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.