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I think it’s clear from the article that the author is does not intend to mean that everyone who speaks Black English also has a command of standard English. I
by skh 8y ago
I think it’s clear from the article that the author is does not intend to mean that everyone who speaks Black English also has a command of standard English. It seems to me he was saying that standard English should be taught in schools despite Black English being prominent in some districts.
It’s widely recognized that people sometimes prefer to speak in their native tongue for purposes of being accurate. Hence sometimes bilingual Spanish speakers will testify in Spanish despite knowing English. The overarching point of the article is that a person’s native tongue ought not influence whether or not they are deemed guilty. Do you disagree with this point?
- code_duck 8y agoThat might be the point of the article, but that wasn’t the point that I was discussing. Perhaps you missed my point. I don’t communicate with the legal system using the same language used to communicate with my peers. Why should anyone else expect to?
- skh 8y agoI think it is you who has missed the point. I deal with the legal system in my native language. It happenes to be standard English but I’m not so ethnocentric in my thinking to believe that non native speakers of standard English should be not able to interact with the legal system in their native language.
- code_duck 8y agoYeah… Then there is this issue of how the author said that all speakers that that dialect can also speak standard English. Maybe you should go back a couple of comments or read the article and check that out.