Section Two: Languages, Dialects, and Accents

Questions about centering clients’ needs, and questions about the influence of culture, language, and identity, affect many disciplines. Our profession differs from any other, however, because of our focus on speech and language needs of individual people. The modules collected here in Section Two allow us to think about languages and multilingualism; dialects, accents, and how we rate, rank, separate, or combine them; and some of the many ways that language- and dialect-based stereotypes and prejudices influence our society and therefore influence our communication-focused profession.

Recognizing bi-/multilingualism, not monolingualism, as typical and normative
What is “American English”?
Are our “knowledge” and “perception” of dialects actually stereotypes?

Three women laughing and enjoying each other's company, with warm sunlight in the background.

What happens if we expand our definitions of bilingualism, multilingualism, and dialects to allow for the wide range of actual human experiences with languages?

Group of people seated attentively at a meeting or seminar.

TO SECTION ONE

TO SECTION three

Section Two: Languages, Dialects, and Accents

Module 6: Normalizing Multilingualism

Module 7: Normalizing Dialects and Accents

Module 8: Sociocultural Dialects and Accents

What happens if we expand our definitions of bilingualism, multilingualism, and dialects to allow for the wide range of actual human experiences with languages?

Culture for SLP