What’s the Use of Linguistics? Pre-Service English Teachers’ Beliefs towards Language Use and Variation
Appendix: The questionnaire
Linguistics Evaluation Survey
We are asking these questions as a way to find out how successful we are in our teaching about language. Your answers will not affect your grade and will be kept strictly confidential. We will not identify individual students in any way and the data will be used only in aggregate form.
Answer Key: a) strongly agree, b) agree, c) undecided, d) disagree, e) strongly disagree.
1) Teachers should insist on formal English in the classroom, both in speaking and in writing.
2) Linguists look upon their work as that of controlling the language, of keeping it within bounds.
3) A student who says I be done finish before you know it in the classroom should be corrected.
4) Every speaker of English uses at least one dialect, often more than one.
5) He been there before is an acceptable sentence in the classroom.
6) Written English is the foundation on which spoken English rests.
7) African American English (Black English) is a misuse of Standard English.
8) Splitting the infinitive may sometimes enable the writer to express his/her ideas with greater clarity and force than otherwise.
9) Languages in Africa, and American Indian languages, are often primitive and simple in structure.
10) Saying She be late all the time is acceptable in the classroom.
11) Someone can learn how to speak correctly without ever studying grammar in school.
12) Even though It’s me is accepted in informal English, the expression It is I is really right.
13) Both African Americans and European Americans use slang for the same reasons: sometimes for fun, and sometimes to prevent others from understanding what they are saying.
14) To most people, He’s not going nowhere means that the person spoken about is going somewhere.
15) Adults can rarely learn to speak a foreign language like native speakers.
16) American Indians have great difficulty learning English because their own language and culture are so much less complicated.
17) The kind of English spoken by African American children does not in itself handicap them in learning to read.
18) African American English (Black English) and Standard American English are about equally creative and expressive.
19) Minority dialects in America generally show a lack of logic and poor organization of thoughts on the part of their speakers, as demonstrated by their frequent grammatical errors.
20) African American English has a faulty grammar system.
21) A student who says I don ’t speak no French is the classroom should be corrected.
22) The sign language used by many deaf children and adults has no grammar and is just a series of gestures standing for concrete objects.
23) African American English is an inferior language system.
24) How many courses in Linguistics have you taken? (Engl. 2651 and 3757 count as
Linguistics courses) Mark the letter corresponding to the courses you have
taken: 1 = a, 2 =b, 3 = c, 4 = d, 5 = e. (If this is your first course in Linguistics, do not mark any letter.)
25) Major: mark a) if English, b) Education, c) Other Humanities d) Social Science (Political Science, Sociology, Business) e) Sciences (including Engineering, Computer Sciences).
26) Gender a) Female b) Male
27) Age range: a) Under 25, b) 25 - 35 c) 35 - 45 d) above 45
