Ebonics (1)

Ebonics

Language and CultureWTUC

May 2007

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View Ebonics Flash Clip

• Warning: Some slides contain adult (vulgar) language.

http://jokes.sitesled.com/flash/ebonics.htm

McLean, Va.: What about "Ebonics" -- do you think it's

detrimental to a large part of our society? • Robert MacNeil: Ebonics is another word for what

linguists call the African American Vernacular English, a dialect of English. The controversy over Ebonics arose when the Oakland, Calif. school system claimed that it was a different language and therefore qualified for federal funds to finance the teaching of ESL, English as a Second Language. The furor that arose greatly confused the issue, which remains important in American schools, and an obstacle to children from the inner cities who have more trouble learning to read and a higher dropout rate than other American children.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A4207-2005Jan12.html

Robert MacNeil:• In our TV series and book we explore an experiment in

Los Angeles schools to teach 5th graders the difference between their home speech and mainstream American English. Steve Harvey, a popular radio host in LA and an African American, says that to get on in this country "you need to be bilingual." Unfortunately many teachers, black and white, so look down on "street talk" that it prejudices them against the children, whom they sometimes treat as uneducable. The LA experiment is an effort to treat the black dialect more sympathetically and without racist putdowns to bring the children along into standard English.


"Ebonics"

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"Ebonics"

• "African American Vernacular English" • or "Vernacular Black English."

Controversy

• A wave of controversy followed the Oakland, Calif., school board decision on Dec. 18 to use Ebonics, a dialect primarily used by African Americans across the country, as a method of teaching standard English. The debate continued at the University.

http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/1997/jan/01-17-97/news/ff.html

Linguistic Features

• Ebonics is recognized as a social dialect by the American Speech, Language and Hearing Association. Its earmarks include the unconjugated use of verb "to be" - "He be hollering at us"

Linguistic Features

• and dropping consonants at the end of words. Ebonics is also marked by double negatives, as in, "Didn't nobody see nothing."

Where does it stem from?

• "I believe Ebonics stems from slavery, when my ancestors secretly learned English because they were not allowed to read or write. Such oppression impaired them from standard English," Moore said. "But today, we see the great-great-grandchildren of those enslaved, who not only eloquently speak standard English, but are prominent citizens of our country.


language and discrimination• "One such person was Dr. Martin Luther King J

r." • "When I think of Dr. King, I envision a man with n

ot only an open mind, but an open heart - one who wanted the best for the world at whole," she said. "I believe Dr. King would agree to trying anything in hopes of reaching equality."

• Lippi-Green is writing a book about language and discrimination that may come with it, "English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States."

Ebonics is detrimental to the development of students

• "As an African American, I am quite disturbed over the recent Ebonics issue. I feel that incorporating Ebonics into the classroom environment will further deteriorate an already battered English language," Austin said. "More importantly, using 'Ebonics' in schools promotes and perpetuates the widening gap between Caucasians, African Americans and other minority groups." http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/1997/jan/01-17-97/news/ff.html

Nuances of terminology

• The phrase "Ebonics" was developed in 1973 and is known to have roots in West Africa.

• The word is a combination of "ebony" and "phonics," and refers to the dialect spoken primarily by some African Americans.

Disgrace

• "Our slave ancestors had no choice but to speak a broken, tattered form of English, as they were not given the education to speak properly," Austin said. "If we as a people continue to speak as if we lack education we are both disgracing the memory of our ancestors' struggles to make the world better for us, and we are disgracing ourselves."

AAVE

• Lippi-Green said she prefers to call it African American Vernacular English.

• "AAVE is a functioning, productional form of English. The misfortune is that people refuse to listen," she said. "People need to be more open-minded."

Reaction

• University NAACP President Loren McGhee said Ebonics is a step in the wrong direction.

• "Insinuating that black students do not have the intellectual capacity to learn 'Standard English' is not only politically incorrect, but racist in itself," she said.

Reaction

• Jackson is not the only black person who has voiced his opinion. Poet Maya Angelou and talk-show host Oprah Winfrey both disagree with the idea of Ebonics. However, it does have supporters, including Pulitzer Prize-winning author and Princeton University Prof. Toni Morrison.

• "African Americans as a group have been systematically excluded in this society for generation. It has been a constant struggle for all of us to succeed in this country, to improve our lives in comparison to the lives of our ancestors," Austin said. "I feel as if promoting Ebonics - a gross and degrading deviation of standard English - will only push our progress as a people back a few hundred years."

• Lippi-Green said Ebonics causes such a hot debate because it raises an important question, which needs to be addressed.

• "Why are people threatened of an idea that AAVE speakers refuse to be in the mainstream?" she said.

• She said white people know they are not supposed to discriminate, but cannot understand why a community still wants to remain different.


• Fairfax, Va.: I heard what you said yesterday on NPR re: Black English and agree completely. I wish we'd stop maligning it and study it seriously as a dialect the way we do other regional or ethnic dialects. I think it's a subtle form of racism. We did the same thing with jazz, thinking it primitive, and now know it is one of the most sophisticated music forms out there.

• Robert MacNeil: Right on!

I would like to thank you all, y'all, youns, yinz for your interesting questions and I will leave you with what is fast becoming the universal American form of address, so thanks you guys.

• Baltimore, Md.: Hip-hop is a strong sub-culture in this country, influencing music, fashion and major sports. Do you chronicle its influence on language in your book?

A Prayer???

• English:

Our Father, who art in heavenHallowed be thy nameThy Kingdom comeThy will be doneOn earth as it is in heavenGive us this day our daily breadAnd forgive us our trespassesAs we forgive those who trespass against usAnd lead us not into temptationBut deliver us from evilFor thine is the Kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever.Amen

http://members.aol.com/midevlman/ebonics.htm

Ebonics:

•Yo, Big Daddy upstairsYou be chillinSo be yo hoodYou be sayin' it, I be doin' itIn this here hood and yo'sGimme some eatsAnd cut me some slack, BloodSos I be doin' it to dem dat diss medon't be pushing me into no jiveand keep dem Crips away'Cause you always be da ManAaa-men

• Robert MacNeil: Yes, we have extensive coverage of hip-hop and its roots in rap which we covered in The Story of English in the 1980s, and we give lots of examples. One feature stands out and that is using common words to mean the reverse of their usual meaning, so that "ill," "sick," and "nasty" are used to mean "good." One hip-hop group we covered in Michigan used "pro-nasty" as their highest compliment, meaning professionally nasty, that is, professionally the tops. One other influence cited in the book is white teenagers we watched IMing spelled their English words in a phonetic way that sounded like Black speech, for instance, writing "call me on my cell" as "call mi on mah cell."


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Ebonics (1)