Native Breath: Incorporating Linguistically Relevant Pedagogy in the Classroom through Reified Literature

Abstract

The native breath of linguistic minority students, including speakers of vernaculars and dialects, has traditionally been stifled in classroom ecologies that perpetuate the hegemony of English. A model of linguistically relevant pedagogy is articulated that empowers students both native and nonnative to the Standard to develop cultural competence and critical consciousness towards language. This potentially results in improved native breath valuation and paving the road for improved academic outcomes and facility in learning the societal Standard language as well as gaining tools required in the global age. Drawing from the LIAD (Nero, 2005) and Dialect Awareness (Adger, Wolfram & Christian, 2006) pedagogical frameworks, this paper proposes ways in which educators can support linguistically relevant pedagogy through the teaching of "canonized" fiction.

The language I have learn’ed these forty years,

my native English I must forgo;

and now my tongues use is to me no more

Than an unstringed viol or a harp,

Or like a cunning instrument cased up,

Or, being open, put into his hands

That knows no touch to tune the harmony:

Within my mouth you have engao’ld my tongue

Doubly portcullis’d with my teeth and lips;

And dull unfeeling barren ignorance

Is made my gaoler to attend on me

I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,

Too far in years to be a pupil now:

What is thy sentence then but speechless death,

Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath

-Mowbray, Richard II, Act 1 scene 3 (Shakespeare, W.  1595)