Xidnaf has a good video introducing AAVE from a linguistics perspective.
African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes (1999) [pdf]
31–40 of 130 posts
Re: African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes (1999) [pdf]
#32Am I understanding correctly that this paper is making the argument that because AAVE follows an identifiable set of grammatical rules, it is a dialect rather than an aberration? I don't have any opinion on that, I just wanted to make sure I understood the basic premise.
Sure, and many rules of AAVE are more consistent.
For instance take the following words in standard English:
* yourself
* myself
* ourselves
* himself
* itself
Re: African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes (1999) [pdf]
#33[deleted]
> It evolved out of necessity in the absence of education.
Citation needed.
My main exposure to black American English is through popular music (hip hop / rap), so take what I'm saying with a grain of salt, but there has been so much change in the vocabulary just in the 20 years that I have been exposed to it that, IMO, there's no way that it can be due to anything other than deliberate linguistic experimentation/innovation. You might be familiar with somebody who experimented and innovated with English in the same way: Shakespeare [1].
[1]: https://www.bl.uk/shakespeare/articles/macbeth-and-shakespea...
Re: African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes (1999) [pdf]
#34There is a very big aspect that people overlook in this conversation.
There is what is known as the "dialect of power" and in the US that is Standard American English.
It's not necessarily "wrong" to speak AAVE but in doing so, you will disqualify yourself from opportunities that could otherwise be open to you based on your education and/or experience.
If someone calls you to schedule a job interview and you don't sound the way you're expected to sound when you speak, they'll mentally cross you off of the short list before you ever cross the threshold of their place of business.
As an African American man, I'll admit that when I'm exclusively in the presence of other black people, I'll code switch and speak in a way that I never would at work or in mixed company.
I have a very Anglicized name and I speak Standard American English. As a result of that, people who haven't previously met me in person are sometimes surprised to learn that I'm not a white guy.
Being inclusive is a worthy goal but I think that education should stress the importance of speaking Standard American English because it's necessary to do so if one wants to be successful in this society.
Re: African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes (1999) [pdf]
#35[deleted]
When groups of people separate (for whatever reason, including social oppression reasons) language drift can happen. It doesn't have to be lack of education that causes language drift.
I think you are throwing the baby out with the bath water. You don't have to invalidate the language used by millions of people TODAY (e.g. by calling it a "so-called" language) in order to question why this language emerged. In fact I think that your comment perpetuates a harmful idea that the language that a certain oppressed group uses is not legitimate and broken.
Re: African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes (1999) [pdf]
#36[deleted]
The paper talks about that, calling it a distinct language is what the Oakland school board did, and this spurred a semantical debate that devolved into exactly what you mentioned, while being a red herring in and of itself.
This paper lends credence to it being a valid dialect.
Yes, your thoughts could be said of an absence of education in Appalachia too. That doesn't lessen the distinctiveness and perpetuity and acknowledgement of the dialect.
Re: African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes (1999) [pdf]
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'd be interested in reading evidence that supports a causal link between AAVE usage and segregation. To the best of my knowledge, no research has shown this to be the case, but I might be missing something. Did you have a particular study in mind?
jbob2000 rarely participates in the inflammatory threads he sparks, so the smart money here is probably in avoiding anything with a question mark.
No, I just usually hit the "You're posting too fast" mark and give up for the day.
Re: African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes (1999) [pdf]
#38It's pretty hard to initially digest, but when you think about it, right and wrong with language is almost entirely just convention. The difference between what we consider 'bad' English and dialects of English is dubious at best.
Can you make a further argument for that? You're basically dismissing the article, but you're not offering anything to justify that.
Re: African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes (1999) [pdf]
#39Am I understanding correctly that this paper is making the argument that because AAVE follows an identifiable set of grammatical rules, it is a dialect rather than an aberration? I don't have any opinion on that, I just wanted to make sure I understood the basic premise.
Sure, and many rules of AAVE are more consistent. For instance take the following words in standard English: * yourself * myself * ourselves * himself * itself One of these things is not like the other! All of these take the form of possive + "self," except "himself." And sure enough, in AAVE we have "hisself" instead. A more logical, consistent replacement.
So when some people think of AAVE speakers as incorrect, it is because they don't use the right wrong way to talk. Linguistics is a weird field.
Re: African American Vernacular English Is Not Standard English with Mistakes (1999) [pdf]
#40[deleted]
"grammatically incorrect" is an arbitrary value judgment, no matter how much you might assert or concern-troll otherwise.
No, it's not. It's just erroneous here; AAVE has an internally consistent grammar just as any other language does. I know quite a few people who code-shift between AAVE and standard American English, just as I do between that and the (admittedly somewhat less different) dialect of my youth.
The remainder of Overtonwindow's comment flows from that error and one other, which is to assume that AAVE is a "degraded" form of standard American English. It is not; it has old and many-branched roots of its own, only some of which lie within American English.
But who knows? Perhaps Overtonwindow is a more accomplished historical linguist than those on whose statements I here rely.