By Monique Mills
Associate Professor at the University of Houston

            One of the most powerful ways in which humans attempt to subjugate other humans is through hate speech. According to the American Library Association, hate speech refers to a “form of expression through which speakers intend to vilify, humiliate, or incite hatred against a group or a class of persons on the basis of race, religion, skin color, sexual identity, gender identity, ethnicity, disability, or national origin” (Ward, 1997, as cited in American Library Association, 2024, para. 1). Hate speech—like other forms of xenophobia and prejudice—serves to maintain status quo, so that powerful and powerless maintain their places in society. Thus, hate speech tends to surface to correct any change or shifting in the (often unexamined) ordinary state of affairs. One such state of affairs of interest to me, as an applied linguist and speech-language pathologist, is the impact of explicit and tacit language ideologies on educational policy and practices with multilingual elementary students. Language ideologies are “conceptualizations about languages, speakers, and discursive practices” (Irvine, 2016), which range from subconscious assumptions to explicit dogma (Riley, 2011). As such, language ideologies, when acted upon or projected onto speakers, may constitute a subtle form of hate speech.

Two dominant language ideologies are the ideology of monolingualism and the ideology of language standardization. The ideology of language standardization holds that there is a correct way of using the language and all people ought to use it this way. Not doing so would be considered deviation from the norm or even a moral failure. In the United States, Mainstream American English (MAE) is considered the appropriate variety, or dialect, of American English to deploy in official spaces such as school or work; whereas African American English (AAE, or Ebonics) is deemed inappropriate in formal spaces (Greer et al., 2024; Mills et al., 2021). Ideologies of language standardization drive our desire to accept sentence (1) and reject sentence (2):

(1) Yesterday, she walked to school.
(2) Yesterday, she walk to school.

Both sentences include a past tense marker (e.g., yesterday) so the meaning of each is easily understood by speakers of English. Moreover, we want to reject the speech as well as the speakers of non-Mainstream varieties like Ozark English, Appalachian English, and AAE. For example, speakers of AAE regularly hear and internalize hate speech based on raciolinguistics (Flores & Rosa, 2015), or the intersection of the way they speak, their race, and their skin color. These negative messages AAE, often lobbed by teachers and non-AAE speakers in their classrooms, are internalized and create linguistic insecurity: AAE speakers are less likely to want to speak up in the classroom (Baker-Bell, 2020; Hudley & Mallinson, 2013) and more likely to be silenced when they do so (Michaels, 1983). Black children who speak AAE are humiliated in the presence of their non-Black peers, openly corrected for speaking in a manner consistent with their speech communities (Wheeler & Swords, 2006). Moreover, AAE speakers may be perceived of as disrespectful—a moral failure—because they do not choose to speak MAE.

Translanguaging pedagogical practices are viewed as a way for teachers to appreciate, and even celebrate, language diversity while helping children acquire the rules of MAE (see Soto-Boykin et al., 2023; Vogel & Garcia, 2017). Translanguaging is defined as the natural, fluid language practices bilinguals and bidialectals use when drawing from their entire language repertoires for negotiation and meaning making (García, 2009). When teachers engage in translanguaging pedagogy, they intentionally leverage and build upon students’ existing language practices to support expansion of their linguistic repertoires to include features necessary for language development, content knowledge, and ability to perform in academic settings (García & Wei, 2014). Thus, while translanguaging practices such as codeswitching, translation, recasting, to name a few, acknowledge the importance of language standardization in academic curricula and discourse; however, they do so in a more humane manner than do traditional education practices, honoring the dignity of AAE and its speakers. For example, instead of “correcting” students who produce sentences like (2), teachers who practice translanguaging may recast what the students said by rephrasing it as (1) and continuing to dialogue. In this way, the teacher provides a cue that MAE is the language to use in the classroom while continuing to move the conversation forward with her student. Such practices tend not to leave students demoralized and humiliated. Another example of a translanguaging practice would be instructing in MAE and then asking students to pair up to have a group discussion about course content using their language or dialect of choice (e.g., AAE, MAE, Spanglish). This way, all represented languages and dialects are honored, and thus, all speakers dignified.

Hate speech stems from beliefs that lead to action, whether in verbal or written form. The ideology of monolingualism holds that a single shared language is essential to the unity and strength of a nation and that mastery of that language is required for full citizenship. Educational policies like Proposition 227, proposed by Ron Unz in 1998, abolished most types of bilingual education programs in California. The idea behind this restrictive language policy was that English should be the only language used in classrooms in California. The law severely limited schools’ options for teaching in languages other than English and had the effect of eliminating most bilingual program across the state. Thus, bilingual education programs were replaced with English-only education programs, negatively affecting students, teachers and parents across the state: Within a 10-year period, the percentage of bilingual students who received primary language instruction dropped from approximately 30% (1997) to 6% (2007) (California Department of Education, 2008b, 2008c). Thus, bilingual education programs were replaced with English-only education programs, negatively affecting students, teachers and parents across the state (Lee & Cole, 2024). Given longitudinal research suggesting that bilingual education programs are more effective for teaching students to read in English than are English-only programs (see https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/ell/cresource/q1/p03/#content), efforts to suppress such programs render multilingual students unable to reach their full language potential. Proposition 227 intended to benefit students by improving educational outcomes; however, research examining the policy’s overall academic affect indicates significant achievement gaps persisted between bilingual and English-only students (Butler et al., 2000; Gandara, 2000; Grissom, 2004; Parrish et al., 2006; Wentworth et al., 2010).

All humans possess language ideologies that shape how they engage with others. Therefore, it is necessary to become aware of our own language ideologies and then share them with others in a community of practice, so that we can identify ways to work through them before they come forth as hate speech. Communities of practice consist of interested parties who are passionate about a particular problem, such as how to address cultural and linguistic variation in classrooms (Wenger et al., 2002; Wenger-Trayner, 2020): They are spaces where dialogue can lead to trust among participants and shared expectations for how to affect change. Hate speech, in any form, reflects a fear of change and adaptation that blinds us from seeing value in others, particularly those we are here to help flourish.

Biography

Professor Mills’s research program employs mixed methods to examine the cognitive, social and linguistic resources that school-age African American children draw upon to narrate or tell stories. She directs the Child Language Ability Lab (C-Lab) which is currently engaged in projects examining narrative assessment and dialectal code-switching between African American English and Mainstream American English. Dr. Mills teaches her students about language development, language variation and research methods in communication sciences and disorders.  She believes that her utmost vocation, or calling, is to help humans thrive.

Monique T. Mills, PhD, CCC-SLP, BCS-CL
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders
University of Houston