A thought about using ain't in conversational English

Kirk   Sat Nov 26, 2005 11:46 pm GMT
<<"I'm quite sure that persons who use 'ain't' are disproportionately ignorant (and even stupid too) as measured by standardized tests."

Language - the one socially acceptable prejudice left in modern PC society.>>

Yes, I had to roll my eyes at that one, too. Puh-leez.
Gjones2   Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:18 am GMT
>I'm quite sure that persons who use 'ain't' are disproportionately ignorant (and even stupid too) as measured by standardized tests. [Gjones2]
>Language - the one socially acceptable prejudice left in modern PC society. [JJM]
>Yes, I had to roll my eyes at that one, too. Puh-leez. [Kirk]

Apparently those responses imply a value judgment and the implication that I shouldn't have said what I did (this, of course, is an attempt to make sure that language IS included in the PC society). Making a value judgment or saying "Puh-leez" doesn't refute what I said, though.

In the same paragraph I opposed using this fact in an unfair way -- "...we shouldn't assume that an individual who uses them is necessarily stupid or ignorant. Not assuming that a stereotype applies to every individual is different, though, from failing to recognize statistical facts."

Non-standard language will itself directly produce lower scores on standardizied tests of language (duh) and as an indication that the persons who use it aren't complying with the expectations of society -- the society that produces the tests -- it has predictive value in indicating lower scores in other areas. Kirk, you just said that "I'm not over-idealistic about sociolinguistic reality". Then you follow that up with "Puh-leez". Which is it? Non-standard dialects obviously result in lower scores on STANDARDized tests.
Gjones2   Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:48 am GMT
I grew up in a poor neighborhood in the South, where most of the children used non-standard expressions all the time (e.g., 'ain't', 'it don't'). Most of them never learned to adapt their language to the expectations of society and paid the price for not doing so.

When switching careers, I once had occasion to take a blue-collar job at a large company in the South. As would be expected, most of the persons around me used 'ain't' and other expressions usually rejected by educated speakers. There were some intelligent persons among them, friends of mine, and I wouldn't want people to assume that all blue-collar workers are stupid. Among the non-intellectuals too there were many who had good qualities of one kind or another. On the whole, though, they were ignorant, and hadn't succeeded in educating themselves in the areas that society expects them to be educated.

I’ve had a good many blue-collar jobs in my life, but I never stayed at one for very long. I soon took advantage of my academic background (and a writing test offered by the company) and switched to a much better white-collar job in the same company. There I found mostly Southerners too, but their Southern dialect was somewhat different. They almost never used 'ain't' and other non-standard expressions (what a surprise ;-).

Even if there weren't standardized tests to reveal the connection between being ignorant and the use of non-standard language, our experiences in many aspects of life would reveal it. If a society rewards persons who know and use the standard language, then most persons who aren't ignorant or stupid will get the message. They'll learn the standard language and use it whenever they need it. Disproportionately (not without exception, I repeat, but disproportionately) those who don't do so are ignorant and stupid. Saying "Puh-leez" or trying to exert moral pressure to silence me -- by labeling a true statement a "socially acceptable prejudice" -- won't change what's true.

In my opinion the more moral stance on this issue is to tell persons who speak non-standard dialects the truth. The truth is that if they don't restrict their dialect to informal situations, they'll have many obstacles to overcome. Persons who use expressions such as 'ain't' are in fact disproportionately ignorant. Those who share that speech characteristic with ignorant persons will run the risk that they too will be perceived that way.

"Puh-leez" don't imagine that you're doing speakers of non-standard dialects a favor by pretending that there's no connection between ignorance and those dialects. If I'd used non-standard expressions on that writing test, I wouldn't have been able to move up to a better job. Not only standardized tests but society as a whole will penalize those who fail to use the standard language.
Gjones2   Sun Nov 27, 2005 2:55 am GMT
standardizied tests -- standardized tests
Travis   Sun Nov 27, 2005 10:39 am GMT
>>>I'm quite sure that persons who use 'ain't' are disproportionately ignorant (and even stupid too) as measured by standardized tests. [Gjones2]
>Language - the one socially acceptable prejudice left in modern PC society. [JJM]
>Yes, I had to roll my eyes at that one, too. Puh-leez. [Kirk]

Apparently those responses imply a value judgment and the implication that I shouldn't have said what I did (this, of course, is an attempt to make sure that language IS included in the PC society). Making a value judgment or saying "Puh-leez" doesn't refute what I said, though.<<

Holding descriptivist views is in no fashion contradictory to trying to deliberately modify views in society about language.

>>Non-standard language will itself directly produce lower scores on standardizied tests of language (duh) and as an indication that the persons who use it aren't complying with the expectations of society -- the society that produces the tests -- it has predictive value in indicating lower scores in other areas. Kirk, you just said that "I'm not over-idealistic about sociolinguistic reality". Then you follow that up with "Puh-leez". Which is it? Non-standard dialects obviously result in lower scores on STANDARDized tests.<<

Of course, though, one must remember that a lot of forms are used in various dialects of English which are most definitely "non-standard", but which are not specifically stigmatized as "ain't" and double negation are, ranging from "kinda" and "sorta" acting as adverbs to a whole slew of cliticized constructions (which can be very extreme at times, but since they're often used in dialects which are not stigmatized at all, they're very commonly overlooked). And anyways, why do standardized tests really matter with respect to the language one actually speaks on a day to day basis, in the first place?
Mahatma Coat   Sun Nov 27, 2005 10:48 am GMT
Oh puh-leez... /me stares at Travis' girly stupor.
Travis   Sun Nov 27, 2005 11:01 am GMT
>>I grew up in a poor neighborhood in the South, where most of the children used non-standard expressions all the time (e.g., 'ain't', 'it don't'). Most of them never learned to adapt their language to the expectations of society and paid the price for not doing so.<<

Oh, I myself'm quite used to the use of "non-standard" expressions in everyday speech, but as my dialect is not stigmatized at all (even though some from areas other than southeastern Wisconsin may think it sounds weird), such has not been a problem at all. The fundamental issue here is *not* "non-standard"-ness, but rather stigmatization, unlike what you may think, having likely internalized such views about said dialect.

>>When switching careers, I once had occasion to take a blue-collar job at a large company in the South. As would be expected, most of the persons around me used 'ain't' and other expressions usually rejected by educated speakers. There were some intelligent persons among them, friends of mine, and I wouldn't want people to assume that all blue-collar workers are stupid. Among the non-intellectuals too there were many who had good qualities of one kind or another. On the whole, though, they were ignorant, and hadn't succeeded in educating themselves in the areas that society expects them to be educated.<<

Again, you are missing the point that trying to "climb the social ladder" by changing one's speech pattern has nothing to actually do with intelligence or how educated one really is, but rather more has to do what social groups (and in particular social class) one happens to be in.

>>I’ve had a good many blue-collar jobs in my life, but I never stayed at one for very long. I soon took advantage of my academic background (and a writing test offered by the company) and switched to a much better white-collar job in the same company. There I found mostly Southerners too, but their Southern dialect was somewhat different. They almost never used 'ain't' and other non-standard expressions (what a surprise ;-).<<

More likely due to increased social pressure than anything else, rather than actual education or whatnot.

>>Even if there weren't standardized tests to reveal the connection between being ignorant and the use of non-standard language, our experiences in many aspects of life would reveal it. If a society rewards persons who know and use the standard language, then most persons who aren't ignorant or stupid will get the message. They'll learn the standard language and use it whenever they need it.<<

The thing is that expressing views like the above is specifically part of the problem, in that it is views like yours which specifically push such stigmatization and prescriptivist nonsense which has resulted in the overall state of Southern American English today.

>>Disproportionately (not without exception, I repeat, but disproportionately) those who don't do so are ignorant and stupid. Saying "Puh-leez" or trying to exert moral pressure to silence me -- by labeling a true statement a "socially acceptable prejudice" -- won't change what's true.<<

Well, yes, that is the exact purpose of such - to silence those who attempt to propagate such views, like yours above, for the purposes of social engineering at the language level, which is something I see no problem with in and of itself.

>>In my opinion the more moral stance on this issue is to tell persons who speak non-standard dialects the truth. The truth is that if they don't restrict their dialect to informal situations, they'll have many obstacles to overcome. Persons who use expressions such as 'ain't' are in fact disproportionately ignorant. Those who share that speech characteristic with ignorant persons will run the risk that they too will be perceived that way.<<

Again, you're missing the point; the matter here is not how "non-standard" dialects are, but rather stigmatization attached to them. Consequently, I see know problem with trying to deliberately change such, even if it means trying to silence anyone who tries to "legitimatize" such stigmatization. As for the "disproportionately ignorant" part, that is just stereotyping which helps further such stigmatization - and thus it is specifically harmful to even make mention of such views in any way that is not specifically and unambiguously negative (with respect to such views).

>>"Puh-leez" don't imagine that you're doing speakers of non-standard dialects a favor by pretending that there's no connection between ignorance and those dialects. If I'd used non-standard expressions on that writing test, I wouldn't have been able to move up to a better job. Not only standardized tests but society as a whole will penalize those who fail to use the standard language.<<

The "puh-leez" part is not about trying to deny the existance of such views, but rather trying to *eliminate* rather than propagate such views. And for starters, what does what one writes in (rather inane) standardized tests have to do with how one actually speaks in everyday life? I myself am quite used to writing very differently from how I normally speak, which is simply a matter of the literary language being a rather distinct construct from the spoken language.
Gjones2   Sun Nov 27, 2005 3:52 pm GMT
The job I applied for required writing for a national audience (actually the books were sent all over the world). Preachings by socially conscious linguists about how worthy of respect my dialect was would have done me no good in that situation. I needed to avoid using non-standard expressions. People who buy a product aren't going to want to open the manual and read a sentence like this:

"If your computer don't start, make sure the plug ain't come out the wall." :-)

By the time I took that test I'd had decades to learn the standard language. Since childhood I'd been told what would be expected of me. I'd read hundreds -- maybe thousands -- of books that avoided using non-standard expressions (except in some kinds of dialogue). If the person evaluating the test had rejected me because of those expressions, that wouldn't have been unjust. That wouldn't have been like rejecting me because of something I couldn't control (for instance, my race or region of origin). If I'd been rejected, it would have been because of my failure to learn.

The standard written language was my language too. Some aspects of my regional dialect were different, but I didn't regard the standard dialect as alien. I'd read books just as speakers of the standard dialect had. I had favorite writers who used the standard dialect. To assume that poor persons in certain regions must be limited in their mental horizons to their neighborhoods is to underestimate them greatly.

Also I believe it's a big mistake to teach people to take pride in stigmatized dialects that have been and continue to be associated with ignorant persons (accurately associated with them). Even if every linguist in the country agrees to lie about the disproportionate association of these dialects with ignorance, it will still be known not only by persons who don't speak those dialects but by many of the persons who speak them. This sort of thing merely gives people a better excuse for not trying to learn the standard language. "See! Linguists say that my language is just as good as anybody else's. It's the bigots who discriminate against it who are holding me back."
Gjones2   Sun Nov 27, 2005 4:33 pm GMT
I don't need linguists to make value judgments for me. They have no expertise in that area. When they do so, their pronouncements have no authority over me or anybody else. Their job is to describe the language accurately. That includes describing which expressions are stigmatized, but it doesn't include telling people not to stigmatize.

Speaking of description of language, can anybody name a single society that hasn't stigmatized some expressions? Societies have always made value judgments and used criteria such as language to evaluate people. As a person who grew up poor, I welcomed the opportunity to be evaluated on the basis of language. Growing up around many persons who used non-standard language was a trivial disadvantage. I had plenty of time to overcome it.

In the United States at least, it's hard to find a poor child who doesn't have ample access to libraries. Once I learned to read, I figured that I could learn as much as anybody else. If anything, rich persons had more distractions from learning. When I was a child, I received a very small allowance (for doing some chores), but I found it relatively easy to buy candy by gathering bottles along the road and turning them in for money (back then bottles were worth 2 cents, and a candy bar just cost a nickel or a dime). I not only had access to libraries, but I could buy inexpensive paperbacks of my own (35 or 50 cents) from the money that I made picking up bottles. It was EASY for me to learn the standard language, and by the time I was in high school, I was scoring in the top one percentile.

I've seen criticism of standardized testing that claimed that poor persons couldn't be expected to know a word like 'yacht' because they had no experience of yachts. What nonsense! I often saw pictures of yachts and saw them mentioned in movies. Nowadays I'd estimate that poor children (whose families in the United States almost without exception have television sets) see yachts on TV shows thousands of times before they get out of elementary school. I'll bet that they even see signs of yacht clubs with the word 'yacht' in them fifty to a hundred times.
Gjones2   Sun Nov 27, 2005 4:39 pm GMT
You mention that you and others use a "whole slew of cliticized constructions" that aren't stigmatized. Everybody does. What's important, though, is to learn the expressions that are and avoid using them in formal situations, especially in writing.

> I myself am quite used to writing very differently from how I normally speak.... [Travis]

Of course you are. You're an educated person. Why don't you insist on writing exactly as you speak? Why aren't you proud of that 'kinda' and 'sorta'? Because you understand that it's important to learn a more formal language for use in certain situations.

Having stigmas is an integral -- an indispensable -- part of language. Languages change over time, and the stigmatized expressions change, but it's the job of competent language learners to learn which words are currently being stigmatized and to learn in which situations their use isn't appropriate. Language is based on convention. Stigma helps enforce that convention. Individuals can vote with their own usage in favor of a few non-standard expressions and still retain their status as educated persons. It's not at all smart, though, to use many non-standard expressions. Few smart persons do. As I said, persons who fail to use words the way society expects are disproportionately ignorant or stupid.

Trying to hide that fact merely gives an advantage to children from upper class homes, most of whom grow up around educated persons. Their language will be relatively close to the standard anyway. It's the poor children who are surrounded by non-standard dialect who especially need to value the standard language.
Travis   Sun Nov 27, 2005 11:54 pm GMT
>>I don't need linguists to make value judgments for me. They have no expertise in that area. When they do so, their pronouncements have no authority over me or anybody else. Their job is to describe the language accurately. That includes describing which expressions are stigmatized, but it doesn't include telling people not to stigmatize.<<

I am not doing such necessarily as a linguist per se, as I have my own political reasons for such in itself beyond just linguistics.

>>Speaking of description of language, can anybody name a single society that hasn't stigmatized some expressions? Societies have always made value judgments and used criteria such as language to evaluate people. As a person who grew up poor, I welcomed the opportunity to be evaluated on the basis of language. Growing up around many persons who used non-standard language was a trivial disadvantage. I had plenty of time to overcome it.<<

Just because societies may have always done such doesn't mean that they necessarily *should* do such. Even still, one must remember that the spoken and the written, and in particular literary, languages are in no matter the same thing, and even if it useful to learn to use the literary language "correctly", that does not mean that one should at all change one's native speech forms

>>In the United States at least, it's hard to find a poor child who doesn't have ample access to libraries. Once I learned to read, I figured that I could learn as much as anybody else. If anything, rich persons had more distractions from learning. When I was a child, I received a very small allowance (for doing some chores), but I found it relatively easy to buy candy by gathering bottles along the road and turning them in for money (back then bottles were worth 2 cents, and a candy bar just cost a nickel or a dime). I not only had access to libraries, but I could buy inexpensive paperbacks of my own (35 or 50 cents) from the money that I made picking up bottles. It was EASY for me to learn the standard language, and by the time I was in high school, I was scoring in the top one percentile.<<

I remember as a kid having to not learn the standard literary language (actually, I do not remember ever *not* being able to read in the first place), but rather what I remember is having to relearn to actually properly use the informal spoken language, to actually speak *more informally* and to use the local dialect in everyday usage, rather than using the formal language that I had learned from reading books and like and in school in my everyday speech. Part of this is because I realized that others here did not speak in a fashion like particularly formal speech and the literary language, and furthermore many actually look down on such outside of specifically formal contexts (in particular, this was the case with many of my classmates, who really looked down on "speaking like a book"); consequently, it turned out that was best not to learn how to "correct" formal language in speech, but rather to use the actual everyday language that everyone else here uses, "correct" or not, even in its most extreme forms.

My own speech is somewhat weird to a degree today, as many formal pronunciations replaced my own native dialect pronunciations (for words such as "sister" and "yesterday"), and then I ended up effectively relearning said dialect pronunciations and even started favoring more extreme dialect forms (such as [d] for word-initial /D/), but still ended retaining formal pronunciations for certain words (such as the aforementioned words) and many more formal usages (I probably use the subjunctive and more formal modal constructions using things such as "may" in speech more than even most NAE-speakers). Consequently, I often today have very dialect-specific and very progressive forms in my speech alongside very formal and sometimes a wee bit archaic forms simultaneously due to such.
Travis   Mon Nov 28, 2005 12:11 am GMT
Just for the record, the pronunciations for "sister" and "yesterday" I was referring to are:

Formal standard:
"sister" : /"sIst@`/ -> ["sI.st@`]
"yesterday" : /"jEst@`de/ -> ["jE.st@`.deI]

Informal dialect:
"sister" : /"sIStS@`/ -> ["sI.StS@`]
"yesterday" : /"jEStS@`de/ -> ["jE.StS@`.de]
Travis   Mon Nov 28, 2005 12:30 am GMT
>>You mention that you and others use a "whole slew of cliticized constructions" that aren't stigmatized. Everybody does. What's important, though, is to learn the expressions that are and avoid using them in formal situations, especially in writing.<<

The thing though is that such is not overtly stigmatized at all, unlike usages like "ain't" and double negation; I have heard few directly say anything about usages like "aonno" (for lack of a better spelling; /"aIonno/ -> ["a:o~.n:o]) for "I don't know", much the less actually specifically stigmatize the such. The matter here is that differences in language corresponding to differences in register or speech versus writing are not the same thing at all as stigmatization, which tends to be overt and does not generally concern speech versus writing and informal versus formal language.

>>> I myself am quite used to writing very differently from how I normally speak.... [Travis]

Of course you are. You're an educated person. Why don't you insist on writing exactly as you speak? Why aren't you proud of that 'kinda' and 'sorta'? Because you understand that it's important to learn a more formal language for use in certain situations.<<

The matter is that I keep the literary written and spoken languages quite separate from each other, even though usages will leak between the two, as you have probably seen in my writing on here (such as the adverbial usage of "kind of" or "sort of"). This is a two-way street, though, as I also don't change my spoken language to sound like how I write; actually, I have been doing the opposite, as when I was much younger, my speech was much closer to my writing, but since then I have been changing my speech to be much *less* like my writing and much more like the dialect of the Milwaukee area in even its more extreme aspects. Even still, as mentioned in a previous post, some more literary usages and more formal pronunciations are still retained in my speech and still show up time to time nonetheless.

>>Having stigmas is an integral -- an indispensable -- part of language. Languages change over time, and the stigmatized expressions change, but it's the job of competent language learners to learn which words are currently being stigmatized and to learn in which situations their use isn't appropriate. Language is based on convention. Stigma helps enforce that convention. Individuals can vote with their own usage in favor of a few non-standard expressions and still retain their status as educated persons. It's not at all smart, though, to use many non-standard expressions. Few smart persons do. As I said, persons who fail to use words the way society expects are disproportionately ignorant or stupid.<<

The matter is that stigmas do not simply correspond to differences between informal and formal usage, but rather tend to be very arbitrary, except with respect to often indirectly targeting groups with respect to social class and like. For example, even though there are very strong differences between informal and formal language here, informal usages are not stigmatized at all here; rather, inappropriate and excessive formal usages tend to be not looked well upon here, even though they aren't stigmatized per se, considering that they tend to be rather close to the literary language grammar and usage-wise.

>>Trying to hide that fact merely gives an advantage to children from upper class homes, most of whom grow up around educated persons. Their language will be relatively close to the standard anyway. It's the poor children who are surrounded by non-standard dialect who especially need to value the standard language.<<

Well, things go the other way around as well. In areas where there is any real correspondance between speech and class, such as in the UK, people from more upper class homes may very well want to change their speech to more closely reflect the local dialect, to avoid sounding snotty and like. This is, of course, why Estuary has been gaining ground against RP in the UK as of late, as RP today is not only overly class-marked but overly class-marked in a negative fashion in many social circles, which has motivated many to at least "tone down" their RP by shifting it in a more Estuary-ish direction.
Gjones2   Tue Nov 29, 2005 4:34 pm GMT
I use a good many colloquialisms when speaking but don't say 'ain't', 'it don't', and other expressions usually rejected by educated speakers. I rarely notice any negative reactions from those who do. I get along well with most of them, both as a co-worker and a member of the same athletic teams. There may have been a few who disliked me because of the way I spoke, but I usually gave them other reasons too, so it's hard to tell how important that one was. :-) I don't recall ever being concerned about it, though. Whether they like me or not, I don't intend to imitate them.
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