Language Difference

The collective awareness of language difference came about during the civil rights era of the 1950s and 1960s, a time of burgeoning acceptance of cultural diversity. Civil rights and language difference are connected in that the ideal of equal human rights parallels the concept that all language varieties are equally valid. Linguistic validity refers to the fact that all language varieties (e.g., Spanish and African American English [AAE]) have systematic rules. With this knowledge, Speech–Language pathologists (SLPs) began to address the pervasive problem that in attempting to diagnose and treat disorder, language differences were not systematically taken into account, and many people’s valid language differences were incorrectly labeled as disordered.

Despite the linguistic validity of each language variety, not all varieties are afforded equal social respect. Furthermore, the social value of one variety as opposed to another is determined in large part by the way that people perceive the speakers of that dialect. To confirm the legitimacy of minority dialects, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association’s (ASHA) Position on Social Dialects was developed in 1982. It holds that English is composed of many different linguistic varieties and that none of these should be considered disordered, regardless of differential social value. Finally, the document distinguishes between the traditional and nontraditional roles of an SLP. The traditional role is to diagnose disorder from typical development without bias toward the speaker’s speech community. The newer, nontraditional role is to provide accent modification (more recently termed management by ASHA) services to speakers of nonstandard dialects who elect to acquire a new accent due to its differing social value. With the goal of maintaining respect for the original culture and language, accent services should aim to modify, not eradicate, the existing dialect. Therefore, while SLPs may engage in voluntary therapy to help clients manage, modify, or create new accents, it is important to realize that vernacular dialects serve an important role. Accent management therapy should begin by helping clients accept their current accent and identify situations in which speaking it would be preferable to the standard dialect.