re Re: re Re: re Re: SLSL language

[jbor]

>> But on this point,
>> so-called "standard" American English is not standard across white
>> communities spanning the U.S. either, and it varies in the same ways
>> (pronunciation, word stress, sentence intonation, vocab. etc), and
>> probably to as great a degree, as African American English does. As
>> far as I can see in this argument, the only real difference is the
>> colour of the skin of the people doing the speaking.

on 19/3/03 4:05 AM, calbert at hslboxmaster.com wrote:

> Crap..........the issue is not the "authenticity" of the language
> spoken by any one group, it is whether or not it is appropriate to
> "break out" certain demographic groups from the "mainstream"
> educational process, and treat  their  travails to master the
> dominant language of the society and economy in which they will
> be competing with some kind of other educational  paradigm....this
> is not an issue of "race" or "relative superiority of cultures" - the kid
> in Woonsocket, R. I.  (one of the few hard core french speaking
> pockets of the nation) faces the same "trauma".....

You do keep flogging away at this straw man, dontcha just. The methods
needed to teach students from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds
to use and understand the range of "standard" varieties of spoken and
written English are different, and they need to take into account students'
home languages.

>> This is the argument that it is an "inferior" medium of communication.
> 
> No, it is a type of "communication" which enjoys the same roots in
> "functionality" but suffers from an absence of the "uniformity" which
> facilitates such a  functionality across time......because the
> PURPOSE of such "coded" langauge, as we have agreed, is - on
> occasion, exclusion.....

And one purpose of the language used by lawyers, say, or any other
professional clique, isn't? Lawyerspeak amongst lawyers is perfectly
functional. So is African-American English amongst its speakers. As I've
said before, all languages change over time, both subtly within the space of
a generation and more dramatically over much longer periods. Your attempt to
discriminate against African-American English on this criterion doesn't hold
water either.

> I can learn  greek and latin by employing the
> grammatical stanards which have survived for millenia, and then
> proceed to read the works those cultures generated. (Given that
> these languages were  also modified by various users, there will be
> exceptions - of course)..........The same  tools make church
> slavonic available  to those with the energy......
 
It's the difference between a dead and a living language. The Latin you can
learn is frozen in time, and people nowadays don't "speak" Latin as a means
of communication at all. For a start, they wouldn't know how to.

> My experience in environments where African Americans have
> come together from different parts of the country suggests
> otherwise........In prep school, the ABC kids from the deep south
> weren't distinguished from their urban  counterparts by virtue of
> much more than language......TO argue that there is no
> differentiation is like arguing that african american culture is
> monolothic.......

I'm not arguing that at all. You're the one trying to say that (the
predominantly white) "standard" American English (and culture?) is
monolithic, which is what you claim distinguishes it from the way
African-American English is used. It's simply not true.

> I have not 
> loaded the terms "argot" or "dialect", I use those words to
> distinguish that we are, in fact, dealing with a subset of a larger
> entity.....

Come off it. You adopted the term "argot" to diminish the status of
African-American English and to contrast it with some "standard" American
English. African-American English is a legitimate variety of English like
any other. There is no centre, no "larger entity" in your terms. This
"standard" English is an ideologically-motivated idealisation.

> When I was 11, I spoke Swedish AND German MUCH
> better than I spoke  English - so why do you keep wanting to insist
> that my feelings for  english are the result of some kind of blind
> conditioning? 

Wha?! You're reading a helluva lot more into my posts than I'm putting there
bud.

> So people cannot CHOOSE to assimilate to a functional level
> without "surrendering" their identities?

Choice implies a valid alternative. Is there one?

> I make  NO COMMENT
> WHATSOEVER as to the "value" of  another culture and  language -
> I reject as a  premise that such consideration is either practical,
> OR productive in the  public educational environment.....It bothers
> me not a  whit if a functional graduate chooses to turn his/her back
> to the "system" - it eats me alive to think that so many don't have
> the choice........

But you've been arguing that it's the fault of the language, the way the
people communicate with one another, their culture, that this lack of
opportunity persists. It must be very reassuring for you to be able to throw
the blame back onto the victims like that.

best