228 CHAPTER 7
Fortunately, most teachers understand that education is the key to opportu-
nity, that opportunity is a clear good, and that mastery of Standard English is a
key to education. Large numbers of educators believe that schools must adopt
anadditive stancewith respect to dialects, and they view mastery and use of
Standard English as complementing the home dialect, whatever it may be. This
additive stance calls for legitimizing and valuing all dialects while simulta-
neously recognizing the appropriateness conditions that govern language use
in specific situations. From this perspective, there are situations in which Black
English, for example, is appropriate and Standard English is not; and there are
situations in which Standard English is appropriate and Black English is not.
The goals of schools, therefore, should include helping students recognize the
different conditions and mastering the nuances of Standard English. Sadly, this
commonsense approach tends to get lost in all the noise surrounding language
policy and language curricula. Those involved simply cannot reach agreement
on fundamental principles. Education is intensely political.
APPLYING KEY IDEASReflect on the foregoing discussion and your own views on the question of
teaching the prestige dialect in our schools. What is your position? Write a page
or two explaining your position and its implications for your teaching. Share
your writing with your class and determine whether there is any consensus.
Based on the outcome of the class discussion, what conclusions can you draw
about the status of Standard English instruction in our schools of tomorro w?
Evaluate your own dialect. If your goal as a teacher is to provide a model of
Standard English for students, what adjustments may you have to make in
your language?
Slang
Although slang is a variation of a language, it is not the same as a dialect. Slang
differs from a dialect in several ways. For example, it is limited to a relatively
small group of people, whereas a dialect is used by large numbers. Slang typi-
cally is associated with young people between the ages of 12 and 25, who use it
as a means of group bonding that distinguishes insiders from outsiders, espe-
cially with respect to age and gender—boys tend to use more slang than girls.
The lexicons of dialects remain stable over time, as we see in the case of the
wordelevatorin American English andliftin British English. Slang, on the