I, for one, am greatly relieved that people of a certain fringe political stripe don’t “dumb down” their language when they speak to black people about their fondness for the Confederacy and how Abraham Lincoln was the worst president ever. That would be patronizing!
Why did the individuals think they needed to make a speech differently for whites and blacks? Why did that tailoring include using words like “sad” for “Lakisha” and “melancholy” for “Emily”?
So you really believe that the linguistic structure and vocabulary of a dialect is a causative factor related to economic achievement? That seems… strange, to me.
Especially when considering the likelihood (discussed in a thread I started a while back - I can link later) that when educators ignore the existence and significance of AAVE, many black students suffer considerably lower educational achievement. But when educators take AAVE into account, and treat it as a real dialect rather than “poor English”, then those students do considerably better.
Seems to me that you’ve got it exactly backwards - taking AAVE into account and treating it like a real dialect probably results in much better things for black people than ignoring its existence and/or treating it like “poor English”.
A)I don’t know
B)You’re not going to back me into a corner like that.
C)There’s an 84 page study, perhaps they mention it somewhere.
What I think would be the next logical step is to see how repeatable this study is. A couple independent groups can do a similar study (similar enough to be considered ‘repeating the study’) and see if they get the same results.
Because the authors hand picked those specific words and names when looking at speech transcripts (words) and setting up their hypothetical tests (names).
That would be a question for them. Whether they did that ‘blind’ or did it in hopes of a result, I don’t know.
Something else, maybe they could count how many times each word (not their words, all words) are used in all those speeches. It might be interesting to see what other words are used more or less for certain groups instead of a small handful of words.
Which is quite a refreshing change from our usual fare of liberal posters citing results of liberal studies that find liberals are better people. Variety, it’s the spice of life.
If I elucidate my thoughts in the following manner than I might give the erroneous impression that rather than reach a level of comity with my audience that I was attempting to demonstrate my intellectual proficiency and evoke the notion that I am putting on airs, regardless of their ability to comprehend my meaning.
But if I talk like this then it makes it easier to tell that I am friendly and don’t feel in any way better than they are,
If I am aware of the fact that there is distrust of me among a disadvantaged group I may go out of my way to show that I am inclusive. OR probably put better
So basically white liberals are trying to hard not to sound condescending and in the process are actually being condescending.
The “competent words” weren’t just big words that should be avoided around blacks because they are stupid people couldn’t understand them. They were words that are used by the speaker to signal high ability and status. Basically one-upsmanship words.
Liberal whites are acutely aware that many whites are racist and consider themselves superior to blacks, and are terrified of being thought of in that way, so they avoid using words that are and terrified of giving the impression that they think themselves superior and so they avoided these words when talking to African Americans, and would instead use more “warmth” words that would indicate that they wanted to indicate community and non-competitiveness.
And yes doing so, despite the best intentions, is a bit condescending.
FWIW this commentary from the linked article deals with what a study like that can miss.
[Bold added]
I noted before that some conservatives elsewhere in the SDMB disparaged science in general, when a lot of the issues come from troubles replicating psychology or medicine studies. On previous discussions it was clear to me that there were troubles and issues, but nowhere as bad as critics assumed. But while one has to consider the field and the study should not be rejected, it should not guide all conclusions until more studies and data are available. IMHO this has to be taken as a single study should be taken in science: with interest and with more research needed. But a single study is not enough to make overreaching conclusions.
Look. I didn’t say to ignore anything. As one person, speaking to another person, I would not adopt an outgroup dialect or otherwise encourage its use to that person. Why? I know that as a person in 2018, if you use that dialect, you may have trouble getting a job or interacting with someone it would benefit you to interact with. Are you seriously suggesting someone using AAVE has an equal chance at economic advancement?
If I was speaking to someone about to go live in Japan, I would not encourage them to speak Joe Pesci English over there and start some campaign to have it recognized as a form of communication that is equal to their prevailing dialect. No. I give advice and encouragement about practically maneuvering through societies towards success. I don’t stamp my foot indignantly and encourage the use of a dialect I don’t speak myself.
HBCUs do not encourage the use of AAVE in the departments I am familiar with. What makes you think you know better?
Taking the dialect of the audience into account when crafting a message isn’t encouraging anything. It’s just trying to make one’s message more accessible.
Take that video of Hillary Clinton trying to adopt an altered way of speaking while on the stump. The idea that this is a respectable way to interact with people is very foreign to me.
I wasn’t the audience for that speech, though.
If you are not a genuine speaker of AAVE, I would advise against its use in the company of those who are. You will likely get many sideward glances.