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African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

stanford.edu

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Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

#61

Post by mattmaroon »

_pius wrote: post #53
mattmaroon wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was trying to point out that that is a bad way of framing it. To call it a dialect may be technically correct, if you're merely arguing semantics. However to accept it as a legitimate dialect is another thing. If your child spoke that way you would constantly correct them, for their own good. It'd be much better for all involved to redefine "dialect" to not include something that devolved from another language via…

If we call that a dialect, then the very word "dialect" is broken. Then, I suppose, the word dialect is broken. :) There's a long history of vernacular dialects lacking prestige and casting aspersions on their speakers. Shakespeare, notably, wrote his plays in the vernacular to connect with his audiences. [1] Chaucer did the same with Canterbury Tales. [2] Of course we forget that now because we revere those authors…

Another thing just occurred to me. Her article is titled "African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes". She seems to spend the whole article making the semantic argument that it is instead a dialect.

Are the two mutually exclusive? Can one dialect not be simply another with mistakes?

Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

#62

Post by jseliger »

grandalf wrote: post #59
pg wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you really believe I don't understand that human languages are just grammatical conventions their speakers observe? If you think you disagree with me in some way, could you point out a sentence I wrote that you believe is false, and explain why it is?

Well, I think the burden of proof is on you to show why language mistakes matter at all . If I can understand what someone else said or wrote (or spelled!), then why do we need a central authority to determine what is correct vs incorrect? Isn't there a fairly significant incentive toward conformity for efficiency's sake? It's as if there were a call for some central authority to critique the names people are given (…

"Well, I think the burden of proof is on you to show why language mistakes matter at all."

Most importantly, because they inhibit efficient communication among parties. The lesser problem is that they might signal low educational status and/or incompetence: I know there is no such thing as "standard English," but you can get pretty close to it through guides like Diana Hacker's _Rules for Writers_. The further you get from this thing that's close to standard English, the more likely you are to sound incompetent or incomprehensible.

If someone comes into a job interview -- or YC interview -- speaking AAVE, or some wildly non-standard form of English, they're probably signaling that they haven't figured out how to speak, if not "proper" English, then a form of English that will allow them to communicate with high-level technical workers. They're not likely to get the job or the funding or the lawsuit won or whatever it is that they're trying to accomplish. _That's_ the problem.

There isn't a central authority because there doesn't need to be: as Foucault might argue, there are merely different loci of power or force that tend to create webs of what is acceptable or not in a given situation.

"The fact is, language changes over time like any other fashion. If you don't like a particular grammar or a particular fashion that is a matter of taste."

Which is all very interesting until you're applying for a job or writing a research paper and you can't write something very close to standard English, at which point you're not going to be able to achieve what you want to.

"You can make the argument that using Standard English (and wearing a suit) are useful social conventions to adopt when going to a job interview, but I think the usefulness of either judgment ends there."

I don't. The fundamental issue is what you signal and how efficiently you communicate. Whether you wear a suit or not has little to do with how you communicate verbally or in writing; whether you can speak something akin to standard English matters enormously.

Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

#63

Post by _pius »

mattmaroon wrote: post #61
_pius wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we call that a dialect, then the very word "dialect" is broken. Then, I suppose, the word dialect is broken. :) There's a long history of vernacular dialects lacking prestige and casting aspersions on their speakers. Shakespeare, notably, wrote his plays in the vernacular to connect with his audiences. [1] Chaucer did the same with Canterbury Tales. [2] Of course we forget that now because we revere those authors…

Another thing just occurred to me. Her article is titled "African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes". She seems to spend the whole article making the semantic argument that it is instead a dialect. Are the two mutually exclusive? Can one dialect not be simply another with mistakes?

Her article is titled "African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes". She seems to spend the whole article making the semantic argument that it is instead a dialect.

I don't think this is a meaningless distinction. If you believe the author, speakers of AAVE are speaking a dialect of English that has lower prestige than Standard American English. If you don't, you think that on a daily basis they simply screw up the task of speaking Standard American English. This is a subtle but non-trivial difference: one point of view is about culture while the other is fundamentally about intelligence.

Because many people hold the latter view, I was taught by my parents to avoid speaking AAVE. For similar reasons, I was taught to avoid Pittsburghese[1] even though I grew up with it in school.

Are the two mutually exclusive? Can one dialect not be simply another with mistakes?

I think it comes down to my earlier question: What is any dialect or derived language but a set of consistent mistakes with respect to the ancestor language? More to the point, either all dialects have mistakes or none do. The only difference I can see is the prestige involved.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pittsburgh_English

Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

#64

Post by mattmaroon »

_pius wrote: post #63
mattmaroon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing just occurred to me. Her article is titled "African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes". She seems to spend the whole article making the semantic argument that it is instead a dialect. Are the two mutually exclusive? Can one dialect not be simply another with mistakes?

Her article is titled "African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes". She seems to spend the whole article making the semantic argument that it is instead a dialect. I don't think this is a meaningless distinction. If you believe the author, speakers of AAVE are speaking a dialect of English that has lower prestige than Standard American English. If you don't, you think that on a daily ba…

Well, I wouldn't say the current speakers of AAVE are literally trying to speak English properly and making a mistake. I would say that the people who created it were. And I would say that the people who speak it now suffer for it just as if they were. Thus for all intents and purposes, it is English with mistakes, even if technically it is a dialect.

So I guess her argument that mistakes + tradition = dialect seems silly to me. Even if its true by the dictionary definition of "dialect" it's a harmful viewpoint to take.

Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

#65

Post by grandalf »

jseliger wrote: post #62
grandalf wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I think the burden of proof is on you to show why language mistakes matter at all . If I can understand what someone else said or wrote (or spelled!), then why do we need a central authority to determine what is correct vs incorrect? Isn't there a fairly significant incentive toward conformity for efficiency's sake? It's as if there were a call for some central authority to critique the names people are given (…

"Well, I think the burden of proof is on you to show why language mistakes matter at all." Most importantly, because they inhibit efficient communication among parties. The lesser problem is that they might signal low educational status and/or incompetence: I know there is no such thing as "standard English," but you can get pretty close to it through guides like Diana Hacker's _Rules for Writers_. The further you ge…

I mentioned most of the ideas in your post in my own post. I don't consider them persuasive.

Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

#66

Post by jseliger »

grandalf wrote: post #65
jseliger wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Well, I think the burden of proof is on you to show why language mistakes matter at all." Most importantly, because they inhibit efficient communication among parties. The lesser problem is that they might signal low educational status and/or incompetence: I know there is no such thing as "standard English," but you can get pretty close to it through guides like Diana Hacker's _Rules for Writers_. The further you ge…

I mentioned most of the ideas in your post in my own post. I don't consider them persuasive.

The ideas in my post are barely mentioned in the last paragraph of your post: that's why I wrote it. I think you underestimate the extent to which being able to speak and write in standard English is important. That's what pg implied in his original post, and he's right. Maybe standard English is a "fashion," as you put it, but that's not very useful: what's more useful is to note that being able to master this "fashion" is important in terms of communicating effectively.

Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

#67

Post by xiaoma »

wrs wrote: post #41
xiaoma wrote: post #15

I think the important point is the utility of language, not its "correctness". Regardless of the political issues involved, speaking the "standard" language or the prestige language is an asset in most circumstances. Speaking Ebonics would make it harder for a doctor to win patient trust, harder for an interviewee to get a job, harder for a politician to win in most districts and even harder for a defendant to get a…

Probably true, but irrelevant to the article, which is about how more effectively to teach Standard English by recognizing that some students start from a different dialect.

I don't think that's what the article was about at all. The article was essentially an attack on press coverage the author wasn't happy with. Its focus was more political than pedagogical.

From the article: "Yet opinion writers proceeded to fall upon the topic like starving dogs attacking a bone. They ridiculed, they sneered, they frothed, they flamed, they raged, they lived off the story for weeks."

This kind of language just doesn't show up in secondary education guides. It's clearly about demonizing the opposition.

Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

#68

Post by loup-vaillant »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #27
jeromec wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should dictionaries and grammar books be any more authoritative than the way people actually speak? Simple, because of perception. Whether you like it or not perception matters. If I perceive your car as worth your selling price, a deal happens - doesn't mean my perception over yours is any more "correct". Same happens with stock prices, or hiring decisions. In other words, the things that matter in the day-to-…

Are you actually saying that our perception of the world is actually bending the world? I agree that perception matters. For instance, a bad perception could mean you buy a worthless car, or make a bad hiring decision. It doesn't mean, however, that the car was worth your money, or that the bad employee was worth hiring. Same thing about AAVE. If it has been proved that this is a dialect of English, it is a dialect o…

META: Why the dowmod? This is a genuine question. Apparently, my post was unacceptable, but I am unable to see how. Did I make a factual mistake? Was my tone Inappropriate? Was I off Topic? How did I cross the line?

Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

#69

Post by ZeroGravitas »

kjhgftgyui wrote: post #39
jeromec wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes - if he had chosen to improve his British English he would be on the 20th floor Quite possibly, especially if he had the accent to match, considering the success of James Bond movies in America.

It is a real effect. UK companies analyse which regional British accents are most trusted/most calming/etc before deciding where to put their customer call centres.

Though strangely, the "winners" in these things are usually accents that would generally be considered low-class in a similar manner to AAVE e.g. Scots and Geordie accents.

Re: African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

#70

Post by michaelcampbell »

Genuine question here; does AAVE have an accepted grammar? I don't mean necessarily a written canon, but anything that's not "make it up as you go" ad-hoc style. (And yes, I realize all language has some evolutionary context to it.)

Without rules, there's no way to break them, and thus no meaning for "mistake".

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