9 ms·

>I can understand the argument for supporting AAVE in schools I can't. Schools are supposed to teach you the official language and all the skills you need to s

>I can understand the argument for supporting AAVE in schools I can't. Schools are supposed to teach you the official language and all the skills you need to succeed in society. AAVE won't help you (or be useful) at work, or in academia, unless you are studying AAVE as your job. I agree that it will be divisive in the long run, I think you are right that encouraging AAVE to continue and legitimizing it and calling it a language is the wrong way to go. Was the cockney English slang of 1800's England a language? I think most would say no, it was simply the bad English of the uneducated. I think AAVE is simply modern America's cockney slang.

jlgreco 14y ago
I don't really disagree, but I'm not sure you could call English "official" in the US. De facto standard at most.
- at-fates-hands 14y ago
  You really can't and it's pretty frustrating when you consider my great grandparents were of German and Norwegian heritage and had to learn English in order to integrate when they came here. Clearly there are more socioeconomic and cultural reasons behind this, but it is puzzling why no effort has been made to make English the "official" language of the US.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Shrug I come from an area where many people, particularly grandparents of people my age, still spoke German in the home or sometimes exclusively. The WWII (and WWI maybe?) atmosphere killed it off to a large degree, but it still exists. There is a massive amount of variety in this country, though I still think English is essential as a common language.
  - bvk 14y ago
    There has been. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement It's generally seen to spring from anti-immigrant sentiment.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
JoelSutherland 14y ago
I don't think you read the article. "Schools should recognize the legitimacy of AAVE as a language for their students, and teach those students to recognize when and how to switch between AAVE and American English as appropriate. But most schools don’t do that. They simply teach students that the way they speak is wrong. Don’t talk this way; talk our way. Wheeler says we’re still not doing right by children who grow up with AAVE. “The consequences are that students are being terribly misassessed in our schools. Teachers think that black kids are making mistakes, when really they’re re-creating what they hear and learn at home,” Wheeler says. “They’re counting as mistakes things that are patterns and rule-based, so [the students are] being placed in lower reading groups.”" The point of recognizing AAVE is not to teach it as a replacement language. It's to treat it similarly to Spanish for example. By recognizing where kids are coming from, the system will better be able to direct them to where they need to be.
- dsfasfasf 14y ago
  Seriously, you are equating AAVE with Spanish. AAVE is how people of poorer means speak or with less education speak, even if it's not politically correct to say it. Spanish is an actual language hundreds of years old and spoken by multiple nations. By your logic you might as well recognize English slang as an actual language. -Edit: So for those arguing that AAVE is a dialect, then If I add a few rules to any other language does that mean I've just invented a new language. That is what AAVE is, it is just English with a few additional rules that some people of low socioeconomic mean have learned (reinforced through bad education). Hardly what I would call a new language. Maybe in 500 years if the people speaking it become isolated, right now is just bad English. In spanish there are people with low socioeconomic means that will also talk a bit different. Even with their own rules for some things. You do not call that a new language to spare their feelings. You call them uneducated and rightly so or else when will they learn if they are not ever corrected? Being politically correct just to spare the feelings of some people is not doing anybody any good. I know is insensitive but by trying to be too nice problems never get solved.
  - Afton 14y ago
    I'm not downvoting you. But your position is untenable, and comes from a misunderstanding about what a language is. It's not that it's not politically correct, it's that it's factually incorrect. No one is arguing that there is or isn't a class and racial component to who speakers of AAVE are. They are primarily black and poor. But that point is irrelevant. Kids raised where people speak AAVE will grow up speaking AAVE. Simply declaring it 'not a language' gets you nothing. It's not 'just slang', it's a system of speaking with its own set of rules, just like any other language.
zieski 14y ago
If by /supporting/ we mean to accept that a large class of students speaks a divergent dialect of English at home, then I am all for it. Instruct children on American English but don't demean, discourage, or devalue them because of the dialect they grew up speaking. I don't think the article or comment really supported teaching AAVE to the exclusion of American English, the article at least tries to point out that teachers often view AAVE as an indicator of low intelligence instead of a separate dialect and supports changing that stereotype.
blocking_io 14y ago
As the article points out, if it were 'bad English', the rules of AAVE would not be consistently applied. However, speakers know how to use the rules and they always apply them. Saying that 'calling it a language' is bad is truly ignorant. As far as linguists are concerned, it is a language. If you say otherwise, you are simply wrong. There is nothing inherently better about the English you speak compared to their English.
- Hairy_Sandwich 14y ago
  I don't think there are any rules to "AAVE" either, one speaker of this dialect? creole? language? or whatever we're calling it, would not be able to point out grammatical errors in the speech of another. I think the following would all be considered valid AAVE: I ain’t tell nobody nothing about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody nothing about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody about sushi. All are bad English, i have no doubt whatsoever, that all would be understood by a speaker of "AAVE". I am of the opinion there is no such thing as AAVE, but there is definitely such a thing as people speaking bad English, which is reinforced by peer pressure and cultural and historical factors. Also I feel like people (educators in Oakland?) just caved, and don't want to admit that they have failed to properly educate and include a huge swathe of people.
  - blocking_io 14y ago
    I don't think there are any rules to "AAVE" either, one speaker of this dialect? creole? language? or whatever we're calling it, would not be able to point out grammatical errors in the speech of another. You're wrong. Linguists have been studying AAVE for years. It has been determined how the grammar of AAVE differs from SAE. All are bad English, i have no doubt whatsoever, that all would be understood by a speaker of "AAVE". Leaving aside whether these sentences are AAVE, are you arguing that being able to say the same thing multiple ways means that AAVE is not a language? That seems like an absurd point to make. Also I feel like people (educators in Oakland?) just caved, and don't want to admit that they have failed to properly educate and include a huge swathe of people. Did you read the article? It explains that by acknowledging AAVE as the native language of students, educators are better able to teach SAE and explain to students in what context it should be used. Frankly, at this point you need to educate yourself. It's quite common for people to have the initial reaction that AAVE is bad English. But to continue to deny it a status of a language, and to insult its speakers as uneducated borders on racist.
nollidge 14y ago
> I think AAVE is simply modern America's cockney slang. Well, what linguists think is that it's at minimum a dialect with consistent grammar and using features of many other forms of communciation that you'd probably consider "real" languages. Just because it's not what you were taught doesn't mean it's "bad" English or slang.
- anigbrowl 14y ago
  Cockney slang has rules too, it's at least as much a dialect as AAVE.
  - nollidge 14y ago
    True! I was more objecting to the "I think" part and the "slang" part, but I should've been clearer about that.
warfangle 14y ago
There is no official language in the United States.
seanmcdirmid 14y ago
> Was the cockney English slang of 1800's England a language? I thought the posh Queen's English was a relatively recent invention (1818)? Your argument is kind of rediculous. Anyways, is a Shanghainese uneducated because they speek Shanghainese at home rather than the standard Beijing-ish dialect?
erikpukinskis 14y ago
> Schools are supposed to teach you the official language and all the skills you need to succeed in society. What makes you think SAE is the only language you need to succeed in society? I live in Oakland, and I wish I learned AAVE in school. It would absolutely be useful to succeed in society. Ditto for Spanish.

jlgreco 14y ago

I don't really disagree, but I'm not sure you could call English "official" in the US. De facto standard at most.

at-fates-hands 14y ago
You really can't and it's pretty frustrating when you consider my great grandparents were of German and Norwegian heritage and had to learn English in order to integrate when they came here. Clearly there are more socioeconomic and cultural reasons behind this, but it is puzzling why no effort has been made to make English the "official" language of the US.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  Shrug I come from an area where many people, particularly grandparents of people my age, still spoke German in the home or sometimes exclusively. The WWII (and WWI maybe?) atmosphere killed it off to a large degree, but it still exists. There is a massive amount of variety in this country, though I still think English is essential as a common language.
- bvk 14y ago
  There has been. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement It's generally seen to spring from anti-immigrant sentiment.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

JoelSutherland 14y ago

I don't think you read the article. "Schools should recognize the legitimacy of AAVE as a language for their students, and teach those students to recognize when and how to switch between AAVE and American English as appropriate. But most schools don’t do that. They simply teach students that the way they speak is wrong. Don’t talk this way; talk our way. Wheeler says we’re still not doing right by children who grow up with AAVE. “The consequences are that students are being terribly misassessed in our schools. Teachers think that black kids are making mistakes, when really they’re re-creating what they hear and learn at home,” Wheeler says. “They’re counting as mistakes things that are patterns and rule-based, so [the students are] being placed in lower reading groups.”" The point of recognizing AAVE is not to teach it as a replacement language. It's to treat it similarly to Spanish for example. By recognizing where kids are coming from, the system will better be able to direct them to where they need to be.

dsfasfasf 14y ago
Seriously, you are equating AAVE with Spanish. AAVE is how people of poorer means speak or with less education speak, even if it's not politically correct to say it. Spanish is an actual language hundreds of years old and spoken by multiple nations. By your logic you might as well recognize English slang as an actual language. -Edit: So for those arguing that AAVE is a dialect, then If I add a few rules to any other language does that mean I've just invented a new language. That is what AAVE is, it is just English with a few additional rules that some people of low socioeconomic mean have learned (reinforced through bad education). Hardly what I would call a new language. Maybe in 500 years if the people speaking it become isolated, right now is just bad English. In spanish there are people with low socioeconomic means that will also talk a bit different. Even with their own rules for some things. You do not call that a new language to spare their feelings. You call them uneducated and rightly so or else when will they learn if they are not ever corrected? Being politically correct just to spare the feelings of some people is not doing anybody any good. I know is insensitive but by trying to be too nice problems never get solved.
- Afton 14y ago
  I'm not downvoting you. But your position is untenable, and comes from a misunderstanding about what a language is. It's not that it's not politically correct, it's that it's factually incorrect. No one is arguing that there is or isn't a class and racial component to who speakers of AAVE are. They are primarily black and poor. But that point is irrelevant. Kids raised where people speak AAVE will grow up speaking AAVE. Simply declaring it 'not a language' gets you nothing. It's not 'just slang', it's a system of speaking with its own set of rules, just like any other language.

zieski 14y ago

If by /supporting/ we mean to accept that a large class of students speaks a divergent dialect of English at home, then I am all for it. Instruct children on American English but don't demean, discourage, or devalue them because of the dialect they grew up speaking. I don't think the article or comment really supported teaching AAVE to the exclusion of American English, the article at least tries to point out that teachers often view AAVE as an indicator of low intelligence instead of a separate dialect and supports changing that stereotype.

blocking_io 14y ago

As the article points out, if it were 'bad English', the rules of AAVE would not be consistently applied. However, speakers know how to use the rules and they always apply them. Saying that 'calling it a language' is bad is truly ignorant. As far as linguists are concerned, it is a language. If you say otherwise, you are simply wrong. There is nothing inherently better about the English you speak compared to their English.

Hairy_Sandwich 14y ago
I don't think there are any rules to "AAVE" either, one speaker of this dialect? creole? language? or whatever we're calling it, would not be able to point out grammatical errors in the speech of another. I think the following would all be considered valid AAVE: I ain’t tell nobody nothing about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody nothing about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody about no sushi. or I didn’t tell nobody about sushi. All are bad English, i have no doubt whatsoever, that all would be understood by a speaker of "AAVE". I am of the opinion there is no such thing as AAVE, but there is definitely such a thing as people speaking bad English, which is reinforced by peer pressure and cultural and historical factors. Also I feel like people (educators in Oakland?) just caved, and don't want to admit that they have failed to properly educate and include a huge swathe of people.
- blocking_io 14y ago
  I don't think there are any rules to "AAVE" either, one speaker of this dialect? creole? language? or whatever we're calling it, would not be able to point out grammatical errors in the speech of another. You're wrong. Linguists have been studying AAVE for years. It has been determined how the grammar of AAVE differs from SAE. All are bad English, i have no doubt whatsoever, that all would be understood by a speaker of "AAVE". Leaving aside whether these sentences are AAVE, are you arguing that being able to say the same thing multiple ways means that AAVE is not a language? That seems like an absurd point to make. Also I feel like people (educators in Oakland?) just caved, and don't want to admit that they have failed to properly educate and include a huge swathe of people. Did you read the article? It explains that by acknowledging AAVE as the native language of students, educators are better able to teach SAE and explain to students in what context it should be used. Frankly, at this point you need to educate yourself. It's quite common for people to have the initial reaction that AAVE is bad English. But to continue to deny it a status of a language, and to insult its speakers as uneducated borders on racist.

nollidge 14y ago

> I think AAVE is simply modern America's cockney slang. Well, what linguists think is that it's at minimum a dialect with consistent grammar and using features of many other forms of communciation that you'd probably consider "real" languages. Just because it's not what you were taught doesn't mean it's "bad" English or slang.

anigbrowl 14y ago
Cockney slang has rules too, it's at least as much a dialect as AAVE.
- nollidge 14y ago
  True! I was more objecting to the "I think" part and the "slang" part, but I should've been clearer about that.

warfangle 14y ago

There is no official language in the United States.

seanmcdirmid 14y ago

> Was the cockney English slang of 1800's England a language? I thought the posh Queen's English was a relatively recent invention (1818)? Your argument is kind of rediculous. Anyways, is a Shanghainese uneducated because they speek Shanghainese at home rather than the standard Beijing-ish dialect?

erikpukinskis 14y ago

> Schools are supposed to teach you the official language and all the skills you need to succeed in society. What makes you think SAE is the only language you need to succeed in society? I live in Oakland, and I wish I learned AAVE in school. It would absolutely be useful to succeed in society. Ditto for Spanish.