Promoting community recognition of HCE as a legitimate language with appropriate domains of use.
Much of discussion and debate continues to be emotional and ill-informed. Language experts, such as the late Dr. Charlene Sato who have done in-depth analyses of HCE, support its use in appropriate domains and have fought against discrimination based on accent.
Similarly, the Linguistic Society of America has issued a statement supporting the Oakland School Board decision and declaring that "Characterizations of Ebonics as 'slang,' 'mutant,' 'lazy,' 'defective,' 'ungrammatical,' or 'broken English' are incorrect and demeaning...There is evidence from Sweden, the U.S. and other countries that speakers of other varieties can be aided in their learning of the standard variety by pedagogical approaches which recognize the legitimacy of the other varieties of a language.
"From this perspective, the Oakand School Board's decision to recognize the vernacular of African-American students in teaching them Standard English is . . . sound."
The Hawaii Council on Language Planning and Policy, a voluntary organization composed of language rights advocates, representatives of state and county agencies, teachers and experts in applied linguistics and English as a Second Language, Hawaiian language immersion advocates, interpreters, translators, immigrants and refugee service providers, further supports the ideas expressed above:
HCE(pidgin) is the native language of most children and adults in Hawaii. It is a fully developed language or variety, just as "good" as standard English in every way except that it suffers unjustly from low social prestige. It is a systematic, fully grammatical language with rules and standards of its own. Both HCE and Standard English are deeply rooted within the local culture and serve significant, but different purposes.
In many quarters, there is no knowledge of the extensive linguistic research on HCE, establishing its linguistic validity . . . HCE is often considered "bad English," whereas it is in fact systematic, expressive and appropriate in certain domains.
Negative attitudes toward pidgen or the home language of children in schools can lead to alienation and school failure, and cases of accent discrimination involving unfair hiring and promotion practices with regards to HCE have reached the courts.
The council recommends:
Promoting community recognition of HCE as a legitimate language with appropriate domains of use.
Encouraging bidialectalism recognizing that people do not have to lose HCE in order to speak Standard English.
Continuing to advertise and offer University of Hawaii classes which clarify and explain the linguistic properties of HCE - its legitimacy as a language.
Supporting local artists who perform and write in HCE.
Accepting HCE in appropriate domains of local media.
Increasing awareness among employers of legal requirements regarding non-discrimination and HCE.
Making an understanding of HCE issues should be an integral part of training for teachers, administrators and DOE officials.
Recognizing that introducing the standard language in locally appropriate contexts and the accompanying corollary of accepting the use of HCE at school in the contexts in which it is normally used (ie. oral discussions) validates both languages.
In short, it will be more effective to make use of HCE, the legitimate language that children bring to school, in the learning of Standard English, than to produce feelings of shame toward the home language.