re Re: SLSL language

[jbor]

on 18/3/03 11:34 PM, Malignd at malignd at yahoo.com wrote:

> The point, I think, that Charles is making is that, as
> a practical matter, teaching Ebonics, with all that
> entails--teachers, teacher training, texts, money--is
> greatly complicated by the fact that "Ebonics" is not
> the same thing from area to area, even from
> neighborhood to neighborhood.  (Of course one could
> standardize Ebonics and prescribe a grammar ...)

Yes, that was one of his subsequent claims. He'd previously tried to argue
that African-American English was not a legitimate means of communication,
however, which is demonstrably false. There doesn't seem to be much
continuity or logic to his arguments, but I'll address his most recent post
separately.

I don't agree that there is any significant difference between the regional
variations in African-American English and the regional variations in
so-called standard American English, or of any other language for that
matter. This issue of what is the "dominant" variety of a language depends
very much on where you situate your lens, as does the notion of what's
"standard" and what isn't.

But, again, the argument is not that African-American English should be
taught instead of the more white bread varieties of English which African
Americans and other language minority students need to master in order to be
able to compete in the labour marketplace, only that it should be recognised
as a legitimate means of communication - a true "home language" - which is
precisely what it is. Point is, culturally-inclusive programs already exist
in many places in the U.S., and did not so long ago in several others, and
these initiatives are and were cost-effective. Expenditure on successful
education programs actually results in manifold economic and social benefits
in the long-term. The economic rationalism argument is a crock as well.

Some pertinent quotes:

In the United States, the language of literacy is almost exclusively linked
to popular forms of liberal and right wing discourse that reduce it to
either a functional perspective tied to narrowly conceived economic
interests or to an ideology designed to initiate the poor, the
underprivileged, and minorities into the logic of a unitary, dominant
cultural tradition. In the first instance, the crisis in literacy is
predicated on the need to train more workers for occupational jobs that
demand "functional" reading and writing skills. The conservative political
interests that structure this position are evident in the influence of
corporate and other groups on schools to develop curricula more closely
attuned to the job market, curricula that will take on a decidedly
vocational orientation and in so doing reduce the need for corporations to
provide on-the-job training. In the second instance literacy becomes the
ideological vehicle through which to legitimate schooling as a site for
character development; in this case literacy is associated with the
transmission and mastery of a unitary Western tradition based on the virtues
of hard work, industry, respect for family, institutional authority, and an
unquestioning respect for the nation. In short, literacy becomes a pedagogy
of chauvinism dressed up in the lingo of the Great Books.

(Henry A. Giroux's 'Introduction'. In Paulo Freire and Donald Macedo. 1987.
_Literacy: Reading the Word and the World_ Massachussetts: Bergin & Garvey,
1987, pp. 2-3)

The successful usage of the students' cultural universe requires respect and
legitimation of students' discourses, that is, their own linguistic codes,
which are different but never inferior. Educators also have to respect and
understand students' dreams and expectations. In the case of black
Americans, for example, educators must respect black English. It is possible
to codify and decodify black English with the same ease as standard American
English. The difference is that black Americans will find it infinitely
easier to codify and decodify the dialect of their own authorship. The
legitimation of a black English as an educational tool does not, however,
preclude the need to acquire proficiency in the linguistic code of the
dominant group. 

(Paulo Freire. 'The Illiteracy of Literacy in U.S.' Ibid., p. 127)

best