Today
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‘Standard’ vs.
‘Nonstandard’ dialects
African American English
The ‘Ebonics’ controversy
Summary
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Daniels:
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“Everyone speaks a dialect.”
“Speakers of all languages employ a range
of styles and a set of subdialects or jargons.”
“[Dialects] are intimately related to the …
individuals who use them.”
Factors that affect dialect
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Geography
Social status/class
Occupation
Age
Ethnicity
Gender
Language variation
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Factors that affect dialect differences
Nature of dialect differences
Attitudes about different dialects
Uses of different dialects
Daniels
“Value judgments about different dialects
are matters of taste”
Standard vs. Non-standard
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‘Standard’
Typically used by political leaders, upper
classes, in the media; taught in schools
 Considered the dominant or ‘prestige’ dialect
≠ ‘correct’, ‘proper’, ‘better’
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‘Non-standard’ (Vernacular)
any dialect not perceived as ‘standard’
≠ ‘substandard’, ‘incorrect’, ‘improper’
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Standard vs. Non-standard
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Some standard dialects of English
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Received Pronunciation (RP) (in UK)
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characterized by phonological features
Standard American English (SAE)
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characterized by grammatical (morphological &
syntactic) features
(Ch. 14 William Labov)
http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/sociolinguistics/labov/#
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/standardamerican/presidential/#
Overt vs. Covert prestige
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Overt prestige:
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Attached to some dialect by the community
that defines how people should speak to gain
status in that community
Covert prestige:
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Exists among nonstandard speakers and
defines how people should speak to be
considered members of that particular group
Hypercorrection
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Speakers overcorrect for ‘incorrect’ speech in
wrong place, often to imitate standard dialect
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Phonological: e.g., r-insertion
‘Cuba(r)’, ‘idea(r)’
Lexical:
‘It is beyond my apprehension.’
‘You misunderestimate me.’ – George W. Bush
Grammatical:
‘Let’s keep this between you and I’
‘Whom is calling?’
Language and ethnicity
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African American English (AAE)
African American Vernacular English (AAVE)
African American Language
Black English
Black Vernacular English
Ebonics
Inner City English
Language and ethnicity
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African American English (AAE)
A continuum of language varieties that is
spoken primarily by and among AfricanAmericans
But…
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Not all African-Americans speak AAE
Not only African-Americans speak AAE
Misconceptions about AAE
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It is ‘black slang’
It is a product of ‘lazy’ speech
It is an inferior, simple form of English
It is grammatically incorrect, illogical and
has no rules
AAE
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1965: William Labov made first
grammatical study of AAE, showing it to
be regular, rule-governed
AAE Phonology
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Deletion of /r/, /l/
mo(re), gua(r)d, a(ll), he(l)p, Pa(r)is
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Simplification of consonant clusters
han(d), las(t), chil(d)
Rule-governed
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Delete /r/, /l/ less often if …
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followed by vowel in next word (four o’clock,
all or nothin’)
Delete final consonant less often if …
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it carries meaning (e.g., plural: I got cats.)
it differs in voicing from preceding consonant
(e.g., pant, belt, false, part)
AAE Syntax
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Has structures common to many other
languages/dialects (just not SAE)
AAE Multiple negation
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AAE: “He don’ know nothin’.”
Russian: Oн ничего не знает.
(He nothing not know)
Spanish: Él no sabe nada.
Middle English:
“He never yet no villainy not said
In all his life to no kind of creature.”
(Chaucer, 1400)
AAE Deletion of ‘to be’
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AAE: He __ my brother.
Russian: Oн мой брать.
(He my brother)
AAE Habitual ‘be’
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‘be’ is required when referring to habitual,
repeated action
The coffee be cold (every day).
The coffee cold (right now).
They be slow (all the time).
They slow (today).
Bidialectalism
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Many African-Americans code-switch
between AAE and SAE since AAE often
is subject to much prejudicial stigma and
ignorance
(Watch clip, Ch. 23 “Linguistic Profiling”)
Linguistic Profiling
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John Baugh (Stanford U)
Discrimination or prejudice based on the
sound of someone’s voice/dialect
http://www.stanford.edu/~jbaugh/Ae1ff.mov
http://www.stanford.edu/~jbaugh/che1ff.mov
http://www.stanford.edu/~jbaugh/se1ff.mov
Oakland, CA Ebonics controversy
Background
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1996: Blacks make up 53% of student
population in Oakland schools, but…
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…80% of the suspensions
…64% of the students held back each year
…71% of students classified as having
special needs (for ‘language deficiency’)
Average grade was a D+
Precedent
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1979: M.L. King, Jr. Elem. School v. Ann
Arbor School Board (Ch. 25)
Verdict: teachers failed “to take into
account [the children's] home community
dialect…”
Court ordered Board to…
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…help teachers identify “Black English”
…use knowledge of Black English in teaching
students how to read SAE
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Dec. 18, 1996: Oakland School Board
passes Ebonics resolution
Goals of resolution:
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to recognize Ebonics as ‘home language’ of
many black children
to help teachers understand Ebonics so as to
change attitudes about it
to help teachers use Ebonics as means of
teaching black students to read, write
Media reaction: AAE as
‘illegitimate’
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Mary McGrory (Boston Globe): Oakland
Board is “legitimizing gibberish.”
Gary Wills (Chicago Sun-Times):
“Ebonics is just bad English”
U.S. Educ. Sec. Richard Riley called AAE
a “mere dialect”
NY Times: referred to AAE as “black
slang”
Media reaction: AAE as ‘joke’
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Daily News, editorial: “Ebonics is a cruel
joke…At best, Ebonics is street slang.”
CA Gov. Pete Wilson called Ebonics a
“ridiculous theory.”
A Newsweek black columnist criticized
the School Board for its “stale, silly
rhetoric.”
Time called the resolution “goofy.”
Media reaction: AAE as ‘disease’
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The Economist: “The Ebonics Virus”
Frank Rich ("The Ebonic Plague," NY
Times): "There isn't a public personage of
stature in the land, white or black, left or
right, Democrat or Republican, who
doesn't say that the Oakland, CA, school
board was wrong.”
African-American reaction
Jesse Jackson: “In Oakland some madness
has erupted over making slang talk a second
language. You don't have to go to school to
learn to talk garbage.”
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Maya Angelou called resolution “very
threatening” and was “incensed” by it
Patricia Smith (Boston Globe): “What they're saying in
Oakland is that those kids are too dumb to learn the
way we did, and that's insulting.”
Eldridge Cleaver (Black Panther official),
compared official acknowledgement of
AAE with condoning cannibalism
Support
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The Linguistics Society of America voted
unanimously to support the Oakland
resolution.
Discussion
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What are some reasons for such negative
reaction? From the media? From African
Americans?
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Misconceptions about AAE
Implies African-Am. can’t learn SAE
Stems from misinterpretation of wording of
resolution
Wording of Oakland resolution
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‘genetically based’
‘primary language’ / ‘not a dialect’
‘instruction in’
‘bilingual’
The Genetic Issue:
“African Language Systems [Ebonics] are
genetically based.”
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Popular Interpretation:
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Blacks (of any nation) are biologically predisposed to
speak Ebonics.
Linguistic Understanding:
"Genetic" refers to linguistic origins (or ‘genesis’), not
biological predisposition.
The Separate Language Issue:
“[Ebonics] is not a dialect of English.”
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Popular Interpretation:
Ebonics is a separate language.
Linguistic Understanding:
Assumes the popular (and inaccurate) conception of
‘dialect’ as inferior/substandard form of a language.
Also, suggests it is comprised of components from
different (African) languages besides English.
The Teaching Issue:
“…a program featuring African Language
Systems principles in instructing AfricanAmerican children both in their primary
language and in English.”
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Popular Interpretation:
Teachers will teach students how to speak Ebonics.
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Linguistic Understanding:
Ebonics will be used selectively as aid in teaching
SAE.
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Use of Ebonics in the classroom
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/standardamerican/
Empirical studies
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“Correction” of nonstandard in school
does not lead to increased standard use
Use of nonstandard in teaching speeds,
improves learning of standard in
reading/writing
African-Am. college students instructed
on diffs. btw. AAE and SAE improved
SAE writing skills
The Bilingual Issue:
"the English language acquisition of AfricanAmerican students is as fundamental as is
application of bilingual education principles for
others whose primary languages are other than
English."
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Popular Interpretation: Speakers of Ebonics should
qualify for federally funded bilingual education
programs.
Linguistic Understanding: Ebonics speakers should
have access to programs that help them learn SAE.