ABSTRACT
There has been much debate in educational and sociological circles since the mid-1960s about the precise relationship between education and language. One question often asked is: Does a child's language affect his success or failure at school? And if so, how? Many people believe that a child's language is a crucial cause of his educational success or failure. Another question often asked is: How does a teacher's language affect his pupils' learning? The aim of this chapter is to provide the reader with some of the basic sociolinguistic concepts necessary to understand the kinds of relationships which exist between language and educational processes. (By sociolinguistics I simply mean studies of language and how it is used in different social contexts, such as homes, factories, schools and classrooms.) Disentangling basic concepts is not merely an academic exercise, but essential to anyone who wants to understand the issues involved in the debate. What precisely is meant, for example, by the often quoted phrase: ‘Educational failure is linguistic failure’? Does this phrase, in fact, make sense? Is there any precise meaning which can be attached to assertions that some pupils are ‘linguistically inadequate’? And what would constitute evidence for such assertions?
