\nOrder Description
\npaper instruction and myth 13 later.
\nReading Responses Instructions
\nPlease follow the rubric below for the reading response.
\nNote: you can quotes from the text if needed to provide evidence to support arguments and observations, but make sure to write the authors name and the page number next to the quotes in MLA format. The references also should be in MLA format.
\nReading response
\nRead myths 13 in Bauer and Trudgill (1998) (eds.) and submit a reading response paper (750 -1000 words). Your reading response should include a brief summary and your reactions for the myth. Again, please make sure to cite everything properly and follow rubric. Please, I would also like to focus on the reactions. I dont want any other references. <\/p>\n
\nlAnguage Myths<\/p>\n
and James Milroy and Lesley Milroy, Authority in Language (London:
\nRoutledge, 1985). For a humorous critique ofsome common prescrip
\ntions see Patricia O’Conner, Woe is I: the grammarphobe’sguide to
\nbetter English in plain English (New York: Grosset\/Putnam, 1996).
\nMental grammars are discussed by Steven Pinker,’ The Language
\nInstinct (London: Penguin, 1994) and for a standard descriptive gram
\nmar of English see Sidney Greenbaum, The Oxford English Grammar
\n(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).<\/p>\n
MYTH 13′<\/p>\n
Black Children are Verbally Deprived
\nWalt Wolfram<\/p>\n
Eloquent orators seem to abound in African-American culture. At
\nreligious meetings, political rallies and other social gatherings, speakers
\ndemonstrate dynamic, effectual discourse. From the powerful speeches
\nof historic figures such as Frederick Douglass, through William Du
\nBois, Martin Luther King, Barbara Jordan and Jessie Jackson in the
\nUnited States – and beyond North America to renowned African
\norators such as Kwame Nkrumah, Odumegwu Ojukwu and Des~
\nmond Tutu, this oratorical tradition is regularly practiced and highly
\nvalued. Even political and social opponents of these well-known black
\norators begrudgingly concede the power and utility of their speaking
\nskills.
\nQuite clearly, verbal art is an integral, pervasive and highly valued
\ncomponent of black culture – on both a public and a personal level.
\nIts influence on popular culture, through rappers, hip-hop culture
\nand slang expressions is transparent, but it is more than that. Its roots
\nare planted deep within the oral tradition of the African diaspora,
\nand its branches extend to practically every sphere of communicative
\nactivity within black culture.
\nGiven such an extensive and widely recognized oral tradition, it is
\nindeed ironic to find young African-American children described in
\nthe educational literature as ‘verbally deprived’, ‘language impover
\nished’ or ‘linguistically retarded’. Can these be children from the same
\n. culture we described above If so, how can such contrasting pictures
\noflanguage competence arise And how do we reconcile the conflicting
\nportraits of verbal richness and linguistic poverty If nothing else,
\nthe lesson that emerges from the myth of African-American verbal
\ndeprivation shows how far from reality perceptions oflanguage ability
\n102<\/p>\n
103<\/p>\n
Language Myths<\/p>\n
Black Children are Verbally Deprived<\/p>\n
may wander. Or how much distortion can appear in a language
\nportrait based on the angle of the observer.
\nAs a backdrop for our discussion, we must admit that there are
\ndifferences in varieties ofEnglish which may sometimes correlate with
\nethnicity. Some African-Americans simply do not sound the same
\nas Anglo-Americans when they speak. When tape-recorded speech
\nsamples ofworking-class African-American and working-class Anglo
\nAmerican are played, listeners identify with reasonable accuracy
\nwhether the speakers are black or white (about 80 per cent of the time
\nin most listener tests based on relatively brief passages of natural
\nspeech).
\nThe basis for these language differences is historically, socially and
\nlinguistically very natural and understandable. When people from
\ndifferent cultures come together, the languages reflecting these cultures
\nmix and adapt. And when groups are segregated, isolated and excluded,
\nthey maintain and develop in different ways, thus enhancing language
\ndifferences. So far so good – as over 6,000 world languages and
\nmultitudinous dialects of each of these distinct languages attest. But
\nwhen different cultural groups are drastically unequal in their social
\nand interactional relationships – and especially when one group has
\nbeen dehumanized in comparison with the other – the environment
\nfor cultivating myths about these differences is fertile. The end result
\nof these myths is to provide a justification for the differential power
\nrelations between the groups.
\nMyths about the language of African-Americans have, of course”
\nchanged as the perspective on the status ofblack Americans has shifted
\nhistorically, but there is a common, unifying theme in the mythology,
\nnamely, the linguistic inferiority principle. According to this principle,
\nthe speech of a socially subordinate group will always be interpreted
\nas inadequate by comparison with the socially dominant group. Expla
\nnations may vary, but the principle will be constant. Thus, when
\nAfrican-American speech is compared with the middle-class, Anglo
\nAmerican norm, it will be considered linguistically deficient, although
\nthe explanations for the deficiency may vary.
\nIn the days of slavery, when blacks were institutionally ascribed a
\nstatus that was less than human, their speech was simply viewed as<\/p>\n
the communicative gibberish of a people inherently incapable of
\nimitating the language of the ruling European-American classes. If a
\ngroup of people is considered genetically deficient, what else is to be
\nexpected from their language In various shapes and forms, the myth
\nof genetic inferiority has persisted to some extent even in present-day
\nsociety. Thus, there are still occasional references to the possible
\ncorrelation of anatomical differences with racial differences, a throw
\nback to the genetic basis for language differences among blacks and
\nwhites.
\nMyths correlating racial with linguistic differences are fairly easy
\nto debunk logically and empirically. Ifrace were truly a factor account
\ning for a dialect difference, then how would we explain the fact that
\nAfrican-Americans raised in an exclusively Anglo-American environ
\nment will sound indistinguishable from those of the surrounding
\nspeech community and vice versa There is indisputable evidence
\nfrom listener identification judgments that speakers will be identified
\nwith the language of their socialized community, not their racial
\nclassification.
\nAnatomically based explanations, for example, those based on lip
\nsize, are also easy to reject. For example, there is great diversity in lip
\nsize within both the white and black communities, yet no independent
\ncorrelation with lip size and speech differences exists. White folks
\nwho have larger lips don’t necessarily sound black, and blacks with
\nsmaller lips don’t necessarily sound white. Besides, there is no indi
\ncation from the world’s races that lip size correlates in any way with
\nthe choice of particular sounds in a language.
\nBut entrenched myths about la.nguage inadequacy are like a jack-in
\nthe-box that keeps springing back up. So the exposure of one line of
\nreasoning as objectively unjustified and illogical doesn’t mean that
\nlinguistic equality will be attained. If the bottom-line belief is that
\none cultural group – and by extension, its language – is inferior to
\n. another, then another line of reasoning will simply replace the old
\none. Therefore, when nature is ruled out as a possible explanation for
\nthe distinctiveness of African-American speech, nurture may rise to
\nthe interpretive occasion. Genetically based myths have not died out<\/p>\n
104<\/p>\n
105<\/p>\n
Language Myths<\/p>\n
completely in popular culture, but they have largely been supplanted
\nby myths related to the social environment.
\nIn some respects, the current set of myths tied to nurture is a more
\nserious threat to the linguistic integrity of African-American speech
\nthan those based on nature, because they can be camouflaged in
\nfashionable social and educational concern. In the process, the expla
\nnations for linguistic inferiority don’t seem so blatantly racist as
\ntheir precursors founded in genetic inferiority. But the semblance of
\nrespectability can actually present a more imposing obstacle to a valid
\nunderstanding of black speech than conspicuously racist statements
\nabout anatomical differences accounting for linguistic differences.
\nIn order for a myth to be nurtured in an increasingly educated
\nsociety, it should be rooted in ‘objective fact’ and have a common-sense
\nappeal. The verbal deprivation myth has done this by relying on the
\nresults of standardized tests and other formal assessment measures as
\n‘the facts’, then turning to conditions in the social environment to
\nexplain them. For example, the results ofstandardized language testing
\nsupport the conclusion that ‘disadvantaged children of almost every
\nkind are typically one or two years retarded in language development’
\n(Carl Bereiter, p. 196). The problem with the facts, however, is that
\nthey provide a distorted picture. The norms used as the basis for
\ntesting the speakers were derived from standard-English-speaking,
\nmiddle-class Anglo children who speak a dialect different from their
\nworking-class cohorts. Therefore, the tests simply demonstrate a dia
\nlect difference between middle-class, standard dialects of English and
\nother dialects.
\nNo language expert would deny that African-American children
\nwho speak a variety of English different from the standard English
\nnorms used in the measuring instruments will s~ore differently from
\n– and lower than – those children who speak the language variety
\nused as the basis for norming the test. A Canadian French child taking
\na test normed on Parisian French or a Spanish-speaking’ South
\nAmerican child taking a Spanish test normed on Castilian Spanish
\nspoken in Spain would suffer a similar fate in their ‘objective’ test
\nscores. If standard dialect speakers were given a test using normative,
\nuniquely African-American language structures, they would suffer a
\n106<\/p>\n
Black Children are Verbally Deprived<\/p>\n
comparable fate. Of course, when one group is economically and
\nsocially dominant over another, differences will always be interpreted
\nin a way that supports the asymmetricalsocio-economic, socio
\npolitical and socio-educational status quo. In such a comparative
\nscenario, it is easy to see how cultural and language differences will
\nbe interpreted as deficits. So it is just a matter ofexplaining why these
\ndeficits exist. The seeds of language deprivation are firmly planted
\nthrough ‘facts’; now all that is needed is an explanation that will allow
\nthe principle of linguistic inferiority to be nurtured properly.
\nInterpretative explanations that sustain the myth ofthe linguistically
\ndeprived black child appeal to the process of language learning, the
\nnature oflanguage patterning and the situations used to demonstrate
\nlanguage capability. With respect to language learning, models of
\nparenting in general and verbal interaction between caretakers and
\nchildren in particular are cited as support for the alleged verbal
\ndeprivation ofAfrican-American children. Some middle-class parents
\ntake a fairly proactive, although highly selective role in teaching young
\nchildren new words and directly modeling speech; By the same token,
\nsome working-class parents may not be as proactive in directly
\nmodeling language in this way. Looking at this situation, educational
\npsychologists have maintained that working-class black children do
\nnot get adequate verbal stimulation from their caretakers by compari
\nson with their middle-class cohorts and, therefore, they end up
\nlanguage-handicapped.
\nAt ‘first glance, this line ofreasoning seems sensible – if one assumes
\nthat parents and caretakers must playa proactive’ role for language
\nacquisition to take place. But as it turns out, this i~ a totally erroneous
\nassumption. There is absolutely no basis for maintaining that language
\nacquisition comes through direct parental initiative; in fact, there is
\na lot of evidence against it. The capacity for language is a unique
\nattribute of the human mind, and there is overwhelming evidence
\n. that all that is needed for normal language development to take place
\nis exposure to a social environment where people use language to
\ninteract meaningfully. Anyone who has ever been. in a working-class
\nblack home knows that verbal interaction is profuse and productive.
\nChildren interact with each other and adults interact with each other
\n107<\/p>\n
LAnguage Myths<\/p>\n
and with the children. Certainly, there is extensive verbal interaction
\nto provide models for language acquisition, and any claim to the
\ncontrary would be totally absurd.
\nThere are a number of different modeis for interaction in the
\nacquisition of normal language. Surveys of language socialization
\nacross the world’s cultures indicate that parent-child, adult care
\ntaker”‘:’child, and older sibling- and peer-child interactions all work
\neffectively in modeling the language necessary for acquisition. Regard
\nless ofthe model, all children acquiring language have a basic language
\nsystem by the age of five or six, with minor refinements taking place
\nfor another five or six years. In fact, surveys of language socialization
\nmodels in languages around the world indicate that the parent-child
\ninteraction model is a minority one. But that’s not the essential point;
\nthe important fact is that there are different social interactional models
\nfor providing the necessary ,input for the stimulation of normal
\nlanguage learning. A parent’s proactive role in teaching language may
\nmake the parent feel involved and responsible, but it has little to do
\nwith the ultimate acquisition of normal language. This is fortunate;
\nif it were not so, the vast majority of the world’s languages would
\nnever be acquired adequately.
\nThe myth of language deprivation is also supported by a mistaken
\nunderstanding about language patterning. There is a popular percep
\ntion that standard dialects have regular patterns – the ‘rules’ of
\nlanguage – and that structures that differ from these rules violate
\nthe basic patterns of language. From this perspective, non-standard
\nvarieties involve violations of the standard dialect but no rules of their
\nown. This is the grammaticality myth, which holds that any structure
\nnot in conformity with standard English norms is designated ‘ungram
\nmatical’. This myth lumps together cases of true ungrammaticality,
\nwhere the basic patterns for forming sentences in a language are
\nindeed violated, and social judgments about differently patterned
\nlanguage forms.
\nFor example, an English speaker uttering a sentence such as dog
\nthe barks would violate a basic sequencing rule of English grammar
\nin which articles regularly come before nouns rather than after them
\n– a case oftrue ungrammaticality for English. However, the grammati
\n108<\/p>\n
Black Children ‘are Verbidly Deprived<\/p>\n
cality myth holds that sentences such’ as They be talking all the time,
\nThey didn’t do nothing to nobody about nothing, and She nice would
\nbe considered as cases of ungrammatical language as well. While these
\nsentences may certainly be socially disfavored, they are rigorously
\npatterned. For example, the use of be in sentences such as They be
\ntalking all the time or Sometimes my ears be itching uniquely marks a
\n‘habitual activity’ as opposed to a single-point activity in African
\nAinerican Vernacular English. It is rigorously constrained in its pat
\nterning – different from standard English but every bit as patterned
\nas any comparable structure in the standard variety. Observations of
\nspeakers’ use and tests ofpreferences for sentences with be indicate that
\nspeakers of African-American Vernacular English will systematically
\nselect be for habitual contexts such as Sometimes they be doing it but
\nnot for single-time contexts such as They be doing it right now~
\nUnfortUnately, following the grammaticality myth, this regular pat
\nterning is not even considered to be a possibility. Irlstead, social
\nacceptability has become equated with linguistic patterning; thus, a
\nsocial judgment is translated into a misguided notion of language
\norganization. No one is saying that this structure should be considered
\nstandard English – just that its linguistic integrity stands apart from
\nits ,social assessment.
\nSome language differences may even be interpreted in terms of
\nlogic. Thus, the use of multiple negatives such as They didn’t do
\nnothing, which is used in African-American Vernacular English as in
\nmany other vernacular varieties of English, may be interpreted as an
\nindication of a flawed logic system – the logicalitY myth. In a fanciful
\nappeal to formal logical operations in which negatives can cancel
\neach other under certain conditions, it is sometimes maintained that
\nspeakers who use multiple negatives lapse into illogical language use.
\nBut formal, syllogistic reasoning is quite different from the gram
\nmatical manifestations of basic language propositions, including
\n‘negation, where there are varied linguistic manifestations of basic
\npropositions. In fact, many languages regularly:and exclusiVely use
\nmultiple negation in certain types of constructions. Compare, ‘for
\nexample, the French sentence Ie ne sais rien ‘I don’t know nothing,’
\nthe Spanish sentence No hace nada ‘S\/he isn’t doing nothing,’ or even
\n109<\/p>\n
Language Myths<\/p>\n
older English constructions such as There was no man nowhere so
\nvirtuous, where multiple negatives were the standard norm. Unless
\none is prepared to say that French, Spanish, the English of respected
\nauthors like Chaucer and many other languages of the world are
\ninnately illogical in their organization, we must concede that appealing
\nto logic in support of the deficiency of African-American Vernacular
\nEnglish is, somewhat ironically, a quite illogical line ofreasoning itself.
\nSimilarly, it has been argued that verbless sentences such as She
\nnice or The dog brown may be indicative of a cognitive breakdown in
\ndenoting relationships ofidentity. But as it turns out, the juxtaposition
\nof items in these constructions is a simple variant for linking predicate
\nconstructions, including predicate adjectives such as She nice or loca
\ntion constructions such as She in the house. Languages like Russian,
\nThai and many others use such constructions, since the verb in these
\nkinds of construction turns out to be redundant. Appeals to logic
\nmay have a very strong common-sense appeal, but the logic of these
\nappeals for language organization is fatally flawed.
\nFinally, we should say something about the perceptions of the
\n‘nonverbal’ African-American child. This classification has been made
\nbysome educators who observed that some African-American children
\nmay say little or nothing when spoken to by adults under certain
\nkinds of conditions. The typical situation on which these conclusions
\nare based involves an adult attempting to elicit conversation in what
\nseems – at least for the adult – to be a relatively innocuous and
\nnon-threatening situation. But consider the typical scenario in which
\na friendly adult sits across from a child in an institutional setting and
\nasks the child simply to ‘tell me everything you can about the fire
\nengine on the table.’ The situation is laden with values about language
\nuse, including the value of verbosity (the more you speak the better),
\nobvious information (there is value in describing objects that the
\nquestioner already knows about) and consequences for providing
\ninformation (what a child tells will not be held against the child), to
\nsay nothing of the asymmetrical power relations between the adult
\nstranger and child in a relatively alien, institutional setting. The same
\nchild who says virtually nothing about the fire engine in this social
\nsituation may, in fact, be highly animated and verbal when playing
\n110<\/p>\n
Black Children are Verbally Deprived<\/p>\n
with the fire engine in her home on the floor with her playmates. The
\nappearance of nonverbalness is just that – an appearance created by
\nthe artificial testing conditions under which language is sometimes
\ncollected for the purposes of assessment. Given the actual value of
\n– verbal presentation and repartee as discussed earlier, the myth of the
\nnonverbal black child is perhaps the most ironic twist of all in the
\nassessment of African-Americans’ language ability.
\nIn challenging the myth of black language deprivation, I am not
\ntrying to say that the language ofthe home and community is appropri
\nate for the particularized and socialized uses of language in education
\nand other kinds of public institutions. There is an academic register
\nnecessary for carrying out certain kinds of educational routines, just
\nas there is a language register for carrying out certain kinds of legal
\nroutines. In fact, there are lots of different situations and domains for
\nlanguage that call for specialized language uses, and our participation
\nin particular institutions in society necessitates that we be familiar
\nwith the registers associated with them. But these specialized uses of
\nlanguage have nothing to do with basic language capability.
\nIn some respects, no myth about African-Americans seems more
\nabsurd than the myth ofverbal deprivation. All the evidence indicates
\nthat black culture is a highly verbal culture which values the develop
\nment ofverbal skills. Unfortunately, relationships ofsocial and political
\ninequality can lead to the dismissal of even the most obvious reality in
\norder to mold language perceptions in conformity with the inferiority
\nprinciple.. Rather than being labeled as verbally deprived, African
\nAmericans ought to be thanked for contributing to daily conversation
\nwith words, phrases and other manners of speaking that enrich our
\nlanguage and our lives.<\/p>\n
Sources and further reading
\nThe quote on language disadvantage is taken from Carl Bereiter,
\n‘Academic instruction and preschool children’, in Richard Corbin and
\nMuriel Crosby, Language Programs for the Disadvantaged (Champaign,
\nIL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1965). Some of the
\n111<\/p>\n
Language Myths
\ncontributions ofAfrican-Americans to American speech through vari
\nous phrases are cited in Geneva Smitherman, Black Talk: Words and
\nPhrases from the Hood to the Amen Corner (Middleborough, MA: The
\nCountry Press, 1995). William Labov’s ‘The logic of non-standard
\nEnglish’, in Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English
\nVernacular (Philadelphia, PA: The University of Pennsylvania Press,
\n1972) remains a classic article attacking the language deprivation myth.<\/p>\n
MYTH 14<\/p>\n
Double Negatives are Illogical
\nJenny Cheshire<\/p>\n
Nothing shows why
\nAt this unique distance from isolation,
\nIt becomes still more difficult to find
\nWords at once true and kind,
\nOr not untrue and not unkind.
\n-Philip Larkin, ‘Talking in Bed’
\nAn’ when they be saying ifyou good, you goin’ t’heaven, tha’s bullshit,
\n’cause you ain’t goin’ to no heaven, ’cause there ain’t no heaven for you
\nto go to. -fifteen-year-old black youth from Harlem
\nYou won’t get nothing for dinner ifyou don’t come in and clear up your
\nmess. -adult woman from Hackney, East London ‘
\nIt never occurred to me to doubt that your work would not advance our
\ncommon object in the highest degree. -Charles Darwin
\nThere are three types of double negative here, each of which is from
\ntime to time condemned as illogical. Fowler’s Guide to Good Usage
\nclaims that the type illustrated by Darwin’s sentence is a ‘fuzzy error’
\nthat occurs when people don’t know exactly how to handle negatives.
\nGeorge Orwell said that the first kind (not plus a negative adjective)
\nshould be ‘laughed out of existence’. But it is the second kind, where
\nthere is a negative verb (ain’t and won’t in the examples here) and a
\nnegative word such as no, nothing or no one, that arouses the strongest
\nfeelings. It was one of the top ten complaints sent in 1986 to the BBC
\nRadio 4 series English Now after listeners had been inyited to nominate
\n111<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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