Dr.

Leisy Wyman
REFLECTIONS ON WOOLARD, WYMAN, NICHOLAS AND MCCARTY AND GONZALEZ
August 27, 2018
The idea of language ideologies is a new concept to me. I had never heard of the term and had not really
thought of the depth of the concept, but through this week’s readings it was made clear to me that I had
indeed thought about the issues that come with the concept. What struck me most within these readings
was the idea of social justice being tied to language ideologies. This is where many of my individual
thoughts, values, and opinions have lived, but I had never given thought that there may be a related
concept.

One of the first realizations that I had is the close relationship between culture and language, which
impacts and creates identity. It seems obvious now, but one’s identity is so wrapped up in the ways in
which they communicate, which is dependent on the language used. Due to this relationship, the idea of
language endangerment really stood out to me because when a language is gone, so too it seems is the
culture. In the piece, by Wyman, McCarty, and Nicholas (2013) the point that stood out to me was that
youth are often mistakenly seen as apathetic about learning their ancestral language, but the opposite is
true. Many times youth believe that they will be ridiculed for not speaking correctly and this fear prevents
them from taking a deeper interest (Wyman, McCarty, & Nicholas, 2013). This belief makes it difficult for
language to continue through generations, which is truly an important issue.

The idea of sociolinguistic justice, was one that I felt a connection too, because of my experience working
in Tucson middle schools. I experienced for myself the sentiment within the piece from Gonzalez and
Arnot-Hopffer (2003), where Mrs. Arnott-Hopffer spoke about parents anxiously waiting for their children
to learn English. This was an occurrence that I was witness to on many occasions, because of the almost
stigma that came along with speaking English as a second language. No doubt these feelings were
deeply rooted in the lack of opportunities that they as parents were afforded because of their lack of
knowledge of the dominant language. Due to these strong believes, which are now consistently reinforced
in the news and politics, this thought has resonated with me “the issues that matter to speakers should
also be issues that matter to linguists (Bucholtz et al., 2014, p. 146).”

The issues that matter to speakers should be of upmost importance. Language is a personal and
important choice that speakers make. It is tied to culture, beliefs, and identity. Social justice efforts then
need not only view change through a limited lens of dominant language, but through the people who are
most impacted from children through youth and adults. Learning about language and how it ties to
individuals and their cultural representation is an important step to creating a more equitable
nation/world.

Bucholtz, M., Lopez, A., Mojarro, A., Skapoulli, E., VanderStouwe, C., and Warner-Garcia, S. (2014). Sociolinguistic justice in schools:
REFERENCES

Student researchers as linguistic experts. Language and Linguistics Compass, 8/4, 144-157.
Gonzalez, N., and Arnot-Hopffer, E. (2003). Voices of the children: Language and literacy ideologies in a dual language immersion
program. In Worthan, S. and Rymes, B. (2003). Linguistic anthropology of education. (pp. 213-243).
Wyman, L., McCarty, T.L., Nicholas, S.E. (2013). Beyond endangerment: Indigenous youth and multilingualism. In Wyman, L., McCarty,
T.L., Nicholas, S.E