Ebonics anybody? 3

[ToniL]

As I read the "Hinglish" thread, I was compelled to start a thread to recognize another "language", or misuse of language; Ebonics. I hear that there are high schools and colleges actually teaching this stuff to our kids, who will eventually wind up running our nation and its businesses. Now, let's take a good look at the word: Ebony=Black and Phonics=speech or words. Meaning that this whole thing is about teaching people to "talk Black", or for lack of a more appropriate phrase, ghetto slang. This puts the nation's Black youth at an even further disadvantage than they are already at by not teaching them proper English and its uses. This is not the language that anyone will hear in a boardroom, or on Capitol Hill, so why "teach" it?

Do I speak Ebonics? Yes, I do... As a Black woman, I need to be able to be an articulate speaker and prove my intelligence at work, but also to "kick it at home" with the brothas and sistas where I'm from. It's important for me to do and be both. I do this so as not alienate anyone whom I work with or chill with. There is a time and place for everything, and Ebonics should not be allowed in the workplace; unless you're a rapper, then it's O.K.

That said, I don't think there is a proper way to speak badly, and to teach that garbage in school is to further widen the gap that society made.

Just my humble opinion,
Peace...

Toni L.

 

[ToniL]

(1) No, Ebonics speakers DON'T enjoy speaking that way, they talk that way because they haven't been taught anything else.
(2) I wasn't suggesting any "conspiracy theory", just saying that if the end goal is to teach someone, why teach them the wrong stuff?
(3) I'll rephrase: before I start to SOUND like a Black Panther to most of you"...
(4) When I was in school, i.e. middle and high school, English was little more than, "put a comma here, a period goes there, this is a conjunction, this is an adverb, etc... We were not taught how to pronounce anything, and if a kid DID say something like "axe", they were not corrected, and they should have been. EX. "They be runnin' down the halls bothering people." They "be"? This sort of thing was not corrected by my English teacher, and it should have been... EX. "Who do she think she is?" Who "do"? This was not corrected, either... What I'm getting at is this: Ebonics speakers don't like this stuff, they don't know any better.
(5) It isn't that I don't like the language, I just vehemently disagree with it being taught. I can't walk away from who and what I am, and a fat paycheck does not change who I am... I identify with this culture and respect it, but at the same time, I know when and when not to use it.

 

[Mr3Putt]

In 1997, when the aforereferenced resolution was drafted, the focus of Ebonics in schools (in the Oakland area) was on ensuring an education for speakers of Ebonics. The focus was not, nor has it been (as far as I know... a limited field, to be sure) ever been on teaching kids to speak Ebonics.

So, IT'S NOT TEACHING LANGUAGE!

program for imparting instruction to African-American students in their primary language for the combined purposes of maintaining the legitimacy and richness of such language [snip] and to facilitate their acquisition and mastery of English language skills

Pretty clear. Let's not tilt at windmills.

[red]Note:[/red] [gray]The above comments are the opinionated ravings of Mr3Putt. As such, Mr3Putt accepts no responsibility for damages, real or contrived, resulting from acceptance of his opinions as fact.[/gray]

 

[craigsboyd]

On that note, I found this interview pretty informative...

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/12_01/ebsecret.shtml

http://www.sweetpotatosoftware.com

 

[Dimandja]

>Do I speak Ebonics? Yes, I do... As a Black woman, I need to be able to be an articulate speaker and prove my intelligence at work, but also to "kick it at home" with the brothas and sistas where I'm from.

This is another reason why I said people who speak "Ebonics" enjoy doing it. Many of my "Ebonics" acquaintances enjoy doing it -- just like you do.

My only question is this: how does being a black woman has anything to do with speaking Ebonics? Are Ebonics a requirement of some sort? I know many black women who have nothing to do with Ebonics.

 

[ToniL]

As I also said earlier, I speak that way when I'm around other people who speak that way SO AS NOT TO ALIENATE PEOPLE IN MY CIRCLE... That is where I'm from; who I am... If there are Black people out there who have nothing to do with Ebonics speaking, well, that's great, but I know the difference... And here again, this is turning into something that was not the intent... People need to be taught when and where it's applicable...

 

[ZoomerZ]

...if commom sense is turned off, right?

 

[CajunCenturion]

This is another reason why I said people who speak "Ebonics" enjoy doing it.

I can fully understand that in certain circumstances, people use Ebonics because it is an effective means of communications. I can accept that some peple use Ebonics because they don't know anything different.

But neither of those situations justify 'enjoyment' of it. In fact, I would guess, and it's only a guess, but that sometimes when a person has to resort to Ebonics, they find it disheartening.

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[Dimandja]

>People need to be taught when and where it's applicable...

At home, I suspect -- not in a classroom?

Many kids who learn Ebonics as a "first language" usually have nobody to turn to for directions -- all their acquaintances speak Ebonics too. So, why not bring it up within the confines of academia? At least, they'll know what is Ebonics and when to "properly" use it. I think this is the point many proponents of Ebonics in the classroom are trying to make.

 

[ToniL]

Craig,

I read the article in the link that you gave and it has given me a new perspective... The way that the English class is strucured in Oakland is what I'm talking about... Translation from one language to another... Those kids are also being taught when to speak "English" and when to speak "Ebonics"... Although, I still don't feel that Ebonics is a viable language, but seeing it as such is working in Oakland... Thanks, Craig...

Peace,
Toni L.

 

[AnotherHiggins]

If anyone wants to be successful in this country, that means co-existing with and functioning among the White population... How many White people (who are not rappers) do you know that speak Ebonics, at work or at home?

I think this is a terrible, terrible over-generalization. Speaking Ebonics has nothing to do with skin color. It has to do with our socioeconomic class structure. For that reason, I submit that 'Ebonics' is a misnomer. I think far too much attention is paid to race. While I don't think there's any conspiracy involved, I do think that all this attention to race diverts attention from the fact that poor people (regardless of color) are marginalized and tend to stay poor.

People who speak Ebonics as their 'first language' tend to live in impoverished areas. People of many races live in those areas and most of them tend to speak this way.

I am not suggesting that having 'black' skin does not make it harder to get ahead in our society - there is still plenty of racism out there. I simply object to the notion that Ebonics is simply a Black vs. White thing.



[tt]-John[/tt]
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[ToniL]

Ok, if this is true, then YOU explain how this dialect got its name... Now, I tend to be an extremely open-minded person, and accepting of everyone's opinions, but I believe what I believe...

 

[Dimandja]

Ebonics (and its origins) is not that simple (nor that negative) as some may be led to believe from reading this thread. Case in point, the next two links.

http://blog.lewrockwell.com/lewrw/archives/003090.html:

January 07, 2004
The Redneck Origins of Ebonics
Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo at January 7, 2004 07:42 PM

Stephen Carson's blog on "Ebonics" reminded me that David Hacket Fischer discovered the origins of this unique style of speech in his book, Albion's Seed. It comes from Scotch-Irish immigrants to rural Virginia in the 17th century. It's the original language of rednecks, in other words. Walter Williams devoted one of his syndicated columns to this historical oddity a couple of years ago.

Perhaps this explains why two twentysomething black men superbly dressed in pricey business suits who stepped onto an elevator with me recently were wearing lapel buttons that said, "Just Say No to Yo."

http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers/SuiteForEbonyAndPhonics.html:

To James Baldwin, writing in 1979, it was "this passion, this skill, ... this incredible music." Toni Morrison, two years later, was impressed by its "five present tenses," and felt that "The worst of all possible things that could happen would be to lose that language." What these African American novelists were talking about was Ebonics, the vernacular or informal speech of many African Americans, which rocketed to public attention after the Oakland School Board approved a resolution in December 1996 recognizing it as the primary language of African American students.

The reaction of most people across the country--in the media, at holiday gatherings, and on electronic bulletin boards--was overwhelmingly negative. In the flash-flood of email on America Online, Ebonics was variously described as "lazy English," "bastardized English," "poor grammar," and "fractured slang." Oakland's decision to recognize Ebonics and use it to facilitate mastery of Standard English [SE] also elicited superlatives of negativity: "ridiculous, ludicrous," "VERY, VERY STUPID," "a terrible mistake." Linguists--the scientists who carefully study the sounds, words, and grammars of languages and dialects--were less rhapsodic about Ebonics than the novelists, but much more positive than most of the media and the general public. At their January 1997 annual meeting, members of the Linguistic Society of America [LSA] unanimously approved a resolution describing Ebonics as "systematic and rule-governed like all natural speech varieties," and referring to the Oakland resolution as "linguistically and pedagogically sound." In order to understand how linguists could have had such a different take on the Ebonics issue, we need to understand how linguists study language and what their studies of Ebonics over the past thirty years have led them to agree on (and what it has not).



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[sha76]

Surely some of these issues are not confined to the use of Ebonics, but apply to many dialects? There are plenty of regional dialects in the UK whose speakers will be perceived as a bit slow, or generally unintelligent. I'm not sure I've ever met someone with a high position in the workplace (company owners excluded) who, if they have a one of these accents, haven't toned it down. I guess this is partly due to the image they wish to project, partly necessary for communication. I don't know that it's always a concious thing. Parents will sometimes struggle to afford a private education for their children, not because they don't value the education in the state system, but because they don't want them growing up with the stigma of a strong accent.
There is also the differentiation between home & work; one friend has only the slightest accent at work, but at home speaks broad Scouse (the Liverpool accent).

"Your rock is eroding wrong." -Dogbert

 

[Dimandja]

>There are plenty of regional dialects in the UK whose speakers will be perceived as a bit slow, or generally unintelligent.

It's the same story all over the world. Every language has its own "ebonics".

In the US, the language spoken by many people that are either poor, or less educated, or hip sounding, or living in rural areas, has always gotten quite a bum rap. (what pun?)

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[BobRodes]

Ebonics got its name from people taking something that existed without a name and giving a name to it, just like any other thing with a name.

Concepts of grammatical correctness are matters of accepted usage. For example, we have the idea that "ain't" is simply incorrect grammar. In fact, it is a contraction of "am not" which was entirely correct in that context, until it was so often misused that it was anathematized by our curriculum developers. So, we have a process: general usage on the part of the people at large is evaluated by a smaller group who wish to organize, define, and codify said usage. In so doing, they give a ratification to same that is then dispersed among the people at large. There is advantage in this process, in that people embracing the definitions of correctness propagated by the smaller group may enjoy a common means of communication with others embracing same.

What I believe we find with Ebonics is the application of exactly this process to the common speech of part of the African American subculture. I find this process to enjoy the same advantages as I describe above, but on a smaller scale. However, I find counterproductive the attempt to "educate" young people as to the "correctness" of Ebonics, much as I would find counterproductive attempts to get the public at large to embrace right hand drives in cars, for example. A common form of communication is a useful endeavor. Attempting to expand an uncommon form of communication beyond its natural setting is not.

Bob

 

[nursegeek]

Wow! interesting post...
My daughters (of European descent)used to attend a school in the heart of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Many of their friends were black, and the girls learned the slang because it was appropriate when communicating with their peers. My take on language has always been that there is a time and a place...they may speak in any manner they wish with their peers, but at home and with other adults they speak the "Queen's English". (Three guesses who the Queen in their lives is!!)
Now they attend a mostly white school in the suburbs. I rarely hear the Eubonics slanted speech patterns they adopted in a larger community. I'm not sure if language is camouflage or a bond...perhaps both?
A final comment...I live in the Milwaukee area. There are definite colloquialisms and speech patterns here (a "bubbler" is a drinking fountain), but I would NOT expect the schools to teach my children to speak "Milwaukee-ese". Then again, we have college courses on Martina McBride, so who knows?????
Godspeed...

 

[SteveGlo]

Which Queen - 3 guesses ?
Madonna
Buffy
Marge Simpson

 

[PreacherUK]

Latifa?

 

[KenCunningham]

Which Queen Of New Orleans?

Dimanja makes a good point above about the origin of the 'white trash' dialect, but whoever came up with 'Scotch-Irish' would get short shrift here in Scotland. It should of course be Scots-Irish or Scottish-Irish. Unless we're talking of Irish scotch drinkers of course. Come to think of it, that might explain the southern drawl rather well.

As for ebonics, I seem to remember the film Shaft caused something of an uproar when released.

 

[SteveGlo]

I suspect that once a language like Ebonics starts getting the establishment seal of approval by being taught, it will be abandoned by the next generation, who will devise their own to differentiate themselves from their 'square' elders - infra dig, daddio ?