Black Vernacular English IS a Language
First
Version of this one-day lesson presented
I. Objective:
To introduce the material in
Troutman’s article, engage the class in reading and editing text written in BVE,
encourage class to look at their own preconceived notions (if there are any) of
BVE and SE.
II. Materials:
III. Procedures:
1. Mini-Lecture w/questions (5 min)
The article I was given to presentivity is called “Whose Voice is it Anyway? Marked Features in the Writing of Black English
Speakers,” by Denise Troutman. My MAT co-conspirators have read the article,
but I know that my BA classmates have not, so it is my intention to teach you
all what I learned from reading it.
First of all, who knows what a “marked feature” is?
(One that stands out prominently as
different from the others. In English this is often taken to mean the one that
looks unusual from the perspective of the language of wider use (SE). For
example, double negatives, don’t instead of doesn’t (she don’t live here), and
many of the other myth-rules of proscriptive grammar we have all had hammered
into our heads over the years.)
Unmarked features are everything
else – the language uses we take for granted in everyday speech and text.
And what is Black English?
In a December 22, 1996 article on
the controversy in the Oakland school district regarding the addition of BVE
(Black Vernacular English) to the official curriculum – not instead of but in
addition to SE, The Washington Post noted that BVE or Black English is “also
know as Ebonics, a term combining ‘ebony’ and ‘phonics’.”
The Fourth edition of the American
Heritage Dictionary of the English Language says, “In the United States, the
term Black English usually refers to the everyday spoken varieties of
English used by African Americans, especially of the working class in urban
neighborhoods or rural communities. Linguists generally prefer the term African
American Vernacular English, although some use the term Ebonics,
which saw widespread use in the late 1990s. It is an error to suppose that
Black English is spoken by all African Americans regardless of their
background. In fact, the English spoken by African Americans is highly
varied—as varied as the English spoken by any other racial or ethnic group.”
2. Group Work (10 min)
3. Class Discussion (15 min total)
A. Open
with mini-lecture (2 min)
So, what is wrong with BVE? Absolutely nothing. Troutman
posits that the problem arises when we as teachers see something as marked that
the speaker/writer experiences as unmarked in their daily life. The biggest
problem that BVE speakers face is prejudice. Many people, a number of them
English teachers, believe that BVE is sub-standard English. BVE is just as
legitimate as SE, however, due to this prejudice and to the power, status and
opportunity associated with SE, there is a big push in the African American
community to be bidialectical – fluent in both
Standard English and BVE. I believe that Troutman would consider this a good
idea.
James Baldwin published an article
in the New Yorker in 1979 in which he said:
[Language] is the most vivid and
crucial key to identity: It reveals the private identity, and connects with, or
divorces one from the larger public, or communal identity…To open your mouth…is
(if I may use Black English) to ‘put your business on the street’” You have
confessed your parents, your youth, your school, your salary, your self-esteem
and, alas, your future.
In an article on Second Language Acquisition by Peregoy & Boyle, that quotation was followed by the
authors’ interpretation of the last few words as “a reference to the way
language functions as a gatekeeper, keeping some people down and preventing
their access to social mobility and power.” For them, and Troutman, this is
where the need to be able to communicate in the language of wider use comes
into play.
B. Then
Group Presentations (10 min)
·
Have one member of each group read a paragraph or so from their
original text and another the same lines in their
edited version.
·
Another spokesperson for the group should then briefly explain
what changes were made and why.
C. Mini Lecture (3 min)
This is the “whose voice is it anyway?” part of the
discussion, in which we consider whether it is appropriate to alter the natural
expression of a student to the point where their identity is eradicated. One of
the problems inherent in this article, and in teaching English today, is that
we need to give our students access to SE so that they are comfortable using it
in speech and written communication when it is appropriate and/or will serve
their needs without eliminating their natural communication style.
It is essential for us as teachers to be able to see beyond
the superficial grammar and punctuation issues to the ideas, the feelings, the
imagery, the imagination in the piece. This is not to say that all grammar and
punctuation and spelling should be tossed out the window, but that sometimes it
is more important for a student to feel heard, to have their ideas appreciated,
than to have their communication style corrected. In her article, Troutman
quotes Nancy Sommers saying that “one of the most
empowering experiences of students’ lives is learning to write from the
authority of their own voices.” I am saying that it is possible to suspend our
natural editor long enough to see, appreciate, and acknowledge that – before we
make suggestions regarding how best to present the student’s ideas to a wider
audience.
Troutman also quotes Arnetha
Ball’s research which indicates that “in organizing written expository
discourse urban African American high school students ‘indicated a strong
preference for using vernacular-based organizational patterns for academic
written as well as conversational tasks’.” In other words the BVE speaking population
was most comfortable communicating in writing in the way they communicated
orally.
Beginning where our students are – rather than where we or
the larger community thinks they should be – might be a good first step in
adding SE to our BVE speaking students’ available communication options.
One of the phrases Troutman coined for this discussion is
“cultural leftovers.” She says she devised it to parallel Hershkovits’
term for the things such as dress, food, ritual and other things we bring with
us from our ancestral heritage. He calls these things “cultural carry-overs.”
For Troutman, cultural leftovers are “distinctive spoken features used by
African Americans that are left intact in written discourse.” She uses this
phrase with a positive connotation as “flavors are often enhanced in
leftovers.” She believes that these things, which include the dialect issues
you worked on as well as techniques such as repetition, speaking directly to
the reader, audience involvement, colloquial expressions, emotional appeals,
use of imagery and symbolism, and what has been described as “a lively
evangelical style.” These oral strategies are devalued in Western style
writing, especially what has been come to be called academic writing.
4. More Group
Discussion and Wrap up (10 min)
It is Troutman’s belief that we need to ride a very fine
ridge here. We must not quash the authentic voices of our students, yet we are
not meant to encourage them to strengthen them either. We are meant to give our
students a strong understanding of SE, and the ability to use it when it is the
appropriate or more helpful spoken or written language, while encouraging them
to understand that BVE is a legitimate language in and of itself and can be
appropriate and helpful in a number of situations.
·
In
what types of situations or writing discourses might BVE be preferable to SE?
(writing and reading of poetry/song lyrics, dialogue, fiction)
Troutman is something of a radical in that she is focused on
changing the academy, rather than changing the student. She, and the
researchers she quotes in her article, believe that it
is difficult to help a student to trust his or her own voice – but that it is
essential to keep trying because of the confidence and strength that are the
result of success.
She is interested in the concept of educational equality,
which she feels is diminished when we make one language or dialect “better”
than all others. She is interested in addressing what she calls “the issues of
‘excellence’ or literacy,” and sees the acceptance of the BVE cultural voice on
the individual, academic, and social levels as a large step in that direction.
Yet she realized that this would entail “a new type of instruction;” one which
required instructors (that’s us) to understand in a more than “lip-service” way
the importance of these cultural leftovers, the importance of linguistic
pluralism and the obligation to “accept differences in writing styles” as
different, not deficient.
Selection #1
“You wants to be keerful ‘bout who you
marry, Mis’ Starks. Dese
strange men runnin’ heyh tryin’ tu take advantage of yo’ condition.”
“Marry!”
Janie almost screamed. “Joe ain’t had time tuh git cold yet. Ah ain’t even give marryin’ de first
thought.”
“But
you will. You’se too young uh ‘
“Ah
hope not. Ah mean, at dis present time it don’t come befo’ me. Joe ain’t been dead two
months. Ain’t got settled down in his grave.
“Dats whut you say now, but two
months mo’ and you’ll sing another tune. Den you want tuh
be keerful. Womenfolks is easily taken advantage of. You know what tuh let none uh dese strag niggers dat’s settin’ round heah get de inside
track on yuh. They’s jes lak a pack uh hawgs, when dey see uh full
trough. Whut yuh needs is
uh man dat yuh done lived uhround and know all about tuh
sort of manage yo’ things fuh
yuh and generally do round.”
Jamie
jumped upon her feet. “Lawd, Ike Green, you’se uh case! Dis subjick you bringin’ up ain’t fit tuh be talked about at
all. Lemme go inside and help Hezekiah weigh up dat barrel uh sugar dat just come
in.” She rushed on inside the store and whispered to Hezekiah, “Ah’m gone tuh de house. Lemme know what dat ole
pee-de-bed is gone and Ah’ll be right back.”
Selection #2
"Didn't
the fox never catch the rabbit, Uncle Remus?"
asked the little boy the next evening.
"He
come mighty nigh it, honey, sho's
you born – Brer Fox did. One day atter
Brer Rabbit fool 'im wid dat calamus
root, Brer Fox went ter wuk en got 'im some tar, en mix
it wid some turkentime, en
fix up a contrapshun w'at
he call a Tar-Baby, en he tuck dish yer Tar-Baby en
he sot 'er in de big road, en den he lay off in de
bushes fer to see what de news wuz
gwine ter be. En he didn't
hatter wait long, nudder, kaze
bimeby here come Brer
Rabbit pacin' down de road – lippity-clippity,
clippity –lippity – dez ez sassy ez
a jay-bird. Brer Fox, he lay low. Brer
Rabbit come prancin' 'long twel
he spy de Tar-Baby, en den he fotch up on his behime legs like he wuz
'stonished. De Tar Baby, she sot dar, she did, en Brer Fox, he lay low.
"`Mawnin'!' sez Brer
Rabbit, sezee - `nice wedder
dis mawnin',' sezee.
"Tar-Baby
ain't sayin' nuthin', en Brer Fox he lay low.
"`How
duz yo' sym'tums
seem ter segashuate?' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee.
"Brer Fox, he wink his eye slow, en lay low, en de Tar-Baby,
she ain't sayin' nuthin'.
"'How
you come on, den? Is you deaf?' sez Brer Rabbit, sezee. 'Kaze if you is, I kin holler louder,' sezee.
"Tar-Baby
stay still, en Brer Fox, he lay low.
"'You
er stuck up, dat's w'at you is,' says Brer Rabbit, sezee, 'en I’m gwine ter kyore you, dat's w'at I'm a gwine ter do,' sezee.”