re Re: re Re: re Re: re Re: SLSL language

[pynchonoid]

What a pleasure to find myself on the same side of
this discussion with jbor!

-Doug


>Date:	Sun, 16 Mar 2003 09:17:59 +1000
>Subject:	Re: re Re: re Re: re Re: SLSL language
>From:	"jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com> 

>on 16/3/03 7:18 AM, calbert at hslboxmaster.com wrote:

>>> "Mangled" and "aberrant" sez who?
>> 
>>> Says a broadly accepted standard of usage.
>> Language is, after all, a means of communication.

>So your argument is that the users of African
>American English don't
>understand one another? Or that it isn't a broadly
>accepted standard of
>usage within their community? Please.

>I don't think anyone here has advocated that Ebonics
>be taught in place 
>of
>"standard" American English, only that it be
>recognised and 
>acknowledged as
>a legitimate mode of cultural expression. I think the
>real sticking 
>point
>for some is the suppressed realisation that Ebonics
>is a subversion of
>"standard" American English, rather than a marker of
>social and 
>cultural
>inferiority. To be able to manipulate and flout the
>"rules" of a 
>language
>(often in such a way to point up inconsistencies and
>illogical
>preconceptions within those "rules", and to purposely
>and successfully
voffend speakers of the dominant "argot") requires a
>pretty solid
>understanding of the base language. Of course, for
>subsequent 
>generations of
>speakers that knowledge of the base language
>gradually disappears, 
vbecause
>the new code does function perfectly well on its own
>and the kids are
>immersed in it on a daily basis. Thus the children
>aren't able to 
>switch
>back to the alternate code when it's appropriate to
>do so for the 
>discourse
>context, and this is where the problems arise in
>education, employment 
>etc.

>It's quite possible that the distance between the two
>codes will 
>continue to
>grow, perhaps to a point where they become mutually
>incomprehensible. 
>In
>fact, this is precisely how languages do develop.

>> 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.....

>This is rubbish. Language is merely a medium of
>communication and
>instruction. The same conceptual knowledge and skills
>can be conveyed 
>and
>learnt via Ebonics as via English. Or Spanish. Or
>Windigo. Or any 
>language.
>African-Americans (who can't switch to the dominant
>language code) are
>disadvantaged in the job market in the same way that
>newly-arrived 
>migrants
>and refugees are. If Bojan or Lakshmi were surgeons
>or engineers back 
>in
>Bosnia or Sri Lanka the fact that they don't speak
>English doesn't make 
>them
>any less of a surgeon or engineer.

>It's exactly the same for African-American children
>as it is for a 
>second-
>or third-generation American child who grows up in
>Little Italy and 
>speaks
>only Italian at home and in her or his wider
>community until he or she
>starts school, and who continues to speak only
>Italian in those 
>contexts.

>> This debate  also overlooks one  of the very
functions of argot,
>> which is EXCLUSION.

>Of course one of the motivations behind the use of
>Ebonics is 
>exclusion.
>It's a form of protest.

>> Those who employ it are  specifically
>> looking to confirm a bond which is NOT universal.

>English isn't "universal". Get over yourself.

>best



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