture has led them each to their appointments asthe directors of African-American Studies at their respective universities:John Baugh is the director of African-American Studies at WashingtonUniversity in St. Louis, and John Rickford was the director of African-American Studies from 1998–2005 at Stanford University.

Rickford and Baugh have worked to enhance the educational oppor-tunities of students in their own communities. John Baugh has worked toestablish a preparatory school that serves the lower income students of EastPalo Alto, California, and he currently serves on its board of directors

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/UMRP/UMRP.html

http://ncsu.edu/linguistics/research_dialecteducation.php

http://www.talkingnc.com/

http://www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/ncllp/outreach.php

930 Anne H. Charity


(http://www.eastside.org/). John Rickford has served as a resident fellow atStanford University and has provided mentorship to numerous undergraduatesat Stanford, where he is the Pritzker University Fellow in UndergraduateEducation. One former student, Samy Alim, has drawn from their workto produce examinations of the role that hip-hop plays in the culturalidentity of African-American students so that educators can better incorporateit into their pedagogical practices (Alim 2005).

ENDANGERED LANGUAGE AND SOCIOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH IN DIALOGUE

A 2006 Georgetown University Round Table (GURT) conference connectedthe subfields of Sociolinguistics and Endangered Language Linguistics,which exhibit similarities and differences in their approaches to linguisticwork and outreach. In a paper delivered at the Georgetown conference,Labov (2006) attempts to bridge some of the insights of the two differentapproaches by framing African Americans as an endangered people speakinga non-endangered language. His approach inherently situates the linguistfirst as activist and then as researcher, and he suggests that language deathin many senses may be a by-product of decreased segregation and increasededucational attainment among African Americans.

Sociolinguists have an intimate knowledge of speakers and of variationswithin and across languages, and they examine closely the nuances andsocial correlates of languages and dialects. Knowledge about language anddialect variation has had a direct impact on scholarship in education thatexamines variation between ethnic and social groups. Linguists haveshown that languages are fundamentally equal with regular structures andcomplex rules that govern their morphological, syntactic, and phonologicalstructures. Linguists have demonstrated that language variation does notcorrelate with variations in intelligence or academic ability. Endangeredlanguage linguists have created the expectation of a comprehensive examina-tion of language in the form of complete grammars and dictionaries. Assuch, endangered language linguists often have great understanding of theidiolects of speakers as well as localized community social mores andnorms. The combination of the insights of these two linguistic traditionsserves to further the linguistic rights of all speakers.

Activism from a University Context: Dissemination and Service Learning

Bolinger (1979) challenges all linguists with the following statement:

Half the battle will be won if the public can be convinced that there is alanguage problem to begin with, and if adversaries on all fronts can be broughtto question one another’s syntax as well as one another’s logic. Languageshould be as much an object of public scrutiny as any of the other things thatkeenly affect our lives – as much as pollution, energy, crime, busing, and nextweek’s grocery bill. (p. 407)

http://www.eastside.org/



Linguists still have a way to go to make Bolinger’s vision a reality. Thefollowing subsections give some suggestions regarding ways linguists canaccomplish this task through greater dissemination of linguistic knowledgeand an emphasis on service learning.

CONFERENCES

Dissemination within academics yet across disciplinary fields is a crucialstep in developing ideas and materials for wider dissemination. Linguistscan work more with academics in other fields, as well as working withnon-academic practitioners and scholars, in order to broaden the scope oftheir linguistic inquiry. Even if co-authorship is not possible, it is importantto invite non-academics to conferences in areas that are directly related totheir interests and needs so that their perspectives are directly heard.Although there are too many examples to provide an exhaustive listhere, I discuss two notables examples. First, the New Ways of AnalyzingVariation 33 conference was held at the University of Michigan in October2004 and commemorated the Ann Arbor trial; the now-adult plaintiffswho were represented in the trial and one of the attorneys attended theconference and offered their perspectives on the linguistic and socialimpact that the Ann Arbor trial had on their lives. In October 2005, theLinguistics Department at Cornell University hosted a conference on therelationship of language use to poverty (http://celaeno.phonetics.cornell.edu/language_and_poverty/description.html). Funded in part by the Poverty,Inequality and Development Initiative at Cornell and the NSF, the conferencewas a great example of intellectual activism. Participants discussed howpoverty affects language survival and how differential access to economicresources is, in modern times, probably the fundamental determinant oflanguage shift and language death (Nettle and Romaine 2000). The issueof how language frequently helps determine economic status was directlyaddressed, and the correlations between language and poverty were examined.Such efforts brought out major social issues that speakers face that mayappear to lie outside of the realm of linguistic analysis but are actuallycentral to social and language empowerment.

CROSS-DISCIPLINARY APPROACHES

Teacher education, speech language pathology, counseling, and medicineare all disciplines where communication is crucial (Adger and Schilling-Estes 2003; Craig and Washington 2006; Hazen 2006). Further col-laboration with practitioners in these fields is greatly needed. Linguistsare faced with questions as to how to disseminate all that we haveresearched and learned when faced with the basic questions of theuninformed teacher, speech language pathologist, psychologist, and schoolcounselor.

http://celaeno.phonetics.cornell.edu/

932 Anne H. Charity


Scholars in Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) have contributed greatly toknowledge in linguistics and education. There has been an overlap ofinformation between linguistics and second language acquisition to thebenefit of those in both TESOL and linguistics. Spolsky and Hult (2008)and Hornberger (2007) are recent comprehensive overviews of work ineducational linguistics with a focus on bilingualism and multilingualism.

Most education scholars now acknowledge the primary claim longestablished by linguists: Standard English does not have any inherentsuperiority as a language variety. The National Council of Teachers ofEnglish (NCTE) and National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education(NCATE) have suggested that all students and teachers should be exposedto information on dialect variation as part of their education (NCTE1996; NCTE/NCATE 2003). Many scholars who work in linguistics andeducation have been instrumental in bringing linguistic insights to majororganizations including the American Educational Research Association(including Courtney Cazden, Shirley Brice Heath and Angela Rickford), theNCTE (including Geneva Smitherman and Jeree Scott, and works includingHaussamen 2003), and the American Federation of Teachers (Charity et al.2004). Educational theorists today support classroom strategies that valuestudents’ home language, which approach Standard English as a tool to helpstudents succeed in society and access power, and that draw upon students’existing linguistic knowledge to help them acquire and appropriately useStandard English (Ogbu 1992; Baugh 2000; Rickford and Rickford 2000;Delpit 2002; Green 2002; Haussamen 2003; Fogel and Ehri 2006).

While crucial information has been produced, information often needsto be disseminated several times in order to reach each generation ofstudents. One clarifying example of the gap between linguists and teachersoccurred during a guest lecture on African-American English that I gaveto teachers. After citing numerous examples of the systematic nature ofAfrican-American Vernacular English and explaining the differences betweendialect variation and spoken and written errors, the class of teachers expressedtheir dismay at not being given this knowledge earlier in their training.In attendance was one teacher, a 30-year veteran of a major public schoolsystem, who confessed that for her entire career she had marked eachinstance of a common feature of African-American Vernacular English as aseparate error, and she now realized that explaining the errors with respect tolanguage variation might have been a better approach. What she had perceivedas continual careless errors were actually predictable dialect variants.

The current challenge is to engage in cooperative efforts that addressthe following issues: how to integrate linguistic insights into the day-to-daypracticalities of the classroom, how to reconcile the linguistic needs ofstudents with local educational policy and budgets, and how to getlinguistic information to teachers who are already in service. Linguists canonly be part of such efforts if they become cooperative partners.



DISSEMINATION IN THE MEDIA

An increasing amount of language information is available to the publicon Internet, books, and video. Linguists have done an excellent job ofpromoting developments in the discipline in sources such as on NationalPublic Radio (NPR) and The Public Broadcasting System (PBS). Docu-mentaries including American Tongues and Do You Speak American? have pro-vided a crucial overview of linguistic issues to the public. Popular moviessuch as Windtalkers have raised awareness about Native American languages.The talk of Sundance 2008 revolved around the language documentationefforts of David Harrison and Gregory Anderson, as filmed in The Linguists(www.livingtongues.org).

Pinker (1994), Rickford and Rickford (2000), and Napoli (2003) standas models of linguistic texts for public consumption. But for many, booksmay be cost-prohibitive or daunting in length. In addition, people cannotaccess information published in academic journals easily unless they areaffiliated with a college or university. As demonstrated through the efforts ofWolfram and the NCLLP, it is possible to create online resources, newsletters,archives, and blogs that provide free, in-depth linguistic information for thepublic. In addition, there have been efforts by those outside of linguisticsto capture the essence of what is being taught in linguistics courses, andthose efforts need to be aided by collaboration from within and outsideof the field. More pedagogical materials are desperately needed in orderto help educators teach others about linguistics. To respond to this need,the journal American Speech will launch an inaugural issue on linguisticspedagogy in the summer of 2008.

The Teach Ling project (http://teachling.wwu.edu/) provides linguistsand educators web space in order share linguistically informed materialsfor use in the classroom. Both teachers and linguists prepare the lessons,which are offered on the website free of charge. The project is an excellentexample of the sort of project that is crucial to accomplishing the goal ofsocial and educational change for all learners.

GRANTS AND FUNDRAISING

Linguists are in a good position to help community agencies writeproposals to attain grants to study language in use, and such cooperation wouldbe beneficial to both the linguists themselves and the community members.Along with including the public in conferences and written publications,the Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) has set a great exampleby making grant funding more easily accessible by to non-academics.In their call for proposals, they offer the following statement of support:

FEL tries to keep its [grants] procedures as simple as possible. But it recognizesthat they may be especially taxing for those without training in a westernuniversity. In the case of proposals from communities or community linguists,

http://teachling.wwu.edu/

www.livingtongues.org

934 Anne H. Charity


FEL is prepared to comment on drafts, and suggest weaknesses and potentialremedies (without prejudice) before the selection.

This commenting service is simply offered in order to help: it is never requiredto submit such a draft. (http://www.ogmios.org/)

These instructions are an excellent example of how linguists can reach outto communities and encourage them to have both intellectual and economicownership of the research that is conducted on their language and culture.

SERVICE LEARNING

Service learning is a way to make social action a crucial component oflinguistics, as the study of people and their language is no longer confined tothe classroom or more advanced field research. As an example, I highlightmy own service learning experiences at the University of Pennsylvania andat The College of William and Mary.

The Corporation for National and Community Service defines servicelearning as a method of teaching where students learn and develop throughactive participation in thoughtfully organized community service. Theservice experience is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculumof the student. Service learning courses provide structured time for thestudents to reflect on the service experience as it relates to their coursework,personal development, and civic involvement (Corporation for Nationaland Community Service 2008).

Service learning as an extension of collegiate volunteerism is an upwardtrend. At least a quarter of all higher education institutions and more thanhalf of all community colleges have adopted service learning programs(Corporation for National and Community Service 2008). Many linguistswho study American speech currently engage in forms of service learningat the upper undergraduate or graduate level. Walt Wolfram has set anexcellent example for graduate student level community involvementthrough the NCLLP. Kirk Hazen has followed the model with the for-mation of the West Virginia Dialect Project (http://www.as.wvu.edu/dialect/), which is designed to conduct research on language variation to beused for educational purposes. Barbara Johnstone and Scott Keislinghave created a similar outreach page in the Pittsburgh Speech & SocietyProject (http://english.cmu.edu/pittsburghspeech/). John Rickford and JohnBaugh have included their students in their service and research in theEast Palo Alto schools and the Eastside Preparatory School in Palo Alto,California. In this tradition, service learning at the introductory level givesstudents a critical appreciation for social issues in the wider community ata time when their findings may inform their programs of study.

In the fall of 2007, I taught an introductory linguistics and service learningcourse entitled Language Variation: African-American English (Charity et al.2008). Thirteen first-year students and two upper-level teaching fellows

http://www.ogmios.org/

http://www.as.wvu.edu/dialect/

http://english.cmu.edu/pittsburghspeech/



participated in the course. As is typical at my liberal arts college, thestudents in my course held a variety of interests and intended to pursuevarious majors from linguistics, to English, history, and physics. Studentsin the class were free to schedule service commitments that fit into theirschedules and interests, but they were required to give 4 hours a week toservice in the community, which was fulfilled through tutoring and mentoringstudents in local schools where they observed language variation in theschools and worked with speakers of African-American English. Duringthe regular class meetings, I focused on the linguistic and social featuresof English as spoken by African Americans in the USA. We examinedhypotheses about the history and emergence of African-American VernacularEnglish and explored the relationship of African-American VernacularEnglish to linguistic theory, education praxis, American culture, and racialprejudice. Students were able to mentor students through the Big Brotherin-school mentorship program at a local elementary school in Williams-burg and through the mentorship and tutoring program at the Academyfor Life and Learning, a school for middle and high school studentswho have been suspended or expelled from the general public schoolpopulation.

Many schools of education have relationships with local schools thatservice learning courses may be able to partner with. Programs in speech andcommunication, EFL, and psychology may have similar relationships. Thecollected essays in Wurr and Hellebrandt (2007) describe service learning inan applied linguistics context including foreign language, TESOL, and hearingand speech sciences settings. Many universities already have community-based English as a Second Language (ESL) service learning efforts under-way, for example, Portland State University (http://www.ling.pdx.edu/ling_newsletter_F07.pdf), therefore, discovering what type of service ispopular on campus may be a way to recruit students that do not tradi-tionally find their way to linguistics.

Conclusion

Linguists are in a unique position to help scholars and practitioners acrossdisciplines tackle questions that intersect with issues of the social aspectsof language behavior. It is crucial that linguists share knowledge withother disciplines so that we may benefit from what others already know.Educators, healthcare providers, and law enforcement providers in particularwould all benefit from a more direct knowledge about linguistics in generaland about the language variation in their communities. This informationmust be cast in a concise, easy to read form that is tailored specifically tothe needs of the reader. Linguists from every subfield can provide importantinformation on the social situations of speakers of different backgrounds.Even the most introductory students can play a role in this process.Through a continued dedication to the ways that linguistic research

http://www.ling.pdx.edu/ling_newsletter_F07.pdf

936 Anne H. Charity


can contribute to social change, linguists may more closely meet Bolinger’scharge and keep socially minded linguistics at the root of the linguisticmission.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the NSF under Grant No. 0512005 and byThe College of William and Mary. I would like to thank Melissa Edwards,Rosalind O’Brien, Maryam Bakht-Rofheart, Christine Mallinson, KirkHazen, Becky Childs, and Jeffrey Reaser for their invaluable guidance andfeedback on earlier drafts of this paper. I would especially like to thankmy mentors Jack Martin and Lindsay Whaley for helping me to furtherappreciate the interrelationship between all linguists who seek to serve bydirectly supporting my work.

Short Biography

Anne H. Charity is Assistant Professor of English and Linguistics andDirector of the Linguistics Laboratory at The College of William andMary, where she is also a Sharpe Community Scholars Faculty Fellow.Her work is situated at the intersections of Linguistics, Psychology, African-American Studies and Education. Her linguistic research concerns regionalvariation in English and the relationship between language variation, servicelearning, and educational practices and policies. She is a Ford Fellow andwas a NSF Minority Postdoctoral Fellow. She also serves on the Board ofTrustees at the Orchard House School in Richmond, Virginia. Charity andher students work closely with the Academy for Life and Learning, aschool for long-term suspended and expelled middle and high schoolstudents from Williamsburg–James City County Public Schools. She haspublished articles in Child Development, Language Variation and Change,American Speech, and in several book collections on African-AmericanEnglish and Education including the Handbook of African-American Psychol-ogy. Charity received a BA and an MA in Linguistics from HarvardUniversity in 1998 and a PhD in Linguistics from the University ofPennsylvania in 2005.

Notes

* Correspondence address: Anne H. Charity, The College of William and Mary, Departmentof English Language and Literature, P.O. Box 8795 Tucker Hall, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795,USA. E-mail: [email protected]

1 At the time, the Office of Education was part of the US Department of Health, Education,and Welfare.2 Wolfram’s work in North Carolina grew out of the work of he did with Carolyn Adger ininner-city Baltimore while he was working at The Center for Applied Linguistics and theUniversity of the District of Columbia.



Works Cited

Adger, Carolyn Temple, Walt Wolfram, and Donna Christian. 2007. Dialects in schools andcommunities. New York, NY: Routledge.

Adger, Carolyn Temple, and Natalie Schilling-Estes. 2003. African American English: Structureand clinical implications (CD-ROM and manual). Rockville, MD: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.

Alim, Samy. 2005. Critical language awareness in the United States: revisiting issues and revisingpedagogies in a resegregated society. Educational Researcher 34.24–31.

America Reads. 2000. America reads challenge: Overview (archived information). US Depart-ment of Education. <http://www.ed.gov/inits/americareads/aboutus_overview.html>.

Baker, Paul. 2007. Foundation for endangered languages: Grant applications. <http://www.ogmios.org/grant.htm>.

Baugh, John. 2000. Beyond ebonics: linguistic pride and racial prejudice. New York, NY:Oxford University Press.

Bolinger, Dwight. 1979. The socially-minded linguist. The Modern Language Journal 63.404–7.Center for Applied Linguistics. 2008. About CAL: our history. <http://www.cal.org/about/

history.html>.Charity, Anne, Jeree Harris, Joe Hayes, Katie Ikeler, and Andrew Squires. 2008. Service

learning as an introduction to sociolinguistics and linguistic equality. American Speech83.237–50.

Charity, Anne, Hollis Scarborough, and Darion Griffin 2004. Familiarity with ‘School English’in African-American children and its relationship to early reading achievement. ChildDevelopment 75.1340–56.

Chomsky, Noam. 1991. Language, politics, and composition as interviewed by Olson, G.A. and Faigley,L. Journal of Advanced Composition 11(1). <www.chomsky.info/interviews/1991----.htm>.

——. 1998. On language: Chomsky’s classic works language and responsibility and reflectionson language in one volume. New York, NY: New Press.

Cornell University. 2005. Cornell Conference on Language and Poverty. <http://celaeno.phonetics.cornell.edu/language_and_poverty/description.html>.

Corporation for National and Community Service. 2008. What is service learning? <http://www.learnandserve.gov/about/service_learning/index.asp>.

Craig, Holly, and Julie Washington, 2006. Malik goes to school: examining the language skillsof African American students from preschool-5th grade. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence ErlbaumAssociates.

Delpit, Lisa. (ed.) 2002. The skin that we speak: thoughts on language and culture in theclassroom. New York, NY: New Press.

The Endangered Language Fund. 2007. Language resources. <http://www.endangeredlanguagefund.org/resources.html>.

Fishman, Joshua. 2001. Can threatened languages be saved? Reversing language shift revisited:a 21st century perspective. Clevedon, UK: Multilingual Matters.

Fogel, Howard, and Linnea Ehri. 2006. Teaching African American English forms to standardAmerican English-speaking teachers: effects on acquisition, attitudes, and responses to studentuse. Journal of Teacher Education 57.464–80.

Gordon, Raymond, Jr. (ed.) 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the world, 15th edn. Dallas, TX:SIL International. <http://www.ethnologue.com/web.asp>.

Green, Lisa. 2002. African American English: a linguistic introduction. Cambridge, UK:Cambridge University Press.

Grenoble, Lenore, and Lindsay Whaley. 2006. Saving languages: an introduction to languagerevitalization. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Haussamen, Brock. 2003. Grammar alive! A guide for teachers. Urbana, IL: National Councilof Teachers of English.

Hazen, Kirk. 2006. Language knowledge for the medical community. Rural culture: WestVirginia’s legacy, ed. by R. Ham, S.J. Gainor, R. Jones and M. Durbin, Morgantown, WV:Mountain State Geriatric Education Center, 49–57.

Herman, Edward, and Noam Chomsky. 1988. Manufacturing consent: the political economyof the mass media. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.

http://www.ed.gov/inits/americareads/aboutus_overview.html

http://www.ogmios.org/grant.htm

http://www.cal.org/about/history.html

http://celaeno.phonetics.cornell.edu/language_and_poverty/description.html

http://www.learnandserve.gov/about/service_learning/index.asp

http://www.endangeredlanguagefund.org/resources.html

http://www.ethnologue.com/web.asp

www.chomsky.info/interviews/1991----.htm

938 Anne H. Charity


Hibbard, Calvin. 2008. William Cameron Townsend, 1896–1982. <http://www.sil.org/WCT/wct_bio2.html>.

Hornberger, Nancy. 2007. Encyclopedia of language and education. 2nd edn. New York, NY: Springer.Labov, William. 1972. Language in the inner city: studies in the Black English Vernacular.

Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.–––. 1982. Objectivity and commitment in linguistic science: the case of the black English trial

in Ann Arbor. Language and Society 11.165–202.–––. 2006. Unendangered dialects, endangered people. <http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/

Papers/UDEP.html>.Labov, William, and Bettina Baker 2005. The individualized reading program: reading for the

real world. Philadelphia, PA: Linguistics Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania. <http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/UMRP/UMRP.html>.

Labov, William, P. Cohen, C. Robins, and J. Lewis 1968. A study of the non-standard Englishof Negro and Puerto Rican speakers in New York City. Cooperative Research Report 3288.Vols. I and II. Philadelphia, PA: US Regional Survey (Linguistics Laboratory, University ofPennsylvania).

Ladefoged, Peter. 2006. An academic life. Los Angeles, CA: University of California. <http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/ladefoge/PLcareer.pdf>.

Linguistic Society of America. 1987. LSA resolution: English only. Drafted by Geoff Nunberg.<http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-res-english.cfm>.

–––. 1995. Guidelines for nonsexist usage. <http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-res-usage.cfm>.–––. 1997. LSA resolution on the Oakland ‘Ebonics’ issue. Drafted by John Rickford. <http://

www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-res-ebonics.cfm>.–––. 2003. Resolution: opposition to the U.S. Military’s Policy of dismissing linguists, transla-

tors, interpreters, or other members of the armed forces on the basis of their sexual orien-tation. Drafted by Gregory Ward. <http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-res-mili.cfm>.

–––. 2007. LSA honors and awards. <http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-awards.cfm>.MIT Linguistics & Philosophy. People: Noam Chomsky. <http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/

faculty/chomsky/index.html>.Napoli, Donna Jo. 2003. Language matters: a guide to everyday questions about language.

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.National Science Foundation. 2007. Merit review broader impacts criterion: representative

activities. <http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/gpg/broaderimpacts.pdf>.NCTE. 1996. Standards for the English language arts. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers

of English.NCTE/NCATE. 2003. NCTE/NCATE program standards: program for the initial preparation

of teachers of secondary English language arts. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers ofEnglish.

Nettle, Daniel, and Suzanne Romaine 2000. Vanishing voices: the extinction of the world’slanguages. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

North Carolina State University and Walt Wolfram. 2007. North Carolina Language and LifeProject. <http://www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/ncllp/index.php>.

Ogbu, John. 1992. Understanding cultural diversity and learning. Educational Researcher 21.5–14.Pinker, Stephen. 1994. The language instinct: how the mind creates language. New York, NY:

William Morrow & Co.Portland State University Department of Applied Linguistics. 2007. A taste of community

activism. Fall Newsletter. Portland, OR: Author. <http://www.ling.pdx.edu/ling_newsletter_F07.pdf>.

Reaser, Jeffrey, and Carolyn Temple Adger. 2007. Vernacular language varieties in educationalsettings: research and development. The handbook of educational linguistics, ed. by BernardSpolsky, and Francis M. Hult. Malden, MA: Blackwell.

Reaser, Jeffrey, Carolyn Temple Adger, and Susan Hoyle. 2005. Using Do you speak American?For educator training and professional development: guide and materials <http://www.pbs.org/speak/education/training/>.

Rickford, John R., Julie Sweetland, and Angela E. Rickford. 2004. African American Englishand other vernaculars in education: A topic-coded bibliography. Journal of English Linguistics32.230–320.

http://www.sil.org/WCT/wct_bio2.html

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/Papers/UDEP.html

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/UMRP/UMRP.html

http://www.linguistics.ucla.edu/people/ladefoge/PLcareer.pdf

http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-res-english.cfm

http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-res-usage.cfm

http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-res-ebonics.cfm

http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-res-mili.cfm

http://www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-awards.cfm

http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/faculty/chomsky/index.html

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/gpg/broaderimpacts.pdf

http://www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/ncllp/index.php

http://www.ling.pdx.edu/ling_newsletter_F07.pdf

http://www.pbs.org/speak/education/training/



Rickford, John. 1997a. Unequal partnership: sociolinguistics and the African American speechcommunity. Language in Society 26.161–97.

–––. 1997b. Commentary: Suite for Ebony and Phonics. Discover 18.12 (December).82–7.Rickford, John, and Russell J. Rickford. 2000. Spoken soul: the story of Black English. New

York, NY: John Wiley and Sons.Rosetta Stone. 2008. Endangered language program. <http://www.rosettastone.com/global/

endangered>.SIL International. 2008. What is SIL international? <http://www.sil.org/sil/>.Spolsky, Bernard, and Francis Hult. (eds.). 2008. Handbook of educational linguistics. Oxford,

UK: Blackwell.Stafforini, Pablo. 2006. The Noam Chomsky Website. <http://www.chomsky.info>.TeachLing. Lesson plans on language and linguistics in K-12 education. <http://teachling.

wwu.edu/view/lessonplans>.Wolfram, Walt. 1993. Ethical considerations in language awareness programs. Issues in Applied

Linguistics 4.225–55.–––. 1998. Scrutinizing linguistic gratuity: issues from the field. Journal of Sociolinguistics

2.271–9.–––. 2000a. Everyone has an accent. Teaching Tolerance Magazine 18. <http://www.tolerance.org/

teach/magazine/features.jsp?cid=186>.–––. 2000b. Linguistic diversity and the public interest. American Speech 7.278–80.–––. 2005. African American English. Clinical sociolinguistics, ed. by J. Ball Martin, 87–100.

Malden, MA/Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Wolfram, Walt, and Carolyn Temple Adger. 1993. Handbook on dialect differences and speech

and language pathology. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics/Baltimore CityPublic Schools.

Wolfram, Walt and Ben Ward. (eds.) 2006. American voices: how dialects differ from coast tocoast. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

Wurr, Adrian, and Josef Hellebrandt. 2007. Learning the language of global citizenship: servicelearning in applied linguistics. Boston, MA: Anker Publishing Company.

http://www.rosettastone.com/global/endangered

http://www.sil.org/sil/

http://www.chomsky.info

http://teachling.wwu.edu/view/lessonplans

http://www.tolerance.org/teach/magazine/features.jsp?cid=186

Documents

Linguists as Agents for Social Change