Language is a fundamental element of culture. Language shapes our experiences, values and world view, and these in turn shape language.
Language reflects our history and is a focus of social and political conflict.
In America, language is intertwined with the social, educational and political issues surrounding ethnicity. It offers an introduction to the social history and status of languages in the US, from the Native American languages, through the colonial and immigrant languages, through the social and ethnic varieties of English. We investigate the role of language in education and politics, looking at the experiences of each group. We look at the role of language in the expression of prejudice and in cross-group communication. We examine the social, cultural, psychological and emotional aspects of standard and nonstandard forms of English, of language shifts and heritage-language loss, and of bilingualism, bilingual education, Black English and education, and the Official English movement, showing how each group experiences these.