War and African Culture: sociolinguistic influences in ELT

1. War and African Culture:sociolinguistic influences in ELT English Graduate Program Universidade Veiga de Almeida 2/2012

2. War in Lerer (2002) • Philological prejudice • The influence of newspaper correspondents, press agents (aspiring literati) and writers/poets –a new rethorical persona. • Idioms of speech: gripsack, pacification, Vietnamization (euphemism), fragging, greasing, getting some, sack (death), mud-hooks, gunboats (boots), stick-in-the-mud (starving soldier), dog-robber. • Sexualized images in idioms: “The Wolf’s Dream” (prostitute – Civil War), Moaning Minnie (mortar shells – Minié ball), “Big Bertha” (German Gun – World War I), “hissing Jenny” (large shell), “black Maria” (explosive), “bombshell” (a woman who would shatter male’s defenses), “short arm” (penis from “light arm” – World War II). • Specific idioms: GI (Government Issue), GI Joe, Jeep (initials for General Purposes Vehicle – GP), gremlin (evocating the sound of goblin)

3. But can we really QUANTIFY its influence? Reel Bad Arabs (intro/31:14)

4. Some (very basic and tricky) questions... • What is language? • Why is language there? • Howcoulda sociolinguistic approachto language be?

5. George Orwell – Politics and the English Language (1945) • Different views on language “I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate”. - Professor Harold Laski(Essay in Freedom of Expression)

6. George Orwell – Politics and the English Language (1945) • Different views on language “Above all, we cannot play ducks and drakes with a native battery of idioms which prescribes egregious collocations of vocables as the Basic put up with for tolerate, or put at a lossforbewilder”. - Professor Lancelot Hogben (Interglossia)

7. George Orwell – Politics and the English Language (1945) • Different views on language All the "best people" from the gentlemen's clubs, and all the frantic fascist captains, united in common hatred of Socialism and bestial horror at the rising tide of the mass revolutionary movement, have turned to acts of provocation, to foul incendiarism, to medieval legends of poisoned wells, to legalize their own destruction of proletarian organizations, and rouse the agitated petty-bourgeoisie to chauvinistic fervor on behalf of the fight against the revolutionary way out of the crisis. - Communist pamphlet

8. George Orwell – Politics and the English Language (1945) • Different views on language “If a new spirit is to be infused into this old country, there is one thorny and contentious reform which must be tackled, and that is the humanization and galvanization of the B.B.C. Timidity here will bespeak canker and atrophy of the soul. The heart of Britain may be sound and of strong beat, for instance, but the British lion's roar at present is like that of Bottom in Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream -- as gentle as any sucking dove. A virile new Britain cannot continue indefinitely to be traduced in the eyes or rather ears, of the world by the effete languors of Langham Place, brazenly masquerading as "standard English." When the Voice of Britain is heard at nine o'clock, better far and infinitely less ludicrous to hear aitches honestly dropped than the present priggish, inflated, inhibited, school-ma'amish arch braying of blameless bashful mewing maidens!” • Letter in Tribune

9. George Orwell – Politics and the English Language (1945) • “Each of these passages has faults of its own, but, quite apart from avoidable ugliness, two qualities are common to all of them. The first is staleness of imagery; the other is lack of precision”. • Parody of Ecclesiastes “I returned and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all”. Becomes Objective considerations of contemporary phenomena compel the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits no tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must invariably be taken into account.

10. War in Lerer (2002)

11. War in Lerer (2002) - Pacification

12. War in Lerer (2002)

13. Symbolic Competence (Kramsch, CBLA, 2011) • Asians in the Library (Alexandra Wallace) • Ching-chong response.

14. AAVE in Lerer (2002) Frederick Douglass’s Life and Times (1830)

15. Frederick Douglass’s Life and Times (1830) Bringing Down the House - On the romantic view of AAVE

16. Labov – Sociolinguistics (in Lerer, 2002)

17. Sociolinguistic Vocabulary • Language versus dialect • Slangs • Idioms • Creole languages • Pidgin languages • Code-switching

18. Pullum (1999)

19. Pullum (1999) • Oakland’s language policy statement (1996) • Controversial policy: AAVE is a “badly spoken version of their language”. • The NYT reaction: the government has declared “that black slang is a distinct language”. • Guerrilla-style commercial

20. Ebonics... • Why African American Vernacular English and not ebonics? • Ebony + phonics (cf. the literacy method) • Negative connotation • The Economist: “The Ebonics virus” (1996) • Racist ebonics lesson

21. Pullum (1999) – right and wrong? The notion of synthatic dialects

22. Pullum (1999) – If it has specific rules... • Copula • Double Negation (explanation based on Logic – I ain´t never seen nothin’ like it). • Dropping consonants • Nasals (nothin’) • Not all African Americans know AAVE

23. More on vocabulary West African Form + West African Meaning • bogus  'fake/fraudulent' cf. Hausa boko, or boko-boko 'deceit, fraud'. • hep, hip  'well informed, up-to-date' cf. Wolof hepi, hipi 'to open one's eyes, be aware of what is going on'. English Form + West African Meaning • cat  'a friend, a fellow, etc.' cf. Wolof -kat (a suffix denoting a person) • cool  'calm, controlled' cf. Mandingo suma 'slow' (literally 'cool') • dig  'to understand, appreciate, pay attention' cf. Wolof deg, dega 'to understand, appreciate' • bad  'really good‘ http://www.hawaii.edu/satocenter/langnet/definitions/aave.html#vocab-hce

24. More on grammar (Deneroff, McMullen and Helfrick, 2012) Standard English uses a conjugated be verb (called a copula) in a number of different sentences. (This may occur as is, 's, are, 're, etc.) In AAVE this verb is often not included. The frequency of inclusion has been shown to depend on a variety of factors. In future sentences with gonna or gon(see below): • I don't care what he say, you __ gon laugh....as long as is kids around he's gon play rough or however they're playing. Before verbs with the -ingor -in ending(progressive): • I tell him to be quiet because he don't know what he __ talking about.I mean, he may say something's out of place but he __ cleaning up behind it and you can't get mad at him. Before adjectives and expressions of location: • He __ all right.And Alvin, he __ kind of big, you know? • She __ at home. The club __ on one corner, the Bock is on the other. Before nouns (or phrases with nouns) • He __ the one who had to go try to pick up the peacock. I say, you __ the one jumping up to leave, not me.

25. Grammar 2 Agreement • SE agreement between the subject and predicate in the present tense. • In AAVE the verb is rarely marked in this way. When regular verbs occur with such -s marking, they often carry special emphasis. Standard English also has agreement in a number of irregular and frequently used verbs such as has vshave and is vsare and was vswere. In AAVE these distinctions are not always made. Tense and aspect • The verb in AAVE is often used without any ending. As is the case with the English creoles, there are some separate words that come before the verb which show when or how something happens. These are called "tense/aspect markers". Verb Nuances Ricky Bell be steady steppin in them number nines. She be working all the time.

26. Grammar 3 Standard English present perfect: He has been married. AAVE been: He been married. • "He has eaten his dinner" can be expressed as He done eat his dinner. “Ain’t for didn’t” • I ain't step on no line.I said, "I ain't run the stop sign," and he said, "you ran it!" • I ain't believe you that day, man.

27. Double Negatives Pilate they remembered as a pretty woods-wild girl "that couldn't nobody put shoes on.“ (Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon)

28. Tense and aspect chart

29. Tense and aspect chart

30. Charity, Scarborough and Griffin (2004) • African American students in kindergarten, first grade and second grade in low-performing schools (Cleveland, New Orleans and Washington) – 217 children (2000-2001 academic year). • Reading achievement, sentence imitation and story recall. • General abilities such as memory, inference making, etc. are not related to the knowledge of SE (School English). • Linguistic factors are not the only influence observed.

31. Charity, Scarborough and Griffin (2004) – Teacher Bias

32. Language is a part of us... Professor Mary Zeigler of Georgia University talks about the influence that African American's have had on the development of American English. Her students discuss the importance of their own language as an expression of their cultural identity.

33. What about the Brazilian reality? • Should EFL teachers consider AAVE when teaching? • How can we (or why should we) use it in our everyday teaching life? • Is there any connection between the AAVE • community in the US and the linguistic • Prejudice phenomena observed in • Brazilian EFL classrooms?

34. Lei 10.639 de 9 de Janeiro de 2003 Altera a Lei no 9.394, de 20 de dezembro de 1996, que estabelece as diretrizes e bases da educação nacional, para incluir no currículo oficial da Rede de Ensino a obrigatoriedade da temática "História e Cultura Afro-Brasileira", e dá outras providências. "Art. 26-A. Nos estabelecimentos de ensino fundamental e médio, oficiais e particulares, torna-se obrigatório o ensino sobre História e Cultura Afro-Brasileira. § 1o O conteúdo programático a que se refere o caput deste artigo incluirá o estudo da História da África e dos Africanos, a luta dos negros no Brasil, a cultura negra brasileira e o negro na formação da sociedade nacional, resgatando a contribuição do povo negro nas áreas social, econômica e política pertinentes à História do Brasil. § 2o Os conteúdos referentes à História e Cultura Afro-Brasileira serão ministrados no âmbito de todo o currículo escolar, em especial nas áreas de Educação Artística e de Literatura e História Brasileiras. "Art. 79-B. O calendário escolar incluirá o dia 20 de novembro como ‘Dia Nacional da Consciência Negra’."         Brasília, 9 de janeiro de 2003; 182o da Independência e 115o da República. LUIZ INÁCIO LULA DA SILVACristovam Ricardo Cavalcanti Buarque

35. Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil 200 languages – 170 indigenous and 30 originated in Asia or Europe. Globo and Non-Globo Variety

36. Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil

37. Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil

38. Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil

39. Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil

40. Cagliari (2004) – Linguistic diversity in Brazil “The most damaging point about the linguistic prejudice against the varieties of Brazilian Portuguese spoken in the poorer sectors of the population is the correlation linking poverty to cognitive and mental deficits. From this viewpoint, those who do not “speak correctly”, do not “think properly”. Baugh (1999: 6) discusses the relevance of African- American Vernacular English (AAVE) to education and social policies, showing that it is “far from being an impoverished dialect”, despite it continues to stigmatize speakers as “uneducated ” members of the society. (…) Baugh (1999) discusses this correlation and its damaging consequences in the United States, concerning AAVE. He examines the assumption of standard English speakers that non-standard English speakers are ignorant. In this sense, there is a common stereotype that non-standard speakers could speak “properly” if “only they put forth sufficient effort”, that is responsible for this misconception. It is not difficult to find coincidences here, in comparison to the Brazilian situation.