Influences Shaping Responses to Language Diversity

We know that individual listeners' attitudes towardShe maintains that the ideology is introduced in
language diversity generally parallel their attitudesschools, promoted by the media, and
toward the speakers themselves, but it can beinstitutionalized in the workplace. Consequently,
difficult to locate the trigger for negativemany of those who deviate from this ideology
organizational or institutional responses to languageand are members of groups held in disfavor by
diversity. Does a person's negative attitudemainstream speakers of English can expect lesser
toward other languages in the workplace reflecteducational opportunities and outcomes and similar
that person's distaste for other languages per selimitations in the workplace.
or for other things related to the speakers of theUnexamined attitudes toward language diversity
particular language at issue?can have grave consequences in school. Deborah
For instance, might a person's negative attitudeByrnes, Gary Kiger, and Lee Manning point out
toward a particular language be a proxy forthat teachers' attitudes toward children's
unease with changing demographics brought aboutlanguages and dialects influence teachers'
by large numbers of immigrants who speak thatexpectations of students' academic achievement.
language? Do negative attitudes about languageThey also noted that teachers' negative attitudes
diversity reflect distaste for the way people talk,toward language minority children are exacerbated
or do they reflect distaste for the speakersby the disproportionate number of children who
themselves, who may be seen as a threat toare found in lower socioeconomic groups.
employment or cultural norm? Rosina Lippi-GreenBeing in poverty and not speaking English natively
attributes the root of negative attitudes in theare thus linked in the minds of many people. An
United States toward languages other than Englishunwarranted cause-and-effect relationship is
to a monoglot language ideology that favors oneestablished.
form of English.