Who Speaks Good English

Many people have strong beliefs that there are right and wrong ways of speaking, good and bad versions of their language. These norms are reinforced explicitly in the education system, and implicitly in the ways that people talk about language or see it portrayed in media. Students will learn about the history, development, and linguistic structure of three language varieties that are sometimes characterized by non-linguists as "bad English": Singaporean English, Jamaican Creole, and African American Vernacular English. By critically examining public discourses about these language varieties and learning to identify their systematic patterns of grammatical structure, students will discover that popular ideas about "good" and "bad" English are rooted in the narratives that surround language, not linguistic fact.