African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

http://www.stanford.edu/~zwicky/aave-is-not-se-with-mistakes.pdf

by fogus • 17 years ago

46 71 17 years ago

tokenadult• 17 years ago

Yes, and General American standard English is not the Queen's English with mistakes either. This information should be well known to anyone who has taken even one linguistics course, but it does still come up as a misconception to be argued against, as the interesting submitted article does. Similarly, English as spoken in India is not a variety of British English with mistakes, nor is standard Australian English any better or worse than standard English in Britain or in the United States.

wheels4• 17 years ago

The gramatical differences between "high" forms of British and American English are comparatively small. Certainly the dialectal variations within each country are further departures than standard American English is from standard British English. In each the differences are more of preference and still usually considered correct in the other.

A more apt example would be Swiss and high German, which are (aside from the fact that Swiss Germans are also fluent in high German) mutually incomprehensible. To a high German speaker, Swiss German sounds decidedly silly and has moderately different grammar. However since there's no conflation of social class with the Swiss German dialect, the comparison of Swiss and high German is much less politicized than AAVE and standard American English.

Austrian German, on the other hand, is virtually identical to standard high German grammatically – it just sounds funny and has a few regionalisms in its vocabulary: kind of like the difference between American and British English.

mkelly• 17 years ago

Linguistically, there's no agreed-upon rule for what makes a "dialect"[1]. What I heard from Linguistics people is that they're all just separate languages, some with and some without a written form.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialect#.22Dialect.22_or_.22lan...

ZeroGravitas2• 17 years ago

I heard recently that Arnie offered to do the voice for the Terminator in the German dub of the film of the same name. They said no because his accent made the killer robot sound like a farmer or country bumpkin to German ears.

lionhearted• 17 years ago

I'm kind of casually fascinated with language, so when I came across a few papers on AAVE, I dug in and read both viewpoints.

It's a long debate, but the most interesting thing that this particular Standford piece didn't mention - this style of English evolved from poor, white Southern farmers in the U.S. You wonder how different the debate would be if it was about Southern/poorer English instead of Northern/wealthier. There'd be different allies and opponents on both sides, different arguments, and so on.

It's not hard to imagine some of the people most fiercely mocking AAVE would be its biggest champions, and some of its supports would be its largest detractors. Presenting the argument as a black/white thing makes it very different than presenting it as a geographical thing, or a rich/poor thing, or a formally educated/not thing, or an industrial/agricultural thing.

wheels4• 17 years ago

One really odd observation that struck me when spending some time in southern Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana) a couple years back: "AAVE" has had a significant influence on the English of southern Africans and other elements of black American culture are prevalent as well: hip-hop, basketball and, even, somewhat comically, fried chicken.

It really got my attention just after arriving when the brother of the bride to be, whose wedding I was there for, said while getting in his car, "Let's bounce."

Were I a sociologist I think studying the flow of culture from black Americans to southern Africans and trying to separate out the distinctively African elements of black American culture vs. the distinctive black American elements of southern African culture would be fascinating.

kscaldef2• 17 years ago

"bounce" is slang. There's nothing syntactically distinct in that sentence from Standard English, which is the discussion of the article.

mahmud• 17 years ago

African American culture is decimating African culture, IMO. I am from East Africa and these days it's rare to find any of our old art forms. As far back as the 70s, we had Reggae replace most of the indigenous pop music, and these days the reggae is giving way to hiphop.

pg4• 17 years ago

The argument here is in effect that no vernacular variant of any language could possibly embody a mistake. Which is true for some definitions of mistake, and false for others.

The problem with the definitions that make it true is that there's a slippery slope from dialects to idiolects. How many people have to speak a dialect for it to count as a dialect? You can't have any threshold, or you get weird consequences in hypothetical cases, like all the speakers of a dialect dying off except one. So if you decide that no vernacular can embody mistakes, you're bound to conclude that nothing any individual does can be a mistake, so long as they do it consistently.

stcredzero3• 17 years ago

You can't have any threshold, or you get weird consequences in hypothetical cases, like all the speakers of a dialect dying off except one. So if you decide that no vernacular can embody mistakes, you're bound to conclude that nothing any individual does can be a mistake, so long as they do it consistently.

But lots of disciplines involving living things have problems like this. You can't "define" species. A species is a historical happenstance, which can only be precisely defined in retrospect with minute information we usually never have access to. You can spend all day coming up with corner cases and boundary conditions where any such attempt breaks down. But that's like deciding if a particular boulder in Panama is a North American one or a South American one. Just because those terms break down in boundary cases and are not like mathematics doesn't mean those terms aren't useful.

Things pertaining to human beings and culture are even more prone to this.

In the case of African American vernacular, there are sizable populations with high degrees of consistency in their patterns of speech. Quite far away from boundary conditions.

Another thing I've noted, since dating an African American woman and attending family gatherings with her, is that the manners and rules of social conduct of rural African Americans are more complex than I am accustomed to. When I am with her family, I have to think about how I'm going to excuse myself and navigate leaving a room. Otherwise, I never think about this. I reflected on this, and realized that it reminded me of watching Masterpiece Theater as a child. I'm probably witnessing throwbacks to French and English culture from centuries ago, still rippling though rural Louisiana.

Homo Sapiens are complex -- period. Even many so-called "country bumpkins."

jacobolus• 17 years ago

> manners and rules of social conduct of rural African Americans are more complex than I am accustomed to

Is that increased complexity, or merely lack of familiarity? I imagine someone coming to a large gathering of your family would also feel like there were new subtle rules to learn, etc.

I know that I have to think more about myself when I'm stuck in an unfamiliar social setting than in one I've spent lots of time in.

pg4• 17 years ago

I don't disagree with anything that you say here, and yet you seem to be disagreeing with me, which is odd.

You seem to think I'm naively making some argument that depends on the words breaking down at boundary conditions. Actually I'm not. I believe a language spoken by just two people (or even one) is just as real a language as one spoken by millions-- that the difference in the way they're treated is a matter of politics, not the intrinsic qualities of the language.

algorias• 17 years ago

"you're bound to conclude that nothing any individual does can be a mistake, so long as they do it consistently."

This is exactly how languages evolve over time, actually. A group of individuals makes changes ("mistakes"), and is consistent in the usage of the new ("mistaken") forms over a given period of time.

If you didn't accept that, you'd be forced to conclude that we're all just very bad speakers of our modern languages' predecessors.

req2• 17 years ago

This is simply a problem with definitions, though. Whether mistake or habit, or language, dialect, or idiolect, what matters is the part that comes after. People still study the Akkadian language, despite its lack of speakers.

a-priori• 17 years ago

What this argument doesn't account for is that there are universal rules that underlie all human languages -- even so-called "idiolects". When languages mutate, as they do constantly, they do so only within these rules. I'm speaking here of X-bar theory, bare phrase structure, and so on.

In effect, we're hard-wired to process language, and so are constrained by the limits of that wiring. A mutation ("mistake") that violates these rules will not 'stick', because the resulting language would be unintelligible to humans.

aristus• 17 years ago

A standard joke about that: a dialect is an ideolect with a history and body of literature. A language is a dialect with an army and a navy. Language is an instrument of politics like any other.

Where my father grew up, the dominant language was not Spanish but Caló, which is generally (incorrectly, in my opinion) considered a degenerate form of Spanish. Later on he had to catch up a lot in order to be taken seriously in international business.

He also learned Brasilian Portuguese, which started out as a regathering of various dialects of Lisbon Portuguese. It is a defacto language, and may become be widely recognized as such, given the political weight behind it.

jfarmer5• 17 years ago

No linguist would ever call the way someone speaks a "mistake," in the same way that a purple swan isn't a mistake. It's something rare and worth studying!

_pius5• 17 years ago

The argument here is in effect that no vernacular variant of any language could possibly embody a mistake.

This is the very epitome of attacking a strawman. The article didn't come close to arguing that "no vernacular variant of any language could possibly embody a mistake."

As a matter of fact, the author specifically and painstakingly drew a distinction between what he considers simply mistake-based variants of languages (which do exist) and new language dialects with different, but well-specified grammars (of which he considers AAVE to be one).

pg4• 17 years ago

The author drew a distinction between making a grammatical mistakes, and a vernacular dialect. He didn't claim that there were some vernacular dialects that embodied mistakes and others that didn't. I can't imagine any linguist who would.

What I'm saying is that all vernaculars have consistently observed (surely you don't literally mean well-specified) grammatical rules. Their speakers couldn't understand one another otherwise. So if your definition of mistake = inconsistency, then (by definition) you'll never find a vernacular that embodies mistakes.

grandalf5• 17 years ago

pg: In linguistics a grammar is just a series of rules. "Proper English" is not a linguistic concept, it's a social concept.

If you were raised in a household and exposed to proper English input, your native language is proper English. You have accomplished nothing other than learning the language you were exposed to. Similarly, if you are born into a household that speaks Spanish or AAVE or Dutch (and are fed and otherwise not abused too significantly), you will learn one of those languages and become a fluent speaker without any conscious effort.

AAVE is no more "improper" Standard English than Spanish is improper Standard English.

Of course, if you're taking a course in school on Standard English and you choose to turn in a paper written in AAVE (or Spanish), you are likely not to get an A.

pg4• 17 years ago

Do you really believe I don't understand that human languages are just grammatical conventions their speakers observe?

If you think you disagree with me in some way, could you point out a sentence I wrote that you believe is false, and explain why it is?

xiaoma2• 17 years ago

I think the important point is the utility of language, not its "correctness". Regardless of the political issues involved, speaking the "standard" language or the prestige language is an asset in most circumstances.

Speaking Ebonics would make it harder for a doctor to win patient trust, harder for an interviewee to get a job, harder for a politician to win in most districts and even harder for a defendant to get a favorable judgment. Any teacher who ignores this fact does a disservice to the students.

wrs3• 17 years ago

Probably true, but irrelevant to the article, which is about how more effectively to teach Standard English by recognizing that some students start from a different dialect.

xiaoma2• 17 years ago

I don't think that's what the article was about at all. The article was essentially an attack on press coverage the author wasn't happy with. Its focus was more political than pedagogical.

From the article: "Yet opinion writers proceeded to fall upon the topic like starving dogs attacking a bone. They ridiculed, they sneered, they frothed, they flamed, they raged, they lived off the story for weeks."

This kind of language just doesn't show up in secondary education guides. It's clearly about demonizing the opposition.

elblanco2• 17 years ago

>Regardless of the political issues involved, speaking the "standard" language or the prestige language is an asset in most circumstances.

This is probably the best one line summary of the issue I've ever read.

jeromec7• 17 years ago

Regardless of the school board debating the potential validity of AAVE, I think it's misguided to experiment with asserting such "correctness" to teach kids that will grow up in a world that doesn't regard it as such. Save such philosophy for later academics, where the author/speaker can make a conscious choice of use - similar to the stylistic, but "incorrect", use of 'But' or 'And' to begin a sentence.

jfarmer5• 17 years ago

Why should dictionaries and grammar books be any more authoritative than the way people actually speak?

AAVE isn't correct or incorrect any more than gravity is correct or incorrect. They both exist; it's our job to study them.

Putting AAVE into a box labeled "incorrect English" is just a way to avoid the hard work of understanding our world.

And yes, the "academic" understanding of AAVE includes the sociolinguistic aspects denoting class, race, education, etc.

jeromec7• 17 years ago

> Why should dictionaries and grammar books be any more authoritative than the way people actually speak?

Simple, because of perception. Whether you like it or not perception matters. If I perceive your car as worth your selling price, a deal happens - doesn't mean my perception over yours is any more "correct". Same happens with stock prices, or hiring decisions. In other words, the things that matter in the day-to-day life in which we currently function include dictionaries and grammar books.

loup-vaillant4• 17 years ago

This is not philosophy at all. This is purely technical. The differences between AAVE and standard English (or should I say American?) are consistent. They are spoken by a lot of people. They follow precise rules (a grammar, actually). They're not erratic. So you can't call them "errors". The only other choice is to conclude that AAVE is a language —or a dialect.

Telling that to kids can only have good effects. First, it is telling them that they're not retarded —and neither are their parents. Second, it makes a clear separation between AAVE an standard English. They are two separate dialects, so, students should learn both. Third, if speaking standard English is "correcting errors", it may be percieved as a loss of Identity, "acting white" or whatever. If it is "speaking another language", this can't really be seen as such. For instance, I don't lose my French identity by writing English.

If the entire world sees AAVE as incorrectly spoken English without investigating furter, the entire world is simply mistaken. Kids should learn to correct the entire world's mistakes, not to do them.

jeromec7• 17 years ago

> Telling that to kids can only have good effects.

I disagree. I think the mistake you are making is the focus around what is or is not "error". It's not about that. My friend from Argentina constantly strives to improve his American English, rather than his AAVE, regardless of your insistence of the validity of AAVE. He now works in an office on the 17th floor where he hires people, and I knew him when he knew no English. Like it or not it does makes a difference.

kjhgftgyui4• 17 years ago

If they are consistent and understandable -

Rastafarian use of 'Me' for 'I' makes sense and is consistent.

Using 'bad' to mean 'good' probably isn't a good idea if you are an aircraft mechanic.

mattmaroon4• 17 years ago

This seems to make the ludicrous argument that because the mistakes are consistent they are not mistakes.

sethg• 17 years ago

If an African-American speaks African-American Vernacular English to his friend at the barbershop, it's probably not a mistake.

If an African-American speaks that dialect to a hiring manager in a job interview, it probably is.

(Obviously you can imagine exceptions in both cases.)

_pius5• 17 years ago

What is any dialect or derived language but a set of consistent mistakes with respect to the ancestor language?

A dialect that lacks prestige is no less a dialect for it — that was one of the points of the article.

mattmaroon4• 17 years ago

I was trying to point out that that is a bad way of framing it. To call it a dialect may be technically correct, if you're merely arguing semantics.

However to accept it as a legitimate dialect is another thing. If your child spoke that way you would constantly correct them, for their own good. It'd be much better for all involved to redefine "dialect" to not include something that devolved from another language via mistakes made by dumb rednecks who can't understand the concept of a double negative.

If we call that a dialect, then the very word "dialect" is broken.

DanielBMarkham• 17 years ago

Listened to a great series of lectures on the story of human language a while back: http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/CourseDescLong2.aspx?cid=1600

I learned two things that are equally true and somewhat self-contradictory. 1) Language is a continuum, not a rigid thing. There is no right or wrong language. If you are communicating you're doing it right. 2) Most all societies have a "high" language and a "low" language. Sometimes there are multiple layers. People who want to move in better circles learn to conform and work fluently in the "high" language.

The continuum question was especially interesting. Is Old French just bad Latin? Or is it a different language? What about those languages that have one spoken form and two written forms? The same language with different names because of political considerations? Lots of neat history and trivia here. I really enjoyed the series.

michaelcampbell• 17 years ago

Genuine question here; does AAVE have an accepted grammar? I don't mean necessarily a written canon, but anything that's not "make it up as you go" ad-hoc style. (And yes, I realize all language has some evolutionary context to it.)

Without rules, there's no way to break them, and thus no meaning for "mistake".

kscaldef2• 17 years ago

Yes, and that's the subject of TFA.

African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with Mistakes

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