Idea for language and national identity. Imaginationality: The American Dreamers / The American Halluci-Nation
. . . interplay of Image and History . . . of belonging . . . of dreaming . . .
Considering
how deeply America has invested in the dimensions of race and
ethnicity, it is shocking to consider that these things are not real!
Human racial classifications have no basis in biology. There is no gene,
no characteristic, no trait that distinguishes the members of one
"race" or ethnic group from another.
Incorporating Linguistic Signals
Language can be an important symbol of a people's distinct ethnicity.
Many ethnic groups use a distinctive language associated with their ethnic identity. Where a choice of language is available for communication it is often possible for an individual to signal their ethnicity by the language they choose to use. Even when a complete conversation in an ethnic language is not possible, people may use short phrases, verbal fillers or linguistic tags, which signal ethnicity.
The use of language varieties has an important symbolic function. It signals a person's ethnicity.
African American English
AAE
AAE is heard especially in the northern cities of the U.S. According to Holmes, AAE characteristics include:
- absence of the copula verb be in some social and linguistic contexts
("He a teacher" . . . "He's a teacher") - use of the invariant be to signal recurring or repeated actions
("She be at school on weekdays" . . . "She's always at school on weekdays") - frequent use of multiple negation
("I don't owe no money" . . . "I don't owe any money") - frequent and extensive consonant cluster simplification
("This is the las time" . . . "This is the last time")
Dr. Clamons uses the term African American English. AAE has been known by other names such as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and Black English Vernacular (BEV). I object to the phrase "Black English" and the similarly imprecise, race-based phrase -- "Ebonics." On the website, African American English, Dr. Peter L Patrick notes:
"The speakers of African American English have often been assumed to be black Americans, or African Americans, and indeed most of them are. But there are obvious problems with defining a language (or anything else) racially . . ."
Considering that AAE is the home language for people in urban environments who are of many different ethnic backgrounds, some have identified the dialect as Inner-City English.
Inner-City English
ICE
Features of ICE
No speaker uses all of the features associated with ICE all the time. Some of the features are in common with Southern English while some are in common with West African languages (notably copula deletion and cluster reduction).As with other non-standard varieties of English, the features of ICE are structured and linguistically complex.
ICE and Southern English feature: "liketa." This is used to indicate “nearly.” So, "I liketa drowned" would mean “I nearly drowned.”
Different Positions on ICE
- ICE is a “sloppy” form of English.
Here, ICE is presumed to be mere slang, but slang is temporary. ICE has a long history. Many of the features of ICE have been maintained across generations.
- ICE is a divergent dialect of Southern English.
Under this idea, ICE was created by the divergence from Southern English, much like the dialects of the USs diverged from the British English of colonial times. - ICE is a language variety that has origins as a
pidgin and a decreolized creole.
The theory is: local slave populations were linguistically diverse; a pidgin was formed; this pidgin became creolized as it became more grammatically complex, and children acquired it as a first language; this creole then became decreolized, making it mutually intelligible with dialects of English.
The "Ebonics" Controversies
The Ann Arbor Decision
It was determined that the Ann Arbor School District was in violation of Section 1703(f) of Title 20 of the United States Code. This code requires that children be given equal opportunity for participation in educational programs. The Ann Arbor School Board was required to develop a plan to instruct teachers in the recognition and instruction of speakers of Black English. The Ann Arbor decision, in part, read:
“…experts indicated that black children’s development of reading skills can be impaired by rejection by teachers who perceive dialectal variations as errors and indicative of an inferior linguistic system and intellectual inferiority.” (1987)
Oakland School Board
In 1996, the Oakland School Board passed a resolution recognizing "Black English" as a primary language. The case involved two opposing viewpoints:
- Pro -- It will aid in the education of Black students, allowing them to become more proficient in standardized English, while respecting the variation of AAE. Studies have shown that African American children perform better by transition from their home languages.
- Con -- The use of AAE in the classroom will promote segregation. "Ebonics" is just sloppy English. Black children fall behind because their backgrounds do not adequately prepare them for school, not because of their slang speech habits. No studies have shown that bilingual education programs can be extended and used help students with heavy dialects.
In the end, government funding was denied under bilingual education programs on the grounds that AAE is not a true language.
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