Well, sure. The majority of English speakers in America speak a roughly common dialect, with internal dialects varying only by slight amounts. That’s why it’s called Standard American English (sorry, non-American English countries, gotta leave you out for now) and AAVE is classified as “non-standard.” You can even call AAVE wrong insofar as it is not considered appropriate in certain contexts.
However, when you’re talking about a specific rule, such as the “she hat” thing, you can only evaluate that rule in the context of the dialect. In SAE it’s wrong, in AAVE it’s correct (I assume, since I’ve personally not heard it before). If you measure the correctness of the construction by your own internal dialect which matches SAE, you’re going to insist that it’s not grammatically correct, but that ignores the fact that the construction does occur in AAVE. (Of course, stubborn folk then point to that as evidence that AAVE itself is wrong, but logically they then would have to say that French is ‘wrong’ too.)
Since the only grammar text I can currently access is Warriner’s, and it says that “she hat” is incorrect and “her hat” is correct, can you direct me to a cite that contradicts Warriners that I can access? “She hat” has the potential to be unclear because the word “hat” is in the place where one would expect a verb. Using the possessive “her” makes the sentence much more clear, and what is the point of grammar if not to make communication as clear as possible? Most people would not recognize and understand “she hat,” so while you can claim it’s technically correct all day long, if no one outside your socioeconomic group can parse it, it’s useless as communication with the rest of the world, no?
It’s not racism just because you and some linguists say so. There is something grammatically wrong with it if it’s not a construction that most people can understand. The ONLY REASON we even bother having standardized language is so that we can communicate effectively with each other. If someone said, “She left she hat,” I might get what they mean. I might not, depending on the context. There could legitimately be confusion about what the hell the person is saying unless they are standing there, holding a hat in their hand, and even then… If someone says, “She left her hat,” then I instantly understand. In that sense, objectively speaking, the second construction is superior because more people can understand it more easily. Now, if this conversation took place in a context wherein both parties understand the dialect, cool. If not, then it becomes a problem. The problem is not that the person who doesn’t understand is a RACIST. The problem is, it’s not the clearest construction of the thought for most people. So maybe back off calling anyone who disagrees with you or favors standardized English a racist. It’s not as true or black and white (pardon the pun) as you wish to depict.
Needless condescension doesn’t make your point any more than just one opinion, one view on language. I think this is what Rumor_Watkins was getting at by referring to it as postmodernism. It’s one way of looking at dialects, and a rather loaded one at that, but not the only one.
This is not to say that “needs washed” is incomprehensible or anything. It’s not, it’s perfectly clear, but is a regionalism that others might find grating. You’re free to use it, and others are free to think it sounds stupid, right? If we’re going with the “everybody’s free to speak and think as they like” theory, that is.
Unfortunately, Warriner’s is a very small book, so you’d likely win, unless I winged it really hard at your shin or the bridge of your nose.
:Throws arms in the air, struts around the board.:
I’m the most modest person you’ll ever meet, goddammit.
That’s why it’s so frustrating–the discrimination is not based on an educated, reasoned position about standardization of language, but rather on assumption and ignorance. Is it such a bad thing to want to work to correct misconceptions? Especially on this board, of all freakin’ places. Perhaps some people in this thread would be happier if the tagline were changed to “Wallowing in Ignorance.”
IMO, it functions as a single linguistic unit, though. It strikes me as something like arguing that “book” is a noun but “books” is a contraction (of “book” and the marker for plurals).
It’s not necessarily the majority–just the mainstream. If you’re really interested in learning more (and I get the impression that you are), the two books I referred to upthread would do a much, much better job of explaining a lot of this stuff than I could hope to.
Warriner’s is a style guide. It’s not a book on linguistics. The difference is key; style guides exist precisely to establish a standard for a given group to adhere to for written English.
It’s not me and “some linguists.” It’s me and just about every linguist. What you just said is the equivalent of, “It’s not racism just because you and some doctors say that melanin content in your skin isn’t linked to being stupid.”
It’s the way that people who actually study language view it. Apparently I’m crazy for believing the observations of professional linguists over some stranger on a message board who doesn’t even understand the difference between a style guide and a linguistic text.
What a lovely strawman you’ve built there! If you’d like to continue to admire him, please disregard the rest of this reply.
This is not about “everybody’s free to speak and think as they like.” This is, “All rule-governed, internally consistent dialects are equally valid.” And people can think whatever they like and I’m not going to stop them–I simply have the small amount of background in linguistics necessary to appreciate that people who think “she hat” is grammatically incorrect are just as wrong as people who think that African heritage makes you less smart than European. If you don’t like the comparison, you should seek to educate yourself about linguistics and take a long, hard look at where your assumptions about “correct” English are coming from.
Guessed your location with no trouble. The only people I know who talk like that are yins from Picksburg. And my friends who talk like that admit that they know better.
And these style guides are what is used to teach children standard English, not linguistic texts. It’s where most people’s conceptions of what’s correct come from, and you dismiss them in favor of your own rule books at your peril. There is a reason that these prescriptivist texts are used in classrooms everywhere and not linguistic texts. The goal of education is to give the student the tools to communicate clearly to the widest possible audience. If you choose to see that as racist, that’s your choice, but it seems like a rather jaundiced view of a noble goal.
Oh really? Two books means all linguists agree that people who favor “her hat” over “she hat” are racists? That sort of begs for a cite, and no, two books does not constitute a cite for “every linguist agrees with me that you’re racist.”
I understand it perfectly, and I also understand that you have completely, utterly ignored my point, which is that the purpose of language is TO COMMUNICATE EFFECTIVELY. “She hat” does not communicate a female person’s possession of a hat as well as “her hat” does for most people. There is no racial agenda in my saying that. It’s a factual statement, one which you’ve glossed over in your zeal to speak for all linguists and belittle anyone who disagrees with you.
What is it with people who don’t know what a straw man is around here? Am I not free to think “needs washed” sounds stupid? You certainly feel free to think everyone who disagrees with you is a racist, so why constrain my freedom of thought and not your own?
So it’s irrelevant that some dialects are nearly impossible for people to parse who are not familiar with the dialect? They are valid for what they are, but don’t you think the purpose of your communication matters when deciding if your vernacular construction is valid for that context?
You’re not as great at reading comprehension as you’d like to think. The issue of who is correct and who isn’t is an irrelevancy. The issue is, what is the purpose of language? If it’s to communicate only with people who speak your dialect, then fine, all dialects are equally valid. If it’s to communicate with anyone who speaks the same language, then some dialects are more effective than others, with standard English being the most effective. So why don’t you take your straw man about correctness and racism and admire him elsewhere?
I’m sure you can find old textbooks that say that Columbus discovered America, too. Just because an outdated and misinformed view of something is taught in schools doesn’t make it right–it just makes it popular.
I never said that people who believe this are racists–I said that the distinction between what is “right” and “wrong” is solely founded in race. This is one of the things that’s so scary–and the reason that a lot of the people here are so firmly plugging their fingers in their ears and screaming, “LALALALALALALA.” Nobody likes to have it pointed out to them that they’ve been walking around espousing racist misinformation.
Most dialects are mutually intelligible. Most people would have much more problems with phonetic than morphosyntactic elements. And your arguments for standardization have all been made from a demonstrated position of ignorance, which tends to invalidate them.
Did you actually read what I was calling a strawman? Apparently not. The poster accused me of making an argument I’d never made, which I refuted.
You have yet to prove that any of the dialects under discussion here are impossible to parse for a MUSE speaker. In fact, I don’t remember seeing anyone in this thread who didn’t understand “needs washed,” just people who thought it sounded wrong or stupid.
To a northerner, I’d argue that “y’all” sounds either sweet (if used by a pretty young thing), hopeless backwoods (if said by somebody less attractive or male), or part of standard black-american vernacular - since it seems that the “black accent” is not nearly and regional as white accents are.
To me, “y’all” sounds redneck.
“Youns” or “Yinz” or whatever is a contraction of “You ones”, just as valid as “y’all” (even if not spelled with an apostrophe) and, yes, sounds Yankee hillbilly to me, too.
I’d suggest that “y’all” sounds less harsh just because you hear it more. The region for “y’all” is much greater than “yinz”.
So you don’t believe there is value in promulgating a standard form of English? You can’t come up with a reason why the educational system might want to instill that in people? Teaching kids to say “her hat” is the equivalent of telling people Columbus discovered America? Wow.
And here you continue to ignore my point, which is that right and wrong are IRRELEVANT. It’s effective communication that’s at issue here. “Her hat” more effectively communicates a female’s possession of a hat than “she hat” to more people. You cannot and have not disputed that, only said that it’s racist to believe so.
You can call me ignorant all day long, but you haven’t demonstrated my ignorance or my wrongness. Sticks and stones. I don’t think they ARE all equally mutually intelligible. I also think there is value in a standard, and value in dialects. Context is everything. Thus, I think my view is a bit less rigid and intolerant than yours, ironically.
I am the poster, and you accused me of using a straw man argument. It’s funny, considering how in love you are with yours.
We’re not talking about “needs washed,” and I acknowledged its intelligibility, despite the fact that it grates. We’re talking about “she hat,” which is NOT as intelligible as “her hat,” and whether or not saying so is racist. I say it’s not, you insist that it is, and insist that people who value standardization of language are ignorantly promulgating a racist agenda. I can’t IMAGINE why anyone would disagree with that. :rolleyes:
If someone says “oui” instead of “yes”, are they speaking incorrectly?
The problem is that the standard dialect you speak wasn’t handed down to Moses on Mt. Sinai. And while a majority of people in the US use this dialect, and while it might be the largest english dialect, it still isn’t spoken by a majority of english speakers worldwide. When you watch “Trainspotting” are the people in the movie talking wrong? How about people who speak irish english? Or jamaican english? Go to Jamaica and you’ll find people speaking a variety of english that is barely mutually intelligible with standard American english. So does that mean they are speaking the wrong way? I mean, when they talk amongst themselves, not when they try to communicate with Americans.
The issue of correctness is a straw man. It’s not about correctness. It’s about the ability to communicate effectively in the maximum number of situations. If you want people who speak English to understand you and you say “oui,” is it racist of a person who only speaks English to assert that they don’t know what you’re saying?
This is the key: if they are talking amongst themselves and understand each other, no problem. If they want to be understood by a New Yorker or a Kiwi or a Londoner, then they would be better served by using a more standard dialect. Is it racist of me to say this? Note I am not asserting a value judgment of their dialect, only saying that they would be more successful in communicating in a form of English closer to the standard. This is why we teach the standard form in school, because it’s portable, not because we’re a bunch of racists promulgating antiquated ideas of correctness.
As is usually the case, people are talking past each other in these prescriptivist v. descriptivist debates.
I teach a grammar class, and the first thing I talk about on the first day is the fact that there is a Facebook group called “I judge you when you use poor grammar,” and that it has some huge number of members.
Now because I understand linguistics, I know perfectly well that many of the things those Facebookers judge people on are actually dialect issues, such as “she hat.” But do I say that to my class? Hell, no, because they don’t give a shit. Nor does anyone except linguists and the kind of language dorks that end up teaching grammar classes.
What my students DO care about are the judgements and potential judgements of their teachers, employers and co-workers. They don’t give a shit that linguists would say that “she hat” is a valid construction; they care that some people will, fairly or not, draw the conclusion that they’re ignorant and/or stupid.
So you don’t believe there is value in promulgating a standard form of English?
1.) You can make valid arguments for promoting a standard dialect, especially when it comes to written English, which, as I’ve stated before, is a different animal from spoken. My objection comes in when many people, though perhaps not yourself, qualified non-mainstream dialects necessarily as “bad” or “wrong.” My apologies if my general level of frustration led me to lump you in with those other people.
2.) Teaching kids that “she hat” is wrong while “her hat” is right is the equivalent of saying that Columbus discovered America: the former is giving one dialect prestige over another on the basis of who speaks it (white middle-to-upper-class Americans over Black Americans), and the latter is giving one “discovery” prestige over another based on who made it (European over American Indian). Teaching kids to say “her hat” in an effort to establish a standard, while still recognizing the grammatical validity of “she hat,” would not have the same problems.
The familiar second person pronoun in English used to have different forms for different declensions (thee vs. thou, e.g.). However, now we use just “you” for everything except the genetive, “your.” Are you confused by “You have a book” versus “I give a book to you,” just because the same form of the word is used in both constructions? Of course not–context tells you that “you” is functioning as the subject in the first sentence, but as an indirect object in the second.
I strongly doubt that a native speaker of English would have any trouble parsing “I gave Molly she hat.” They might think it sounds wierd, or wrong, or uneducated, but they will understand it nevertheless. Languages shift like this all the time, usually to simplified forms, and we have accepted it in the past. So why are we objecting to this particular change? Could it be because the people initiating the change are a marginalized group?
But you have yet to offer any example of something that would actually confuse you, that would be impossible for you to understand, as opposed to just startle you because it’s not a construction you’re used to. In a conversation, both speakers have an equal burden to attempt to facilitate communication–both. Just as the speaker must strive to be understood, so the listener must strive to understand. As has been demonstrated (see the study I referenced about how listener’s comprehension changed based on the percieved ethnicity of the speaker), when the listener speaks a mainstream dialect and the speaker a non-mainstream one, or when the listener even expects a non-mainstream dialect from the speaker, that listener puts **less **effort into comprehension, shifting the entire burden to the speaker.
The biggest barrier to comprehensability is also familiarity–the more people are exposed to a dialect, the less surprised they are by its morphosyntactic, phonetic, and lexical elements. This is part of how language discrimination is a self-sustaining cycle: the less prestige a dialect is given, the less it is used (or appears in the media), the less familiar people are with it, the more they are surprised by something unfamiliar, the less of an attempt they make to engage with the speaker and share their portion of the conversational burden, and the less prestige is given to the dialect…
Then go ahead and point out where I ever made the argument that you claimed as mine, the one I specifically called a strawman. I notice you haven’t done that.
Like I said before, this turns into a vicious cycle. Employers value mainstream dialects over nonmainstream ones because they’re taught that the former are “right” and the latter are “wrong,” and teachers value them the same way because that’s what employers want to see. Why not break the cycle? Why not, since you know how language actually works, teach your students how to use a mainstream dialect, while still acknowledging the objective grammatical validity of non-mainstream ones? What if we started educating the next generation of students to better understand the language they use, instead of teaching convenient lies that make things less complicated? It’s impossible to have an actual dialogue about whether or not we should have or teach a “standard” dialect when most people are coming from a position of ignorance.
I think you go wrong here by impugning motives. They give SWE preference on the basis that it is the dialect of educated, successful people in 2009 America. How it became that dialect is another question, and like most of human history it’s full of oppression and marginalization … but it’s irrelevant to anyone who’s just trying to live their lives. White, black, or green, if you want to prosper in this time and place, mastering SWE is likely going to be necessary. That is a fact. It is not racist to acknowledge reality.
Because I’m trying to help them use language in such a way that they can improve their lives. I’m not teaching linguistics, and I’m not teaching some sort of social-justice-through-alternative-grammar.
If it does come up, I have no problem acknowledging the validity of other dialects. I usually do throw in a little spiel about language not being “wrong” or “bad,” just “ineffective” or inappropriate" But most of the time it’s frankly irrelevant. Most students either already understand this intuitively, or else don’t care.
No, he wouldn’t, if his goal is to have his kid be socially accepted. Would you let your 8-year old son go to school in a skirt? It’s got nothing to do with some quixotic campaign to reform menswear – it has to do with your son not getting his ass kicked.
Linguistics is not the end-all-be-all to understanding and using language. Indeed, I’ve known linguists who were actually relatively weak language users. Ask any working psychotherapist, and they’ll tell you that theoretical psychology has only a weak relationship with with actual clinical practice. It’s not that theoretical psychology is bad or wrong … it’s just irrelevant to the task of actually solving problems of actual people.
Linguistics has much the same relationship to actual language usage as physics does to driving a car. I would not be helping students in a driving class if by discussing photons and the fact that the light doesn’t actually “turn” green. And while it might be an interesting aside to mention that in other countries they drive on the left side, that that system works also, and that we only drive on the right because of historical accident, I would not be a good driving teacher if I was anything less than prescriptivist in telling them that driving on the left is something they should not do. It’s not a “convenient lie,” it’s reality.
I highly recommend you read the article I linked. It’s long and somewhat difficult, but it’s entertainingly written and I think you might find it useful.
Apology accepted. You have to understand that, as a person whose job it is to get students to read and write in a way that will pass standardized tests, I have to promulgate standard written and spoken English. It’s my job. I am at pains to explain to them why they should learn the dialect of English I am teaching-- it is useful if they want to be successful in mainstream America. That is the bottom line, and your linguistic arguments, while interesting, are, as furt said, largely irrelevant.
When one’s explicit job is to help students learn how to communicate in standard American English, then no, “she hat” is not just as correct. I don’t tell them how to talk to their friends, speak at home, text, e-mail, or think. I tell them what they need to know to pass in the world of commerce and academics. You seem unable to make this distinction, or think it invalid, but if you were in my job, you’d be doing your students a grave disservice if you did not draw a bright line between what is acceptable colloquially and what is acceptable formally. No matter what I might think, they are going to be judged regularly based on how they speak and write, and it’s my job to give them the tools to don that cloak of acceptability.
No, it could not be, in my case. It could be because it’s not as clear as the standard. It’s not about racism, dear, really, it isn’t, no matter how much you launch that straw man at me. It’s really all about clarity.
This is where I think you’re either disingenuous or have trouble reading, because I DID give an example, several times. “She left she hat.” In most situations, the word “hat” in that sentence would be a verb. That is what I would think, and I have since tried the sentence out on several people, and they all agreed that it was a confusing sentence. You insist it is just as clear as “She left her hat,” but again, I think that’s a disingenuous stance.
If you wish to communicate, it behooves you to be as clear as possible and consider your audience. Thus, if you possess the awareness that I do not know your dialect, you can choose to use the standard, which I will understand. You are responsible for your own communication.
This sentence is incomprehensible to me. I have no idea what you are saying. You accused me of creating a straw man, when I did not. However, you have two straw men of your own: the idea that the issues here are correctness and racism, rather than clarity in communication. You continue to push your racism argument because you think it will somehow shame me into giving up on my defense of standard English, but it doesn’t work because I know my reasons are not racist, and I feel I have explained my position adequately. Thus, if you continue to accuse me of racism, I have to just ignore that line of conversation.
There’s both of those straw men again. Employers may value standard English because they think dialects are wrong and because they are racist, sure… but have you considered the other, very concrete and rational, reason why they might prefer it? I’ll put it in all caps, since you seem to be missing it over and over: MORE PEOPLE WILL UNDERSTAND YOU IF YOU SPEAK STANDARD ENGLISH. Employers want to make money. If I have to do business with people all over the world, and I insist on my dialect, that will hamper my ability to do my job effectively because people who live across the globe will not understand me. We can all default to a standard, and thus communication is facilitated. To me, this is a very sound reason for schools to teach standard English, and not racist at all. Regional dialects are not in danger of being destroyed by standard English-- they can co-exist and do.
How do you know that I don’t? Is it because you assume I’m a racist?
But we’re not teaching “MUSE will help you succeed,” we’re teaching “MUSE is objectively right and NMUSE dialects are objectively wrong.” **That **is my objection.
I sure as hell would let my eight-year-old son go to school in a skirt if he wanted to. I’d warn him that he was liable to get picked on for it, and I’d be prepared to raise hell if any of the staff let other kids get away with bullying him for it. I’m not going to let my kids be ashamed of who they want to be just because other people might have a problem with it, when what they want to do doesn’t hurt anybody.
Just the sample you quoted made me wanna punch the guy in the face, with that asinine boy-in-a-skirt example. If that’s an example of his debating style, I’ll take a pass.
Have you missed the posts I’ve made where I’ve pointed out the distinction between spoken and written English? I’m fairly sure I’ve also said that you can make a much stronger case for standardization in written English versus spoken.
Were they ultimately unable to parse it? Or were they just confused for a while because it was an unfamiliar construction? And note, this is one of the features of AAVE that deviates farthest from MUSE. And the issue still hasn’t been addressed as to why this particular innovation is considered “wrong” or “ignorant,” when language is constantly evolving and this is a change that has been paralleled in other features of English.
The listener is equally responsible as the speaker. And that burden of the listener is one that is all to often not shouldered when the speaker is using NMUSE and the listener, MUSE.
It’s right here. You said that my theory was “everybody’s free to speak and think as they like,” which was your strawman version of what I’d been saying. Get it now?
I have never accused anyone here of being a racist: I have said that the dynamics between MUSE and AAVE, wherin MUSE is considered “correct” and AAVE “incorrect,” have their basis in racism. There is **no **difference in the **grammatical **validity of these two dialects: the **only **distinction is in who speaks them. If it’s not racism when race is in the deciding factor in what is considered good and bad, what would you call it?
More white people will also recognize your face if you have typically European features rather than typically Asian or African ones. It’s a self-sustaining cycle: the more NMUSE dialects, including AAVE, are devalued, the less MUSE speakers are exposed to them, and the more they are taught that these dialects are “wrong,” and therefore the MUSE speakers feel no obligation to shoulder their half of the conversational burden.
This is the best argument you can come up with? Seriously? How many jobs do you think are available that actually require you to work verbally with someone overseas in English?
Oh, and most global communication in English doesn’t default to “a” standard. I actually work for a global company, and when I’m working with non-American coworkers in English, they’re usually using British English. Shockingly, I don’t flip out when they say things like “do the needful” where I would say “do what’s needed.”
Because nothing you’ve posted in this thread has suggested that you do, and because I’m not magically omniscient, this thread is all I have to go by. Please do share if you’d like.
Shot with Guns, I cannot have this conversation with you because you keep referring to “right” and “wrong” even though no one else is talking about that, and continue to flog your racism straw man. Fine. You go ahead and think that, but I don’t have the time or energy to repeat myself ad nauseum, only to have you completely ignore everything I’ve said to make your own point again. You seem to prefer to lecture than listen and understand, despite your stated belief that the listener has an equal obligation in communication, and your repeated accusations that those who disagree with you are the ones who are biased listeners. Linguist heal thyself, I guess.
Introduction to Linguistics typically isn’t a course a 4 year old takes, nonetheless, at some point they do need to learn how to talk to other people. How would you suggest one goes about teaching a 4 year old, with no background in linguistics, to “recognize the grammatical validity” of constructions in other dialects? “Yes, talk like that” vs. “No, don’t talk like that” was about all the nuance I could understand at that stage in my life.
I strongly doubt SFG was talking about 4 year olds. At that stage in your life, you’re learning language by absorbing it from those around you, primarily your family, and by feedback from them on the words you yourself use. That’s when you learn how to talk using “she hat” or “her hat” or whatever. It’s not like you only start learning language when you get into school and start learning what nouns and verbs are.
It’s also unnecessary to tell SAE kids that “she hat” is just as valid as “her hat” because they’re already conforming to the standard. The point of school is to indoctrinate kids into society (and no, I’m not a radical just because I use that word), and society at large uses “her hat.” If, however, a teacher has a student who comes into the class with “she hat,” then it’s not that hard to teach the kid that while “she hat” is valid, when the kid’s dealing with teachers and later bosses or clients or whatever they should be using “her hat.” It’s not cool for the teacher to go, “That’s WRONG.” The concept of contexts and registers is a very important one for proper language instruction.
My point is, teaching language to children is necessarily proscriptive, because when the message is “say this this specific way”, one is implying that is the “correct” way to say it. I’m not sure kids at the language-learning age have much capacity for distinguishing between correct/incorrect vs. standard/nonstandard.