re Re: re Re: re Re: SLSL language

[calbert at hslboxmaster.com]

> Malign:
> >In any case it has nothing to do with whether Black
> >children are served by being schooled that mangled
> >grammar and aberrant spellings are okay for them,
> >less
> >they feel disrespected.

Pynchonoid:

> "Mangled" and "aberrant" sez who? 

Says a broadly accepted standard of usage.
Language is, after all, a means of communication.
English, though nominally the most expansive language in 
common usage, offers less room for error than languages which 
rely on more rigid grammatical structures. Consider how objects 
and  subjects qualify both verbs and adjectives in a manner more 
directly "cross referential" in most european languages, depending 
on their reliance on hellenic and latinate systems. The "nuance" 
which distinguishes english, relies to a great extent on a notion of 
"broadly accepted usage"...all  without a lingui-fascist construct 
like the Academie Francais.....
 
> Since Malign seems to suffer some of the same
> misapprehensions re "Ebonics" as "Morris", Malign
> might benefit from carefully reading davemarc's posts
> in this thread, as well as exploring the subject more
> deeply in the links provided. Your ignorance is really
> showing in this case, fellas. 

Sign me up for that march......This debate is really about where 
different people see the problem  MANIFESTING.......It is not to  
deny the legitimacy or aesthetic qualities  of argots or dialects to 
argue that the "public" educational process is not responsible for 
nurturing it. Though education may be said to have any number of
redeeming outcomes, surely LEARNING must be  privileged - 
otherwise the process is something else....and LEARNING  is not 
served by maintaining the "prejudices" of ignorance - not meant in 
any negative sense, but in the absolute one.....The sting of being 
corrected in class cannot possibly compare to that of being 
rendered handicapped in a job market.....

 Not to mention your
> prejudices -- "mangled" and "aberrant"?
  Harsh words
> for the grammar that informs so much beautiful
> American literature! What a hateful asshole you are.

Back off......I love argots  of all  kinds - one cannot long study 
languages without recognizing the elements which make such a 
matter of fascination.....But I would no sooner recommend that the 
argot of South Central L.A, become a standard for that school 
system, than I would the use  of that of the cons of the 1930s 
(which anyone who has read The Big Con can tell you is redolent 
with charm) in Long Island City......


> 
> jbor's on the right track here:
> >Language
> >and culture are inseparable. Wiping out a language is
> >one of the 
> >strategies
> >of genocide and imperialism.

But I think a language can also be "wiped  out" by the kind of 
inattention that you promote. How would we deal  with ancient 
languages without grammatical keys? WHat use would such be  if 
grammar was so fluid as to render  it largely irrelevant?

This debate  also overlooks one  of the very functions of argot, 
which is EXCLUSION. Those who employ it are  specifically 
looking to confirm a bond which is NOT universal,  but local.
Even ebonics will evidence the same need. Its users discriminate 
among its varieties in very much the same way we do with dialects, 
and those whose usage  is either inappropriate or  dated will  suffer 
a  stigma  closely related to that suffered by the kid in school who 
keeps saying  "axed" for "asked".
 
> I believe a careful reader can find more than a few
> traces of this tragic reality in Pynchon's writing.  

but the very fact that we  can mourn lost versions MUST argue for  
the "temporary" quality of languages which are not subject to 
"formalities".......and I don't ever get the sense that Pynchon would 
argue for their  maintenance to the "degradation" of a language 
which he clearly REVERES....

love,
cfa



> -Doug
> 
> 
> 
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