It isn’t sloppy language: exploring the discourse of Village English

Abstract

In Alaska, as elsewhere in the United States, standardized American English is privileged over both local varieties of English and Indigenous languages. This privileged position is maintained, in part, through a deficit model of language acquisition and a model of school success which locates the source of underachievement among K-12 students within the child rather than within the broader sociopolitical context of school and schooling. Using a critical participatory action research approach, this article examines a single graduate course for K-12 teachers intended to address ideologies of linguistic deficit and demonstrate that the varieties of English spoken by adults and children in Southwest Alaska are systematic and rule-governed. Data are analyzed in terms of trajectories of learning, focusing on three distinct points within this trajectory: Pre-course questionnaire, Mid-point questionnaire and post-course artifacts (e.g., final projects for the master’s degree). Through the lens of discourse analysis (Gee, James Paul. 2010. An introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method, 3rd edn. New York, NY: Routledge), we illustrate and discuss the tensions inherent in shifting discourse models as the teachers contend with course content that challenges broadly accepted explanations for school underachievement.