Re: California School Requiring Ebonics
 

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Warning – Possible inflammatory post!!!

This reminds me of a situation at the Luxor on my last trip to Las Vegas. My wife and I are going out and we are walking past the entrance to RA (Luxor’s nightclub). There’s a big sign out front about the dress code – No athletic jerseys, no sweats, no sneakers, no hats backwards no big bling; and there is a big line. My wife and I ask the door guy if we can just stick our heads in for a quick look out of curiosity, we had no plans to stay for more than 30 seconds. He says no; because we are both wearing sneakers. I repeat that we don’t want to stay; we just want to take a quick look. At this point the manager comes out and very politely explains that they have a very strict dress code, and that if we didn’t come right out we’d be hard to locate and people try this all the time and on and on and on.
I said “OK no big deal, but if the dress code is so strict what about those people pointing to about 10 “urban African types” wearing lots of bling, basketball jerseys over their sweat pants and unlaced sneakers (plus a few hats backwards)?”

His response (and I’m not making this up): “Oh that’s different – they’re making a cultural statement”

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omg, what an F'n' joke!

Re: California School Requiring Ebonics
 

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“Oh that’s different – they’re making a cultural statement”


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While I agree that is a load of crap, that wasn't really my point. I just don't think our schools should be promoting incorrect English for anything other than what it is. It's NOT a foreign language. To your point, I can see where it and mine are intertwined. I guess in some ways, fear of offending minorities leads some people to create a tolerance that superseeds what we would extend to non-minorities, which to me is more condescending to them. If a southern white man abuses the English language and constantly says stupid things, we call them redneck, make a Deliverance joke, etc... While these are deragatory statements, they also imply that this man is inferior to what he is capable of being. When African-Americans misuse English, accepting it as a "foreign language" is like telling them that we'll be tolerant because we don't think they can do any better. Which is more insulting?

Re: California School Requiring Ebonics
 

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“Oh that’s different – they’re making a cultural statement”


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While I agree that is a load of crap, that wasn't really my point. I just don't think our schools should be promoting incorrect English for anything other than what it is. It's NOT a foreign language. To your point, I can see where it and mine are intertwined. I guess in some ways, fear of offending minorities leads some people to create a tolerance that superseeds what we would extend to non-minorities, which to me is more condescending to them. If a southern white man abuses the English language and constantly says stupid things, we call them redneck, make a Deliverance joke, etc... While these are deragatory statements, they also imply that this man is inferior to what he is capable of being. When African-Americans misuse English, accepting it as a "foreign language" is like telling them that we'll be tolerant because we don't think they can do any better. Which is more insulting?

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AAVE is not "incorrect" english. speaking a nonstandard dialect is not "abusing" english. it's just different.

you think they're making "mistakes" when actually they're just following a different set of rules. in many ways "ebonics" is more efficient than standard english, in both syntax and pronunciation.

bisonbison is right though, speakers of nonstandard dialects are (unfairly or not) handicapped when it comes to the job market, etc. so learning how to speak "standard american english" is important for american students.

Re: California School Requiring Ebonics
 

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AAVE is not "incorrect" english. speaking a nonstandard dialect is not "abusing" english. it's just different.

you think they're making "mistakes" when actually they're just following a different set of rules. in many ways "ebonics" is more efficient than standard english, in both syntax and pronunciation.


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AAVE, as a form of colloquial speech or slang, is not my issue. I'm not claiming that I always use proper English, or that I never "abuse" the English language. I don't have a problem with how people speak to each other in conversation, or write in informal letters/e-mails. I do have a problem with propagating the idea that "nonstandard dialect" is a language unto itself. It's not. It is exactly what you said - nonstandard dialect. In its proper context, I don't think it should be frowned upon, but it's not a foreign language.

Re: California School Requiring Ebonics
 

im saying AAVE is not "misuse" of the enligsh language as you have called it.

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"For many of these students Ebonics is their language, and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language

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he has a point. students who only speak AAVE are better off learning SAE in a similar environment to that of spanish-speaking students learning english as a second language.

simply "correcting" their "mistakes" is an inadequate way for them to learn to speak "regular english."

i know a little about this (i basically have a linguistics degree and this issue is important) and i'm guessing the texeira guy really wants teachers to understand how AAVE works and to use this understanding to teach SAE. that's what he means by saying they should treat it as a legitimate "foreign" language.

Re: California School Requiring Ebonics
 

OK...you may be able to enlighten me on this issue. Here's my objection to what you just said. Spanish-speaking persons can benefit from learning in an environment that is friendly to the language they already speak. But, Spanish is in no way derivative of English. It is a foreign language in the most literal sense of the word. AAVE, however, is derivative of SAE. So, doesn't it stand to reason that it is easier to transform AAVE to SAE than to transform Spanish into SAE? To me it's as simple as saying, "Don't say 'ain't,' say 'am not.'" If I am wrong, please elaborate.

Re: California School Requiring Ebonics
 

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OK...you may be able to enlighten me on this issue. Here's my objection to what you just said. Spanish-speaking persons can benefit from learning in an environment that is friendly to the language they already speak. But, Spanish is in no way derivative of English. It is a foreign language in the most literal sense of the word. AAVE, however, is derivative of SAE. So, doesn't it stand to reason that it is easier to transform AAVE to SAE than to transform Spanish into SAE? To me it's as simple as saying, "Don't say 'ain't,' say 'am not.'" If I am wrong, please elaborate.

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What we are talking about is called code-switching, going from one variety of a language to another variety of that language as circumstances dictate. Many of us have the ability to code-switch from a regional or social dialect of English to (so-called) Standard American English (which is of course simply another dialect, but one with prestige) at will. When schools are faced with students who cannot code-switch from, say, AAVE to SAE, they need to come up with a way to help students develop that ability. Some who have researched and written on this subject have advocated that the contrastive methods used to teach English as a second language be adapted to teach SAE as a second dialect (or variety). I suppose some people who have heard of this idea may have mistakenly interpreted it to mean that AAVE is a foreign language, rather than simply a variant of English, one of many.

Mutual intelligibility is the touchstone used to determine whether whether two 'varieties' are different languages or merely different dialects. I, who am not a speaker of AAVE, can nonetheless understand it perfectly well; thus it is a dialect. To say otherwise is simply wrong. Back in the days of the Oakland School District flap over Ebonics, it was even asserted that there was a genetic predisposition for African-Americans to speak Ebonics, a language foreign to English. This was a ludicrous assertion, first, because any human being can learn any language if taught in infancy/childhood (language learning becomes much more difficult after puberty--particularly for monolinguals), and, second, because 'race' is a cultural construct, not a biological/genetic one.

Another example of determing whether a language variety is a separate ('foreign') language or simply a dialect is Scots. A number of Scottish linguists assert that Scots is a separate language, having developed in the kingdom of Scotland from Northumbrian. Since I can understand Scots (whether we are talking about Henryson or Bobby Burns or Trainspotting) and I am not a Scot, I say Scots is a dialect of English.

It has been said that a language is a dialect with an army, a navy, and a flag (see Spanish and Portuguese and Mandarin and Cantonese). Obviously AAVE has none of those things [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

LOL

Re: California School Requiring Ebonics
 

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Mutual intelligibility is the touchstone used to determine whether whether two 'varieties' are different languages or merely different dialects. I, who am not a speaker of AAVE, can nonetheless understand it perfectly well; thus it is a dialect. To say otherwise is simply wrong.

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I'm fine with that. As I've stated, I'm not fine with educators suggesting AAVE is another language, nor am I fine with them teaching it as an acceptable form of speech. I have no objection to acknowledging it as a common form of colloquial speech, or an official dialect of English. I object to teaching ANY dialect as a proper form of speech.

Re: California School Requiring Ebonics
 

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"For many of these students Ebonics is their language, and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language.'

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Hehe, yeah it's like any other foreign language.. except for the fact it's associated with drug dealers, thugs and total morons. If they're rallying to teach kids how to sound like an uneducated chump, they should also teach kids how to [censored] their pants and run into walls.

Re: California School Requiring Ebonics
 

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"For many of these students Ebonics is their language, and it should be considered a foreign language. These students should be taught like other students who speak a foreign language.'

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Hehe, yeah it's like any other foreign language.. except for the fact it's associated with drug dealers, thugs and total morons. If they're rallying to teach kids how to sound like an uneducated chump, they should also teach kids how to [censored] their pants and run into walls.

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There's really no need for this post or poster. Way to generalize an entire race fucksteak.

My current location is your fault.