“standard” English. They contemplate passive resistance and large-scale
civil disobedience, and a United States in which the equation between
national unity and linguistic homogeneity has been examined and
discarded as untenable and unfair. Others point out that because children
are still in the language acquisition stage, they should theoretically be able
to acquire more than one variety of English – and that this should become
a rule. Idealism does not put food on the table, this argument goes.
It is a strong argument. Economic rationalizations are the most often
raised, most loudly voiced, and the most persuasive of all common-sense
arguments used to coerce the few into the ways of the many: Assimilation
is the price of success.
Comparison of Figure 18.1 and Figure 18.2 makes it clear that the U.S.
has always been and will always be ethnically, racially, and linguistically
heterogeneous, but it is equally true that the population figures are
shifting. In a democracy based on majority-rule, power relationships
cannot be static and will always be expressed – in part – by means of
language ideology.
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