Quite true, but ultimately irrevalent. Were, examples aside, your
linguistics courses taught in BEV or Standard English? Standard is
generally a more effective means of data interchange. Linguists can be
compared to the people who check the plumbing, writers are the ones that
flush. We're looking at things from a number of different perspectives here.
The linguist has a purely mechanical interpretation, others a sociological
bias, or an artistic one. We have to be careful we don't miss each
others' points, because we all have very differing backgrounds. I don't
have a problem with dialect, it is as surely interesting as it is
non-standar - and standardisation is what makes things run.
I use dialect in some of my writing, but there are certainly purposes and
occasions where it is inappropriate. In those, I would use standard
English. Here in New England we speak differently, although the
dialect is not as extreme as BEV, an is mostly pronunciational. Notice
how media insists on a standard pronunciation, that's why all our local
tv new readers sound like foreigners. It's really amusing to hear them
try to say Quonnochontaug for the first time.
On Thu, 9 Mar 2000, Cameron Kaiser wrote:
> ::It's still dialectical, however, like Gullah, and inappropriate as a
> ::basis for standard English. Further, use of the dialect effectively
> ::condemns the user to a lower socio-economic status, which seems very unfair.
> ::Upward mobility is usually preceded by change in language to that of the
> ::upper group. It almost seemed like the Ebonics movement was determined
> ::to keep the poor in their place.
>
> Since my degree actually happens to be linguistics ...
>
> BEV/Ebonics is considered a valid dialect, and the rules of it are
> documented. Where linguistics makes no comment is the appropriateness
> or social applicability, or even correctness. If people say it and
> other people understand it, then it's grammatical. Anyone who says
> otherwise is William F. Buckley, Jr. :-)
>
> --
> ----------------------------- personal page: http://www.armory.com/~spectre/ --
> Cameron Kaiser * Point Loma Nazarene University * ckaiser_at_ptloma.edu
> -- It's not enough to be Hungarian. You must have talent too. -- Alex Korda ---
>
M. K. Peirce
Rhode Island Computer Museum, Inc.
215 Shady Lea Road,
North Kingstown, RI 02852
"Casta est qui nemo rogavit."
- Ovid
Received on Fri Mar 10 2000 - 07:43:45 GMT