Linguistics "Understanding African-American English"

[Envy]

Actually, grammar is pretty unimportant for anything but polished/refined conversation. When learning a new language it's most important to focus on vocabulary first, so that you can make yourself understood on some level. Once you've gotten some vocab down you can start learning the grammar. And in the case of Pidgins, people manage to make themselves understood without a formal grammar.

Try writing a formal resume or letter without proper grammar.

Again, feel free to play the victim. And I'm not sure that the distinction between 'to lose' and 'loser' is important here. The issue is that you're categorically calling a group of people 'losers' (or comparing them to losers, whatever) on the basis of a linguistic difference.

There is a large difference, in this context.

 

[Skylark]

The thing that really annoys me about the insistence on learning standardized language forms to better one's economic or social standing is it tends to assume that of course everyone would want a higher economic or social standing than that which they can achieve through nonstandardized language. It seems to be a case of the rich and middle class folks telling the poor folks "We know what's best for you; you're too stupid to figure out what you want." While it may be true that more-standardized-language is a prerequisite for many types of socioeconomic improvement, I would hesitate to tell someone that OF COURSE they must want more than what they have now. If they decide for themselves they want such socioeconomic improvement, resources should be available to them. The true tragedy is when the resources aren't.

 

[K-II]

The thing that really annoys me about the insistence on learning standardized language forms to better one's economic or social standing is it tends to assume that of course everyone would want a higher economic or social standing than that which they can achieve through nonstandardized language. It seems to be a case of the rich and middle class folks telling the poor folks "We know what's best for you; you're too stupid to figure out what you want." While it may be true that more-standardized-language is a prerequisite for many types of socioeconomic improvement, I would hesitate to tell someone that OF COURSE they must want more than what they have now. If they decide for themselves they want such socioeconomic improvement, resources should be available to them. The true tragedy is when the resources aren't.

That may or may not be true, but aren't people supposedly better at learning other languages when they're younger anyway? I think it would make sense to include the standard along with whatever else they're taught, and then later on if they never feel the need to pursue it any further, fine. But if they do, they'd be better off at it than if they were starting from the very beginning.

 

[Skylark]

That may or may not be true, but aren't people supposedly better at learning other languages when they're younger anyway? I think it would make sense to include the standard along with whatever else they're taught, and then later on if they never feel the need to pursue it any further, fine. But if they do, they'd be better off at it than if they were starting from the very beginning.

Oh, I'm all for teaching standardized languages in schools, but not necessarily exclusively. School should be for teaching the skills people need to advance themselves socioeconomically. In some areas, it may benefit the people of an area to not just know the standard tongue but also a variant or two. Although English is dominant in the US, it benefits me in my job that I also know Spanish. I've also picked up on a fair amount of the local AAVE through this job, where many of my clients speak it.

Also, not everywhere has compulsory education. Then it really is much more up to the individual how much they want to educate themselves.

 

[Spang]

Found a combination of words on Tumblr that I thought was interesting, in response to this:

Contractions function almost identically to the full two-word phrase, but are only appropriate in some places in a sentence. It’s one of the weird quirks of this language we’ve.

The combination of words:

Totally unrelated linguistics fun fact: in AAVE (African American Vernacular English) has some different syntactic functions than SAE (Standard American English) one of which is copular deletion, copula is basically a word that kinda “ties” the sentence together, so in SAE a sentence would be

The sky is blue

But a speaker of AAVE would instead say

The sky blue

This is a deliberate move, which is in line with correct AAVE syntactic rules, of course for years in our racist cesspool of a country things like this were always corrected by grammer school teachers cause it was considered incorrect or even “lazy” but the deleting that word isn’t just being lazy, it is actually an entire different tense that SAE does not have. The copular “be” in AAVE is then added to sentences to show a habitual thing, so the difference in AAVE in these two sentences show very different meaning:

John working

John be working

The first sentence means that John is at work right now, at this time, working. The second sentence implies something John will be doing throughout time, in this case John is gainfully employed and is enjoying a job that will continue in the future.

NOW, the reason I bring all this up is in contractions in English, we have specific syntactic rules on when we can contract some words or not, such as the purposeful error at the end of OP’s post, the “we’ve” violates our contraction rules in English, and therefore sounds both wrong and meaningless, to me the end of the sentence made my brain spin around and re-read the sentence just to make sure I had it right, that’s because we expect people to use contractions only in certain environments.

So, with that in mind, when a speaker of AAVE deletes the copula such as “the sky blue” that’s also the syntactic environment when in SAE we are allowed to make a contraction:

“the sky’s blue”

And I just kinda love that, I don’t know why, it tickles my brain that we have that specific place to do that in different vernaculars of English but they show such important meaning and are rules that are very important to follow or the listener will not make sense of what’s being said.

 

[FortyTwo]

Even taking any and all racial context away from this discussion: language is constantly evolving. Even the stuffiest and most standard-English-adhering of us speak today would be indecipherable to someone from two hundred years ago anywhere in the world. Trying to enforce some universal standard version of a language is a battle you're going to lose.

I used to be very particular about these things. I would call people out on any kind of 'incorrect' grammar usage. But as I came to the realization that language is always changing, and that our culture is actually better for this (we are constantly running into new concepts and shifting our understanding of old ones, so new words and remixed words improve our ability to communicate), I ended up with a rule that I think everyone should follow if they want to be a decent person: unless someone asks you to, never correct them or act uppity about their use of language unless you legitimately cannot understand what they're saying. If they say "sherbert" instead of "sherbet" or they say something like "irregardless," they might be bending the supposed rules, but you know very well what they're saying. Same with people of different dialects - unless you legitimately cannot understand what someone is saying after a moment of processing, then you really have no need to 'correct' someone.

I've found that this has massively improved my attitude about language and even has helped me grow as a writer.

Anyway, looking down on people for having different dialects, even ones you can't easily decipher, is insensitive as hell, and looking down on someone for having a racially-associated dialect is textbook racism.

 

[Second Summer]

I used to be very particular about these things. I would call people out on any kind of 'incorrect' grammar usage. But as I came to the realization that language is always changing, and that our culture is actually better for this (we are constantly running into new concepts and shifting our understanding of old ones, so new words and remixed words improve our ability to communicate), I ended up with a rule that I think everyone should follow if they want to be a decent person: unless someone asks you to, never correct them or act uppity about their use of language unless you legitimately cannot understand what they're saying. If they say "sherbert" instead of "sherbet" or they say something like "irregardless," they might be bending the supposed rules, but you know very well what they're saying. Same with people of different dialects - unless you legitimately cannot understand what someone is saying after a moment of processing, then you really have no need to 'correct' someone.

Indeed. And not only can it improve our ability to communicate, it can also improve our ability to think as we usually think in a certain language. However, if changing the language "rules" can improve communication and thinking, then logically, can it also not degrade communication and thinking? Would we be worse off if we adapted certain new language concepts?

I don't correct anyone's language unless it's someone like my daughter who is still learning the language (and even then I only occasionally correct mistakes). For example, she invented the contraction "amn't", i.e. I "am not", and we didn't correct that because we thought it was novel and logical.

Also:
Bushism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Spang]

I only correct spelling/grammar if I know the person is an "English only" type.

I'm probably still in the wrong.

 

[FortyTwo]

I only correct spelling/grammar if I know the person is an "English only" type.

I'm probably still in the wrong.

I consider that totally legitimate. I mean, if they're going to hold everyone else up to their standard, they should be held up to it as well.

 

[FortyTwo]

Indeed. And not only can it improve our ability to communicate, it can also improve our ability to think as we usually think in a certain language. However, if changing the language "rules" can improve communication and thinking, then logically, can it also not degrade communication and thinking? Would we be worse off if we adapted certain new language concepts?

Theoretically, yes. Usually, though, we tend only toward what makes communication quicker and easier while still retaining its expressiveness, so it goes uphill without going down. That's how it feels to me, anyway. Sort of a diminishing returns kind of thing. Maybe linguistically I'm wrong.

This applies so much to internet speak as well. Teens who grew up with the internet (like me!) have such a peculiar way of speaking that goes so far beyond how most adults conceive of it. Capitalization, punctuation, and grammar are toyed with in ways that are, in terms of Standard English, totally and completely wrong, but which make perfect sense in context if you're familiar with it. That's why older adults' portrayals of teenagers in film and television are sometimes hilariously cringey - hardly ever will someone text someone else saying "R u coming over 2 my place l8r??" Adults (when I say 'adult' I mean 'someone who was an adult or older teenager when the internet got big') seem to think it's just a substitution game, where lazy millennials insert shorter versions of words into a sentence and use extra punctuation, but it's really not. It is its own dialect with its own rules. For example, in case this sounds even vaguely interesting to anyone (it's FASCINATING to me), capitalizing a word or a string of words mid-sentence emphasizes them, usually in a sarcastic way, or in a way that's meant to embody bossiness or being overbearing. Like:

"my dad is so rude he thinks he's the Big Boss of The Whole House and it's pissing me off"

Also, punctuation is modified to provide varying degrees of seriousness or flippancy. If you say "dude I hate you" to one of your friends, they know you're being facetious and joking with them. If you say "dude, I hate you." then you're actually telling that person you hate them.

Really interesting stuff, imo.

I don't correct anyone's language unless it's someone like my daughter who is still learning the language (and even then I only occasionally correct mistakes). For example, she invented the contraction "amn't", i.e. I "am not", and we didn't correct that because we thought it was novel and logical.

Ain't!

Also:
Bushism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some of those I legitimately could not tell what he meant...

 

[Second Summer]

Theoretically, yes. Usually, though, we tend only toward what makes communication quicker and easier while still retaining its expressiveness, so it goes uphill without going down. That's how it feels to me, anyway. Sort of a diminishing returns kind of thing. Maybe linguistically I'm wrong.

I'm not sure that is necessarily how language evolves. Just look at all the smaller languages that are dieing (dying?) out. I don't believe this is necessarily happening because they're not as good / expressive as the bigger languages that are taking over. It seems more likely it's happening because of social / political / economic reasons in the wake of the ongoing globalization.

Ain't!

Yes, but that doesn't seem very logical! (And not something you'll hear over here from a British person.)

 

[FortyTwo]

I'm not sure that is necessarily how language evolves. Just look at all the smaller languages that are dieing (dying?) out. I don't believe this is necessarily happening because they're not as good / expressive as the bigger languages that are taking over. It seems more likely it's happening because of social / political / economic reasons in the wake of the ongoing globalization.

Oh, no, that's definitely true. Language death is a serious thing. Every culture should be able to preserve its language(s).

Yes, but that doesn't seem very logical! (And not something you'll hear over here from a British person.)

Perhaps. Seems exactly as logical or illogical as amn't though.