LING 400 Winter 2010

1. LING 400Winter 2010 Language attitudes

2. Overview • Standard vs. nonstandard • Language attitudes • African-American Vernacular English • Attitudes towards AAVE please turn off your cell phone for further learning about variation and/or language attitudes: LING 432

3. “Standard” dialect • Standard American English (SAE) • Used by • political leaders • media • higher socioeconomic classes • ≈ “correct” by prescriptive standards

4. 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?

5. 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/AAVESample_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

6. 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.

7. 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?

8. AAVE Syntax • Multiple negation • AAVE: He don’ know nothin’. • Russian: Oн ничегоне знает. [on nəči|vɔ ni |znɑət] ‘he nothingnot know.’ • Middle English: “He never yet no villainy not said In all his life to no kind of creature.”(Chaucer, 1400)

9. AAVE Morphosyntax • Lack of copula (‘be’) • AAVE: He __ my brother. • Scanner Boy Renegade: He down wi’ the nation. • Russian: Oн мойбрат. [on mɔj brɑt] he my brother

10. Seattle Times 1-27-09 covert prestige: use of nonstandard forms to establish oneself as member of some group

11. 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.”

12. AAVE Morphosyntax • Absence of 3rd person sg. –s AAVE: He eat_ five times a day. She want_ us to go. I want you want he/she want we want they want

13. ‘Ebonics’ controversy • Background: • 1996: In Oakland, CA schools, African-Americans 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’)

14. ‘Ebonics’ controversy • Dec. 1996: Oakland School Board passes ‘Ebonics resolution’ • Original: http://linguistlist.org/topics/ebonics/ebonics-res1.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

15. Negative public reaction • Ebonics is… • “black street slang” -- NY Times • “just bad English” -- Chicago Sun-Times • “gibberish” -- Boston Globe • “a cruel joke” -- NY Daily News • “ridiculous” -- CA Gov. Pete Wilson

18. 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]”

19. ‘Genetically based’ • Popular interpretation African Americans are biologically predisposed to speak AAVE • Intended meaning ‘Genetic’ refers to linguistic origins (or ‘genesis’) in African languages

20. ‘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.

21. ‘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”

22. 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

23. Figure 5. African American Vernacular English (Ebonics) is a form of English. from 2000 survey of NYC teachers

24. 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

25. 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

26. 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?