Charity-2008-Language and Linguistics Compass PDF

Language and Linguistics Compass 2/5 (2008): 923939, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00081.
Linguists as Agents for Social Change

Anne H. Charity*
The College of William and Mary
Abstract
In this article, I examine and promote the role of linguist as agent for social
change. I discuss the history and mission of organizations and individual linguists
who are dedicated to service through linguistics. I describe the social and community
service activities of linguists that may fall just outside of the realm of linguistic
scholarship in the most traditional sense. I then provide models for ways in which
linguists can become even more socially engaged through social service and
public outreach. I highlight the academic sharing and public dissemination of
knowledge that linguists already possess as a way for all linguists to be socially
active. I then describe my own experiences participating in and teaching service
learning-based research courses.
Introduction: A History of Activism

Linguists have not been shy about promoting social change. Some linguists
have centered their activism efforts on language policy and linguistic rights,
and others have worked on social and political activism that falls outside
of the realm of linguistics altogether. Such work includes efforts from
those who study language from diverse perspectives, including the Teach-
ing English as a Second or Other Language community, speech-language
pathologists, and those who work in legal policy and law enforcement.
Within linguistics, groups of scholars who have been known for their activism
have come under many names and have utilized varied approaches to their
social action. Regardless of linguistic subfield, all linguists have much to
contribute to social change.
Political Activism as Distinct from Linguistic Science

Outside of linguistic research, linguists have engaged in social activism,
especially through political and social commentary. Noam Chomsky is the
quintessential example of a scholar who is separately a social activist and
a linguist. Herman and Chomsky (1988) focused a generation of scholars on
the change in the use of the media from bastion of democracy to potential
agent of propaganda. Chomskys linguistic work and political work are
2008 The Author
Journal Compilation 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
924 Anne H. Charity
highlighted by separate websites: http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/

faculty/chomsky/index.html and http://www.chomsky.info. Regarding
the division, Chomsky (1998) explains:
If there is a connection [between my scientific activities the study of language
and my political activities], it is on a rather abstract level. I dont have access to
any unusual methods of analysis, and what special knowledge I have concerning
language has no immediate bearing on social and political issues. Everything I
have written on these topics could have been written by someone else. There
is no very direct connection between my political activities, writing and others,
and the work bearing on language structure, though in some measure they
perhaps derive from certain common assumptions and attitudes with regard to
basic aspects of human nature. (p. 3)
In addition, Chomsky has stated his view of the usefulness of linguistics
for social change. Chomsky explains: Youre a human being, and your time
as a human being should be socially useful. It doesnt mean that your
choices about helping other people have to be within the context of your
professional training as a linguist. Maybe that training just doesnt help
you to be useful to other people. In fact, it doesnt. (Chomsky speaking
as reported in Olson, Faigley and Chomsky 1991: 30). This quotation
demonstrates that for Chomsky, nothing inherent in the study of language
necessarily fosters social activism.
While Chomskys sentiment recognizes one path that linguists as social
activists may take that is, linguist as separate from social activist the
remainder of this article focuses on scholars for whom social activism and
their training as linguists are inextricably combined.
Linguistically Driven Social Activism

In 1979, Dwight Bolinger wrote an article entitled The Socially Minded
Linguist. In the article, Bolinger defines the socially minded linguist as one
who works to inform the public about linguistics with a mind to curbing the
use of language as a one sided instrument of power (1979: 407). Bolinger
motivates linguists to contemplate the relationship between language and
power in their examinations of the universality of language. Bolinger challenges
linguists to make the study of language more accessible so that the under-
standing of language and communication is integrated into everyday life.
In another example of recognition of the role that linguists can play to
effect language-related social changes, Labov (1982) describes the linguistic
communitys commitment to the children of Ann Arbor, Michigan. The
parents of the African-American students represented in the Ann Arbor
case sought equal educational protection under the law for their children
to use African-American Vernacular English in the classroom. In describing
the situation that linguists faced in the Ann Arbor trial, Labov asserts that the
objectivity linguists need for scientific research may often lie in opposition
to their commitment to social action. He shows how reconciliation
2008 The Author Language and Linguistics Compass 2/5 (2008): 923939, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00081.x
Linguists as Agents for Social Change 925
between the linguist-as-scientist and the scientist-as-activist may occur by

bringing linguistic information to communities when they have need of
it and being committed to use information gathered from a community
for the direct benefit of that same community.
Twenty years after Bolingers article and 15 years after Labovs, an article
by John Rickford entitled Unequal partnership: Sociolinguistics and the
African American community (1997a) argues that the relationship between
linguist and studied community is still not equal, as linguists benefit more
directly and expediently from the research they conduct in communities
than do the communities benefit from the linguistic research. Rickford
challenges linguists to improve the relationships between themselves and
the communities in which linguists gather information. One example of
a scholar who has put this linguistically based activism charge into effect
is Walt Wolfram. Wolfram (1993) introduces the principle of linguistic
gratuity, proposing that linguists give back to the local communities
where they conduct their studies. Wolfram (1998, 2000b) also evaluates
his own public outreach measures to see how efforts to give back to the
local communities of North Carolina have been successful or contested
by local communities.
Organizational Action in Linguistics
THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION
The National Science Foundation (NSF), a major source of funding for

linguists, is responding to the need for more direct commitment to public
interest and has called for more initiatives to add a direct service component
to scholarly research. NSF proposals must include an explanation of the
broader impacts of the proposed activity. Under this initiative, the NSF
requires an explanation of the following questions:
What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity?
How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while
promoting teaching, training, and learning?
How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of underrep-
resented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability, geographic, etc.)?
To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education,
such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships?
Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological
understanding?
What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?
(http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/gpg/broaderimpacts.pdf )
Even though gathering new knowledge is deemed necessary for a research
endeavor, the NSF asks for plans for immediate dissemination of the
knowledge. These questions also promote awareness on the part of the
researcher of the more immediate value of dissemination versus adhering
926 Anne H. Charity
to a more typical research and dissemination process, which would expect

dissemination to happen some time after linguistic information has been
acquired. The efficacy of the addition of the broader impacts statement in
linguistics research, however, has yet to be disseminated by the NSF.
THE LINGUISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA
The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) has promoted social action by

taking formal stands on language issues. The LSA has issued positions and
resolutions on topics including Ebonics (LSA 1997), the English Only
Movement (LSA 1987), and non-sexist language (LSA 1995), and a resolution
stating opposition to the US militarys policy of dismissing linguists, translators,
interpreters, or other members of the armed forces on the basis of their
sexual orientation (LSA 2003). Other written materials that the LSA has
produced include easily accessible pamphlets for the general public on
language topics that are of interest to a lay audience, for example, How
Can I Communicate With a Relative Whos Had a Stroke? (http://
www.lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-stroke.cfm) and How Many Languages Are
There in the World? (http://www.lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-howmany.cfm).
As an organization, the LSA is also committed to taking a stance on
activism. It has a Social and Political Concerns committee whose pur-
pose is to make prominent the LSAs focus on real world events and
application of linguistic knowledge in daily life and practice. Similarly, the
Language in the School Curriculum Committee (http://www.lsadc.org/info/
lsa-comm-curric.cfm) pursues ways in which the linguistics community can
have an effect on school instruction in language-related topics, including
linguistics. Finally, since 1997, the LSA has also encouraged public outreach
through its Linguistics, Language, and the Public Award. According to the
LSA, the award was established to recognize individuals engaged in on-going
efforts to educate the public about linguistics and language (http://
www.lsadc.org/info/lsa-awards.cfm Linguistics, Language, and the Public
Award). Previous award winners Steven Pinker, Eugene Searchinger, Geoffrey
Nunberg, John Rickford, and Deborah Tannen are all recognized both
within and outside of the field for making academic information relevant
to individuals and communities. In addition, Rickford and Rickford (2000)
won the American Book Award, which is awarded to recognize outstanding
literary achievement from the entire spectrum of Americas diverse literary
community (see http://www.ambook.org/btw/awards/The-American-
Book-Awards---Before-Columbus-Foundation.html).
THE SUMMER INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS
The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) is known to most all linguists

through their distribution of invaluable IPA fonts, but its contributions to
linguistics are even more widespread. The SIL describes itself as a faith-based
service organization that works with people who speak the worlds lesser-
known languages (SIL International 2008). Kenneth Pike served as the
first president of the SIL from 1942 to 1979, and he led the organization
in its early focus to produce translations of the Bible. He also served for
30 years as a professor of Linguistics at the University of Michigan. Pike
biographer Calvin Hibbard describes the mission of the SIL as centered
on service based on a foundation of scientific investigation (2008).
The SIL is also responsible for the Ethnologue (Gordon 2005), a searchable
database of the worlds languages. Grenoble and Whaley note that while other
sources of language information may be individually more accurate, the
Ethnologue is unique in bringing together speaker statistics on a global scale
(2006). Ethnologue provides easily accessible information about language
use around the world that those working on language revitalization and
education programs can use at all stages of linguistic research, language
planning, and provision of services to speakers of endangered languages.
THE CENTER FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS
The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) is a private, nonprofit organization

working to improve communication through better understanding of
language and culture (CAL 2008). CAL was established in 1959 by a
grant from the Ford Foundation to the Modern Language Association,
to serve as a liaison between the academic world of linguistics and the
practical world of language education and language-related concerns. CAL
has sponsored many projects and programs that have had great impact in
the areas of language assessment, instruction, and access. CAL houses several
divisions of research, including Foreign Language Education, Language
and Literacy, and Language in Society. Recent CAL products are found
throughout the academic and broader community, including a production
of a teachers manual (Rickford et al. 2004) to support the Do You Speak
American? program (Reaser et al. 2005; Reaser and Adger 2007). In addi-
tion, CAL has had a special history of serving English language learning
immigrants who are in a position to learn English in the USA due to war
or conflict in their home countries through their Cultural Orientation
Resource center (http://www.cal.org/co/). Current projects include resettle-
ment assistance in the USA for Bhutanese Refugees who were living in
Nepal and groups from Burma/Myanmar.
Models of Linguistic Research in Communities
ENDANGERED LANGUAGE LINGUISTS WORK IN COMMUNITIES
While most linguists who work with speakers of endangered languages

have focused on documentation of the languages, many have also worked
on programs to revitalize languages in their local communities through
928 Anne H. Charity
what Fishman (2001) describes as reverse language shift, the re-birth of

local language use, and balance of the indigenous languages with the use
of other languages such as English. Grenoble and Whaley (2006) document
methodologies used in language revitalization efforts such as language
preservation through recordings and transcriptions and present models for
language revitalization programs through educational programs. They note that
publicly accessible archives are crucial to the promulgation of endangered
language materials. The Rosetta Stone Endangered Language Program
(Rosetta Stone 2008) is an example of corporate outreach on the part of
community speakers by providing digital language materials for speakers
and language learners.
Ladefoged (2006) acknowledged the crucial contributions of indigenous
linguists, the SIL, and missionaries to his work that documented the sounds
of the worlds languages. Along these lines, the Endangered Language Fund
(ELF) sponsors research on endangered languages that allows linguists and
speakers of endangered languages to document, preserve, and create materials
for the preservation of languages through language instruction (http://
www.endangeredlanguagefund.org/projects_current.html). The ELF gives
out about awards of less than $4,000. Examples of projects funded include
the development of practical language materials for Desano, an Eastern
Tukanoan language spoken by a small number of people among the fewer
than 1,600 who belong to the Desano ethnic group in Brazil (to Wilson
de Lima Silva at the University of Utah), and the creation of audiovisual
documentation of the Kiliwa language spoken by five people in Baja
California, Mexico (to Heriberto Avelino at the University of Toronto).
SOCIOLINGUISTS WORK IN COMMUNITIES
As demonstrated by the organizations described in the previous section,

linguistics and education has been a key area of social activism research,
both within and across languages. Many linguists are known for their work
to increase educational attainment for speakers whose language they study,
both through and in addition to their scholarly work. In this section, I
highlight the work of several well-known linguists who study language
variation and change in order to demonstrate the ways that direct social
action contact has influenced their work.
William Labov has had an instrumental effect on the linguist as social
agent. Labovs early work in Harlem (e.g., Labov et al. 1968; Labov 1972)
was funded by the Office of Education1 and focused on issues of literacy
and educational attainment among African-American males in Harlem,
New York. In recent years, he has returned to this original objective with his
work in schools across the country, and this work has lead to the creation
of the Individualized Reading Program (IRP) (Labov and Baker 2005).
The IRP is a continuing program for raising reading levels of minority
children in inner city schools. According to Labovs website, The IRP
began as a research project funded by the Office of Education (OERI)

from 1998 to 2000, in collaboration with California State Hayward and
the Oakland Unified School Board (http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/
UMRP/UMRP.html). The IRP is designed to discover whether knowledge
of the home dialect of African-American Vernacular English would be
helpful for teachers and educators who are interested in improving the
reading levels of African-American struggling readers. The research has
been combined with academically based service learning courses in which
students from the University of Pennsylvania have participated actively in
both tutoring and developing educational materials. As a result of Labovs
efforts, the Linguistics Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania has
also housed the America Reads program, a nationwide program that recruits
college students to fulfill their work-study by tutoring students (America
Reads 2000). Hundreds of undergraduate students have used Labovs
linguistically based methods to tutor struggling readers in Philadelphia.
As another sociolinguist concerned with education, Wolfram has co-
authored numerous books and papers for non-academic audiences (e.g.,
Wolfram 2000a; Wolfram and Ward 2006). In addition, he has written
prolifically for speech pathologists and educators (see Wolfram and Adger
1993; Wolfram 2005; Adger et al. 2007). Wolframs most recent work has
centered on the North Carolina Language and Life Project (NCLLP)
(2007), which documents language varieties found in North Carolina and
beyond and seeks to use research data to improve language and cultural
instruction. Wolframs outreach to schoolchildren in North Carolina
schools started on the island of Ocracoke,2 and there are now materials
available for all North Carolina eighth graders (http://ncsu.edu/linguistics/
research_dialecteducation.php) as a result of Wolfram and his teams efforts.
Wolfram and his team also have websites dedicated to educational docu-
mentary media (http://www.talkingnc.com/), and a site for general outreach
media (http://www.ncsu.edu/linguistics/ncllp/outreach.php).
Other sociolinguists scholarship has also been pivotal for aiding
vernacular communities. John Rickford and John Baughs work on language
and education literature includes: Rickford (1997b), Rickford and Rickford
(2000), Rickford et al. (2004), and Baugh (2000). Their work has been
central to strengthening the understanding of African Americans as a
structured social and cultural group in linguistics. Their work as scholars
of African-American culture has led them each to their appointments as
the directors of African-American Studies at their respective universities:
John Baugh is the director of African-American Studies at Washington
University in St. Louis, and John Rickford was the director of African-
American Studies from 19982005 at Stanford University.
Rickford and Baugh have worked to enhance the educational oppor-
tunities of students in their own communities. John Baugh has worked to
establish a preparatory school that serves the lower income students of East
Palo Alto, California, and he currently serves on its board of directors
930 Anne H. Charity
(http://www.eastside.org/). John Rickford has served as a resident fellow at

Stanford University and has provided mentorship to numerous undergraduates
at Stanford, where he is the Pritzker University Fellow in Undergraduate
Education. One former student, Samy Alim, has drawn from their work
to produce examinations of the role that hip-hop plays in the cultural
identity of African-American students so that educators can better incorporate
it into their pedagogical practices (Alim 2005).
ENDANGERED LANGUAGE AND SOCIOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH IN DIALOGUE
A 2006 Georgetown University Round Table (GURT) conference connected

the subfields of Sociolinguistics and Endangered Language Linguistics,
which exhibit similarities and differences in their approaches to linguistic
work and outreach. In a paper delivered at the Georgetown conference,
Labov (2006) attempts to bridge some of the insights of the two different
approaches by framing African Americans as an endangered people speaking
a non-endangered language. His approach inherently situates the linguist
first as activist and then as researcher, and he suggests that language death
in many senses may be a by-product of decreased segregation and increased
educational attainment among African Americans.
Sociolinguists have an intimate knowledge of speakers and of variations
within and across languages, and they examine closely the nuances and
social correlates of languages and dialects. Knowledge about language and
dialect variation has had a direct impact on scholarship in education that
examines variation between ethnic and social groups. Linguists have
shown that languages are fundamentally equal with regular structures and
complex rules that govern their morphological, syntactic, and phonological
structures. Linguists have demonstrated that language variation does not
correlate with variations in intelligence or academic ability. Endangered
language linguists have created the expectation of a comprehensive examina-
tion of language in the form of complete grammars and dictionaries. As
such, endangered language linguists often have great understanding of the
idiolects of speakers as well as localized community social mores and
norms. The combination of the insights of these two linguistic traditions
serves to further the linguistic rights of all speakers.
Activism from a University Context: Dissemination and Service Learning

Bolinger (1979) challenges all linguists with the following statement:
Half the battle will be won if the public can be convinced that there is a
language problem to begin with, and if adversaries on all fronts can be brought
to question one anothers syntax as well as one anothers logic. Language
should be as much an object of public scrutiny as any of the other things that
keenly affect our lives as much as pollution, energy, crime, busing, and next
weeks grocery bill. (p. 407)
Linguists still have a way to go to make Bolingers vision a reality. The

following subsections give some suggestions regarding ways linguists can
accomplish this task through greater dissemination of linguistic knowledge
and an emphasis on service learning.
CONFERENCES
Dissemination within academics yet across disciplinary fields is a crucial

step in developing ideas and materials for wider dissemination. Linguists
can work more with academics in other fields, as well as working with
non-academic practitioners and scholars, in order to broaden the scope of
their linguistic inquiry. Even if co-authorship is not possible, it is important
to invite non-academics to conferences in areas that are directly related to
their interests and needs so that their perspectives are directly heard.
Although there are too many examples to provide an exhaustive list
here, I discuss two notables examples. First, the New Ways of Analyzing
Variation 33 conference was held at the University of Michigan in October
2004 and commemorated the Ann Arbor trial; the now-adult plaintiffs
who were represented in the trial and one of the attorneys attended the
conference and offered their perspectives on the linguistic and social
impact that the Ann Arbor trial had on their lives. In October 2005, the
Linguistics Department at Cornell University hosted a conference on the
relationship of language use to poverty (http://celaeno.phonetics.cornell.edu/
language_and_poverty/description.html). Funded in part by the Poverty,
Inequality and Development Initiative at Cornell and the NSF, the conference
was a great example of intellectual activism. Participants discussed how
poverty affects language survival and how differential access to economic
resources is, in modern times, probably the fundamental determinant of
language shift and language death (Nettle and Romaine 2000). The issue
of how language frequently helps determine economic status was directly
addressed, and the correlations between language and poverty were examined.
Such efforts brought out major social issues that speakers face that may
appear to lie outside of the realm of linguistic analysis but are actually
central to social and language empowerment.
CROSS-DISCIPLINARY APPROACHES
Teacher education, speech language pathology, counseling, and medicine

are all disciplines where communication is crucial (Adger and Schilling-
Estes 2003; Craig and Washington 2006; Hazen 2006). Further col-
laboration with practitioners in these fields is greatly needed. Linguists
are faced with questions as to how to disseminate all that we have
researched and learned when faced with the basic questions of the
uninformed teacher, speech language pathologist, psychologist, and school
counselor.
932 Anne H. Charity
Scholars in Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

and English as a Foreign Language (EFL) have contributed greatly to
knowledge in linguistics and education. There has been an overlap of
information between linguistics and second language acquisition to the
benefit of those in both TESOL and linguistics. Spolsky and Hult (2008)
and Hornberger (2007) are recent comprehensive overviews of work in
educational linguistics with a focus on bilingualism and multilingualism.
Most education scholars now acknowledge the primary claim long
established by linguists: Standard English does not have any inherent
superiority as a language variety. The National Council of Teachers of
English (NCTE) and National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education
(NCATE) have suggested that all students and teachers should be exposed
to information on dialect variation as part of their education (NCTE
1996; NCTE/NCATE 2003). Many scholars who work in linguistics and
education have been instrumental in bringing linguistic insights to major
organizations including the American Educational Research Association
(including Courtney Cazden, Shirley Brice Heath and Angela Rickford), the
NCTE (including Geneva Smitherman and Jeree Scott, and works including
Haussamen 2003), and the American Federation of Teachers (Charity et al.
2004). Educational theorists today support classroom strategies that value
students home language, which approach Standard English as a tool to help
students succeed in society and access power, and that draw upon students
existing linguistic knowledge to help them acquire and appropriately use
Standard English (Ogbu 1992; Baugh 2000; Rickford and Rickford 2000;
Delpit 2002; Green 2002; Haussamen 2003; Fogel and Ehri 2006).
While crucial information has been produced, information often needs
to be disseminated several times in order to reach each generation of
students. One clarifying example of the gap between linguists and teachers
occurred during a guest lecture on African-American English that I gave
to teachers. After citing numerous examples of the systematic nature of
African-American Vernacular English and explaining the differences between
dialect variation and spoken and written errors, the class of teachers expressed
their dismay at not being given this knowledge earlier in their training.
In attendance was one teacher, a 30-year veteran of a major public school
system, who confessed that for her entire career she had marked each
instance of a common feature of African-American Vernacular English as a
separate error, and she now realized that explaining the errors with respect to
language variation might have been a better approach. What she had perceived
as continual careless errors were actually predictable dialect variants.
The current challenge is to engage in cooperative efforts that address
the following issues: how to integrate linguistic insights into the day-to-day
practicalities of the classroom, how to reconcile the linguistic needs of
students with local educational policy and budgets, and how to get
linguistic information to teachers who are already in service. Linguists can
only be part of such efforts if they become cooperative partners.
DISSEMINATION IN THE MEDIA
An increasing amount of language information is available to the public

on Internet, books, and video. Linguists have done an excellent job of
promoting developments in the discipline in sources such as on National
Public Radio (NPR) and The Public Broadcasting System (PBS). Docu-
mentaries including American Tongues and Do You Speak American? have pro-
vided a crucial overview of linguistic issues to the public. Popular movies
such as Windtalkers have raised awareness about Native American languages.
The talk of Sundance 2008 revolved around the language documentation
efforts of David Harrison and Gregory Anderson, as filmed in The Linguists
(www.livingtongues.org).
Pinker (1994), Rickford and Rickford (2000), and Napoli (2003) stand
as models of linguistic texts for public consumption. But for many, books
may be cost-prohibitive or daunting in length. In addition, people cannot
access information published in academic journals easily unless they are
affiliated with a college or university. As demonstrated through the efforts of
Wolfram and the NCLLP, it is possible to create online resources, newsletters,
archives, and blogs that provide free, in-depth linguistic information for the
public. In addition, there have been efforts by those outside of linguistics
to capture the essence of what is being taught in linguistics courses, and
those efforts need to be aided by collaboration from within and outside
of the field. More pedagogical materials are desperately needed in order
to help educators teach others about linguistics. To respond to this need,
the journal American Speech will launch an inaugural issue on linguistics
pedagogy in the summer of 2008.
The Teach Ling project (http://teachling.wwu.edu/) provides linguists
and educators web space in order share linguistically informed materials
for use in the classroom. Both teachers and linguists prepare the lessons,
which are offered on the website free of charge. The project is an excellent
example of the sort of project that is crucial to accomplishing the goal of
social and educational change for all learners.
GRANTS AND FUNDRAISING
Linguists are in a good position to help community agencies write

proposals to attain grants to study language in use, and such cooperation would
be beneficial to both the linguists themselves and the community members.
Along with including the public in conferences and written publications,
the Foundation for Endangered Languages (FEL) has set a great example
by making grant funding more easily accessible by to non-academics.
In their call for proposals, they offer the following statement of support:
FEL tries to keep its [grants] procedures as simple as possible. But it recognizes
that they may be especially taxing for those without training in a western
university. In the case of proposals from communities or community linguists,
934 Anne H. Charity
FEL is prepared to comment on drafts, and suggest weaknesses and potential

remedies (without prejudice) before the selection.
This commenting service is simply offered in order to help: it is never required
to submit such a draft. (http://www.ogmios.org/)
These instructions are an excellent example of how linguists can reach out
to communities and encourage them to have both intellectual and economic
ownership of the research that is conducted on their language and culture.
SERVICE LEARNING
Service learning is a way to make social action a crucial component of

linguistics, as the study of people and their language is no longer confined to
the classroom or more advanced field research. As an example, I highlight
my own service learning experiences at the University of Pennsylvania and
at The College of William and Mary.
The Corporation for National and Community Service defines service
learning as a method of teaching where students learn and develop through
active participation in thoughtfully organized community service. The
service experience is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum
of the student. Service learning courses provide structured time for the
students to reflect on the service experience as it relates to their coursework,
personal development, and civic involvement (Corporation for National
and Community Service 2008).
Service learning as an extension of collegiate volunteerism is an upward
trend. At least a quarter of all higher education institutions and more than
half of all community colleges have adopted service learning programs
(Corporation for National and Community Service 2008). Many linguists
who study American speech currently engage in forms of service learning
at the upper undergraduate or graduate level. Walt Wolfram has set an
excellent example for graduate student level community involvement
through the NCLLP. Kirk Hazen has followed the model with the for-
mation of the West Virginia Dialect Project (http://www.as.wvu.edu/
dialect/), which is designed to conduct research on language variation to be
used for educational purposes. Barbara Johnstone and Scott Keisling
have created a similar outreach page in the Pittsburgh Speech & Society
Project (http://english.cmu.edu/pittsburghspeech/). John Rickford and John
Baugh have included their students in their service and research in the
East Palo Alto schools and the Eastside Preparatory School in Palo Alto,
California. In this tradition, service learning at the introductory level gives
students a critical appreciation for social issues in the wider community at
a time when their findings may inform their programs of study.
In the fall of 2007, I taught an introductory linguistics and service learning
course entitled Language Variation: African-American English (Charity et al.
2008). Thirteen first-year students and two upper-level teaching fellows
participated in the course. As is typical at my liberal arts college, the

students in my course held a variety of interests and intended to pursue
various majors from linguistics, to English, history, and physics. Students
in the class were free to schedule service commitments that fit into their
schedules and interests, but they were required to give 4 hours a week to
service in the community, which was fulfilled through tutoring and mentoring
students in local schools where they observed language variation in the
schools and worked with speakers of African-American English. During
the regular class meetings, I focused on the linguistic and social features
of English as spoken by African Americans in the USA. We examined
hypotheses about the history and emergence of African-American Vernacular
English and explored the relationship of African-American Vernacular
English to linguistic theory, education praxis, American culture, and racial
prejudice. Students were able to mentor students through the Big Brother
in-school mentorship program at a local elementary school in Williams-
burg and through the mentorship and tutoring program at the Academy
for Life and Learning, a school for middle and high school students
who have been suspended or expelled from the general public school
population.
Many schools of education have relationships with local schools that
service learning courses may be able to partner with. Programs in speech and
communication, EFL, and psychology may have similar relationships. The
collected essays in Wurr and Hellebrandt (2007) describe service learning in
an applied linguistics context including foreign language, TESOL, and hearing
and speech sciences settings. Many universities already have community-
based English as a Second Language (ESL) service learning efforts under-
way, for example, Portland State University (http://www.ling.pdx.edu/
ling_newsletter_F07.pdf), therefore, discovering what type of service is
popular on campus may be a way to recruit students that do not tradi-
tionally find their way to linguistics.
Conclusion
Linguists are in a unique position to help scholars and practitioners across
disciplines tackle questions that intersect with issues of the social aspects
of language behavior. It is crucial that linguists share knowledge with
other disciplines so that we may benefit from what others already know.
Educators, healthcare providers, and law enforcement providers in particular
would all benefit from a more direct knowledge about linguistics in general
and about the language variation in their communities. This information
must be cast in a concise, easy to read form that is tailored specifically to
the needs of the reader. Linguists from every subfield can provide important
information on the social situations of speakers of different backgrounds.
Even the most introductory students can play a role in this process.
Through a continued dedication to the ways that linguistic research
936 Anne H. Charity
can contribute to social change, linguists may more closely meet Bolingers
charge and keep socially minded linguistics at the root of the linguistic
mission.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the NSF under Grant No. 0512005 and by
The College of William and Mary. I would like to thank Melissa Edwards,
Rosalind OBrien, Maryam Bakht-Rofheart, Christine Mallinson, Kirk
Hazen, Becky Childs, and Jeffrey Reaser for their invaluable guidance and
feedback on earlier drafts of this paper. I would especially like to thank
my mentors Jack Martin and Lindsay Whaley for helping me to further
appreciate the interrelationship between all linguists who seek to serve by
directly supporting my work.
Short Biography
Anne H. Charity is Assistant Professor of English and Linguistics and
Director of the Linguistics Laboratory at The College of William and
Mary, where she is also a Sharpe Community Scholars Faculty Fellow.
Her work is situated at the intersections of Linguistics, Psychology, African-
American Studies and Education. Her linguistic research concerns regional
variation in English and the relationship between language variation, service
learning, and educational practices and policies. She is a Ford Fellow and
was a NSF Minority Postdoctoral Fellow. She also serves on the Board of
Trustees at the Orchard House School in Richmond, Virginia. Charity and
her students work closely with the Academy for Life and Learning, a
school for long-term suspended and expelled middle and high school
students from WilliamsburgJames City County Public Schools. She has
published articles in Child Development, Language Variation and Change,
American Speech, and in several book collections on African-American
English and Education including the Handbook of African-American Psychol-
ogy. Charity received a BA and an MA in Linguistics from Harvard
University in 1998 and a PhD in Linguistics from the University of
Pennsylvania in 2005.
Notes
* Correspondence address: Anne H. Charity, The College of William and Mary, Department
of English Language and Literature, P.O. Box 8795 Tucker Hall, Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795,
USA. E-mail: acharity@wm.edu
1
At the time, the Office of Education was part of the US Department of Health, Education,
and Welfare.
2
Wolframs work in North Carolina grew out of the work of he did with Carolyn Adger in
inner-city Baltimore while he was working at The Center for Applied Linguistics and the
University of the District of Columbia.
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Language and Linguistics Compass 2/5 (2008): 923939, 10.1111/j.1749-818x.2008.00081.

Linguists as Agents for Social Change

Introduction: A History of Activism

Political Activism as Distinct from Linguistic Science

highlighted by separate websites: http://web.mit.edu/linguistics/people/

Linguistically Driven Social Activism

between the linguist-as-scientist and the scientist-as-activist may occur by

Organizational Action in Linguistics

THE NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

The National Science Foundation (NSF), a major source of funding for

to a more typical research and dissemination process, which would expect

THE LINGUISTIC SOCIETY OF AMERICA

The Linguistic Society of America (LSA) has promoted social action by

THE SUMMER INSTITUTE OF LINGUISTICS

The Summer Institute of Linguistics (SIL) is known to most all linguists

THE CENTER FOR APPLIED LINGUISTICS

The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL) is a private, nonprofit organization

Models of Linguistic Research in Communities

ENDANGERED LANGUAGE LINGUISTS WORK IN COMMUNITIES

While most linguists who work with speakers of endangered languages

what Fishman (2001) describes as reverse language shift, the re-birth of

SOCIOLINGUISTS WORK IN COMMUNITIES

As demonstrated by the organizations described in the previous section,

began as a research project funded by the Office of Education (OERI)

(http://www.eastside.org/). John Rickford has served as a resident fellow at

ENDANGERED LANGUAGE AND SOCIOLINGUISTIC RESEARCH IN DIALOGUE

A 2006 Georgetown University Round Table (GURT) conference connected

Activism from a University Context: Dissemination and Service Learning

Linguists still have a way to go to make Bolingers vision a reality. The

Dissemination within academics yet across disciplinary fields is a crucial

Teacher education, speech language pathology, counseling, and medicine

Scholars in Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL)

DISSEMINATION IN THE MEDIA

An increasing amount of language information is available to the public

GRANTS AND FUNDRAISING

Linguists are in a good position to help community agencies write

FEL is prepared to comment on drafts, and suggest weaknesses and potential

Service learning is a way to make social action a crucial component of

participated in the course. As is typical at my liberal arts college, the

Hibbard, Calvin. 2008. William Cameron Townsend, 18961982. <http://www.sil.org/WCT/

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