On Wednesday, the Daily Tar Heel published an editorial titled “Linguistic defense of affirmative action” that since its publication has created quite a buzz around campus. The article lays out a defense of affirmative action that I find at the very least unconventional and lacking, but none the less is an interesting viewpoint that begs the question; What factors(race, age, income..) deserve to be considered when applying for college?
The article asserts that various populations, such as African-Americans and Southerners speak “a different language” which makes achieving success in schools that operate using proper english difficult. While I do believe that language can be a critical barrier to student performance, for many of my fellow students at Enloe High School in Raleigh came from families where english was not their first language but it was rather Hindi, Chinese, Arabic, or Spanish. I can only imagine that learning english was quite a challenge, but all of my friends attest that they mastered english by 3rd grade and beyond that point it posed no barrier to their education. Given this testimony, I find it silly that colleges would place any significant handicap for students in which english is not their first language,whom have gone through the american educational system. However the real issue here is not if language is a barrier for success, that is well known and documented, but rather do regional dialects and improper language uses count as a different language?
It is this point that I have the most contention with, certainly American-American English is not “proper english” and Southerners have a distinct dialect but do they classify as a separate language? According to the OED, a dialect is ; One of the subordinate forms or varieties of a language arising from local peculiarities of vocabulary, pronunciation, and idiom. This definition, clearly identifies a dialect as a subordinate form of a language and therefore not worthy of the same distinctions and accommodations garnered to a different language. Every group, family, or geographic location has its own distinct language uses that differ from conventional english, but certainly these do not qualify as a different language worthy of affirmative action protections. If this was the case ever citizen in the country would qualify for protection under this definition, making the protection in essence pointless. For example, the majority of my family is from Pittsburgh and over the course of a day it is not uncommon to hear words such as “yinz” “melk” and “pataydas”. On top of this, I personally have developed my own language style using words such a “Nuculear”, “Ambalance”, and “Howdy”, these quirks define my speech but I do not consider them a separate language or proper english. I doubt anyone in a college admissions office would classify this manner of speaking as a distinct language, granting anyone from Pittsburgh, Boston, New York, or Person County, where pen and pin are homonyms, a leg up in the admissions process. Rather these dialects are a part of a persons language history, something each of us are born into, for no region, city, or area speaks perfect english. By the time a person graduates high-school language should not pose a critical barrier to success, absent a confounding variable, and to utilize that language heritage as an excuse to gain an unfair advantage in the college admission system degrades the respect of the system and insults our ability to overcome barriers placed before us.
Many of you will certainly disagree with my analysis of the situation, and it is lacking in many areas, so please feel free to comment and discuss your viewpoints in the comment section.
~The Poster
This is an interesting and controversial subject, as it is still OK (wink, wink) to make judgemets based on accent and dialect. It provoked a very spirited discussion with a friend of mine. I think that if individuals have been discriminated against because of accent/dialect, then a consideration of AA in order to negate that is reasonable. I didn’t read the piece in the DTH though. Thanks.
While I do not believe it to be okay to make judgements based on accent, I believe that in the college admissions process (which in most college is both income and geographically blind) there are several other factors that act as counterweights to any inheriant bias towards accent or dialect, so additional AA protection is unnessacary. SAT scores, teacher recommendations, and extra-curriculars all give a student a chance to showcase their abilities beyond the simple GPA. While the personal statement and essays give student thier own voice to express any barriers they may feel have affronted them, in comparison to the majority of applicants. If a student feels that their accent or language background in anyway hinders, or enhances, their application they are given the option of voicing this. (If not in the personal statement, then by an interview) Why should AA protections speak for a student, that may or may not be disadvantaged, when they are given every oppurtunity to speak for themselves? Is the damage from an overarching rule that may only protect students already recieving justice, not reason enough to take a look at these cases individually, rather then grouping them into categories, and allow students to speak for themselves?