Tag Archives: dialect

Troike – Receptive Bidialectalism: Implications for Second-Dialect Teaching

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Troike, RC. “Receptive Bidialectalism: Implications for Second-Dialect Teaching.” Language and Cultural Diversity in American Education. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc (1972) Print.

In this article, Rudolph Troike discussed the pedagogical implications for optional receptive bidialectalism. Troike broke down the language acquisition process and acknowledged that speakers of one variation of a language oftentimes understand other variations even when they themselves cannot speak or write using that foreign variation. Troike argued that ignoring this aspect of linguistic competence can lead to faulty assessment and teaching strategies (92).

Troike suggested that students in the first grade and even earlier have more sophisticated understandings of different dialects and how they function socially. Troike encouraged teachers to consider that students first understand and process language before they have the ability to reproduce it. Troike also advised teachers not to mistake students’ lack of use of “standard” variations of a language as lack of knowledge. This approach to understanding speakers of nonstandard language varieties is both nuanced and respectful.

With this in mind, Troike suggested that teachers not wait until the teenage years to introduce second dialects. In teaching dialects, Troike described teachers roles more as facilitators: “…and the task of the teacher should be seen as one of building on this knowledge to enable the students to make use of it in their own production” (95).

Contrary to viewing nonstandard dialect speakers from a deficit model, Troike insisted that students’ strengths be central:

“A satisfactory program should recognize and build upon students’ existing linguistic strengths, and where their receptive knowledge already encompasses standard forms, students should be given adequate practice in bringing these to the productive level.” (96)

Troike also maintained that this learning process need not be a one-way process:

Since a teacher can achieve greater rapport (not to speak of communication) with her students is she can understand them, it might well be desirable to devise materials to help teachers acquire an adequate receptive, if not productive, competence in the dialect of their students. Such an experience might, if nothing else, impart a greater respect for the students’ achievements, and an appreciation of the difficulties involved in learning to speak a second dialect.” (97)

Fasold and Wolfram – Some Linguistic Features of Negro Dialect

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Fasold, R. W., and W. Wolfram. “Some Linguistic Features of Negro Dialect.” Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools 3.4 (1972): 16. Print.

Ralph Fasold and Walt Wolfram’s goal in this chapter was to provide comprehensive information on “Negro dialect” or “Black English” as they also called it, in language that nonlinguists, particularly teachers, could understand and use with their students. They made distinctions between “Negro dialect” and others English variations based on pronunciation, vocal quality and grammatical features. Despite its differences, the two clarified that Black English stood as its own system in its own right, not just an imitation of “standard” English.

They identified speakers of the dialect as primarily “Negroes” in lower socioeconomic classes. They also provided a brief explanation of the possible origins of “Negro” dialect, such as retentions from West African languages and/ or racial segregation during slavery.

Fasold and Wolfram derived their “grammar rules” and “pronunciation rules” by observing actual usage and conclude that all speech is governed by systems and rules. They encouraged teachers of “inner city” youth to “uphold real spoken standard English” as a model as opposed to “artificial precise language based on an arbitrary prescriptive norm of what is ‘correct'” (47). However, this is problematic if in fact as scholars such as Krapp, Kurath, and McDavid argued that there isn’t a naturally occurring monolithic white American English due to regional variations.

Fasold and Wolfram presented a solution for the teachers. They said:

“A good rule of thumb for a teacher to follows is to carefully and honestly reflect on his own usage in casual conversation and not to insist on any usage on the part of his pupils which he does not find in his own casual speech.” (47)

This statement confirms James Sledd’s argument that the bi-dialectalism being propogated is tantamount to white supremacy because the only criteria for the “standard” is that it be an acceptable form of speech used by white teachers. Any white variation is therefore suitable if it is coming from someone in a position of social favor higher than the child/ student of color. It is in fact as Sledd argued: linguists and teachers were playing God by attempting to create students in their own linguistic image.

Fasold and Wolfram went to great lengths to explain what they knew about Black English – that it was rule-based and equal to any other form of speech – only to tell teachers to use that knowledge to teach Black students to use an arbitrary “standard” that belonged to someone else and reflected who they were. The Black English term for this is – “fragga-naggle-bull!”

McDavid – Historical, Regional, and Social Variation

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McDavid, R. I. “Historical, Regional, and Social Variation.” Journal of English Linguistics 1.1 (1967): 25. Print.

In this article, R. McDavid categorized the different scales of measurement for grammar usage. McDavid highlighted historical, regional, and social scales as the three factors that affect language use in which people could not choose, but instead had to try and negotiate: “No man can change the generation or place of his birth; his attempts to change the social variety of his speech will be determined by the kind of people he associates with, and opportunities to make a drastic change are not as common as we would like” (27).

Concerning “Negro” dialect, McDavid acknowledged the research done by Lorenzo Turner to expand the understanding of Black language in the U.S., but still contended that “for the most part, Negro usages that differ from middle-class white practices are largely the result of this kind of selective cultural differentiation,” such as migration patterns within the U.S>

Bailey – Toward a New Perspective in Negro English Dialectology

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Bailey, B. L. “Toward a New Perspective in Negro English Dialectology.” American Speech 40.3 (1965): 171-7. Print.

In this article, Beryl Bailey offered a critique of the linguistic theories that portrayed Negro/ Black English as deficient and substandard in comparison to “standard” English.  She asserted that if linguists followed Krapp’s (1924) suggestions for researching the historical backgrounds of the various dialects, the “Negro” dialect would be described in terms of itself and not in comparison to a so-called norm (171). She claimed that only prejudice could explain the oversight: “I therefore maintain that only blind ethnocentrism has prevented them from looking further for the real facts underlying the grammatical structure of this dialect” (172).

Instead of using “standard” English as a measuring stick, Bailey drew on research on pidgin and creole languages for more comparable  grammatical structures to “Negro” English. Bailey argued that southern Negro “dialect” was different than other southern speech because the grammatical structure was different despite the shared English lexicon. Therefore, any apparent “confusions” or inconsistencies in the dialect could only be resolved by looking to the actual dialect. Bailey compared grammatical rules of Jamaican Creole and “Negro dialect” as taken from a literary text to analyze the distinct and consistent rule-based systems of the speech. Bailey admitted that she was not a native southern Negro dialect speaker and that part of the drawback to her study was the reliance on language in a literary text and her limited ability to understand the dialect in ways that native speakers might. Nevertheless, Bailey makes the compelling point that “Negro” English has a structural system of its own apart from the “standard” American English.

Hence, regardless of the surface resemblances to other dialects of English-and this must be expected, since the lexicon is English and the speakers are necessarily bi-dialectal-we must look into the system itself for an explanation of seeming confusion of persons and tenses. (172)

Marckwardt – American English

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Marckwardt, Albert. American English. New York: Oxford University Press, 1958. Print.

In his book American English, Albert Marckwardt attempted to map out a middle-ground approach to understanding the English language in America. Marckwardt situated American English as rooted in British English, but existing as its own variety due to the socio-cultural influences that are distinctly American. In its formative stages, Marckwardt asserted, American English was shaped by the languages of the Indigenous people that were living on the land that later became  the United States as well as the French, Dutch, Spanish, and others. At the same time, the  “frontier spirit” led to more separation and independence from European influences. As a result, Marckwardt described features of American English that are distinctly connected to American culture and would not be understood by foreigners,  such as “compound” (88). Examples of compounds include “baseball,” and “soap operas.”

Marckwardt acknowledged regional variations, and cited Kurath, but he did not consider all variations equal. He described the “language of the uncultivated” ass distinguished by inflectional characteristics (146). He too, like Krapp (1924) viewed “substandard” American English as a mere holdover of outdated forms of standard English (147). While Marckwardt is clear that this “standard” American English is more socially desirable, he also admitted that it was illusive even for the “well-educated”:

“Unquestionably the easy transition from one social class to another in the United States has resulted in a very hazy line of demarcation between what is acceptable and what is considered illiterate. According to the most rigorous schoolbook standard, some of the language employed in American legislative councils and in business life would not pass muster. The awareness of this, combined with an unrealistic treatment of language in our schools, has resulted at times in a defiance of these questionable standards.” (150)

Many of these questions and the accompanying defiance still persist today.

Marckwardt concluded that despite the different variations of the English language spoken within the U.S. and abroad, it is still highly unified and a single language (170). At the same time, Marckwardt argued that American English had outgrown the use for restrictive grammar standards and taboos which reflect an overall “negative approach to language” (184). For Marckwardt, the positive future and development of the English language were dependent upon adopting a “faith in intuition” regarding language and “giving attention to the broader aspects of structure and evolving tendencies of the language” (184).

Lin – An English Program for students Handicapped by a Local Dialect

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Lin, San‐su C. “An English Program for Students Handicapped by a Local Dialect,”.” College Language Association Journal (1963) Print.

In this article, San-su Lin, described her experience as a professor at Claflin University, a historically Black university, teaching college English to students with “local dialects.”  From the beginning, Lin described the Black students’ dialect  as a “handicap” and impediment to them having group membership in the larger society and achieving upward social mobility. Even though Lin is clear that the lowered status of Black dialects are socially constructed in the United States because of the lowered social status of Blacks in the U.S., she nonetheless advocated for Blacks to adopt the language of wider communication in order to be successful, similarly to the way Green (1963) does. The difference between Lin and Green’s (1963) stance on local dialects is that while Lin described that the dialect is a social barrier, she recognized that the dialect itself is not deficient, but another form of usage:

“In a democratic society like ours… linguistic scientists who have done distinguished work in linguistic history and geography should have convinced us that the only sensible viewpoint we could adopt is a liberal viewpoint, allowing for a variability and flexibility in the matter of English usage. According to this viewpoint, the many so-called incorrect usages condemned by the purists are colloquially acceptable, and the usages that are definitely substandard are actually fewer than we once thought” (145).

Despite this acknowledgement, societal and institutional goals prevail. Lin described a program instituted by Claflin University with support from Teachers’ College faculty and the U.S. Department of Education called the “Pattern Practice in the Teaching of Standard English to Students with a Nonstandard Dialect” (142).  The program started in 1961 and sought to identify the extent to which pattern practice could help “nonstandard” English speakers learn “standard” English as well as develop materials to implement pattern practice with students.

The program included mandatory classes and language labs, but Lin found that American speakers of local dialect had a more difficult time picking up “standard” English because they did not have the same motivations to assimilate as foreign students. To this end, Lin said one of the programs most important goals was to show the students in the Claflin program the extend to their “language problem” which was mainly social (144). Secondly, the program  sought to teach the students the best ways to overcome their “handicap” (146). In addition to in class lessons, students were provided mastertape recordings for more practice.

At the time that the article was written, Claflin was in their third academic year of the program and the final assessment had note been conducted. However, Lin suspected that the success of the program would be seen on a more personal level for the students with increases in confidence and  improvements in attitudes toward English language use. Lin concluded that although she presumed this program to be successful, that “special” English classes for “minority” students with local dialects should not mean remedial English classes. Instead, Lin argued that English programs and teacher training should be re-evaluated and answers to the following questions should be pursued:

“How can we adequately prepare our English majors to teach English as a language as well as literature? How can we alert prospective English teachers not only to the dynamic nature of language but also to the psychological needs of the students? How can we encourage our English majors, even if they do not intend to teach, to cultivate a humanistic interest in our language as an integral part of the humanities, and not merely as a set of mechanical rules and abstract definitions? How can we infuse in our students a sense of urgency in learning, or teaching English which has a great impact not only on a child’s sense of security but on national security as well?” (147)

Green – Negro Dialect: The Last Barrier to Integration

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Green, G. C. “Negro Dialect: the Last Barrier to Integration.” The Journal of Negro Education 32.1 (1963): 81-3. Print.

In this article, Gordon C. Green discussed what he viewed as the last reminder of African Americans’ past of oppression and therefore obstacle to integration – the “Negro” dialect. During the 1960s when great advances toward integration were being made, Green argued that the tell-tale sign of Blacks’ inferiority were their “substandard” ways of speaking. Similarly to Krapp (1924), Green explained that this illiterate and sub-par way of speaking was developed in no fault of the “Negro,” but merely a matter of nurture because enslaved Africans were not exposed to the “standard” way of speaking English in the fields while they labored, or later while enduring racial segregation. Green listed 13 commonly mis-pronunciations of English words by Black college students at Dillard University where he was formerly employed. Evidence, such as pronouncing “poem” as “perm” is used by Green to support his claim that Negro dialect was the last thing marking and keeping Blacks in a lower social status. He said:

“In this country there is much that the white citizenry can do to help the American Negro gain status as a fellow citizen with equal rights and responsibilities, but there is even more that the colored man can do for himself. Besides seeing to it that his civil rights are respected, that his vote is not wasted, and that he has an equal opportunity in obtaining the best possible education, he should take special pains to see that he and his children destroy this last  chain that binds him to the past, the Negro dialect” (83).

Green clearly views Black language from a deficit standpoint and does not recognize or value any African retentions in the language. He basically advocated for complete linguistic assimilation. As Geneva Smitherman (2006) later pointed African American Vernacular English itself is integrated into American English and other languages worldwide, but the “Negro” still is not.

Kurath – The Origin of Dialectical Differences in Spoken American English

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Kurath, H. “The Origin of the Dialectal Differences in Spoken American English.” Modern Philology 25.4 (1928): 385-95. Print. 

In this article, Hans Kurath disputed the idea that all American English was derived from Standard Southern English and  charted the patterns of American English pronunciation in different regions and traces their origins to specific regions in England. He notes the language surveys conducted between the 1890s and 1925 and the need for more thorough inquiry in order to understand American pronunciation and consider an American standard pronunciation.

Through study of  the pronunciations of various regions in the U.S. and mapping their pronunciations onto particular regions in England, Kurath challenged assumptions made by Krapp (1925), including the existence of a generalized American speech pattern. Kurath’s more nuanced approach highlights the dialectical differences in pronunciation that exist within “American Speech” (390).

This type of challenge to overgeneralized assertions about American language seem to create space for even more nuanced inquiries regarding language. Kurath’s challenge to the notion of a single origin of American English, the Southern English Standard, by showing the influence of Irish and Scottish immigrants, for example, also allows for the consideration of other influences on language. If European immigrants language variations are responsible for regional dialects in America, then his argument lends credence to the claim that enslaved Africans brought to the Americas also influence language features, such as phonetics and lexicons.

“All of the three types of spoken American English are conservative as compared with the pronunciation of the Southern English Standard in the Southeast and the southern Midlands of England. But what they conserve is not the various stages of that Standard, as seems to have been so generally assumed, but certain features-phonetic as well as lexical–of the several basic British regional varieties of Standard English” (395).

Krapp – The English of the Negro

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Krapp, G. P. “The English of the Negro.” American Mercury 2.5 (1924): 190-5. Print.

In his 1924 “The English of the Negro,” George Philip Krapp claimed that the “Negro,” while s/he may have been denied certian aspects of citizenship, had been fully assimilated in terms of speech and spoke the same English as the early settlers. He went as far to say that no vestiges of African language had been retained in Black speech (190). He attributed this phenomenon to the combination of the two languages  (English and native African “dialect”) and the one with the higher cultural value, English, trumping the latter. He therefore reasoned that the language with higher cultural value, English, borrowed little to nothing from the latter, African “dialect” (190).

Krapp depicted the “Negro”  as a backward cultural being whose speech merely reflected the linguistic leftovers of older forms of English. While he acknowledged the danger in such generalizations, he argued: “it is reasonably safe to say that not a single detail of Negro pronunciation or Negro syntax can be proved to have any other than an English origin.” Krapp looked to the example of the Gullah language as an example of what he considered to be an infantile form of English, and one that he speculated Africans brought to America as slaves were forced to learn in order to speak to one another and their masters. He denied that even Gullah language has outside influences. He boasted that “as a literary achievement the Negro is exclusively an American invention” (193). He based this in part on claims that British literature did not have any Black characters.

According to Krapp, Negro English was not a peculiar species of English, it was merely the English spoken by “Negroes.” The emphasis on the dissimilarities is due to the preconceived notions and expectations whites had when encountering a Black person speaking. Because Blacks were/ are perceived as inherently different, Krapp claims that the differences in speech are exaggerated and a more scientific literal translation is applied when transcribing as opposed to illiterate or literate whites. This notion still rings true today in media portrayals of African Americans and other people of color. The most recent and notable example of this can be found in the movie and book (2009), The Help, by Kathryn Stockett. However, it seems that his discussion of “Negro” characters and “Negro English” (194) in early American dramas contradicted his notion that there is not real distinction other than the bodies the speech was coming from.

Krapp’s analysis of American and British literature written by whites to trace the evolution of “Negro English” is also problematic. It reminds me of Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark and her cautions of white authors and their literary imagination of Black people. Krapp did not take up this issue, but preferred to look to the hope of more genial relations between Blacks and whites. The hope for the future of race relations, according to Krapp is the “Negro’s” adaptation of the English language.

Smitherman – Word From The Mother

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“to speak . . . means to assume a culture . . .every dialect is a way of thinking.”

–Frantz Fanon (1967)

In Geneva Smitherman’s Word from the Mother, Smitherman speaks with maternal authority and explores the push-pull relationship that both African and White America have with African American Language. Through an overview of AAL debates past and present, Smitherman demonstrates that while White and African America are still undecided on how they feel about Black people and their culture, there is nothing ambivalent about AAL; it has roots, consistent rules and continues to have a recognizable impact on mainstream America and the language of wider communication, “standardized” American English. Smitherman also makes the case that because of this we should broaden the concept of AAL beyond the notion that it is only for and used by young Hiphoppas, but that AAL should be included in writing pedagogy at all levels, as well as, a national bi/multilingual policy for all U.S. citizens.

Smitherman asserts that AAL is rooted in the West African languages that enslaved Africans brought to the United States over 400 years ago.

“AAL comes out of the experience of the U.S. slave descendants. This shared experience has resulted in common speaking styles, systematic patterns of grammar, and common language practices in the Black community.” (3)

Smitherman points to similarities in words of West African origin and AAL to demonstrate the connection between the two languages. For example, she compares the “tote” as in tote bag and “tota” meaning to carry in Kikongo. Smitherman uses these similarities and research to disprove the notion that AAL is random and an indication of genetic inferiority. “Linguists then and now are united in our overwhelming rejection of assertions that AAL is illogical or evidence of some kind of intellectual shortcoming in Blacks.” (11)

Although many still deny AAL’s legitimacy and value as a language form, Smitherman presents undeniable evidence of the linguistic crossover of terms that were at one point exclusively Black and are now enjoyed by all. The “high five” previously known as giving and getting skin/ five has its roots in West Africa.

There are several West African language sources, including Mandingo, I golo don m bolo, meaning literally “put your skin in my hand” as an expression of agreement and solidarity. Practiced on the down low in Black America for most of the entire twentieth century, “put your skin in my hand” morphed into the “high five” around 1990 . . . one can observe its use not only among White males, but also among elite White women on the golf course as well as among elderly White females confined to nursing homes (113).

If this text had been written after the 2008 presidential campaign, I’m sure Smitherman would have also addressed the closed fist variation used by then Black Presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama and his wife, which later became known to White America as the popular “fist bump” only after they were assured there was no terrorist affiliation indicated by it.

The bottom line in Word from the Mother is that AAL or Negro Dialect as it was once called should not be seen as a hindrance to African American progress. In chapter 7, Smitherman debunks the argument put forward by Gordon C. Green in 1963 that Negro Dialect would be the last barrier to integration. At that time, Green argued that within the next generation all signs of segregation and overt racism would be eliminated and that Black folk needed to lose their dialect in order to reap the benefits of the societal about-face. Smitherman points out that the de-facto segregation that is still present forty years after Green’s plea has nothing to do with AAL. “Indeed, the irony of Green’s four-decades-old argument is that in the U.S., the “Negro Dialect” has been integrated, but the “Negro people” have not.” (122)

Smitherman argues against simplistic approaches to AAL and attempts to move the conversation to higher ground by discussing possible uses in education. She explores language awareness programs in elementary and secondary school that serve to develop and reaffirm positive attitudes toward AAL. “Education about language diversity has to start early on – with all children” (138). She also cites Gwendolyn Pough’s use of Hip-hop pedagogy in her college courses as “a vehicle for critical thinking and social change” (141).

However, the broader issue, Smitherman concludes, is what kind of stance we will take as a nation concerning acquisition of language. Smitherman suggests a bi/multilingual national policy where AAL would be one of several languages that students could select. Students would also study the respective cultures of the languages offered and therefore be prepared to enter the adult world as bi/multilinguals with global perspectives (141). Smitherman argues that this is a better strategic position than the current monolingual policy and practice encouraged by No Child Left Behind. “While the twenty-first-century world is moving in a common direction of multilingualism, the U.S. remains stagnated in a backward monolingualism” (144).

Regardless of the continued linguistic push-pull relationship White and African America have with African American Language it has stood the test of time for over 400 years and it is here to stay.