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Incorporating Linguistic Variation into the Classroom 7 Manuel J. Gutierrez University of Houston Malta FairclOUgh University of Houston The following example of an online chat appears in an English as a Second Language (ESL) textbook recently published in a LatinAmerican country:1 [sacha] todos los marines de Chile son pinochetistas y cagones [eduardo] CUENTAME ESA VERSION QUE NO LA CONOZCO [GLORIA] LLA ESTANHABLANDO WUEVADAS LOS FOME [eduardo] TODOS ES MUCHA GENTE [eduardo] LO DICES FOR LO DEL ESMERALDA? [Marco] p [MORENAZO] Y QUE ESTA HACIENDO=? [Shawn] ich will [Marco] pppp [sacha] arturo prats era un viejo culiao cochino que ni se afeitava2 (La Tercera online, March 19,2004) A fter receiving information about the content of the passage, the government of the country retrieved all250,000 copies of the book from the schools (they had been delivered to the students free of charge). It was not the language style used by the chat participants but the content of the interaction that accounted for the response. However, the language style is the reason we decided to include this passage at the beginning of our chapter. The linguistic norms evident in this chat are at the nonformal extreme of the style continuum used by adolescents in Chile, yet they found a place in a language textbook. Although textbook authors hardly ever include nonstandard dialects such as the quoted sample, it is refreshing to know that some of them try to present at least a fewexamples of the variety used every day by the users of the textbook . Would it not be reasonable to offer adolescents a foreign languagetextbook written in the style they could relate to and likely use, in the same waythat business professionals would expect a textbook written in the more formal style of interest to them? While this comparison may be an exaggeration,it seems obvious that the specific needs of students should be taken into account when constructing a language textbook. 173 174 Gutierrez and Fairclough A study of immersion classrooms conducted by Tarone and Swain (1995) corroborates this assertion. Their findingsdemonstrate that in an academic context students learn only a formal register, as opposed to a speech style that would allow them to communicate with their peers. Consequently, their competence is limited to certain domains that require use of the formalvariant, such as exchanges with their teachers. Although Tarone and Swain admit that there are some difficulties in teaching an L2 (secondary language) vernacular in the classroom (e.g., teachers who are not comfortable teaching a non-academic variety, choice of vernacular to present, etc.), one of the options they propose is that sociolinguistic variation should be explicitly taught in immersion classrooms through TV programs, films, magazines, and other media to provide models of current vernacular usage (1995,175). Let us move now from the style variable to the geographical dimension.Consider the case of a textbook designed to teach Spanish in Madrid's primary schools that includes a section on the Argentine voseo, or a textbook printed in Spain for Latin American audiences that includes several sections on the use of the vosotros pronoun.3 Any textbook that intends to impose nonlocal linguisticforms over local ones would probably not be taken out of the schools, but it would be foolish to expect students to produce these forms in their environment. The reason is obvious: As suggested by Kachru (1988) regardingWorld Englishes, no single model of a languagemeets local, regional, and international needs simultaneously. Varieties often develop innovations for practical reasons, such as regional dialect contact and socialvariation. When creating a pedagogical norm, therefore, not only student needs but also the local or regional sociolinguistic contexts need to be taken into account. The situation is even more complex in the teaching of Spanish to students in the United States. As a nation with more Spanish speakers than most Spanish-speaking countries, the United States presents a reality characterized by extreme variation. This variation is based on a number of linguistic and social variables, including "generation," which is defined by place of birth, age upon arrival to the United States, and number of years speakers have been in contact with English.Common to most Spanish language textbooks used in this country are linguistic forms used in other Spanish-speakingcountries,such as the pronoun vosotros,the morphological future, and many lexical items that are not necessarily found in the different varieties of Spanish spoken in the United States. Such inclusions are intended to supersede local norms, which are absent...

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