Re: CHAT: Ebonic Xmass

>From: Patrick Dunn <tb0pwd1@...>
>Speaking of Ebonics, for my freshman comp class, I had my students read an
>essay about "black English."  I was amazed at the reaction I got from
>students: "It's just bad English -- it's not a dialect."  So we discussed
>what made English "right" and what made it "wrong."  I pointed out that I
>would never say, "Hey, Prof, what's up?  Dude, this test was a b----!" nor
>would I ever say to one of my friends, "Pardon me, but could you please
>bring me another beverage?"  Then I wrote a sentence in Old English on the
>board, and asked "Is this good English?"  I felt like I was pulling teeth
>-- I could not convey the idea that language is *constructed* by social
>agreement, not innate.  Finally, I gave up, and I had a student (who had
>never said a word to me in class or out) come up to me and say, "Mr. Dunn,
>I just wanted to say thanks for assigning that.  It's nice to see that the
>way my family talks isn't just wrong."
Great story.  Personally, since Ebonics is really more of an urban sociolect
than an ethnolect, Black English to me is really the creoles of the Sea
Islands, South Carolina (the so-called 'Gullah'), and other creoles that
could be found in the bayous or Louisiana or one solitary Texas town whose
name I forget.  (It's all in the SIL Ethnologue listed under the United
States.)

I wonder if so-called Ebonics could be a precursor to a future form of
American English...

And about 'talking right' -- is there a term for the overly-correct form of
speech of the stereotypical 'educated Black', i.e. a 'James Earl Jones
English'?  And also you have a florid form of a sort of 'high-falootin'
English' found among Southern preachers, complete with overenunciations and
artificially ornate words.  Or, if you are familiar with Spanish-language
television and radio, the tendency to pronounce English loanwords and proper
names with a 'Spanish-colored' American English pronunciation.  There outta
be words for this...

But up in the North, it takes three words to say something that would take a
Southerer twenty-five.

Danny

(and I'm remembering how Richard Pryor used to make fun of how White people
talk...  and I kinda do talk like that...)
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