The Skin That We Speak by Lisa D. Delpit

The Skin That We Speak Reviews

• 
  PJ T. de Barros

  I cannot begin to laud this book enough. It was fantastic. It is a collection of essays about the stereotypes and biases associated with various dialects of English. It very strongly makes the case that Standard American English is merely one of a multiplicity of valid dialects. The standard dialect is no more correct, just more common and more respected. It goes on to suggest that the best way to get students to learn Standard American English is to begin by respecting their existing speech pattern, and encourage them to explore the differences in structure and use when it is compared with their home dialect. I should also note that the book addresses dialects of English spoken outside of the US as well, including Trinidadian English and various dialects spoken in Britain.
• 
  Harley

  the essays in this collection are quite diverse, hence the name of the book! I was able to think deeply about how I will tackle diversity in my own classroom, even in English... the reality is that teachers are not quite up to speed on what needs to be considered when thinking about culture and about teaching away the concept of racism, linguisim, and classism.... but this book is a start.
• 
  Daniel S

  “If it means forgetting that the language of everyone else around you bears witness to two hundred years of cross-pollination, then so be it” (7)
  
  “We were given all the latitude in the world to suspend our reality as Trinidadians, the proud survivors of three hundred year of British, French, and Spanish domination, and to perfect the one language system that we should have ripped from our throats at the earliest age possible. Instead, we made our throats moist and forced our tones up an octave so that our voices matched the quality of the few expatriates who had survived the independence movement of the 1950’s.” (9)
  
  “The “successful” colonized person understands, with the help of her family’s and her community’s experience of colonization, that the survival technique for the subjugated group involved double realities.” (11)
  
  “The war will be won when she who is the marginalized comes to speak more in her own language, and people accept her communication as valid and representative.” (13)
  
  “I love the United States of America. I love my country’s flag. I love my country’s language. I promise:
  
  1. That I will not dishonor m country’s speech by leaving off the last syllable of words.
  
  2. That I will say a good American “yes” and “no in place of an Indian grunt “un-hum” and “nup-um” or a foreign “ya” or “yeh” and “nope”
  
  3. That I will do my best to improve American speech by avoiding loud rough tones, by enunciating distinctly, and by speaking pleasantly, clearly, and sincerely.
  
  4. That I will learn to articulate correctly as man words as possible during the year.” (29)
  
  “All people have the right to their own language. We cannot constantly correct children and expect them to continue to want to talk like us.” (33)
  
  “The children whose language is considered defective are themselves viewed as defective.” (41)
  
  “No language or dialect is inherently superior or inferior to any other, and that all languages and dialects are suited to the needs of the community they serve.” (70)
  
  “Language is not a uniform object. It is a basic principle of sociolinguistics that there are no single-style speakers. That is, everyone is multidialectal and multistylistic, in the sense that he adapts his style of speaking to suit the social situation in which he finds himself…Speech and situation are no entirely separable… all speech communities use ranges of different language varieties in different social contexts.” (74-75)
  
  “We all have a passive knowledge of many aspects of our language, words and constructions, which we understand but never actively use.” (77)
  
  “comprehension or production? language structure or language use? prescriptive norms of correctness or appropriateness to social context? grammatical or communicative competence? the child’s language itself or the school’s attitudes to his language?” (78)
  
  “Instead of thinking of “standard” as common or ordinary, “standard English” is thought of as a standard of quality.” (94)
  
  “The prime test of the “normalcy” of the language of a child is to compare the child’s language to the environment within which it was learned.” (97)
  
  “It is the teaching behavior and not the language of the child, no matter how different, that creates the problem for learners.” (101)
  
  “Keep a sense of uncertainty and willingness to question in the forefront.” (118)
  
  “Learners from impoverished and low-status groups fail to develop as fully and productively literate as compared to learners from sociocultural groups that hold sociopolitical power and favor” (124)
  
  “whether we interpret…as deficit or difference depends primarily on our preconceptions, attitudes toward, and stereotypes we hold toward the individual children’s communities and cultures.” (130)
  
  “The language one speaks is the clearest and most stable marker of class membership” (133)
  
  “printed word codes language.” (134)
  
  “The difference is that people with social and political capital get away with their “deviations,” learn to adjust their language to the oral or written context, and are never made to believe that the way they talk is responsible for any failure to learn to read and write” (137)
  
  “Knowledge and intelligence is more important than conformity to the norms of testing.” (149)
  
  “Language exists not merely on the level of words, sentences, paragraphs, dialects, accents, and linguistic differences. It is a social phenomenon that has complex personal implications relating to how the more formal aspects of reading, writing, and talking are interpreted on an everyday basis.” (151)
  
  “she responded out of her college intellectual experiences rather than the exigencies of the classroom.” (157)
  
  “Look like to me only a fool would want you to talk in a way that feel peculiar to your mind.” (166)
  
  “A child cannot afford to be fooled. A child cannot be taught by anyone whose demand, essentially, is that the child repudiate his experience, and all that gives him sustenance, and enter a limbo in which he will no longer be black and in which he knows that he can never become white. Black people have lost too many black children that way.” (171)
  
  “Her family and community functioned as a kind of cultural womb, which nourished her with educational reinforcements and roles models, and protected her from the negative valuations of the White mainstream. This educational support was not provided in Standard English, but in Black or African American English. This language was a pervasive aspect of Linda’s experience.” (183)
  
  “I mean everybody that’s any Black person that I was around would say that same thing… And how could you change it if you constantly around the same people everyday using the same messed us words.” (193)
  
  “Writing, however, offers much more moment-to-moment control in the communication process. Students who have difficulty speaking Standard English can more successfully write it because they can be more conscious of editing their communication.” (195)
  
  “I don’t feel I should be defined as a person by European American culture.” (196)
  
  “fallen prey to invalidated linguistic assumptions of the mainstream culture, they had no tolerance for the speech of these children.” (207)
  
  “our obsession with the familiar form can obliterate the significance of the content.” (210)
  
  “language is who we are.” (212)
  
• 
  Camille Dent

  Check out my full book talk here:
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UWGLy...
  
  This is a fantastic collection of essays with a good mix of personal experience and objective research from a range of experts. It really helped me understand the importance of linguistics in the classroom for understanding and communicating with my students. I have already referenced this work in three major research projects since I was introduced to it less than a year ago, and I'm sure that I will continue to reference it for the rest of my life. Even though the focus is on the classroom setting, this discussion is certainly applicable to all facets of daily communication.
• 
  Lisa Brown

  it's not often that i say "this book changed my life," but this one did - insofar as it changed the way i think about the various forms of english spoken on either side of the pond, which is more than a mildly important part of my world. it formalized and validated some things i had sort of intuited about certain dialects and speech patterns, and it shed valuable light onto the crucial role language plays in the learning process, regardless of subject matter. some of the essays are a little dated, some of the rhetoric is a bit much, but overall, i can't recommend it highly enough.
• 
  Erin Cardis

  A book that every future teacher should read.
• 
  Danielle Cun

  A very interesting book that describe the problems students are facing at school because of their home language. The way one's speaks are often judged and assumed, and brings up more issue like races, social status, one's ability and so much more which becomes a very serious issue at school. The book provides a lot of personal essays from different authors which each of them pointed out the existing problems and how we can make a change. For our kids, for our next generation, this book is very well worth to read and discover the issue we have to improve the school system, teachers and techniques to help our children learn better.
• 
  Yolanda Roy

  Overall this was an excellent collection of articles written by various professionals involved either directly or indirectly with the field of education. Several articles in The Skin That We Speak clearly illustrate the need for differentiated instruction in classrooms while other articles serve as reminders that the more things change the more they remain the same--language discrimination and ridicule will always exist.
• 
  Karma

  An excellent collection of essays about language in the classroom. I could relate just about all of them to experiences I've had in the classroom. Highly recommended for teachers interested in equity work.
• 
  Mara Vernon

  I didn't finish this book. I struggled with structure and flow. It came highly recommended so I kept it going for over a year and maybe made it 60% of the way through. It's rare I don't finish something.
• 
  Kelli Kee

  As a future educator, I saw this as a necessary commentary on student, teacher, parent, and government roles in the education of reading, writing, and speaking. Emotional and educational
• 
  Allyson

  chapter three for anthropology: language & culture class
• 
  Nancy (Colorado)

  Written in 2008, parts of the book are outdated but the message is clear.
• 
  Yoselis

  Great essays with research-backed claims. Linguistics meets pedagogy and social justice. Love it!
• 
  Stefanie

  Collection of essays on literacy, language and learning through the lens of inclusive culture.
• 
  Allison Farr

  I wanted so badly to love this book. Having a background in sociolinguistics and being a teacher, I found that some of the essays were unoriginal. I've read countless other articles, essays, and books that reiterate similar ideas. However, there were a few standouts. Judith Baker's essay, "Trilingualism," offers an accessible entry point for introducing linguistics to students. She has her students list the different types of English they speak and the features of each dialect. She also has them engage in role play, which is a brilliant way to unpack code switching. I enjoyed Lisa Delpit's discussion of code switching in "No Kinda Sense" as well. The last essay in the book was the most refreshing. "We don't talk right. You ask him." is an essay by Joan Wynne that approaches dialect variation from an angle I haven't been exposed to before (or if I have, I don't remember). Wynne offers an appealing argument and her writing style is both concise and articulate. Oftentimes discussions of language and race (or gender, age, class, etc.) is divisive; contrary to that, her essay offers unity. Some of the quotes I hope to remember:
  
  "If we believe as James Baldwin that all languages define, articulate, and reveal individual realities ('Black English,' 1997), then by not recognizing Ebonics, we keep white children trapped in myopic visions of world realities ... We deny them the opportunity to look at their own ancestors and history in a way that might help them recognize their collective responsibility for injustices, as well as their collective potential for redemption."
  
  "Language is a political decision and a group experience of a lived reality, not a manifestation of intellectual prowess or language superiority"
  
  "If any of us refuse to respect the other's language, it becomes too easy, consciously or unconsciously, to then disrespect the person."
  
  "Glorifying Standard English as a superior mode of expression is intellectually limiting."
  
  And her connection to Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces?? Oy. Fantastic.
  
  "Joseph Campbell, in The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1968), tells us that a hero must assimilate his opposite, must put aside his pride, and in the end must realize 'that he and his opposite are not of differing species, but one flesh.' We have to educate our White children to understand that we are, indeed, 'one flesh.' That we are 'the other.' Then, what a gift to teach them that they are connected to the heroism of those African American students who engaged in sit-ins and marches; who against all odds survived arrests and beatings; and who created 'a dazzling moment of clarity' for the South and the nation (Curry 2000). To be taught that they belong not only to the history of the oppressor but also to the history of those who fought so bravely and won those battles for justice is a lesson all children deserve to hear."
  
  
• 
  Kb

  This is yet another book that I picked up after reflecting on how who I am affects how my words are perceived, what Herb Kohl, in Ch. 9, refers to as "attunement." Of course, there is no changing my background and, as a result, who I am. As Gloria Ladson-Billings lays out in "Dreamkeepers," it is on me to become hyper-aware of the respective realities of my students, which affect how knowledge is constructed. In this book, Lisa Delpit presents this issue through the specific lens of language. The overall theme of this collection of papers addresses the question of how language is used to make assumptions about intellect and potential. While much of the text deals with the tension between the enforcement of Standard English, the language of power, and Black English as an expression of personal identity, other perspectives are brought into the fold, including Native American and, most thoroughly, English spoken in Great Britain. We come away mindful of the fact that in no way is Standard English not to be taught; it is, as Joan Wynne says in Ch. 12, "the language of power, the chosen form of communication of those who own the missiles, the tanks, the banks, the bombs, and the government" (213). We must do this by not undermining non-standard English dialects and teaching that they are inherently inferior or deficient. No language or dialect can be scientifically inferior. When language is viewed as inferior, it is a political phenomena. As the saying goes, a language is a dialect with an army and a navy.
• 
  Wendi

  If you are a teacher, parent, or an aware citizen in the world today, this is a must-read. As a native English speaker in America, there are many things I take for granted in the realm of "standard English", but in today's society, assumptions require a deeper look. What, truly, is "standard" when language is so fluid? How can we possibly judge another person's superiority or inferiority based on the structure of their expressions? Our students (and us adults as well!) deserve to learn why such judgments can be--and often are--so misleading. As a teacher of language learners, it is critical for me to advocate for our students, that because they have yet to master English does not mean they are unintelligent. Linguistic differences are not indicative of intelligence levels, and the many ways in which Delpit reminds readers of the implications of our perceptions are easily grasped. As a teacher, this book has made me think so much more distinctly about how I can better use the examples of my students' many linguistic dimensions, and to reflect on how my attitude on "standard" or acceptable English continues to change as I become increasingly aware. Language and its constant change, in the sense of assumptions, perceptions, and misunderstandings, is also a delicious start point for those interested in social justice.
  I love when books are provocative. This one does not disappoint.
• 
  Pashew Majeed

  The influences language and color have on our life and the changes it makes is just unbelievable. Most of us has been pre-judged by the way we look and speak on daily basis. By the look I do not solely mean color but the appearance of you face as well. I have enough living personal examples in the regard of language influences. Those cultural misinterpretations which led and leads to misunderstanding and the aftermath is a cultural clash. Educationally speaking, the aftermath will be a culturally and epistemologically illiterate being, as we can see every day in our life. Language and look differences affect educational process, it slows it down and makes us constantly busy with it and remember the quality education necessary.
  
  read the rest here:
  
  http://pashewmajeed.blogspot.com/2014...
• 
  Gretchen

  The Skin that We Speak is a collection of essays by scholars about the struggle of language and culture in the classroom. They mainly address the issue of "Ebonics" and why it is looked down on as an "inferior" language. They talk about what we can do to change this negative outlook and why it's important.
  
  This book's pretty boring. I had to read it for my Literacy/Language/Learning Theory class next semester. A lot of it is common sense or personal examples, which are kind of boring. They point the authors collectively make is a good one though: Respect a person's language and you respect the person. People need to know that their language is valued or they will feel oppressed and demeaned.
• 
  Allegra

  I had already taken college courses about the validity of African American Vernacular English as a systematic and rule-governed language, but I thought the essays included in this book really went deeper into how perceptions of speakers of non-Standard English are formed and reinforced, how to change how students think of each other and themselves in order to help everyone succeed in school, and how to address the preconceptions of some teachers regarding the languages used by their students in their classrooms.
• 
  Michael

  This book looks at the problem we have of looking at certain ways of speaking as "lesser" than Standard English. These essays illustrate the problem and show some possibilities for addressing cultural differences within the classroom. I found this quite eye-opening, as I haven't read much about the topic before, and my own speech has never been challenged by a teacher. I feel quite fortunate in this.
• 
  Molly

  This book shed valuable light onto the crucial role language plays in the learning process, regardless of subject matter. It helped me reflect on how Standard American English is really only one of a myriad of English dialects. I never realized before how some students are at a disadvantage when their dialect of English is invalidated. I found some of the works a bit dated, but it was interesting overall.
• 
  Danielle Haig

  A collection of powerful essays written to make the reader a bit uncomfortable. I think every future educator (and parent) should read this text. The authors have incredible insight into the dynamics of language, race, and power and their relationship to student identity and teacher strategies. There is some wonderful advice, and the essays complement each other well. An essential read for any future teacher and anyone interested in the dynamics of language in schools today.
• 
  Susanna

  I would emphatically recommend this book to anyone who is attempting to teach standard English to non-standard English speakers...but I think that it is worth a read even if you are not a teacher. Because we live in a society with both standard and non-standard English speakers, we could all benefit by considering the ideas presented in this book.
• 
  Lauren

  Dowdy puts together a great collection of essays about language and how our speech informs our world-view, self-esteem and educational options. While centered around the debate over Ebonics, the book also touches on everything from various British dialects to Appalachian English. A must-read for educators; an unusual but satisfying read for those generally interested in social justice.