For a long time, JC and other Creoles have been regarded as non-standard varieties inferior to Standard British English and the question of whether JC is a dialect or in fact a language, still has not been resolved. Regardless of that, JC has been recognised as an independent variety with its own grammar-system and vocabulary – as systematic and rule-governed as any other language – joined with SE by means of a dialect continuum.
The discussion about how to classify JC may seem to be of little importance, but if it were to be regarded as an English dialect comparable to Cockney or any other variety of English, it would be difficult to claim its relevancy as a school subject, since no other dialects are being taught in British schools. However, the situation for JC speakers seems to be rather different than that of 'normal' dialect speakers. JC speakers experience more difficulties in code switching, thus are more inclined to make mistakes in writing and speaking SE. JC should be regarded as a language rather than a dialect, since the JC structure is so prominent that it becomes an obstruction to its speakers' use of SE. Sutcliffe claims that the degree of intelligibility between JC and SE is more comparable to that of Swiss German vs. Standard German and Catalan vs. Castilian Spanish, than to that of SE and even the broadest Scottish dialect. (39)
Seeing how great the diversity between JC and SE is, it would be of great importance to JC speakers to be able to learn their mother-tongue in school, alongside with SE. by learning JC in a similar way that they learn SE, the pupils would become better at distinguishing between the two, and thus the code-switching would come more natural to them.
One problem (amongst many) which is still to be solved is the fact that there is no accepted written standard. Attempts have been made to change this, and it is my beliefs that but still, the JC writings differ greatly with regards to spelling.
Another problem that must be overcome is the fact that the whole state education system is predicated on British SE. As I mentioned earlier, non-standard varieties of English have traditionally been regarded as inferior, and the school has disregarded and even penalised non-standard usage. This is slowly beginning to change, and with a newly awakened awareness of the important role that JC – as well as other language varieties – play in the maintaining of a child's identity, the demand for a curriculum that includes JC has been put forward. (39)
2. African American Vernacular English and its use in teaching process.
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) – also called African American English or Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular (BEV), or Black Vernacular English (BVE); or controversially Ebonics – is an African Americanvariety (dialect, ethnolect and sociolect) of American English. Its pronunciation is in some respects common to Southern American English, which is spoken by many African Americans and many non-African Americans in the United States. There is little regional variation among speakers of AAVE. ( 22, 547 )
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety formerly known as Black English Vernacular or Vernacular Black English among sociolinguists, and commonly called Ebonics outside the academic community. While some features of AAVE are apparently unique to this variety, in its structure it also shows many commonalties with other varieties including a number of standard and nonstandard English varieties spoken in the US and the Caribbean. AAVE has been at the heart of several public debates and the analysis of this variety has also sparked and sustained debates among sociolinguists.
It is extremely difficult to say how many people speak AAVE because it is not clear what exactly this would mean. Some speakers may use some distinctive aspects of phonology (pronunciation) and lexis (vocabulary) but none of the grammatical features associated with the variety. Many sociolinguists would reserve the term AAVE for varieties which are marked by the occurrence of certain distinctive grammatical features some of which are discussed below.
Even so it may still be difficult to say with any exactitude how many AAVE speakers there are since such grammatical features occur variably, that is, in alternation with standard features. Such variability in the speech both of groups and individuals reflects the complex social attitudes surrounding AAVE and other nonstandard varieties of English and it was this variability which initially attracted the attention of sociolinguists such as William Labov.(34, 214)
The history of AAVE and its genetic affiliation, by which we mean what language varieties it is related to, are also a matter of controversy. Some scholars contend that AAVE developed out of the contact between speakers of West African languages and speakers of vernacular English varieties. According to such a view, West Africans learnt English on plantations in the southern Coastal States (Georgia, South Carolina, etc.) from a very small number of native speakers (the indentured laborers). Some suggest that this led to the development of a rudimentary pidgin which was later expanded through a process of creolization.
Others who advocate a contact scenario for the development of AAVE suggest that the contact language (an early Creole-like AAVE) developed through processes of second language acquisition. According to such a view West Africans newly arrived on plantations would have limited access to English grammatical models because the number of native speakers was so small (just a few indentured servants on each plantation). In such a situation a community of second language learners might graft what English vocabulary that could be garnered from transient encounters onto the few grammatical patterns which are common to the languages of West Africa. (28, 49)
What linguists refer to as universal grammar (the law-like rules and tendencies which apply to all natural human language) would have played a significant role in such processes as well. This kind of thing seems to have taken place in the Caribbean and may also have happened in some places, at some times in the United States. For instance Gullah or Sea Islands Creole spoken in the Coastal Islands of South Carolina and Georgia seems to have formed in this way.
The demographic conditions in the US and the Caribbean (where restructured Creole languages are widely spoken) were really quite different and that the conditions necessary for the emergence of a fully fledged Creole language were never met in the US. These scholars have shown on a number of occasions that what look like distinctive features of AAVE today actually have a precedent in various varieties of English spoken in Great Britain and the Southern United States. It seems reasonable to suggest that both views are partially correct and that AAVE developed to some extent through restructuring while it also inherited many of its today distinctive features from older varieties of English which were once widely spoken.
As mentioned above AAVE is a matter of some public controversy as was seen most recently in the debate over the Ebonics ruling by the Oakland School Board. More than anything this debate made it clear to sociolinguists that they had failed in one of their primary objectives -- to educate the public and to disseminate the results of over twenty-five years of intense research.
Unfortunately, many public policy makers and sections of the public hold on to mistaken and prejudiced understandings of what AAVE is and what it says about the people who speak it. This matter is compounded by the fact that, with the AAVE-speaking community, attitudes towards the language are complex and equivocal. Many AAVE speakers contrast the variety with something they refer to as "Talking Proper". (23,78)
At the same time these same speakers may also express clearly positive attitudes towards AAVE on other occasions and may also remark on the inappropriateness of using Standard English in certain situations. While the situation in this case is made more extreme by the context of racial and ethnic conflict, inequality and prejudice in the United States, it is not unique. Such ambivalent and multivalent attitudes towards nonstandard varieties of a language have been documented for a great many communities around the world and in the United States.
American society has made concessions for many groups of people with special interests, such as animal activists, environmental activists and a host of ethnic groups. Tough animal rights laws have been passed to ensure the safety and future of a variety of species ranging from the domestic cat to the bald eagle. The development of Wetlands has been curtailed in an effort to protect our swamps and forests from extinction.
Educational system has implemented a program known as, English as a Second Language, which lends itself to the special needs of immigrants in our school systems. This program offers extra tutoring and extra time on tests for immigrants who primarily speak a language other than English. Dudley Scholarship and Bethel Foundation Scholarship, along with over twelve-hundred others, have been created exclusively for minorities in an effort to encourage furthering their education. A list of these scholarships can be found in Directory of Financial Aids for Minorities, 1993-1995.
In an effort to promote equal opportunity in the work place, the United States Government adopted the Affirmative Action Program, which forces companies to place a certain number of minorities within their work force. Now, some politicians and educators in this country want to make concessions for those Americans who have grown up learning to speak what some people call street slang, as opposed to speaking Standard English, which at last was still America's primary language. (31,71)
According to Caroline Boarder, a political columnist, a program known as Ebonics has been introduced in Oakland, Ca. as a way to bridge the gap between Black English or bad English-speaking students and standard English-speaking students in an effort to raise reading and writing test scores of African Americans. She also states that the Oakland school board contends that this bridge is necessary because the speaking of Ebonics is genetically related to African Americans. This hypothesis suggests that black students are incapable of learning the English language through conventional teaching methods, and we must devise an easier way to teach them.
Having grown up in the American school system, both public and private, was exposed to people from various ethnic groups who had poor reading and writing skills, most of whom were black. The one thing about these fellow students is that they shared a common speech deficiency including incorrect pronunciation, subject verb agreement and problems with general sentence structure. It was no surprise that they could barely read or write; they couldn't or wouldn't even speak, and other classmates felt the same way. (29, 55)
For example, Floyd Brown was one of these students. One day he was going after school, and he replied:
"Ima fi'n na go to da crib n axe ma fo some bread." –
“You think that he was going to kill his mother who was in a baby crib (obviously a midget) and take her food. But it is he was going home to ask his mother for some money”.
Ebonics had been coined for this speech deficiency in 1973. A dissection of the word Ebonics, which you will not find in the dictionary and should not find in any classroom in American school systems, yields a definition based on its two syllables. Ebo means black, and nics, which is taken from phonics, means sounds. This breaking apart of the word Ebonics simply yields its meaning as, black sounds.
According to Jane Hill, a political columnist for the Chicago Tribune, Ebonics was first recognized in America in the 1800's when African slaves were first brought to America. These slaves did not speak Standard English because they were not taught to do so. They spoke a form of what some people now call Ebonics, because they did not know any better, but African Americans in today's school systems have been taught better and should know better. (35, 33)
Education is best built upon what we already know, but if what we already know is incorrect English, then we must discard it and learn from correct tutorial tools. This includes practicing reading, writing and speaking with adherence to English grammar rules. Strong reinforcement of Standard English through repetitious reading and writing exercises is one solution to the problem of illiteracy in ethnic groups in America. When necessary, another solution may be speech therapy.
This is the kind of learning structure we need in the classrooms in their country. They must demand it of their teachers, and they must deliver. They should be culturally sensitive to all ethnic groups in an educational setting, but let's not lose sight of the goal in the process, which is mastery of the English language. Any incorporation of non-standard use of the English language could make it harder for all students to learn Standard English. What is worse is that these bad English-speaking students may become complacent with Ebonics and feel that they now have their own identifiable language and not attempt to learn Standard English. If students transfer nothing other than proper English to their long-term memory during their education, they will at least have the basis for success in the general population. Good communication skills are a must in almost every occupational field. (33, 56)
Who will lose as a result of a mandatory incorporation of Ebonics into our school systems? First, those students in English as a Second Language programs will feel the effects of such a fiasco. Funding for Ebonics will most likely come from this area and as a result, necessary, commendable programs such as this could be short-changed. Secondly, teachers who have spent their careers attempting to condition the tongues of their students to English discipline will have to concede to bad English. Lastly, the students who are placed in these classes will suffer the greatest loss. Ebonics classes will be composed primarily of students who belong to various ethnic groups, which will contribute to segregation and racism, and American history has proven that segregation in any form can only serve to keep minorities down.
While it is true that many of the words Americans speak today come from African origin, those words are clearly pronounceable and are understood by most Americans. Some of these words are: jubilee, banana, jumbo, gumbo, jazz and banjo. These words are not slang. According to Connie Eble, a member of the linguistic association of Canada and the US, slang can be defined as the dropping of a consonant at the end of a word and attaching it to the next word. The following is an example of slang: (working last) translated into slang as (workinlas). This is a common combination that some people believe composes parts of Ebonics. This type of slang has artistically contributed to the film industry with productions such as Roots and Glory, but that only makes it marketable, not correct. It as exploitation of inadequate education of both the characters in the film who speak it, and the viewer who pays to see it.
In Martin Luther's speech “I Have a Dream”, and in his writings such as “Letter from Birmingham Jail”, you can’t find one word of what may be deemed improper English or Ebonics. If Martin Luther King could speak and write this clearly without the aid of Ebonics to bridge the gap, this must surely dispel any theory of the speaking of bad English being genetically connected to African Americans. I believe that if he could hear the arguments supporting Ebonics he would roll over in his grave. Ebonics was not part of his dreams for black Americans; he hoped for educational boundaries to be broken not re-created as Ebonics has the potential of doing
The list of prominent figures in society who oppose Ebonics includes Jessie Jackson who openly speaks on television broadcast shows and in various publications about his contempt for Ebonics. United States Secretary of Education Richard Riley has publicly declared Oakland's program of Ebonics ineligible for federal funding. Bill Cosby calls Ebonics "Igmo-bonics." An urbanized version of the English language which if allowed evolving will leave only body language as a common standard language to the next generation. (34, 144).
As a society interested in the future of our youth we must realize that there is no substitute for hard work and study in the classroom, and there are no shortcuts to learning the English language. The educational system must strive to make children mainstream communicators. Ebonics is a misguided, ill represented, detrimental shortcut that will only create confusion and disappointment in the classroom. It is a cancer that must be sent into permanent remission by the clear and coherent voices of Americans.
Chapter III. Linguistic Aspects of Black English.
1. Phonetic peculiarities
AAVE and Standard English pronunciation are sometimes quite different. People frequently attach significance to such differences in pronunciation or accent and as such the study of phonology (the systematic a patterning of sounds in language) is an important part of sociolinguistics. It should be noted that phonology has nothing to do with spelling. The way something is spelt is often not a good indication of the way it "should be", or much less is, pronounced.