Beginning

     
   

        Hello everyone! Before you start reading this blog, I want to introduce myself. 

        My name is Lucy Chen and I am an international student from China who has been studying in UWEC for almost one year.

       I hope you enjoyed the video I made in "You Tube" and thank you so much for browsing this website and showing your interests in African American culture and history. In this website I will mostly focus on the history, characteristics and current situation of African American Oral traditions.

       You may feel confused why as an international student I show great passion for African American Oral traditions. I think my interests about this amazing culture began with the civil rights pilgrimage trip during the spring break of 2012.If you want to know more about that trip, there is a link in the left hand of this websites. You can have a look and if you have the chance to take part in that trip, don’t hesitate to do that.

       During this trip, we visited plenty of African American museums.  After almost two months, I still remember that whenever there was a video about the speech “I have a dream,” in front of the screen, there would be a group of people standing still, watching carefully and nodding from time to time. Although Martin Luther King delivered the speech half a century ago, the speech is still extremely inspiring and impressive to all the members of that trip. 

      However, not only that, every time an African American speaker gave us a lecture, I was also surprised by their spectacular speaking talents. The memories of taking part in that African American church are still fresh and touching for me. Those beautiful songs, excited people and the atmosphere of the whole church make my heart tremble whenever I recall that scene. I could feel the power and energy through their words, their voices and their hearts. 

        I used to question the power of a word or a voice, but now because of what I saw during the civil rights trip, I have come to appreciate the power of speech of many African Americans. If their words have no power, how can President Obama’s speech be so persuasive? If their voices have no power, how can Jazz be so touching and impressive? If their voices have no power, how can young people be so crazy about Hip-hop and Rap music?

After reading learning about African Americans, I found that conspicuous oral traditions are found throughout African American history and their current life. Just like John Esling emphasizes in her article “Langue myth: Everyone has an accent except me,” everyone has an accent, and it is part our identities. I believe that African American accent is part of their religious and cultural identities. I believe that if you want to learn more bout this special group of people, you need to learn something about their oral traditions.

Later, I found myself constantly pondering about some questions like: why are African Americans good at persuasive speeches and emotional music? I have already seen the beauty and historical traditions of their language, but why some people still think African American English is an inferior language. Why are there are still so many debates about African American English going on just like school board debate in Oakland, California, which passed a controversial resolution recognizing the legitimacy of "Ebonics"? Are these phenomenon related to the social and economic status of African Americans?

From the beginning, I was full of confusion and questions about their oral traditions but because of my exploration I found that as a person who was not familiar with the situation of American Americans, I should start with some background knowledge about African American history and American society. In the next blog article, we will learn some basic knowledge about African American history and continue our exploratory study in this topic.

Here are some links about African American oral traditions. 

I hope these videos can make you think more about some examples of great African American oral traditions. There are also some links of the websites in the left hand of this web page, which relate to African American culture and history. You can check it out and learn more about this topic.

•  I Have A Dream speech 

• Harlem Gospel Choir- Amazing grace 

• Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - Moanin

• Barack Obama

             

History - preview

I hope this short video can help you learn more about African American history, especially the history and stories during civil rights. 

 Before I read some articles about the African American history, the image of their history for me is only their tragedy life during the slavering time. However, after gaining some history background, I find the civil rights movement also plays a vital role in building African Americans' identities. 

During my reading I find the talents music and speech gifts of African Americans emerge from the ancient time of Africa and developed dramatically during the modern times in America. 

Although I start thinking the connections between African American history and their oral traditions, I find it is hard to have any process. Thus I start searching article related to this field of study.Occasionally I read an interesting article: “Word! The African American Oral tradition and its Rhetorical Impact on American Popular Culture.” This article is written by Janice Hamlet, an associate professor of Communication at Northern Illinois University who teaches rhetorical theory and criticism and culture and communication.

           Interestingly, the style of this article is different from other academic sources I found. It is an introduction article for her African American oral traditions courses to the secondary school teachers. In order to make the courses more attractive to the readers, Janice makes her article more reader-friendly and interesting than other academic articles. Janice utilizes her knowledge about African American history and her comprehension of popular culture to attract people's attention and raise their interests of African American oral traditions.

Although the key word “African American History” does not show up in the title of this article, the discussions about the relationships between oral traditions and African American history occupy the majority space of her article. She mentions that the oral tradition plays a critical role in African American culture.These dramatic impacts began with African s’ pre-slavery existence, highly developed during the slavery times, and it still has tremendous influences on African Americans’ current life.

 During the ancient times, spoken power is part of the Africans’ traditional beliefs. “All activities of men and all the movement in nature rest on the productive of the word”. Africans believed in “Nommo,” which represents the power of spoken words. For example, in traditional African American culture, the new born babies are treated like things until their father give them names and speak the names out. 

Lacking writing systems and other recording methods, the traditions and culture were mostly transmitted through oral methods like stories and songs. “They infused their storytelling with dramatic power that appealed to the emotions: it satisfied inner craving, cloaked a temporary release from the misery of chaotic experience”.

In the article “Talk that Talk: Storytelling and Analysis Rooted in African American Oral Tradition,” I also learn some other information about the of storytelling traditions in African American culture, which gives me a more integrate picture of African American history and culture. We will talk more about that article in my next blog "History – Storytelling."

 Nurtured in the traditional African environment, African American oral traditions were shaped during the slavery time. Africans were transported to America after a long journey. For the sake of better enslavement, slave owners separated them from their indigenous language community in order to avoid their communication with each other. Janice states that in order to communicate with Africans from other indigenous language community and get used to the new environment, these Africans created a new language which combined English with African. 

  Moreover, the special functions like “a desire for personal presentation, verbal artistry, and commentary on life circumstances” are the unique characteristic of African American English.  They use their new language to share their painful experiences and disclose their anger. As a result, this orality was rich in metaphor, allusion and imagery and prolific in the use of body language and nonverbal nuances; and these features can also be found in the way of current African Americans’ communication.

 The musical expression and the traditions of black church are the most significant reflections of “Nommo” in current African American people’s life. In a black church, the oral traditions not only reflect in the sermons of the African American preacher, but also the feedback of their audience, which is known as “call-and-response”.

I still remember when I listened to the worship of the pastor in that Black church during my civil rights trip, there were always someone responding to the pastor and kept saying “That’s right” or “Yeah.” At the beginning, I thought their behavior was really impolite and disrespectful. However, after a while, I found myself more involved into the whole worship, and had a feeling of being part of the whole process. After obtaining some knowledge of “call-and-respond” in African American oral traditions, I think maybe due to their “impolite” response, the whole worship tends to be more friendly and emotional. Now I understand that not only through their speeches, but also their responses, laughs or even frequent applause are parts of African American oral tradition.

Furthermore, the “Nommo” also roots in the hip-hop culture, particular in Rap music. The emergence of hip-hop culture is the cultural exchange and political situation of black alienation and disillusionment. The young generation of African American uses rap as a way to claim their own culture to express their willing of “creating their own representations instead of being represented by others”. 

After learning these interesting knowledge about African American history and culture. I believe that it is easy for you to figure out that the traditions of storytelling are critical in the whole language system of African Americans. 

In the next blog we will discuss more about the significant features of Amfrican American oral traditions - storytelling. 

History - Storytelling

As I mention before, the tradition of storytelling serves a vital role during the whole process of African American oral traditions development.  Another article that I find really helpful for this topic is “Talk the Talk: Storytelling and Analysis Rooted in African American Oral traditions,” which is wrote by JoAnne Banks-Wallace.

The reason why this article attracts my attention is that one of the key words of this article is qualitative health care research, which seems to have little connections with the linguistic field. At the beginning, I cannot think of any connection between storytelling in African American oral traditions and qualitative health care research. 

But after reading this article, I find there are some connections between qualitative research and African American oral traditions. I figure out that the major method of qualitative research is interviewing, and generally the main theme of an interview is sharing personal ideas and experience, which is known as the behavior of storytelling. From this point, I realize the importance of storytelling in health care research of African Americans.

This article begins with the discussion about storytelling and stories, and then focuses on the storytelling traditions in African American culture. In the following part of this article, JoAnne applies her personal experience of her research with women of African descents to the exploration of the question: how to understand the social-cultural-political characteristics of African American interviewees in our health care researches.

She applies plenty of her personal experiences from her previous research, and shows her great knowledge in African American history, sociology and physiology fields as well, which will definitely builds a trustworthy and erudite image to her audiences. Furthermore, by taking a variety of social phenomenons, which are related to the racial discrimination of African Americans, JoAnne also makes her article is highly connected to the our current life.

At the beginning, JoAnne stresses the critical role of stories in all cultures. She writes that “Stories are a means of preserving common characteristics of a culture and passing them on to subsequent generations." They provide practical guidelines and help us answer existential questions about the meaning of life in general or our life in particular.

 There are three important elements in the process of storytelling: the content of story, storyteller and story-taker.  Furthermore, the process is not only the storytellers tell the story to the audience, but also the interactive process of “Sharing” stories with others using an oral medium or body gestures. Namely, both storytellers and story-takers are integral elements of the process of storytelling. 

Before JoAnne furthers her discussion to storytelling in African American culture, she mentions that the close connections between personal experience and the stories root in African American culture. JoAnne stresses that analyzing the story of one community is an effective way to help us make sense of human behaviors.  Nurturing the spirit-self is a primary function of storytelling, which provides a way of articulating people’s dreams hopes and fears. 

Then, JoAnne transitions her article to the storytelling behavior in African American oral traditions.  She points out that the content of stories and storytelling are profoundly shaped by Africans experience within America. Throughout African American’s history, stories constantly play a critical role in people’s life. For example, the “griot” was the storytellers in African American culture acting as the most respected person, oral historian and educator in African traditions. 

Storytelling also play a vital role in “nurturing a harmonious African American community, sustaining a unique cultural identity, under-girding the struggle for spiritual and material freedom, and having a clear picture of their situation and the options available for them.” 

The characteristics of the storytelling during slavery time are affirming the ongoing commitment of a people and nurturing a unique spiritually based culture in the midst of an oppressive environment. Some stories also reflect that many of the rituals, valued and guiding principles of the culture remain constant in current society. 

I realize the storytelling tradition of African American culture from my experience of the civil rights trip. During the trip, almost every speaker will use plenty of examples or their personal experiences to help audience members immerse into the African American tragic history, which will help them stir people’s emotion and create an effective pathos. 

Because of these special characteristics in African American storytelling traditions, JoAnne reminds researchers that when they interview African Americans, there are three elements that they should always keep in mind: cultural values and norms, immediate storytelling environment and historical context. 

Although some researchers take African American s’ historical background into consideration, most of them still fail to consider the individual contextual factors during their qualitative research. “A clear understanding of the research question is a prerequisite to determining when it is best to math storyteller/story-taker characteristics and when variety might be better.” 

When it comes to the individual level of the storytelling traditions of African American culture, JoAnne questions why African American women were reluctant to participate in research. According to her understanding, she expresses that “African American communities struggle with additional questions related to the need for racial solidarity and the appropriateness of sacrificing one group, African American women, for the greater good of the whole.” JoAnne notices that during the interviews with African American women, there are conspicuous absences, silences or even lying throughout the interviews. 

Conspicuous absences are the things that were not said but that would have expected to be part of the discussion. The general explanation of why there would be absences during interviews with African American women is the huge cultural gap between interviewers and interviewees. It is not surprising that people often leave out some information that they assume to be common knowledge during a conversation. However, JoAnne emphasizes other important reasons for this situation: race-based and gender-based power differentials of African American women. Many African American females are shamed of sharing stories of the interiors of African American life and think it is disloyal to “the Race” and dangerous.

In the end of the article, JoAnne expresses the aim of her project. She believes that a more deliberate articulation or integration of the oral traditions with qualitative method could further enhance our understanding about the decision-making and behaviors about health and illness. 

 JoAnne suggests that instead of focusing narrowly on curing disease or minimizing symptoms, we should also have some knowledge about their historical background and culture traditions, that is to say, we are going to curve a person, not only the illness. Furthermore, JoAnne also emphasizes the importance of applying multiple focus groups during the researches for a more comprehensive data collection.

I guess you already see the close connection between African American oral traditions with some current social issues just as JoAnne mention in her article. With English have become a worldwide language and Standard English become more and more favorable; we can't help thinking what the situation for African Americans' language - African American English. In next blog we will discuses more about the African American English, which is not only a combination of English and African Language. There are so many histories, cultures within this amazing mixture.

Please see the video learn more about storytelling in African American culture. 

 

African American English- stereotypes

Have you ever think that African Americans are lack of vocabulary when they are talking? Have you ever think African Americans can’t speak Standard English? Have you ever hear some people describe African American English as "lazy English," "bastardized English," "poor grammar," or "fractured slang"?

To be honest, I hold some misunderstandings about African American English before I start  my research. But now, I know their language are historical, rational and full of magic. I hope after you go through this blog,  you will change you mind either.

When I think about these limitations of my view to African American English, I find that it is hard to find the original reason for those misunderstanding. Is that someone told me that African American English is not Standard English? Or because of some implications in the TV shows? Or it is because the majority people hold a similar opinion like me, which makes my misunderstanding seems to be rational? 

When I was puzzled by these questions, I occasionally find an article in the book “Language Myths,” which have some really different aspects of what I read in the previous survey. The author Walt Wolfram strongly opposes to the ideas of African American children being language impoverished in his article “Language myth 13: Black Children are verbally deprived.” 

In this article, Wolfram successfully stirs reader’s emotion and shows his knowledge in different languages, and his concerns about social issues. Although the voice of this article is really emotional, the rational thinking and varied information he applied still make this article credible to the readers. 

At the beginning, Wolfram lists several famous African American eloquent orators, and he also stresses the huge influence of African American oral traditions in American popular culture. Then, Wolfram starts to refute the statement: black children are verbally deprived. He emphasizes that the reasons why some people draw this fake conclusion is because of the linguistic inferiority principle. 

According to this principle, minority language will be compared to the language of social dominant group in an unfair way. For example, when African American speech is compare to the middle class, Anglo-American norm, it will be consider linguistically deficient. Wolfram further his opinion by taking the situation of African American English during slavery time as an example, which proves that “myths correlating racial with linguistic differences are fairly easy to debunk logically and empirically.” 

In the following parts of his article, Wolfram lists several misleading explanations of the African American English’s inferiority: anatomically based myth, nurturing myth, grammaticality myth and logicality myth. 

By applying his sociology and linguistic knowledge to his article, Wolfram denies the reasonability of these language myths in an effective way. For example, some people believe that the use of multiple negative such as "she didn’t do nothing," is an evidence of the illogical phenomenon of African American language. Wolfram categorizes this misunderstanding as logicality myth, and he refutes this view by offering the use multiple negative in French, Spanish and the Old English. 

In the end, Wolfram shows his concern about the distorted picture of African American English, and appeals people to use their rational thoughts to the language myths of minority language. 

Wolfram’s article gives me a new perspective of the stereotypes to African American English, which relates to the education issues of African American English speakers. It is true that the social status and family income are the reasons of the low academic achievements for some African American students. However, we have to beware of some current set of language myths, which can be camouflaged in fashionable social and educational concern. In this process, the explanations for inferiority of African American English do not seem as blatantly racist as the formal genetic inferiority theory.  

Another article that related to this topic is John Rickford’s “Suite for Ebony and Phonics.”  John Rickford expresses his own idea of this hotly discussed issue from a linguistic point of view in his article, one year after the Ebonics resolution of Oakland school broad. He thinks Ebonics is “one of the most distinctive varieties of American English.” Although some grammars and pronunciations of Ebonics are different from Standard English, Ebonics is rule-governed and high ordered both in its grammar and the way it pronounce. 

Consider, for instance, its “five present tenses”.

1.     He runnin. (“He is running”)

2.     He be runnin. (“He is ususally running.”)

3.     He be steady runnin. (“He is ususally running in an intensive, sustained manner.”)

4.     He bin runnin. (“He has Been Running.”)

5.     He BIN runni. (“He has been running for a long time and still is”)

However, Standard English speakers can only separate the habitual or nonhabitual events by applying adverbs like “usually”. But when people communicate with African American English speakers and find it is hard to understand them. Does it the problem of African American English? If people don’t know these rules how can they understand African American English?

Rickford make a brief survey among 25 whites and 25 African Americans. He asks them what the meaning of “She BIN married.”The results shows that only 8 whites answer it correctly compared to 23 of the African Americans. Thus, we can see the real problem is not African American English don’t have a rule, the problems is that the majority of people do not know the rules and they are not willing to learn those rules.

When it is comes to the word pronunciations. Rickford points out that some people describe African American English as “Lazy English ” because the speakers usually omit consonant at the ends of the words like “han(d).” Moreover, some people doubt that why Black English speakers do not leave out that final consonant in a word like “pant”? Rickford explains that the rules of Ebonics is do not omit the second consonant at the end of the word unless both consonants are either voiceless, as with “st,” or voiced, as with “nd.” In the word “pant,” the final “t” is voiceless, but the “n” is voiced. That is why the speakers still keep the “t” in “pant.”

As we discuss above, we can come to a conclusion that Ebonics are rule-governed and it is not “Lazy English” at all. Just as Rickford says: “the manner in which Ebonics differs from Standards English is highly order. Only by carefully analyzing each dialect can we appreciate the complex rules that native speakers follow effortless and unconsciously in their daily life.”

The motivation for Rickford to write this article, I think is the debate of Oakland school broad. We can see that when the issues of African American English related to the young generations and their education, the problems seems to be more noteworthy.

I can imagine the stress and frustration of an African American student when his community and family insist on speaking African American English, but their schools request them to speak and write in Standard English. There is a quote form the article “Spoken Soul: The Language of black Imagination and Reality”: “Part of what makes the language experience unique for African Americans in the United States is that they know they must be bidialectal to survive”

According to the news I have read, there are so many articles that emphasize the African American students’ underachievement in their school life. But do these problems have any relation to the stereotypes of African American English, which we have already discussed a lot in this blog? Do these conflicts between African American English and Standard English contribute to the failure of Black Students’ studies? Or does they really can not handle their studies in school? What are the real problems?    

 

            In the next blog we will learn more information about the education situations of African American students. We may also discuss what make people think African American students are underachievement in their school like.

           Not only there are misunderstanding of African American English. There are also some other stereotypes of African Americans. Here is some video the stereotypes to African Americans.

 

 

African American English - Education

       

      

     Little Rock Nine is the nine African American students who involved into the desegregation movement in Little Rock Central high school. This famous picture makes me think about the current situation for African American students.

           Do they have equal opportunities to get education and success in their school life? Do teachers treat them equally?  How their classmates and teachers think about their accent?

I continue my research by searching more information about the situation of African American students. The first source I found was a survey report: “A Comparison of Oral and Written English Styles in African American Students at Different Stages of Writing Development.”  

The purpose of this survey is to compare the rates of using African American English grammatical features in spoken and written language at different points in literacy development of African American students. In this report, researchers stress the differences between African American students and Caucasian students, and they also create their credibility  by applying data from other related research in order to show their study is part of the “conversation.”

 There are some really attractive data in this research.

These data indicate that African American students are underachieving, compares to the Caucasian students. But  I question the credibility of these data. Is there any problem with examining the learning ability of African American speakers by using Standard English? 

The reports from 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in Writing indicates that nearly 75% of African American fourth and eighth graders reached at or above the basic level of achievement, whereas 90% of Caucasian (same-grade) students attained the same level of performance.

 Furthermore, the data of NAEP in 2007 illustrates the same phenomenon: approximately 81% of African American eighth graders are or above the basis level of achievement compared to 93% of Caucasian eighth graders.

According to this research, older students show higher abilities of dialect shift from African American English to Standard English in their writing than the fourth grade students. However, both fourth grade and eighth grade students frequently use African American English when they are speaking and talking to each other.

To explain these results, researchers apply Kroll’s model of writing development, which proposes that the differences and similarities between the oral and writing disclosure of typically developing children may be the result of developmental trends in acquiring language skills.  Namely, higher-grade students use less African American English in their writing because they occupy a higher ability to separate the language they use for academic life and their daily life. 

On the contrary, younger students have not developed the capability of shifting dialect between different situations, thus they tend to use the same dialect, their indigenous language, both in their writing and speaking.

This research also points out the relationship between African American student’s ability of dialect shift and their academic achievement, which illustrates that children with higher dialect shifting abilities will have better academic performance than children without this meta-awareness skill. 

But does this mean that we should not allow African American speakers to use their own language in school, in order to help them achieve a higher academic achievement? Why do African American students achieve less than other students? Is it because of their social status, family income or other reasons?  

 There is an article named "Spoken Soul: the Language of Black Imagination and Reality," which is written by Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz. After reading this article, I find that though African Americans are creators and descendants of a rich and complex culture, they continue to battle the stereotypes of having cultural and language deficiencies.

As I mention before, it seems to be unfair for African American students who are evaluate by the standard of Standard English. Yolanda impresses that American schools administrators’ refusal to accept the language of African-American students and their over-zealousness to frame language and literacy skills in terms of an “achievement gap.

They use Standard American English in settings such as workplaces and schools- spaces that represent and reinforce the values of the broader European-American society. For those African American students, although they know they have to speak Standard English to survive in this country, virtually they are all bidialectal and able to understand both African American English and Standard English.

Nearly every African American, at some point, has spoken what is recognized as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE).This language, which is also known as Black English Vernacular(BEV), Ebonics, Spoken Soul or, Simply, Black English.

AAVE is a spoken language rooted in the oral tradition of Africa. IT was transcribed by writers of the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s, and today is the language spoken by almost African-American urban youth. The language, as well as the people who speak it, are perceived as being of low status.

For the underachievement of African American students, the author points out that there are three aspects that we should pay more attention to: first, school achievement is distributed along the lines of class, race, ethnicity, and language. Studies show that students who use nonstandard English in school do not do as well as students who use Standard English. Second, we should keep in mind how teachers’ negative responses to students’ language can lead to unsuccessful results. Thus, there seems to be some connections between teachers' rejection of Black English and the children who speak it engenders learning problems. Next, African Americans themselves sometimes internalize the negative perception of their language and implicit degradation of their people, and as a result, they performe poorly in school.

One of authors’ statements reminds me that African American students are still under the unequal treatment even in the 21th century.

“African Americans have suffered in schools because of their language and ethnicity connection. This torment and labeling of underachievement are related directly to how the broader society views their culture.”

 What do you think?

Do you still think that African Americans students are lack of language skill?  When you find you cannot understand what they are talking about, please be patient and learn more about African American English instead of judging their language. It is not their problem, it is ours.