Last class when we discussed the legitimacy of certain words, it reminded me of
my research two summers ago with Professor John Rickford, which led me to ask a
question of how AAVE might relate to this lack of acceptance in the English language. Last lecture reintroduced me to African
American Vernacular English (AAVE), also referred to as Black English (BE), and
the controversial exclusivities of languages and their dialects.
In society, certain dialects are categorized as acceptable according to the standard form of that language spoken in that community. Grammatical prescriptivism can be loosely defined as the established usage rules for "good grammar". Prescriptivism and the Standard-English-speaking society have drawn a line between the "proper" usage of the English Language and the "improper" usage, viewed as lesser sub-par form of Standard English (SE) that only debases the original language. "Speakers of nonstandard varieties are often made to feel ashamed of their own dialect while being taught the standard one" (Harley, English Words: A Linguistic Introduction, 267). This prejudice applies to AAVE, as a sub-standard dialect to SE or more specifically, Standard American English (SAE).
A characteristic feature of AAVE that opposes the "proper" form of prescriptive grammar, is its usage of double negatives, as introduced in our class with the word ‘irregardless’. In this post I plan to point out the complexity of multiple negation and its close relation to the same linguistic prescriptive rules in other “developed languages”.
Whereas, in Black English: [S = X+Y+Z --> (-S) = (-X)+(-Y)+(-Z) [2]]. Although it is not grammatically acceptable to use a double negative in SE, there is double negation in other languages (e.g. Spanish, French, Portuguese, Persian, Russian, Ukrainian) that is meant to create emphasis in conversation, the second negatives are seen as reinforcing the first negative. AAVE grammar moves negative verbs like ain’t and can’t to the front of a sentence, “however, you can only move the verb to the front if the subject of the sentence is a negative quantifier like nobody or nothing” (Rickford and Rickford). Therefore, a subject like Julie or woman could not be considered negative quantifiers. If we replaced Julie or woman for nobody, the statement would lose its emphatic sassy punch at the beginning of the sentence.
I agree that certain dialects are unjustly considered inferior or “simple” compared to Standard English. I think that dialects like African American Vernacular English should receive more linguistic merit because many people use AAVE intelligibly in everyday conversation and follow a common set of grammatical rules. On a similar tangent, Hawaiian Pidgin English (also known as Hawaiian Creole English) is considered a creole language and dialect in Hawaii although it does not follow some Standard English prescriptive rules. The dialect developed in the sugarcane fields when immigrant workers from many different countries had to find a way to communicate with each other and with English speakers. The result was pidgin, a sort of mixture of vocabulary and grammar structures from the different languages. For example, using a Hawaiian structure that involves the absence of a verb “to be.” If a pidgin speaker wants to say “The baby is cute,” They could say, “Da behbeh cute” or “Cute, da behbeh.” There is even a pidgin translation of the New Testament called Da Jesus Book. I’m not kidding. More examples of grammatical differences between Standard English and pidgin can be found at this source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_Pidgin#Grammatical_features
ReplyDeleteOne of the first thoughts I had about this post was related to the same idea of Austyn's about how Hawaiian Creole English is a sort of smorgasbord of languages and grammatical concepts. My initial thought was on a similar vein talking about the legitimacy of such a language as a way to support considering AAVE as a dialect of English given its similarity to other language structures.
ReplyDeleteYet, while considering this argument I was left with a more complex societal question that I think is also worth considering. That question being: When does a language stop being an "inferior" version of a language or some sort of "limited" version of a language? What are the criteria that we use to declare a style of language a dialect or even a completely new language?
The more I think about this question I wonder how we even decide the gradient difference between languages. For instance Italian and Spanish are both romance languages and share many similarities, yet they are different languages. While German and Chinese are vastly different yet, they are different languages just as Spanish and Italian are. How do we as linguists draw the line differentiating different styles of speech and language?
The intricacy of AAVE is fascinating - the idea that it would be considered an "inferior" language makes me think of pompous, flowery old guys who are too attached to a time long gone and misunderstood.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting aspects of language can always be how much different groups will meld it into their own culture.
AAVE reminds of hinglish, and as mentioned above, other pidgin languages.
Keep it up Avery!
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ReplyDeleteI remember Prof. Sumner's hypothesis that, if she were to ask people whether or not a sentence was grammatically acceptable, she would encounter higher standards for acceptability if the sentence were written down rather than uttered orally. She proposed that having something in writing makes it, in a sense, official such that it is viewed more stringently. I wonder, then, if AAVE's grammar is not viewed as a "real" grammar because it is entirely oral and not codified in writing. By implication, then, it would seem that codifying AAVE's grammatical rules in writing for non-AAVE speakers would help them see that AAVE does indeed have a systematic grammar rather than being a systematic misuse of Standard English. More generally, it seems that writing down the implicit rules for any oral dialect that's perceived as "sub-standard" would standardize it such that others can see its legitimacy.
ReplyDeleteNicolo's point reminds me of something my PWR 2 professor said (one of the few times I may ever in my life quote PWR 2) - language in spoken presentations needs to be easier to understand and simpler than a written overview of the same topic. When speaking, we don't want to ask someone to repeat something they've said, but, in writing, you're often encouraged to go back and read something twice. Once, I had a tutor I supervise try to use the word "imperative" when talking to a six year old. That's an example of a word that you'll likely only know what it means if you've been taught to know what it means.
ReplyDeleteI think, for some of these dialects, there was just more of a culture of oral tradition rather than written. Because of this, they spoke in ways that were easy to understand orally. Rather than inferior, these dialects need to be viewed more as just that: dialects. While code switching and talking in a different manner in different contexts is important to learn, these dialects aren't less valuable than "proper English". They changed because they were used in different contexts by different people for different reasons. And there's nothing wrong with that.
I think Nicolo’s point is interesting. I agree that codifying the prescriptive rules behind AAVE might help to convince more skeptical English speakers to view AAVE as just as “correct” or “legitimate” as Standard American English. Prescriptively writing out the implicit rules of dialects perceived as “sub-standard” might lend those dialects more authority than they are currently given. But at the same time, I think that any attempt to prescriptively write out the rules behind a dialect will inevitably overlook variations present in the spoken dialect, and will not account for the fact that the dialect exists in constant flux. And in this way, attempts at written codifications of dialects such as AAVE might perpetuate the very problem which they attempt to thwart; codification could easily be taken too far – it could be seen as to rigid a set of prescriptive grammatical rules, and any variations which inevitably occur as time passes might be termed ‘wrong,’ because they don’t conform exactly to the codified prescriptive rules.
ReplyDelete