What the article appears to boil down to is the thesis that if you’re in the classroom and ask:
“So, can anyone define what a prime number is?”
and get back:
“Ain’t no numbers you can multiply to get it, Miss”
then as responses go,
“Don’t talk ghetto in the classroom, use proper English” is crap teaching;
“No, it means there ARE no whole numbers which you multiply together to get that result” is not much better;
“That’s absolutely correct. A prime number is one that can’t be divided into whole numbers.” is great, and
“That’s absolutely correct. Now, how would you say that in Standard English if you had to?” is ALSO great, and should be supported by a bunch of classes which teach that “Ain’t no” and “There aren’t any” are the AAVE<->Standard translations of each other, if you find that the children haven’t picked up this fact just through general living.
I really don’t think this ought to be controversial.
You don’t understand what code-switching means. It certainly does not mean abandonment or concealment. It means (for a native AAVE speaker) developing complementary fluency in Standard English, and developing the skill to switch between fluent AAVE and fluent Standard English as appropriate.
This is a hard one. With other people who speak Urdu or Latvian?
I’ve no idea what you mean here. AAVE speakers acquire language the same way as all humans, by absorbing and copying the speech of family and peers in their childhood environment. Language is cultural. Of course it is learned, and of course AAVE is culturally inherent to the black American community.
I didn’t say that I wanted AAVE formally taught (although I do want it respected). The theme of this thread was how native AAVE speakers can improve their fluency in Standard English.
You suggested that if their parents just stopped speaking AAVE in their own family and community that this would help. And I reiterate that this an incredibly racist and supremacist attitude, no better than telling people to bleach their skin. Would you also tell native Spanish speakers that if they all just stopped speaking Spanish in their own families and communities it would make everything much easier for them?
Characterizing equivalent phrases as translations of one another is key. In addition to functional aspect, the mental processing of language, there is also the social aspect to this. If developing fluency in Standard English is presented in the classroom as changing the way you speak, of fixing it so that you don’t speak in the “ignorant” way that you and your peers do, it will tend to meet with a “fuck you” response, and rightly so. That’s why asymmetric competence is common, AAVE speakers who understand Standard English perfectly well, but are reluctant to speak it. But if Standard English is presented in the same way as ESL for a Spanish-speaking kid, as a distinct language that is appropriate for college, work, etc., it may be perceived much differently. It won’t solve all social problems, but it may stop language differences from reinforcing them.
Of course you’d make the ridiculous assertion that learning proper English is racist. Reaching for the race card is almost reflexive at this point.
Look, I don’t care what people speak in their house. I do care that people aren’t prepared for school. I do care that since education is so important to employment and at this time employment helps with bills that not choosing to hamstring your own children might be a wiser choice than clinging to “he be and she be” constructions. Not all cultural traits share equal value. There is a reason Americanized standard English is what people learn world wide if given the opportunity.
Personal example time. I could teach my kid non-standard language constructions I picked up in my environment. However, I’d rather take the time that I would have to spend also reinforcing proper English and use it for chemistry, physics, solid modeling, and other skills that have value in the modern economy.
Another cultural marker is sagging. You think that practice signals high value? You think it’s racist to suggest people’s pants should be worn above mid thigh if they want to impress employers?
Who are you arguing with? All of us that you’ve challenged want to make sure all American kids are fluent in standard American English. The current way is leaving many of them behind, if the article is correct.
Absolutely. I think it’s in the children’s best interest. I’m merely pointing out that if the parents are fluent in standard and their vernacular then it would be so much easier to help the children if the parents helped as well.
Characterizing AAVE as improper English, as something to “overcome” or “mitigate” is supremacist and ignorant of the nature of language. Suggesting that a cultural group should abandon their native dialect is an abhorrent racist attitude.
I see that in your more recent post you seem to have tempered your position to allow both dialects to continue to exist; and you are now sticking to the correct term “standard” English (there is no such thing as “proper” English).
Then why are you arguing? Who had disputed this, and in what posts? Please be specific. I can’t figure out what sentences or assertions in the article or Riemann’s posts you actually have an issue with.
There is nothing racist about rightfully pointing out that it’s counterproductive to immerse your children in a language A and neglect at best and ridicule at times language B and then expect the schools to teach them fluency in language B. Race has 0 to do with language in general. Language is a choice. Genetic makeup, at this point in time, not so much. The reflexive and dishonest use of that’s racist! seriously undermines efforts against real racism.
And why isn’t there proper English? There is nothing wrong with actual standards you know. Is there a proper math? Or is that subjective based on culture or your implication of race?
Who is “neglecting” or “ridiculing” SAE? We’re talking about people who are not fluent in it.
And insisting that a people discard their language is a supremacist attitude. It’s also entirely unnecessary. If that’s what you’re advocating for, then you’re advocating for something functionally supremacist, IMO, even if it’s extremely common.
In this case they’re intricately tied together. Further, if the system (and some ignorant educators) really are mistreating black kids solely because their fluent only in a different dialect, then the system, and some of those ignorant educators, are behaving in a racist manner, and hurting children through no fault of their own.
There’s proper SAE. There’s also proper AAVE, and proper every other dialect (along with varieties of those dialects). Insisting that one is more proper overall is a supremacist attitude – it’s essentially telling millions of kids and people who have been in America for centuries that their language, and the language of generations of their ancestors, one of the most fundamental characteristics of their culture and identity, is improper.
If the researcher is correct, then what you’re advocating is what’s been done for decades and decades, and it’s utterly failed millions of black kids (and maybe others too). Why would you want to continue that? Don’t you want these kids to become fluent in SAE?
Read the article. I was merely pointing out that there wouldn’t be much of a problem to fix if the parents, knowing that Ebonics was hindering a significant number of their children’s progress, chose to emphasize regular English over a highly stigmatized dialect. Why work against the schools and then expect the schools to spend the money and work extra hard fixing what shouldn’t need to be fixed. And I would say that about any dialect, language or cultural practice that any group had that handicapped their own children in this competitive world. It’s not my or the schools’ job to care more about other parents’ kid’s education then the parents themselves.
Now, since this is a predominantly black dialect Riemann decides to engage in personal attacks and with that I do have an issue.
Again, you provide no specifics. Further, just this silly and ahistorical attitude that it’s possible for people to fundamentally change their culture and magically become fluent in a language they aren’t fluent in. How are AAVE-only parents supposed to teach their kids SAE? Especially if they haven’t even been taught anything about the difference between the dialects?
You’re living in fantasyland if you think that people can just magically start teaching kids a language they don’t speak.
Because you’re calling a dialect not proper when there’s nothing improper about it, and dismissing a fundamental cultural characteristic of a marginalized and downtrodden group of people.
Your approach has been the standard for decades, and it’s failing, if the article is correct. Why do you want to continue something that’s failed? Why shouldn’t schools help teach kids something that’s so fundamental to the chance of success? Isn’t that what schools are for?
Discard? I don’t care about that. I care that there isn’t an emphasis on learning the standard at the home. I care that there is an attitude that acting or speaking white is something that minority children will be attacked for by their peers. We have finite resources and having the environment change is a legitimate part of the overall solution. Like Hillary Clinton once said “it takes a village.”
Relativism has infected linguistics now? Fine. Let’s assume you are correct. Why have any language standards at all?
Schools are part of that village. Further, making sure kids become fluent in SAE means that they’ll be more able to help their kids become fluent in SAE. What you’re advocating means fewer parents in the future will be able to help their kids become fluent in SAE.
If you take schools out of the picture, your goal (i.e. all kids being fluent in SAE) is less likely.
Huh? What the hell are you talking about? We have language standards to teach language. SAE is a language dialect, as is AAVE, and they have their own rules and standards.
A cook I once worked with, in a hospital kitchen, had a mother who was a high school English teacher. They were black. Frank said “If my mother heard me trying to talk Ebonics she’d slap my lips off.” Just an anecdote.
Linguistics is a science that has always looked at the world empirically just like all other sciences. Linguists don’t talk about “proper” English. And just like any other scientist, a linguist’s reaction when encountering unfamiliar or unusual speech is not “speak properly and conform”, it is “that’s interesting”.
Similarly, the appreciation of literature and fine writing style has always embraced diversity.
Teaching fluency in Standard English (for which there are certainly norms and formal register) is critically important for everyone in our society, as everyone in this thread agrees. But teachers of Standard English who (through happenstance of birth) are native speakers generally do not feel a compulsion to disparage non-native speakers’ own native languages or dialects as part of the didactic process.
It’s your brand of supremacism that has no place in any of these things.
If one’s kids are statistically behind in practically every educational measure providing an interesting study for linguists is doing that population no good. Especially, when school resources are, like all other resources, finite.
Back to the diet and health analogy. If a so-called culture or race in your mind practiced unhealthy eating habits or exercise habits and then wanted the schools to fix this health problem it would not be “that’s racist!!11!” to say “how about help the schools achieve your claimed goals by doing some put down the forks and get off the couch.” One could make the same ridiculous claim that what one’s culture/race behaves, eats, etc. is just as important as what verb to put between “he” and “gone.”
Furthermore, there is absolutely nothing wrong rightfully pointing out that certain cultural traits, which aren’t intrinsic to racial genetics as you claim, don’t have equivalent value in the competitive real world. Cite: the real world.
And I did not claim that. I responded to your assertion that “Relativism has infected linguistics now” by pointing out that linguistics is (and always has been) an empirical science; I then described the teaching of Standard English as “critically important”.
No, I said that language is cultural. I could hardly have said it more clearly:
Your persistent misrepresentation of my plainly stated views is ironic in a thread concerned with fluency in Standard English.