Name : Nengah Arpurina Reskian

Class : A

Nim : 17411009

CHAPTER I

DISCUSSION

1.1. Definition of Ethnicity : How Researchers Define the Ethnicity

According to waters he said that people commonly know ethnicity by difference people
based on they national origin, language, religion, food and other cultural makers. He also said to
connect the race difference its is by physical apparence like skin colour, hair texture, eye shape
Etc. Omi and Winant claim that people construct race as “different types of human bodies”
which is this mutual emphasis on perceptions that race on phenotypic features. Bailey also
reveals for example Dominican American construct identities not on the basis phenotype but on
the basis language. Phenotype its self mean all observable characteristic of an organism that
result from the interaction of its genotype.

Bath formulates ethnicity as a function of boundary maintance is concerned not with the
internal inventories of group but how groups create borders between them. finally, ethnicity is
not universally understood. The conceptualizations can change overtime or shift in a single
interaction. Researcher must need to find and analyze why ethnicity is priority?, don’t just only
take a risk with used the “etnic absolutism” to identity someone rather than used other social
categories such as gender, age and so on.

1.2 Methodological approach to Study Language and Ethnicity

A sociolingustic approach to study of Ethnicity is ideal for at least three main reasons.
First Ethnicity is a social construct which is this must involve communication in some way,
whether its is a language or other semiotic means. We know that sociolingustic have
specialization to collection and analysis of such that communication. Second, Etnicity is
observable , it allowing to researchers to gain rich understanding of how individuals themselves
understand and utilize ethnicity in their daily lives. Third, By examining linguistic practices,
sociolinguist can trace the changes and shifts of intricate ethnic identities.

More over, several scholars in the field of sociolinguistics approach the study of
language and ethnicity with a distinctiveness centered model. This model enables the
classification of ethnic dialects, allowing researchers to describe in close detail the linguistic
features of distinct speech varieties spoken by particular ethnic groups. This also known as the
quantitive approach. However, a criticism of quantitative research is that it lacks rich, nuanced
accounts of speaker repertoires as they are performed and understood across a wide range of
contexts.

Other research has shown that issues of language and ethnicity should be concerned not
only with the distinctiveness of ethnic varieties, but also with the performance of multiple speech
styles in the construction of ethnicity.

Taking a more qualitative, ethnographic approach, several sociolinguists explore the

ways in which speakers draw on features of ethnic dialects (whether real or imagined) in the
production of identity. Much of this research emphasizes improvised such as codeswitching,
stylization and the use of linguistic features associated with an ethnic other, which can be found
in studies on language crossing and mocking. But this approach faced some challenges include
difficulty in describing speech patterns across large numbers of speakers and in producing
generalizable findings.

I wish not to present these two approaches as mutually exclusive or in opposition to one
another. In fact, many ethnographers must rely on quantitative research when they examine the
emergence and significance of linguistic features that get linked to ethnic groups. In addition,
there have been many studies that combine both quantitative and qualitative approaches to
produce rich, detailed accounts of language and ethnicity in particular communities of practice.

1.3 Issues With Ethnic Minority Speech Communities

In This section I wanna talk further about issues of language and ethnicity that involve the
English language in some way. Because of space limitations and because of my own area of
expertise, I have thus chosen to focus this section on only a few groups in the United States. It is
impossible to discuss in this chapter all of the ethnic groups that have been the subject of
language and ethnicity research. So I just want discuss about Africa American.

Africa American

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety formerly known as Black
English Vernacular or Vernacular Black English among sociolinguists, and commonly called
Ebonics outside the academic community. The history of AAVE and its genetic affiliation, by
which we mean what language varieties it is related to, are also a matter of controversy. Some
scholars contend that AAVE developed out of the contact between speakers of West African
languages and speakers of vernacular English varieties. According to such a view, West
Africans learnt English on plantations in the southern Coastal States (Georgia, South Carolina,
etc.) from a very small number of native speakers (the indentured laborers). Some suggest that
this led to the development of a rudimentary pidgin which was later expanded through a process
of creolization. Others who advocate a contact scenario for the development of AAVE suggest
that the contact language (an early creole-like AAVE) developed through processes of second
language acquisition.
 According to such a view West Africans newly arrived on plantations would have limited
access to English grammatical models because the number of native speakers was so small (just
a few indentured servants on each plantation). In such a situation a community of second
language learners might graft what English vocabulary that could be garnered from transient
encounters onto the few grammatical patterns which are common to the languages of West
Africa.

Unfortunately, many public policy makers and sections of the public hold on to mistaken and
prejudiced understandings of what AAVE is and what it says about the people who speak it.
This matter is compounded by the fact that, with the AAVE-speaking community, attitudes
towards the language are complex and equivocal. Many AAVE speakers contrast the variety
with something they refer to as "Talking Proper". At the same time these same speakers may
also express clearly positive attitudes towards AAVE on other occasions and may also remark
on the inappropriateness of using standard English in certain situations. While the situation in
this case is made more extreme by the context of racial and ethnic conflict, inequality and
prejudice in the United States, it is not unique. Such ambivalent and multivalent attitudes
towards nonstandard varieties of a language have been documented for a great many
communities around the world and in the United States.

1.4 Language and Ethnicity in Education

In education experts said there are three main models or design in language and ethnicity
research : Deficit, Difference and Emergence models. The Deficit model state that ethnic
minorities tail at school experience because they lack of knowledge and less cultured.
Difference model explained how ethnic minorities are not deficient in education but socialized
into different sets of cultural norms that are not legal or recognized by standart or mainstream
schools. In the emergence models describing how ethnic group minorities and educational
instutions do not posses static characteristic in particular school contexts.
 CHAPTER II

CONCLUSION

2.1 Conclusion

Throughout this chapter, I have tried to highlight areas that are of par-ticular relevance
to language educators. I will reiterate a few of these points in the closing of this chapter.

First remember again that ethnicity is not a natural category, but a social and political
construct. Histories of imbalanced power relations between groups influence the creation of
ethnic categories, the formation of ethnic group experiences and the construction of ethnic
stereotypes about language and behavior. Ethnic groups and boundaries are not fixed but
constantly shifting in response to social and political climates.

In fact, it can be quite dangerous for educators to view ethnicity in a static way. Not only
can it lead to local misjudgments about student behavior, but also it can contribute to the
reproduction of social inequality in education. In reviewing research on mainstream and
language classrooms, this chapter revealed how schools are not neutral site. Alsoas educators, it
is important not to subject students to preconceived notions about the languages, behaviors and
abilities that are stereotypically associated with the ethnic groups that students may or may not
even identify with.

Although many educators are already overburdened with meeting the goals of the
mandated school curriculum, it would benefit both teachers and students if discussions of
language and ethnicity were incorporated into the classroom. Such discussions would help
educators learn about the local models of language and ethnicity that students draw on in their
understanding of themselves and others. If students speak a distinct ethnic variety, design class
activities to uncover the systematicity of the language. Uncover student understandings of what
ethnicity is, what language is and how the two relate. Such activities could become springboards
for discussing alter-native conceptualizations of language and ethnicity that depart from fixed
perspectives.