african american english lsa summer institute ......english in language usage among african slave...
TRANSCRIPT
LSA SUMMER INSTITUTE, 2019
AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH
JUNE 24, 2019 SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH
ORIENTATION
• The Roadmap: Where we are going
• Reviewing the Syllabus
• Please complete a sign-in sheet: Your name, Your email address
• The evolution of pertinent nomenclature
• The linguistic legacy of the African Slave Trade
• Some of the foundational figures in linguistic scholarship
• Our introductions
• Where I began: The difference vs. deficit debate
• Plans for June 27, and the remainder of the course
POLITICAL CORRECTNESS OR ETHNOGRAPHIC SENSITIVITY CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH
THE EVOLUTION OF TERMINOLOGY
• 1964: Nonstandard Negro English
• 1972: Black English Vernacular
• 1975: Ebonics: (The concept becomes most visible in 1996 as a result of the Oakland School board proclamation).
• 1981: African American (Vernacular) English
• 1986: African American Language
• 2019: Back to the Future: Harris Stowe University: We are “Moorish” people
• What would be the most accurate label? English (or other Lgs?) as spoken by descendants of (African) slaves?
• United States slave descendant English?
BLACK LANGUAGE STUDIES WERE CENTRAL TO THE FORMULATION OF QUANTITATIVE SOCIOLINGUISTICS
SOME OF THE FOUNDATIONAL FIGURES
• The battle of the Bills: William Stewart and William Labov
• William Stewart, J.L. Dillard: Proponents of the “Creole Hypothesis”
• William Labov: An indirect proponent of the “Dialectologist Hypothesis.”
• Walt Wolfram: Synchronic foci: The Neutral Hypothesis (My assessment) No need to get entangled in historical debate (speculation?) because they contemporary speech is available for study.
• Any questions thus far?
• CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH
PLEASE BE SURE TO COMPLETE THE SIGN-IN SHEET
BRIEF PERSONAL INTRODUCTIONS
• Your name
• Your home institution and your primary linguistic interests
• A brief (very brief) introduction to you. Please share something about yourself that you would like us to know about you.
• If you already know it, please share a brief account of your goals for the course.
• Although we will only meet for eight classes, I hope you will make acquaintances with those enrolled or participating in this class, and join the community of scholars who study the linguistic legacy of the African slave trade.
• CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH
PROJECT
DATE CLIENTDATE NAME
PROJECT
DATE CLIENTDATE NAME
MY FIRST EXPOSURE TO LINGUISTICS: LABOV, 1969 CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH
DEFICIT VS. DIFFERENCE
• The logic of Nonstandard English
• My initial (inadvertent) racist reaction
• Arthur Jensen, Bereiter and Englemann, Basil Bernsten
• William Labov
• Historical relevance to “Dialectologist” vs. “Creole” origins
• Is it [ /Iz/ > /z/ > /0/ ] i.e., ([is] > [s] > [0])
• Or, is it [ /0/ > /z/ > /Iz/] i.e., ([0] > [s] > [is])
• 1983: Thomas Farrell: IQ and Standard English
JUNE 27 AND BEYOND CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH
NEXT STEPS
• Next class: The historical issues, debates, and controversies in greater detail.
• Lorenzo Turner, Melville Herskovitz, and the marginality of black studies in the sister social sciences, and the centrality of these studies in the development of sociolinguistics.
• Michael Montgomery and Shana Poplack: Finding early attestations of English in language usage among African slave descendants
• Derek Bickerton: His early creole studies, critiques of Labov (and me) and the emergence of the Bioprogram.
• How to select your first assignment: What is best for you? Working toward collective knowledge and shared expertise.