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African American English
African American English
African American English
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More handpicked essays just for you.
African American English
African American English
African American English
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: African American English
What she previously thought was “bad” English is merely a language variation, each variation with its own history and culture. Lanehart now believes these variations need to be celebrated and that they don't always need to be corrected. The more Lanehart learned, the more she believed that English can vary as long as we can all understand each other. Lanehart decides she doesn’t want to correct people anymore.
In discussing Black English, John McWhorter talks about the theories of the origin of the language. McWhorter talks about how people have made claims that Black English is related and comes from African languages. He also tells how their research on this subject is unreliable and “sketchy.” These people making these claims are outside of linguistics, meaning they practice things such as education and speech pathology. People like Dr. Smith, a teacher at a medical college, suggested that Black English is a mixture of African languages with English, where these African languages have altered English into a new language.
Baldwin stated that “Language is determined by the person that is speaking it.” The audience is anyone that doesn’t consider “Black English” a language, people that don’t use
Throughout the article, Tan uses a number of personal examples to show and support her point. These examples span from phone conversations and hospital visits to standardized tests. By using examples that cover a wide variety of topics, Tan is able to demonstrate the large effect that her mother’s style of english had and how it was woven into her whole life and not just a part of it. Particularly in the hospital example, Tan also brings in the stereotyping of people who speak “broken” english as not being very smart. In bringing this issue that is at the very root of our society, she darkens the tone to melancholy.
Loosely using words we do not have recognition of is a problem we can fix with more public awareness of where they came from through a conversation about race; a conversation that may seem daunting, but that has the ability to teach profound lessons of the way our society
It was the early twentieth 100 , and the world had already changed trehands dously compared to the world of their parents and grandparents. Slavery had ended in United States more than half a century earlier. While African American English still faced tremendous economic and social obstacle in both the northern and southern DoS , there were more chance than there had been. After the Civil War (and first slightly before, especially in the Union ), Department of Education for Negroid American English -- and total darkness and white char -- had become more common . Many were not able to attend or complete schooltime time , but a substantial few were able not only to attend and complete elementary or secondary winding school, but college .
“If Black English Isn’t a Language Then Tell Me What Is” In the essay “If Black Isn’t a Language Then Tell Me What Is” (The New York Times, 1979) written by James Baldwin, the author asserts that the African American community has altered the English language into a new language during the last five centuries to accommodate the black experience in American history despite the white’s attempt to submerge it. To begin the essay he makes his argument clear by referencing the alterations the French made to their native language to describe how people will eventually “...evolve a language in order to describe and thus control their circumstances…”; furthermore he continues to analyze how the caucasian people of America have only accepted the black language when it came out of a white mouth; he ends the essay by reinforcing his position, elaborating on the racism black’s have faced when they were denied the right to an education unless it was for the white benefit. His liberal purpose is to bring light to the subtle racism that African Americans experience even after the Civil Rights movement and to acknowledge the cultural influence they have in America. His writing appears very personal and intimate like he’s voluntarily opening up to his audience by letting them know of his own struggles as an African American, targeting mostly minorities and people who feel oppressed by white America.
The article “From outside, in,” by Barbara Mellix reveals the difficulties among the black ethnicity to differentiate between two diverse but similar languages. One is “black English”, which is comfortable to her while speaking with her family and community and the other is “standard English”, generally used while talking in public with strangers and work. Since childhood Mellix was taught when and where to use either black English or standard English. To illustrate, seeing her aunt and uncle in Pittsburgh, where there was wide range use of both languages, she learned to manage both languages with ease.
Language can either separate someone from this larger identity or connect him or her to it. This essay shows that black people in America have been systematically and institutionally marginalized by white society that their creation of separate and distinct language was a necessity, and this essay brings to light the struggles my community ---------- the black community --------- had faced in an effort to break through stereotypes and erroneous assumptions .I personally enjoyed how Baldwin incorporated historical examples into his essay, such as the Irish and the Germans, because it showed me that African Americans were not the only ones who felt marginalized by the way they use
It was once believed that the languages that the Africans spoke varied drastically from region to region but in reality they were “local variations of a deeper-lying structural similarity” (Herkovits 79). This similarity allowed communicating in the New World to be easier than if the languages were all completely linguistically independent, “whether Negro speech employs English or French or Spanish or Portuguese vocabulary, the identical constructions found over all the New World can only be regarded as a reflection of the underlying similarities in grammar and idiom, which, in turn, are common to the West African Sudanese tongues” (80). Language then became an important part of African American culture, whether it be a “secret” language used to help slaves escape, or to tell stories and folklore to children to encourage and motivate them, or express African proverbs from generation to generation. There has been many times when other races seem not to understand what African Americans are saying because of the slang terms we create that then become popular terms, most recently has been the phrases “on fleek” and “twerking”, to name a few examples. Being proficient in verbal arts was prized in Africa and now a value has been placed on verbal expression in today’s culture through riddles and through preaching and teaching (Williams
Many stereotypes of African culture have emerged due to western literature and media and first hand accounts of explorers. Things Fall Apart offers a view into the truth and reality of African cultures, which are often misconceptualized by these stereotypes. Acebe shows how African society functions well without assistance from foreign travelers. In Things Fall Apart, Achebe counters the imperialist stereotypes of Africa by keeping certain words in the Igbo language, as opposed to translating them into English, to fight back against the spreading western culture and to embrace their own way of life. He also counters the imperialist stereotypes of Africa by using Igbo proverbs to show how their culture values many of the same things that western
“Are outsiders simply those who are misjudged or misunderstood?” When presented with this question, I immediately formed my opinion. This immediate reaction was most likely formed from the defensiveness I have allowed myself to have towards varying subjects. As my mother always says, “past predicts future.” I understand the argument of people who are “outsiders” are misjudged.
Judgment for using colloquialisms found mostly in the black community (African American Vernacular English, or AAVE, as it is called) is commonly paired with a white person’s latent racism — despite that white person perhaps thinking his or her
Dialect is defined as, “a variety of a language used by the members of a group” (Merriam-Webster.com, 2018). The use of “black” dialect in the story brings the characters to life, makes them more relatable, and contributes to the theme of racism in a way that other literary devices cannot. Particularly, “The increased use of dialect by black authors, particularly children 's authors, was a sign that the nature of the black experience as they wanted to convey it did not have to rely on traditional forms, and literary devices; that they could treat familiar, realistic ideas and situations using a familiar dialect and relate that idea more effectively” (Wells, 1976, p. 39). From “’Ey, ‘lois!
Finally, for mainly historical reasons, certain English dialects or varieties have been viewed more positively than others. Thus, Standard English, because of its association with being the national English language, has been perceived as the most prestigious of English varieties. However, the fact that some dialects and accents are seen to be more prestigious than others is more a reflection of judgements based on social, rather than linguistic, criteria. As society changes, so too do attitudes towards dialect, accent and variational use of English generally.