African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes
1–10 of 78 posts
Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes
#2Yes, and General American standard English is not the Queen's English with mistakes either. This information should be well known to anyone who has taken even one linguistics course, but it does still come up as a misconception to be argued against, as the interesting submitted article does. Similarly, English as spoken in India is not a variety of British English with mistakes, nor is standard Australian English any better or worse than standard English in Britain or in the United States.
Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes
#3I'm kind of casually fascinated with language, so when I came across a few papers on AAVE, I dug in and read both viewpoints.
It's a long debate, but the most interesting thing that this particular Standford piece didn't mention - this style of English evolved from poor, white Southern farmers in the U.S. You wonder how different the debate would be if it was about Southern/poorer English instead of Northern/wealthier. There'd be different allies and opponents on both sides, different arguments, and so on.
It's not hard to imagine some of the people most fiercely mocking AAVE would be its biggest champions, and some of its supports would be its largest detractors. Presenting the argument as a black/white thing makes it very different than presenting it as a geographical thing, or a rich/poor thing, or a formally educated/not thing, or an industrial/agricultural thing.
Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes
#4You speak in tongues?
Gospel planets guarded tumultuous abridged Eternal decay exultation detail solaces reference wanting signify Enlightener pricked says qualified EDITIONS prayers deaf blessedness Living sake unanxious churches abated member drowsiness preferred shook Balaneion witting shake bawler having seduction
Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes
#5Yes, and General American standard English is not the Queen's English with mistakes either. This information should be well known to anyone who has taken even one linguistics course, but it does still come up as a misconception to be argued against, as the interesting submitted article does. Similarly, English as spoken in India is not a variety of British English with mistakes, nor is standard Australian English any…
The gramatical differences between "high" forms of British and American English are comparatively small. Certainly the dialectal variations within each country are further departures than standard American English is from standard British English. In each the differences are more of preference and still usually considered correct in the other.
A more apt example would be Swiss and high German, which are (aside from the fact that Swiss Germans are also fluent in high German) mutually incomprehensible. To a high German speaker, Swiss German sounds decidedly silly and has moderately different grammar. However since there's no conflation of social class with the Swiss German dialect, the comparison of Swiss and high German is much less politicized than AAVE and standard American English.
Austrian German, on the other hand, is virtually identical to standard high German grammatically – it just sounds funny and has a few regionalisms in its vocabulary: kind of like the difference between American and British English.
Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes
#6Yes, and General American standard English is not the Queen's English with mistakes either. This information should be well known to anyone who has taken even one linguistics course, but it does still come up as a misconception to be argued against, as the interesting submitted article does. Similarly, English as spoken in India is not a variety of British English with mistakes, nor is standard Australian English any…
The gramatical differences between "high" forms of British and American English are comparatively small. Certainly the dialectal variations within each country are further departures than standard American English is from standard British English. In each the differences are more of preference and still usually considered correct in the other. A more apt example would be Swiss and high German, which are (aside from t…
Linguistically, there's no agreed-upon rule for what makes a "dialect"[1]. What I heard from Linguistics people is that they're all just separate languages, some with and some without a written form.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect#.22Dialect.22_or_.22lan...
Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes
#7Earlier quoted context omitted.
The gramatical differences between "high" forms of British and American English are comparatively small. Certainly the dialectal variations within each country are further departures than standard American English is from standard British English. In each the differences are more of preference and still usually considered correct in the other. A more apt example would be Swiss and high German, which are (aside from t…
Linguistically, there's no agreed-upon rule for what makes a "dialect"[1]. What I heard from Linguistics people is that they're all just separate languages, some with and some without a written form. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect#.22Dialect.22_or_.22lan...
Right, I removed that line just before you posted for that reason. :-)
I think usually the difference (as mentioned in the OT's paper) is more political than linguistic.
Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes
#8Welcome to the world of dialect continuum! Please enjoy your stay.
Notable thing here is that AAVE has useful features absent from "just" English.
Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes
#9Yes, and General American standard English is not the Queen's English with mistakes either. This information should be well known to anyone who has taken even one linguistics course, but it does still come up as a misconception to be argued against, as the interesting submitted article does. Similarly, English as spoken in India is not a variety of British English with mistakes, nor is standard Australian English any…
The gramatical differences between "high" forms of British and American English are comparatively small. Certainly the dialectal variations within each country are further departures than standard American English is from standard British English. In each the differences are more of preference and still usually considered correct in the other. A more apt example would be Swiss and high German, which are (aside from t…
It's because both British and American Englishes (Is it correct to say "Englishes" heh?) are heavily written languages, so they tend to evolve much slowly and converge with their writing standard.
AAVE isn't so it evolves faster.
(btw, is it only me who hears something arrogant in "high German"?)
Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes
#10I'm kind of casually fascinated with language, so when I came across a few papers on AAVE, I dug in and read both viewpoints. It's a long debate, but the most interesting thing that this particular Standford piece didn't mention - this style of English evolved from poor, white Southern farmers in the U.S. You wonder how different the debate would be if it was about Southern/poorer English instead of Northern/wealthie…
One really odd observation that struck me when spending some time in southern Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana) a couple years back: "AAVE" has had a significant influence on the English of southern Africans and other elements of black American culture are prevalent as well: hip-hop, basketball and, even, somewhat comically, fried chicken.
It really got my attention just after arriving when the brother of the bride to be, whose wedding I was there for, said while getting in his car, "Let's bounce."
Were I a sociologist I think studying the flow of culture from black Americans to southern Africans and trying to separate out the distinctively African elements of black American culture vs. the distinctive black American elements of southern African culture would be fascinating.