War and African Culture:
sociolinguistic influences in ELT
English Graduate Program
Universidade Veiga de Almeida
2/2012
War in Lerer (2002)
• Philological prejudice
• The influence of newspaper correspondents, press agents (aspiring
literati) and writers/poets –a new rethorical persona.
• Idioms of speech: gripsack, pacification, Vietnamization
(euphemism), fragging, greasing, getting some, sack (death), mudhooks, gunboats (boots), stick-in-the-mud (starving soldier), dogrobber.
• Sexualized images in idioms: “The Wolf’s Dream” (prostitute – Civil
War), Moaning Minnie (mortar shells – Minié ball), “Big Bertha”
(German Gun – World War I), “hissing Jenny” (large shell), “black
Maria” (explosive), “bombshell” (a woman who would shatter
male’s defenses), “short arm” (penis from “light arm” – World War
II).
• Specific idioms: GI (Government Issue), GI Joe, Jeep (initials for
General Purposes Vehicle – GP), gremlin (evocating the sound of
goblin)
But can we
really QUANTIFY
its influence?
Reel Bad Arabs (intro/31:14)
Some (very basic and tricky) questions...
• What is language?
• Why is language there?
• How could a sociolinguistic
approach to language be?
George Orwell – Politics and the English
Language (1945)
• Different views on language
“I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to
say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike
a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become,
out of an experience ever more bitter in each
year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit
sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate”.
- Professor Harold Laski
(Essay in Freedom of Expression)
George Orwell – Politics and the English
Language (1945)
• Different views on language
“Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes
with a native battery of idioms which
prescribes egregious collocations of vocables
as the Basic put up with for tolerate, or put at
a loss forbewilder”.
- Professor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossia)
George Orwell – Politics and the English
Language (1945)
• Different views on language
All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and
all the frantic fascist captains, united in common
hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide
of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to
acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval
legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own
destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the
agitated petty-bourgeoisie to chauvinistic fervor on
behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of
the crisis.
- Communist pamphlet
George Orwell – Politics and the English
Language (1945)
• Different views on language
“If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one
thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is
the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will
bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be
sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at
present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer
Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain
cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather
ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly
masquerading as "standard English." When the Voice of Britain is
heard at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear
aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated,
inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful
mewing maidens!”
• Letter in Tribune
George Orwell – Politics and the English
Language (1945)
•
“Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart
from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them.
The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision”.
• Parody of Ecclesiastes
“I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift,
nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet
riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but
time and chance happeneth to them all”.
Becomes
Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the
conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits
no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a
considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken
into account.
War in Lerer (2002)
War in Lerer (2002) - Pacification
War in Lerer (2002)
Symbolic Competence (Kramsch, CBLA, 2011)
• Asians in the Library (Alexandra Wallace)
• Ching-chong response.
AAVE in Lerer (2002)
Frederick Douglass’s Life and Times (1830)
Frederick Douglass’s Life and Times (1830)
Bringing Down the House
- On the romantic view of AAVE
Labov – Sociolinguistics (in Lerer, 2002)
Sociolinguistic Vocabulary
•
•
•
•
•
•
Language versus dialect
Slangs
Idioms
Creole languages
Pidgin languages
Code-switching
Pullum (1999)
Pullum (1999)
• Oakland’s language policy statement (1996)
• Controversial policy: AAVE is a “badly spoken
version of their language”.
• The NYT reaction: the government has
declared “that black slang is a distinct
language”.
• Guerrilla-style commercial
Ebonics...
• Why African American Vernacular English and
not ebonics?
• Ebony + phonics (cf. the literacy method)
• Negative connotation
• The Economist: “The Ebonics virus” (1996)
• Racist ebonics lesson
Pullum (1999) – right and wrong?
The notion of synthatic dialects
Pullum (1999) – If it has specific rules...
• Copula
• Double Negation (explanation based on Logic
– I ain´t never seen nothin’ like it).
• Dropping consonants
• Nasals (nothin’)
• Not all African Americans know AAVE
More on vocabulary
West African Form + West African Meaning
• bogus 'fake/fraudulent' cf. Hausa boko, or boko-boko 'deceit, fraud'.
• hep, hip 'well informed, up-to-date' cf. Wolof hepi, hipi 'to open one's
eyes, be aware of what is going on'.
English Form + West African Meaning
• cat 'a friend, a fellow, etc.' cf. Wolof -kat (a suffix denoting a person)
• cool 'calm, controlled' cf. Mandingo suma 'slow' (literally 'cool')
• dig 'to understand, appreciate, pay attention' cf. Wolof deg, dega 'to
understand, appreciate'
• bad 'really good‘
http://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/aave.html#vocab-hce
More on grammar (Deneroff, McMullen and Helfrick,
2012)
Standard English uses a conjugated be verb (called a copula) in a number of
different sentences. (This may occur as is, 's, are, 're, etc.) In AAVE this verb is
often not included. The frequency of inclusion has been shown to depend on
a variety of factors.
In future sentences with gonna or gon (see below):
• I don't care what he say, you __ gon laugh. ...as long as is kids around
he's gon play rough or however they're playing.
Before verbs with the -ing or -in ending(progressive):
• I tell him to be quiet because he don't know what he __ talking about. I
mean, he may say something's out of place but he __ cleaning up behind
it and you can't get mad at him.
Before adjectives and expressions of location:
• He __ all right. And Alvin, he __ kind of big, you know?
• She __ at home. The club __ on one corner, the Bock is on the other.
Before nouns (or phrases with nouns)
• He __ the one who had to go try to pick up the peacock. I say, you __ the
one jumping up to leave, not me.
Grammar 2
Agreement
• SE agreement between the subject and predicate in the present
tense.
• In AAVE the verb is rarely marked in this way. When regular verbs
occur with such -s marking, they often carry special emphasis.
Standard English also has agreement in a number of irregular and
frequently used verbs such as has vs have and is vs are and was vs
were. In AAVE these distinctions are not always made.
Tense and aspect
• The verb in AAVE is often used without any ending. As is the case
with the English creoles, there are some separate words that come
before the verb which show when or how something happens.
These are called "tense/aspect markers".
Verb Nuances
Ricky Bell be steady steppin in them number nines.
She be working all the time.
Grammar 3
Standard English present perfect: He has been
married. AAVE been: He been married.
• "He has eaten his dinner" can be expressed as
He done eat his dinner.
“Ain’t for didn’t”
• I ain't step on no line. I said, "I ain't run the
stop sign," and he said, "you ran it!"
• I ain't believe you that day, man.
Double Negatives
Pilate they remembered as a pretty woods-wild
girl "that couldn't nobody put shoes on.“ (Toni
Morrison, Song of Solomon)
Tense and aspect chart
Tense and aspect chart
Charity, Scarborough and Griffin (2004)
• African American students in kindergarten, first grade
and second grade in low-performing schools
(Cleveland, New Orleans and Washington) – 217
children (2000-2001 academic year).
• Reading achievement, sentence imitation and story
recall.
• General abilities such as memory, inference making,
etc. are not related to the knowledge of SE (School
English).
• Linguistic factors are not the only influence observed.
Charity, Scarborough and Griffin (2004) – Teacher Bias
Language is a part of us...
Professor Mary Zeigler of Georgia University
talks about the influence that African
American's have had on the development of
American English. Her students discuss the
importance of their own language as an
expression of their cultural identity.
 What about the Brazilian reality?
 Should EFL teachers consider AAVE when
teaching?
 How can we (or why should we) use it in
our everyday teaching life?
 Is there any connection between the AAVE
 community in the US and the linguistic
 Prejudice phenomena observed in
 Brazilian EFL classrooms?
Lei 10.639 de 9 de Janeiro de 2003
Altera a Lei no 9.394, de 20 de dezembro de 1996, que estabelece as diretrizes
e bases da educação nacional, para incluir no currículo oficial da Rede de
Ensino a obrigatoriedade da temática "História e Cultura Afro-Brasileira", e
dá outras providências.
"Art. 26-A. Nos estabelecimentos de ensino fundamental e médio, oficiais e
particulares, torna-se obrigatório o ensino sobre História e Cultura AfroBrasileira.
§ 1o O conteúdo programático a que se refere o caput deste artigo incluirá o
estudo da História da África e dos Africanos, a luta dos negros no Brasil, a
cultura negra brasileira e o negro na formação da sociedade nacional,
resgatando a contribuição do povo negro nas áreas social, econômica e
política pertinentes à História do Brasil.
§ 2o Os conteúdos referentes à História e Cultura Afro-Brasileira serão
ministrados no âmbito de todo o currículo escolar, em especial nas áreas de
Educação Artística e de Literatura e História Brasileiras.
"Art. 79-B. O calendário escolar incluirá o dia 20 de novembro como ‘Dia
Nacional da Consciência Negra’."
Brasília, 9 de janeiro de 2003; 182o da Independência e 115o da República.
LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVA
Cristovam Ricardo Cavalcanti Buarque
Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil
200 languages – 170 indigenous and 30 originated in Asia or Europe.
Globo and Non-Globo Variety
Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil
Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil
Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil
Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil
Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil
“The most damaging point about the linguistic prejudice
against the varieties of Brazilian Portuguese spoken in the
poorer sectors of the population is the correlation linking
poverty to cognitive and mental deficits. From this viewpoint,
those who do not “speak correctly”, do not “think properly”.
Baugh (1999: 6) discusses the relevance of African- American
Vernacular English (AAVE) to education and social policies,
showing that it is “far from being an impoverished dialect”,
despite it continues to stigmatize speakers as “uneducated ”
members of the society. (…) Baugh (1999) discusses this
correlation and its damaging consequences in the United
States, concerning AAVE. He examines the assumption of
standard English speakers that non-standard English speakers
are ignorant. In this sense, there is a common stereotype that
non-standard speakers could speak “properly” if “only they put
forth sufficient effort”, that is responsible for this
misconception. It is not difficult to find coincidences here, in
comparison to the Brazilian situation.