Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

stanford.edu

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 78 posts

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

#11

Post by pg »

The argument here is in effect that no vernacular variant of any language could possibly embody a mistake. Which is true for some definitions of mistake, and false for others.

The problem with the definitions that make it true is that there's a slippery slope from dialects to idiolects. How many people have to speak a dialect for it to count as a dialect? You can't have any threshold, or you get weird consequences in hypothetical cases, like all the speakers of a dialect dying off except one. So if you decide that no vernacular can embody mistakes, you're bound to conclude that nothing any individual does can be a mistake, so long as they do it consistently.

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

#12

Post by stcredzero »

pg wrote: post #11

The argument here is in effect that no vernacular variant of any language could possibly embody a mistake. Which is true for some definitions of mistake, and false for others. The problem with the definitions that make it true is that there's a slippery slope from dialects to idiolects. How many people have to speak a dialect for it to count as a dialect? You can't have any threshold, or you get weird consequences in…

You can't have any threshold, or you get weird consequences in hypothetical cases, like all the speakers of a dialect dying off except one. So if you decide that no vernacular can embody mistakes, you're bound to conclude that nothing any individual does can be a mistake, so long as they do it consistently.

But lots of disciplines involving living things have problems like this. You can't "define" species. A species is a historical happenstance, which can only be precisely defined in retrospect with minute information we usually never have access to. You can spend all day coming up with corner cases and boundary conditions where any such attempt breaks down. But that's like deciding if a particular boulder in Panama is a North American one or a South American one. Just because those terms break down in boundary cases and are not like mathematics doesn't mean those terms aren't useful.

Things pertaining to human beings and culture are even more prone to this.

In the case of African American vernacular, there are sizable populations with high degrees of consistency in their patterns of speech. Quite far away from boundary conditions.

Another thing I've noted, since dating an African American woman and attending family gatherings with her, is that the manners and rules of social conduct of rural African Americans are more complex than I am accustomed to. When I am with her family, I have to think about how I'm going to excuse myself and navigate leaving a room. Otherwise, I never think about this. I reflected on this, and realized that it reminded me of watching Masterpiece Theater as a child. I'm probably witnessing throwbacks to French and English culture from centuries ago, still rippling though rural Louisiana.

Homo Sapiens are complex -- period. Even many so-called "country bumpkins."

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

#13

Post by algorias »

pg wrote: post #11

The argument here is in effect that no vernacular variant of any language could possibly embody a mistake. Which is true for some definitions of mistake, and false for others. The problem with the definitions that make it true is that there's a slippery slope from dialects to idiolects. How many people have to speak a dialect for it to count as a dialect? You can't have any threshold, or you get weird consequences in…

"you're bound to conclude that nothing any individual does can be a mistake, so long as they do it consistently."

This is exactly how languages evolve over time, actually. A group of individuals makes changes ("mistakes"), and is consistent in the usage of the new ("mistaken") forms over a given period of time.

If you didn't accept that, you'd be forced to conclude that we're all just very bad speakers of our modern languages' predecessors.

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

#14

Post by fhars »

mkelly wrote: post #6
wheels wrote: post #5

Earlier 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...

My usual half-serious stance on this is that a language is just a dialect with an army. But this does of course break down in the case of Icelandic, which is definitely a language, but has neither, but clearly captures tha fact that answers to these questions are to a large part political. When I was younger, there was a language called serbocroatian, spoken in one country and written with two different scripts...

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

#15

Post by xiaoma »

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 favorable judgment. Any teacher who ignores this fact does a disservice to the students.

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

#16

Post by jeromec »

Regardless of the school board debating the potential validity of AAVE, I think it's misguided to experiment with asserting such "correctness" to teach kids that will grow up in a world that doesn't regard it as such. Save such philosophy for later academics, where the author/speaker can make a conscious choice of use - similar to the stylistic, but "incorrect", use of 'But' or 'And' to begin a sentence.

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

#17

Post by req2 »

pg wrote: post #11

The argument here is in effect that no vernacular variant of any language could possibly embody a mistake. Which is true for some definitions of mistake, and false for others. The problem with the definitions that make it true is that there's a slippery slope from dialects to idiolects. How many people have to speak a dialect for it to count as a dialect? You can't have any threshold, or you get weird consequences in…

This is simply a problem with definitions, though. Whether mistake or habit, or language, dialect, or idiolect, what matters is the part that comes after. People still study the Akkadian language, despite its lack of speakers.

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

#18

Post by jacobolus »

stcredzero wrote: post #12
pg wrote: post #11

The argument here is in effect that no vernacular variant of any language could possibly embody a mistake. Which is true for some definitions of mistake, and false for others. The problem with the definitions that make it true is that there's a slippery slope from dialects to idiolects. How many people have to speak a dialect for it to count as a dialect? You can't have any threshold, or you get weird consequences in…

You can't have any threshold, or you get weird consequences in hypothetical cases, like all the speakers of a dialect dying off except one. So if you decide that no vernacular can embody mistakes, you're bound to conclude that nothing any individual does can be a mistake, so long as they do it consistently. But lots of disciplines involving living things have problems like this. You can't "define" species. A species…

> manners and rules of social conduct of rural African Americans are more complex than I am accustomed to

Is that increased complexity, or merely lack of familiarity? I imagine someone coming to a large gathering of your family would also feel like there were new subtle rules to learn, etc.

I know that I have to think more about myself when I'm stuck in an unfamiliar social setting than in one I've spent lots of time in.

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

#19

Post by jfarmer »

jeromec wrote: post #16

Regardless of the school board debating the potential validity of AAVE, I think it's misguided to experiment with asserting such "correctness" to teach kids that will grow up in a world that doesn't regard it as such. Save such philosophy for later academics, where the author/speaker can make a conscious choice of use - similar to the stylistic, but "incorrect", use of 'But' or 'And' to begin a sentence.

Why should dictionaries and grammar books be any more authoritative than the way people actually speak?

AAVE isn't correct or incorrect any more than gravity is correct or incorrect. They both exist; it's our job to study them.

Putting AAVE into a box labeled "incorrect English" is just a way to avoid the hard work of understanding our world.

And yes, the "academic" understanding of AAVE includes the sociolinguistic aspects denoting class, race, education, etc.

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

#20

Post by ZeroGravitas »

wheels wrote: post #5
tokenadult wrote: post #2

Yes, 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…

I heard recently that Arnie offered to do the voice for the Terminator in the German dub of the film of the same name. They said no because his accent made the killer robot sound like a farmer or country bumpkin to German ears.
Post reply on HN