Difference, Not Deficit: A Linguistic Primer

Language prejudice is often masked in socialized behavior toward education. Students are judged to be “educated” by how well they are able to conform to academic rules both in speech and in writing—socially ratified forms of phonological, grammatical, and lexical language use that are considered “correct.” Perpetuating this socialization, even highly educated and diversity-aware people become unknowing propagators of language prejudice, and myths about language use, structure, and history prevail. When ELA teachers think of explicitly addressing language variation in their classrooms without linguistic training, they may become mired in the controversial political rhetoric related to issues and myths of diversity and inclusion. The authors illustrate how using linguistic grammaticality to steer students through the challenges of language diversity.