I recently read a 2004 string of post about Ebonics. I was inspired to start a new post based on two reasons. First, many of the responses I read in this forum seem intelligent and responsible. Next, there is an enormous misunderstanding about the definition of Ebonics.
There is a proper explanation of Ebonics here:
http://politicalessays.blogspot.com/
Some of you raised interesting points in the previous ebonics thread, so I thought that this would be a good place to place to challenge a few long-held misconceptions and start a little debate.
Any comments?
Ebonics is a substandard dialect of English used by illiterates and other very uneducated persons. It has nothing to recommend it, and there is nothing to be gained by defending it. I notice that the article to which you point seems to defend "Black English," but curiously it is not _written_ in Black English.
Mxsmanic : do you think Ebonics is a sociolect, an ethnolect or something different from both ?
"Ebonics is a substandard dialect of English used by illiterates and other very uneducated persons."
This entirely subjective (and false) statement is unworthy of a forum that professes to have an interest in language.
I agree with JJM completely here. Mxsmanic's comment about AAVE being "substandard" and used by "illiterates" and "other very uneducated persons" is purely Mxsmanic's own severe bias, which should not even have the room to be voiced in the first place within the serious study of linguistics and individual languages whatsoever. And by the way, one must remember that most people /in general/, at least within English-speaking contexts, do not write like they speak, especially formally. I myself generally speak and write very differently, and except within strictly informal written contexts like chatting, what I write overall does not reflect what I normally speak, speaking formally aside. Hence, how can one assume that someone who speaks AAVE will necessarily write in a fashion that reflects it, or assume that someone who writes in a fashion which is formal and literary does *not* speak AAVE? As for you, Mxsmanic, there is no room for your kinds of views here, period.
It's neither a sociolect nor an ethnolect; it's just solecism, pure and simple, and of the worst kind. Educated and intelligent people do not use it, no matter what their SES or ethnicity.
"Ebonics is a substandard dialect of English used by illiterates and other very uneducated persons. It has nothing to recommend it, and there is nothing to be gained by defending it"
"Educated and intelligent people do not use it, no matter what their SES or ethnicity."
Your comments on this topic are appalling, Mxsmanic, and reflect your severe ignorance in this area. First of all, get rid of the term "substandard," which should absolutely never apply to a native speaker's speech. In addition, your claims about it being a variety for "illiterates and other very uneducated persons" is wholly unsubstantiated. I shouldn't have to prove anything but I personally know people who speak some form of AAVE/Ebonics who are quite intelligent and educated. My apartmentmate Tyrone who often posts on here is one example of someone who is proficient in Ebonics (while it's not the only variety of English he speaks) and is one of the smartest and well-educated people I know.
Please think before you post.
Mxsmanic, ideas like "solecism" have no factual basis in the first place, and what do you exactly define "educated" and "intelligent" as, anyways, that makes you so sure that someone does not speak such, whether it is at home, or with friends, or wherever, just because they happen to be "educated" or "intelligent" (whatever those are supposed to mean, anyways).
"Please think before you post" isn't enough in my opinion with respect to Mxsmanic; I think that there ought to be zero room for his kinds of views, whatsoever, on this board, just like fascists' and racists' views are not welcome here at all.
"Ebonics is misunderstood"
. . . because it's incomprehensible.
Bubbler, well, I myself tend to find AAVE quite lacking in intelligibility relative to my own dialect and formal Northern Central American English, to say the very least, but that does not make it "inferior" in any kind of fashion per se. Of course, that still causes problems when interacting with people at times, simply because I not only don't understand what they're saying often, but also because I tend to automatically switch into formal speech, and away from the dialect that I'm used to speaking in, when talking with someone who is speaking AAVE, as if I were speaking to a non-native English speaker or like.
Kirk: I doubt that Tyrone speaks Ebonics when talking with his employer. The dialect IS substandard, and speaking it anywhere besides among friends would be like someone talking like a hillbilly just because he grew up in the hills.
Oh joy! An ebonics thread! Sigh.
AAVE or Ebonics is by no means a substandard dialect, although it is viewed as an informal speaking English variant. I speak it frequently, although I would not write in such a dialect, as it is narrow in focus and (as Bubbler rather crudely pointed out) its intelligibility. The comparison seems slightly ludicrous to me; I don't see Southerners writing "ah" or "sugah" or an RP speaker writing exactly as their delightfully formalized-sounding English is spoken.
AAVE is part of the linguistic magic of my ridiculously multiracial life--I code switch often in a family that is white, black, Native American, and Japanese but now add my own South African idioms and hybrid pronunciations.
Mxsmanic, your comments are amusing in their ignorance. Spoken dialects are not substandard, they're simply variants. For the record, I'll slip into AAVE when I'm tired, stressed, irritable, or in rather specific situations--i.e. my dad's all black Thanksgiving dinner, in which I'm the whitest person in attendance--but code switching underlines the fact that AAVE is part of my genuine verbal interaction with others. I also use it to emphasize certain feelings or responses, so to that extent, Cro Magnon, I use it at work on occasion at all three of my jobs with the university--with the admissions, history, and outreach programs. Granted, I don't write as I speak, and I am, by most defintions, 'educated'--I'm pursuing a masters degree in European history at present--but your ignorance amuses and appalls me.
But I think I shall just stop now before my tired writing slips into irritating pedagogery.
have a delicious day.
I appreciate Mxsmanic who calls them the way he sees them. We need more of that. It's time to cut through all the BS. There are standards. There is far too much silencing of people who speak unwelcome truths.
Steve K, no, just some of us don't exactly appreciate ignorance and severe bias like that of Mxsmanic's that much.