A Study of the Language Practices of Ethnolinguistic Minority Preservice Teachers

Abstract

In this dissertation, I share findings generated from a year-long ethnographic and sociolinguistic study of the discursive practices of Black and Latina female preservice teachers, all nonstandard language and dialect speakers, across three settings: the university classroom, the practicum teaching classroom, and a social setting. The aim of the study was to examine how teacher education as a discursive space shapes the linguistic decisions of ethnolinguistic minority preservice teachers—individuals who speak varieties of languages and dialects that are deemed “less than” and “inferior to” dominant language varieties (e.g., African American Language (see Baugh, 1999; Smitherman, 1999); Spanish language varieties (e.g., Anzaldúa, 1987/1999; Zentella, 2004)), and accordingly, are granted lower status in American society (Lippi-Green, 2004). Guiding this inquiry was the understanding that through the study of language, it is possible to reveal the tacit theories and ideologies that persist within dominant spaces and the ways in which such ideologies affect the language choices that ethnolinguistic minority preservice teachers must make in order to acculturate a dominant teacher identity. I captured and examined transcripts of discursive practices evidenced through videotaped and audiotaped speech events, observations, interviews, and archival data (e.g., journal reflections, classroom assignments) using ethnographic research methods and critical discourse analysis (see Chouliaraki and Fairclough, 1999; Rogers, 2004c). My analysis of the data prompted implications for the field of teacher education and for the role of qualitative research methodologies in the study of language, discourse, and identity.