Recognizing Code Switching as Valid Communication

�I ain�t mad atcha� or �I am not angry with you.� Which should you say? Well, we�re teachers. Our quick response: �The latter.� Grammar and usage are typical components of speech rubrics� topics students need to think about as part of building a spoken presentation. But that doesn�t mean it�s always correct to choose �proper� grammatical constructions. The correct response to the question above is actually another question altogether: �Who is the audience?�

[...]

In Teaching the Core Skills of Listening and Speaking, I encouraged recognition of �codeswitching.� I use the phrase to mean specifically switching between dialects or styles of speech. Marc Lamont Hill, a professor of education and African American studies at Columbia University, explains that code-switching is a way �to provide some kind of either social distance or social proximity to the people with whom you�re speaking� (National Public Radio, 2010, January 13). He spoke on an NPR show in reaction to Senator Harry Reid�s comment about Barack Obama speaking, in Reid�s poorly chosen words, �Negro dialect� when then-candidate Obama was talking to primarily black audiences. Reid wondered why the president didn�t speak what might be called standard English or, in the language of Standard 6, �formal English.� Reid�s comments caused some upset, but they opened the door to an important discussion about communication.

Notes:

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Speaking in Many Ways

Electronic/World Wide Web>Internet Article: Palmer, Erik (2016), Speaking in Many Ways, ASCD: Teaching the Core Skills of Listening and Speaking, Retrieved on 2016-02-25

Folksonomies: grammar literacy vocabulary