which names as its model the written language, but which is drawn
primarily from the spoken language of the upper middle class.^2Silverstein’s work on language ideology (1979, 1998) initiated a long
discussion of how ideology functions, while Foucault considered the way
in which discourse is “controlled, selected, organized and redistributed,”
or disciplined. In concluding that “discourse is the power to be seized”
(1984), Foucault was anticipating some of the arguments about rhetorical
framing which will be raised in later chapters.
SLI proposes that an idealized nation-state has one perfect, homogenous
language. That hypothetical, idealized language is the means by which (1)
discourse is seized, and (2) rationalizations for that seizure are
constructed. It is also a fragile construct and one that needs to be
protected.
It might be argued that in a culture such as ours which obliges everyone
to participate in the educational system, everyone has access to discourse.
In theory, marginalized groups can, by coming through the educational
system, make themselves heard. Foucault anticipates part of this argument
by pointing out the fallacy of the assumption of education as an evenly
distributed and power-neutral cultural resource: “Any system of education
is a political way of maintaining or modifying the appropriation of
discourses, along with the knowledges and powers which they carry”
(ibid.: 123).
The educational system may not be the beginning, but it is the heart of
the standardization process. To suggest that children who do not speak
*SAE will find acceptance and validation in the schools is, in a word,
ludicrous. A child who tells her stories in stigmatized varieties of English
is quickly corrected. She must assimilate, or fall silent. Sledd sees this as
an institutionalized policy to formally initiate children into the linguistic
prejudices (and hence, language ideology) of the middle classes (Sledd
1972, 1988). Dominant institutions promote the notion of an overarching,
homogenous standard language which is primarily Anglo, upper middle-
class, and ethnically middle-American. Whether the issues at hand are