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 Ralf
Language Coach
Joined: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 1485
Location: EU (Ireland and Germany)
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 #3 (permalink) Mon Jul 07, 2008 9:50 am Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Ralf wrote: |
| Is it? How so? |
Is this something you haven't come across? |
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Molly
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 12 Feb 2008
Posts: 4017
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| #4 (permalink) Mon Jul 07, 2008 11:53 am Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Molly wrote: |
| Ralf wrote: |
| Is it? How so? |
Is this something you haven't come across? |
So far, only in private. Except you're referring to my peculiar wool, but I appreciate dedicated criticism.
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Ralf
Language Coach
Joined: 20 Apr 2006
Posts: 1485
Location: EU (Ireland and Germany)
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| #5 (permalink) Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:07 am Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Quote: |
| So far, only in private. |
Will you tell us more? |
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Molly
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 12 Feb 2008
Posts: 4017
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| #6 (permalink) Tue Jul 08, 2008 12:09 pm Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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It's because people can't change their race or gender, but they can change their dialect or acquire a second one (or a third or fourth one).
Some dialects are difficult for most people to understand, and they therefore impede a company's ability to do business. Once I got a call from people at a phone center in rural Arkansas, and I couldn't understand them more than 50% of the time. Because of this communication problem, they thought I had promised to donate $5 to their organization, but I hadn't done so. I must have answered "yes" to some question that I hadn't fully understood but thought I had. For example, they would pronounce "five-dollar commitment" as [fa da mɪ], which virtually no one in the US would understand. Their job was dependent on communication, and they couldn't communicate.
The same thing happens in the US when they make Spanish-speaking call center workers do double duty and call us Anglophones. Often there's no problem, because the person speaks accented but clear English. However, some of them have such poor pronunciation that I've had to end the call, because I couldn't understand 30% of what they said. This operator loses money for the company, and it would be correct for the employer to discriminate against this worker in work assignments, etc., until he or she can speak English more clearly.
Also, US employers are responsible for any abuse or harassment that occurs on their premises. If the employer can't understand what is being said in the workplace, he has no way of monitoring these problems and can't prevent them. In that case, it would be proper for him to forbid the use of a dialect that is unintelligible to him while his employees are on the job. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 5334
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| #7 (permalink) Tue Jul 08, 2008 18:38 pm Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Quote: |
| It's because people can't change their race or gender, |
With the latter, they can.
| Quote: |
| Once I got a call from people at a phone center in rural Arkansas, and I couldn't understand them more than 50% of the time. |
Yeah, but let's remember that it was you who had a problem with understanding our German friend.
| Quote: |
| This operator loses money for the company, and it would be correct for the employer to discriminate against this worker in work assignments, etc., until he or she can speak English more clearly. |
Why employ the worker in the first place?
| Quote: |
| In that case, it would be proper for him to forbid the use of a dialect that is unintelligible to him while his employees are on the job. |
How much does it take to familiarise oneself with the dialect/s of one's employees? |
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Molly
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 12 Feb 2008
Posts: 4017
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| #8 (permalink) Tue Jul 08, 2008 21:21 pm Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Molly wrote: |
| Quote: |
| It's because people can't change their race or gender, |
With the latter, they can. |
It's not possible to change gender. It's only possible to create artificial genitals.
| Molly wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Once I got a call from people at a phone center in rural Arkansas, and I couldn't understand them more than 50% of the time. |
Yeah, but let's remember that it was you who had a problem with understanding our German friend. |
Yes, because her bad prosody creates a lot of miscues, so she is much harder to understand than the average German until you get used to her. I make a large part of my living listening to Germans speak English, and I almost never have a problem understanding one, so it's obviously something strange about our friend Bettina's speech.
I understand American dialects much better than the average American, so if I couldn't understand those people, virtually no one in my part of the country would. You have to admit that [fa da mɪ] doesn't sound much like "five dollar commitment". When I didn't understand it, I repeated it back to him, and he understood it. When he realized I didn't understand him, he immediately switched into Southern-accented standard English and said, "You'll have to excuse me, sir. I'm a little bit country."
| Molly wrote: |
| Quote: |
| This operator loses money for the company, and it would be correct for the employer to discriminate against this worker in work assignments, etc., until he or she can speak English more clearly. |
Why employ the worker in the first place? |
Because she is effective at working with the Spanish-speaking population, and it may be possible to train her to speak English clearly.
| Molly wrote: |
| Quote: |
| In that case, it would be proper for him to forbid the use of a dialect that is unintelligible to him while his employees are on the job. |
How much does it take to familiarise oneself with the dialect/s of one's employees? |
It depends on the dialect and how many are involved. It's not unusual to have three, four or five dialects spoken in the same workplace, and it's unreasonable to expect the employer to learn them all. It's also unreasonable to absolve the employees from the obligation of using language that the employer can understand. It assumes that employees speaking a nonstandard dialect are mentally disabled and incapable of learning any form of communication. It's condescending to them not to obligate them to learn a more general means of communication.
Another thing is that there are some dialects that simply cannot be learned by people outside the group that speaks them. To learn these, the employer would have to move in with one of the families that speak it, sit in school with the children and do a lot of other cumbersome things that would give him entrée into that society. He just won't have the time or opportunity.
In contrast, all of the nonstandard dialect speakers have been exposed to the standard language all their lives, so they have a better basis for learning that than the employer has for learning their dialect. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 5334
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| #9 (permalink) Tue Jul 08, 2008 22:22 pm Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Quote: |
| It's not possible to change gender. It's only possible to create artificial genitals. |
You seem to know a lot about this. Have you a secret to share, J?
| Quote: |
I almost never have a problem understanding one, so it's obviously something strange about our friend Bettina's speech.
I understand American dialects much better than the average American, |
I guess you're just perfection, J.
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| Because she is effective at working with the Spanish-speaking population, and it may be possible to train her to speak English clearly. |
And what has her speech got to do with dialect?
| Quote: |
| It depends on the dialect and how many are involved. It's not unusual to have three, four or five dialects spoken in the same workplace, and it's unreasonable to expect the employer to learn them all. |
Note the word "familiarise" in my post. |
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Molly
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 12 Feb 2008
Posts: 4017
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| #10 (permalink) Tue Jul 08, 2008 22:30 pm Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Jamie wrote: |
| It's because people can't change their race or gender |
Except on ESL forums.
| Molly wrote: |
| Why is dialect discrimination (unlike sexual or ethnic discrimination) still openly legitimised in the workplace? |
Do you have an example of "openly legitimised dialect discrimination"?
MrP |
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MrPedantic
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 13 Oct 2006
Posts: 1319
Location: Southern England
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| #11 (permalink) Tue Jul 08, 2008 22:38 pm Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Quote: |
| Do you have an example of "openly legitimised dialect discrimination"? |
If you don't, we've live in two very different worlds, Mr P. |
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Molly
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 12 Feb 2008
Posts: 4017
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| #12 (permalink) Tue Jul 08, 2008 22:39 pm Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Molly wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Do you have an example of "openly legitimised dialect discrimination"? |
If you don't, we've live in two very different worlds, Mr P. |
In other words, you don't. |
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Jamie (K)
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 24 Feb 2006
Posts: 5334
Location: Detroit, Michigan, USA
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| #13 (permalink) Tue Jul 08, 2008 22:41 pm Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Quote: |
| It's condescending to them not to obligate them to learn a more general means of communication. |
It might be condescending to expect they can't or do not want to learn such, but in no way is it condescending not to oblige them to learn such. |
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Molly
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 12 Feb 2008
Posts: 4017
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| #14 (permalink) Tue Jul 08, 2008 22:43 pm Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Jamie (K) wrote: |
| Molly wrote: |
| Quote: |
| Do you have an example of "openly legitimised dialect discrimination"? |
If you don't, we've live in two very different worlds, Mr P. |
In other words, you don't. |
Asking someone for single examples of something like this means that you've never come across such or you want us to believe that such does not happen. Which is it for you, Jamie? |
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Molly
I'm a Communicator ;-)
Joined: 12 Feb 2008
Posts: 4017
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| #15 (permalink) Tue Jul 08, 2008 22:59 pm Legitimising dialect discrimination |
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| Molly wrote: |
| It might be condescending to expect they can't or do not want to learn such, but it no way is it condescending not to oblige them to learn such. |
| Molly wrote: |
| Asking someone for single examples of something like this means that you've never come across such or you want us to beleieve that such does not happen. Which is it for you, Jamie? |
Molly, I've been trying hard to follow both your questions and your intentions underlying this thread. What is it?
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Ralf
Language Coach
Joined: 20 Apr 2006
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Location: EU (Ireland and Germany)
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