NP Proposition 227 (was Re: NP Ebonics)

[Abdiel OAbdiel]

--- davemarc <davemarc at panix.com> wrote:
> 
> Which brings me to the former remark, about the
> persistence of many folk beliefs about linguistics
(including folk beliefs that relate to this
> "controversy").  I take no issue with that.  Part of
> the problem is that linguists and educators haven't
made themselves understood as well as
> they could, but another major factor is the
resistance of many non-linguists to facts and
> sound linguistic reasoning even when the information
> is spoon-fed to them.
> 
> d.


Ultimately, many of these issues are political ones.
Linguistics simply can not provide an answer to some
of the  questions. For example, the question whether
Ebonics (AKA Black Talk, African American Vernacular
English, Blacks Language) is a language or a dialect
is not one that can be definitely answered by
linguistics. 

For those that prefer googled citations to an honest
and open debate: 

Handout for LING 540 LANGUAGE POLICY

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/540/bilingtl/bilingtl.html

 "A language is a dialect with an army and a navy." 

-Max Weinreich

The political reasons to insist on the term "language
rather than "dialect" are many. One reason is that the
term "dialect" (perfectly acceptable and respectable
among linguists) has gotten a bad rap in the press and
among the public and is usually used in a pejorative
sense. Because of the negative public view of anything
called a "dialect," some linguists use the term
"variety." 

More importantly, the speech of African Americans is
so fundamnetally different, in so many ways, from the
speech of other Americans that even if one insists on
the  pejorative "dialect," one must concede that it is
dramatically different from any other "dialect"  of
American speech. This fact has been recognized by
linguists and scholars or language. Moreover, studies
of the grammar, the deep structure, have identified
profound grammatical differences. Some of these
patterns of grammar have been traced to the influence
of African languages.  The anti-Ebonics crusade
ignores, denegrates, dismisses, these fundamental
differences. One of the reaons the public has been
fooled is that these linguistically profound
differences are often quite subtle.  There are
critical distinctions that distinguish the
linguistically competent Ebonics speaker from
wannabes. 

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