What's so improper about fractions? Prescriptivism and language socialization at Math Corps

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2854071
AutoresStephen Chrisomali (0000-0003-3636-7683, Wayne State University, autor de correspondencia), Stephen Chrisomalis
Año2015
Volumen44
Número1
Páginas63-85
Fecha de publicación2015-02-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaLanguage in Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0047-4045 • E-ISSN: 1469-8013
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0047404514000748
OpenAlexW2007020926
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas6
Referencias citadas34

Mathematical prescriptivism is a language ideology found in school mathematics that uses a discourse of rationality to proscribe language forms perceived as illogical or inefficient. The present study is based on a three-year ethnographic investigation of Math Corps, a community of practice in Detroit, Michigan, in which prescriptive language in the classroom is used both to highlight beneficial algorithms and to build social solidarity. Although motivated by the analogy with English orthographic reform, prescriptivism at Math Corps avoids potentially harmful criticism of community members of the sort often experienced by African American students. A playful linguistic frame, the prescriptive melodrama, highlights valued prescriptions, thereby enculturating students into the locally preferred register, the 'Math Corps way', which encompasses social, moral, linguistic, and mathematical practices and norms. A sociolinguistic and anthropological perspective on prescriptivism within communities of practice highlights positive alternatives to the universalizing prescriptions found in other English contexts. (Prescriptivism, language ideology, mathematics education, community of practice, Math Corps, linguistic anthropology, language socialization

Analogy · Communalism · Epistemology · Ethnography · Ideology · Linguistics · Political science · Rationality · Social science · Socialization · Sociology · Solidarity · Anthropology · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Law · Linguistic Variation and Morphology · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy