LING 400
Winter 2010
Language attitudes
Overview
 Standard vs. nonstandard
 Language attitudes
 African-American Vernacular English
 Attitudes towards AAVE
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for further learning about variation and/or
language attitudes: LING 432
“Standard” dialect
 Standard American English (SAE)
 Used by



political leaders
media
higher socioeconomic classes
 ≈ “correct” by prescriptive standards
Language attitudes
 “Others judge you by the way you speak”
 Potentially positive effects
 correct control of jargon, slang
 you are one of us
 Potentially negative effects
 you are not one of us
 you are inferior
 What factors influence attitudes toward language
and group membership?
African American Vernacular English
(AAVE)
 A.k.a. African-American English, Black English, Black English
Vernacular, Ebonics, etc.
 A continuum of language varieties that are spoken primarily by
and among African-Americans
 Sample from early 80s (‘AAE Sample’, from Black on White
(The Story of English, v. 5))
https://depts.washington.edu/llc/olr/linguistics/clips/AAVESampl
e_ref.mov
But…

 Not only African-Americans speak AAVE
 Not all African-Americans speak AAVE
 Not all do so 100% of the time

‘CodeSwitching’ (Arthur Spears)

https://depts.washington.edu/llc/olr/linguistics/clips/CodeSwitching_ref.mov
Some misconceptions (attitudes) about AAVE
 It is ‘black slang’
 It is a product of ‘lazy’ speech
 It is an inferior, simplified form of English
 It is grammatically incorrect, illogical
 In fact, AAVE has its own rules.
Some phonological characteristics of AAVE
 Final consonant cluster reduction
 cold [koʊl], hand [hæn]
 Scanner Boy Renegade: Wil’ Style
 Vocalization or loss of [ɹ] / V__V
 hurry [hʌɨ], furrow [fʌə]
 also in “old-fashioned white speech”
 Substitution of /k/ for /t/ in s__ɹ clusters
 street [skrit], stream [skrim]
 unique to AAVE?
AAVE Syntax
 Multiple negation

AAVE: He don’ know nothin’.

Russian: Oн ничего не знает.
[on nəči|vɔ ni |znɑət]
‘he nothing not know.’

Middle English:
“He never yet no villainy not said
In all his life to no kind of creature.”
(Chaucer, 1400)
AAVE Morphosyntax
 Lack of copula (‘be’)

AAVE: He __ my brother.
 Scanner Boy Renegade: He down wi’ the nation.

Russian: Oн мой брат.
[on mɔj brɑt]
he my brother
Seattle Times 1-27-09
covert prestige: use of nonstandard forms to establish
oneself as member of some group
AAVE Morphosyntax
 Habitual ‘be’:
habitual, repeated action
AAVE: The coffee be cold (every day).
The coffee cold (right now).
They be late (all the time).
They late (today).
Scanner Boy Renegade: “You can’t be standing
there.”
AAVE Morphosyntax
 Absence of 3rd person sg. –s
AAVE: He eat_ five times a day.
She want_ us to go.
I
you
he/she
we
they
want
want
want
want
want
‘Ebonics’ controversy
 Background:

1996: In Oakland, CA schools, AfricanAmericans make up 53% of students, but…



…80% of suspensions
…64% of students held back each year
…71% of students in ‘special needs’ classes (for
‘language deficiency’)
‘Ebonics’ controversy
 Dec. 1996: Oakland School Board passes ‘Ebonics
resolution’


Original: http://linguistlist.org/topics/ebonics/ebonicsres1.html
Revised 1997:
http://linguistlist.org/topics/ebonics/ebonics-res2.html
 Goals:
 to formally recognize AAVE
 to change teachers’ attitudes about AAVE
 to implement usage of AAVE as tool in teaching
African-American students to read, write SAE
Negative public reaction
 Ebonics is…





“black street slang”
“just bad English”
“gibberish”
“a cruel joke”
“ridiculous”
-- NY Times
-- Chicago Sun-Times
-- Boston Globe
-- NY Daily News
-- CA Gov. Pete Wilson
Negative public reaction
 Due largely to wording of resolution



“[Ebonics] is genetically based”
“[Ebonics] is not a dialect of English”
“instruction…to students…in [Ebonics]”
‘Genetically based’
 Popular interpretation
African Americans are biologically
predisposed to speak AAVE
 Intended meaning
‘Genetic’ refers to linguistic origins (or
‘genesis’) in African languages
‘Not a dialect’
 Popular interpretation
Ebonics is a separate language.
 Intended meaning
To counter popular (but inaccurate) conception
of ‘dialect’ as inferior/ substandard form of a
language.
‘Instruction in Ebonics”
 Use of Ebonics as tool in teaching, not as
object of lessons

https://depts.washington.edu/llc/olr/linguistics/
clips/UnaccentedBlack_ref.mov”
Teachers’ attitudes towards AAVE
 Negative teacher attitudes and expectations are
linked to underachievement in students, especially
African-Americans.
 Taylor 1973 survey of 422 teachers

40% positive, 20% neutral, 20% negative
 2000 survey of NYC teachers
 Sample survey question (n = 19); e.g.
 “African American kids would advance further in school
without African American English.”
 (a) agree strongly, (b) agree mildly, (c) no opinion, (d)
disagree mildly, (e) disagree strongly
Figure 5. African American Vernacular English (Ebonics) is a form of English.
from 2000 survey of NYC teachers
Figure 6. African American English (Ebonics) is subject to its own set of rules.
“few (14%) feel that it is a lazy form of English (Survey question 9).”
from 2000 survey of NYC teachers
Summary
 AAVE is systematic, rule-governed
 Has structures common to many other
languages/dialects
 Misunderstanding of AAVE contributes to
continued prejudice, stigma
 Debate over use of AAVE vs. SAE is ongoing
Question
 Suppose you speak both a standard and non-
standard variety of some language. What is
one reason or situation where you might
choose to use one or the other variety?
 Or do you know someone who speaks both
SAE and some other variety of English?
When does that person use the other variety?