Phonological assessment of dialectic variation and its effect on education in english language schools

Both phonetics and phonology concern the study of sounds but that is largely where the similarities end. Phonetics focuses on the process by which sounds are created while phonology focuses on thedistribution of sounds in a language and the interaction of those sounds (Bergmann, Hall, and Ross, 100). Phonological variations are much easier to spot in foreign languages and a scientific assessmentof these variations helps non-native speakers learn what contexts certain sounds occur in and when to alter the root of a word to fit the descriptive grammatical rules of that language. Aphonological assessment of native language is often a more difficult task. Many native speakers view regional dialects not as natural language variations but often as language errors that need to be corrected tofit a prescribed standardized version taught in schools. This is especially true in American schools where certain dialects are derided in favor of standardized English. “The term standardizedEnglish makes the parallel that just as specific types of knowledge are valued on standardized tests, so, too, are specific types of language valued within the educational system (Hudley, and Mallinson,12).” This bias toward a prescribed standardized version of English affects speakers of Southern and African American dialects dispraportionately.
The American South is the country’s most populousregion and according to U.S. Census data includes: Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Washington D.C., Delaware, Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas,Oklahoma, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Tennessee (Hudley, and Mallinson, 38). While Southern English varies widely, there are a few phonological features of the language that apply to the majority ofspeakers. The first such feature is the deletion from [ᶇɡ] to [n] at the end of many words, for example [hʌntiᶇg] changes to [hʌntin]. Another combines deletion with glottalization as demonstrated by the...