@jefinely1 you and I are linguistic soul sisters I believe. I was *this* close to considering a graduate program in linguistics. I can still nerd out on the topic for hours. Ask my high school French students. If they ever get me talking about where a rule came from or how language has evolved or how the way someone speaks is "stupid", my lesson plan is a goner.
We were debating this in one of my Facebook groups the other day based off this article.
"For one thing, the idea that there is only one right way of doing English – and everyone else is doing it wrong – is inherently flawed. And by “flawed” I mean illogical, elitist and even oppressive. Judgements about what counts as “right”, “good” and “correct” in writing and grammar always – ALWAYS – align with characteristics of the dialects spoken by privileged, mostly wealthy, mostly white people. We make these judgements based on learned biases, as well as a certain emotional attachment to our own way of doing things. But when people study dialects in an objective, scientific way (which is what cunning linguists actually do), they find that low-prestige dialects, such as African-American Vernacular English or Cockney English, have fully-formed grammar rules of their own that make just as much sense as any others. They are perfectly valid and functional forms of communication used by millions of people. The only difference is that they don’t have people running around telling everyone else to do it their way."
"I ask them to estimate, in a developed country like Canada or the U.S., what percentage of the population has literacy skills below the very basic level needed to function well in our society. People usually guess ten percent, fifteen percent, maybe as much as twenty-five. Then I pull out the sad, stunning facts: nearly half of all North American adults cannot cope with complex written material of the sort that the other half of us take completely for granted. HALF, you guys. This should be considered a national crisis. Not fodder for sport."
https://paintingthegreyarea.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/literacy-privilege/
=D> All of this. Criticism of AAVE makes me especially angry as it seems to receive way more judgment than other English dialects in America, and the only reason it does exist is because of the institutionalized segregation of black people by whites through three hundred plus years of slavery, separate but equal, and the continued inequality of education access to poor communities. So of course African American English f*cking sounds different.
Here's my thoughts on grammar. ..some of the best people i know aren't necessarily the most educated so i try to take that into account. It's easy to think it's simple when there are so many reasons why that could be. I'm also a slang talking fool.
Absolutely! Education =/= better person. My annoyance is mainly from these deep, philosophical posts people put on FB that are so riddled with grammatical errors or just incorrect words/phrases from people who have the same educational background as me. Try as I might, even if they're saying something that makes sense (with corrections) I can't bring myself to like or comment because I'm so baffled by what I read.
I am a first generation college student. And despite my family's lack of higher educational exposure, there was still an importance placed on learning and communicating correctly. @BrooklynBroussard hit the nail on the head.
We were debating this in one of my Facebook groups the other day based off this article. "For one thing, the idea that there is only one right way of doing English – and everyone else is doing it wrong – is inherently flawed. And by “flawed” I mean illogical, elitist and even oppressive. Judgements about what counts as “right”, “good” and “correct” in writing and grammar always – ALWAYS – align with characteristics of the dialects spoken by privileged, mostly wealthy, mostly white people. We make these judgements based on learned biases, as well as a certain emotional attachment to our own way of doing things. But when people study dialects in an objective, scientific way (which is what cunning linguists actually do), they find that low-prestige dialects, such as African-American Vernacular English or Cockney English, have fully-formed grammar rules of their own that make just as much sense as any others. They are perfectly valid and functional forms of communication used by millions of people. The only difference is that they don’t have people running around telling everyone else to do it their way."
"I ask them to estimate, in a developed country like Canada or the U.S., what percentage of the population has literacy skills below the very basic level needed to function well in our society. People usually guess ten percent, fifteen percent, maybe as much as twenty-five. Then I pull out the sad, stunning facts: nearly half of all North American adults cannot cope with complex written material of the sort that the other half of us take completely for granted. HALF, you guys. This should be considered a national crisis. Not fodder for sport." https://paintingthegreyarea.wordpress.com/2012/11/26/literacy-privilege/
Am I the only one who read "cunning linguists" and giggled a little?
@komorebi your intellect scares me. Haha ( brain hurts when reading your posts ). I'm asking this question only because I value your answers and you seem to know your stuff. When people are taught across the U.S. basic English, why is it that its so hard to understand that slang is improper English? We're all guilty of it. I grew up in a suburb primarily white. But still had minorities in my school. Who grew up the same way I did. Same classes. Yet, these individuals still continue to mispronounce their words. I feel like it's a sense of entitlement. I had corrected someone very nicely and they called me racist. I don't see color and I never have. But it's hard to understand why? I know you just posted explaining this. I am asking you to dumb it down for me haha.
@leighann1 My life would be heaven if I could just study languages and learn with people who don't speak much English all day long. I am fascinated by human communication. I know a lot of it is simply how different people's brains work and what they're good at, but learning languages is so simple if you understand the purpose of grammar and are willing to just listen to how other people speak. And a basic comprehension of that, and cultural appreciation and empathy, is really all you need to communicate with anyone from anywhere. Language, for me, is really just a fun and continuously evolving jury-rigged historical road map to how people have bridged the remaining gaps.
@carlymarie021 I think what helped me understand is that there's a difference between language and dialect. A language typically has a border - Americans speak English. French people speak French. Mexicans speak Spanish.
But within that country, there are dialects that vary according to regions and cultural groups. The only thing keeping southern English from being a "language" is that it doesn't have a government and political boundary to go with it. Southern English still has a set of rules (grammar) and a set of vocabulary, and it could just as easily become the "standard" and could just as easily have its rules taught.
African American Vernacular English is the same way. To standard American English speakers, it can sound illiterate or unintelligent, but there are actually grammatical rules and systems followed within that way of speaking that could make it be labeled its own "language" in other political/societal contexts.
That being said, it is pretty much understood that if someone wants to "fit in" with the standard society, they are expected (by society) to know and be able to use standard English in the appropriate contexts. My southern family, when in social situations, will slip into heavy dialect, but they can then switch to more standard speak when in a business situation or a more formal setting.
Dialect can have a very personal meaning to people and can help them find an identity, so being corrected or judged can cause negativity. Saying someone else's dialect is "wrong" can be very offensive.
I don't know if that helps at all, but those are my two nerdy cents.
Edit to clarify my wordiness & answer your question: The minorities you mention were likely wanting to maintain their own identity separate from the standard. A way of identifying with their culture. It's probably not that they didn't know how to speak standard English, more that they chose not to as a way of identifying with their group.
@leighann1 My life would be heaven if I could just study languages and learn with people who don't speak much English all day long. I am fascinated by human communication. I know a lot of it is simply how different people's brains work and what they're good at, but learning languages is so simple if you understand the purpose of grammar and are willing to just listen to how other people speak. And a basic comprehension of that, and cultural appreciation and empathy, is really all you need to communicate with anyone from anywhere. Language, for me, is really just a fun and continuously evolving jury-rigged historical road map to how people have bridged the remaining gaps.
I'm working on my masters in TESOL so I can teach English as a second/foreign language and my classes have been so eye-opening and fascinating. I have loved learning how people learn languages and all the factors that play into it. I am so excited to begin my career in the field. Sociolinguistics and foundations of linguistics were my favorite classes by far.
@leighann1 yes it pretty much clears it up. I didn't grow up in a neighborhood exposed to different dialects other than mine!! Which is sad because I can come off as being "racist". When I'm not. I'm learning!
I took a language class in grad school and it was really interesting because it focused on dialects and such. That's why it doesn't annoy me with people say "axe" instead of "ask" because it is usually their dialect and not something they do on purpose. My professor stressed to not correct kids who are talking in their own dialect (I'm a teacher) and to not mark it as an error when they are reading out loud. I always thought that was one of my more interesting classes to take.
@leighann1 yes it pretty much clears it up. I didn't grow up in a neighborhood exposed to different dialects other than mine!! Which is sad because I can come off as being "racist". When I'm not. I'm learning!
I wish more people had your attitude. I've explained to people so many times that AAVE is not lazy or sloppy English and that it actually does have a grammatical structure and they just refuse to accept it. I wish people would take it as a learning experience like you have. The variety of dialects in the English language is one of the reasons I love it so much. Language is very much alive and evolving everyday.
@leighann1 As a teacher, do you find that white teachers will often use/ teach local white dialects or completely disregard them as grammar errors to an extent? I have experienced this and feel it contributes to the sentiment that as opposed to other regionalisms, AAVE is especially "bad" English. White kids aren't taught or made aware of the fact that:
a) They probably grew up speaking something a lot closer to Standard American English in their homes, so it is way easier for them and they aren't denying their heritage in any way by being forced to use SAE.
b) Unless they are an incredible exception to the rule, they likely code switch to more casual forms or other dialects of English as well if they aren't being graded, it just isn't stigmatized.
@carlymarie021 leighann1 did an awesome job of explaining. I would check out the NPR article in my one post too on "ask" versus "ax." It's a good place to start with getting some perspective. I would be careful with so boldly declaring minority pronunciations especially, "mispronunciations." Like you said, we're all guilty of imperfect SAE. I'm sure ladies on here could go through my posts and find many grammar, punctuation, and spelling errors. There are lots of words that people all over our country technically mispronounce even in business and formal interactions depending on where they hail from, and people would never bat an eye or dare to correct them. It would be considered incredibly rude. Somehow that rule seems to change for correcting AAVE. And if we compare any American's English in the same way to British English, pretty much all of America would sound like a load of morons.
In spite of being in the same class as you, the English minority students learned at home was probably drastically different than yours. Likely, you have some kind of an accent or regional dialect as well, you just don't know it, and it's probably totally accepted as normal where you live so there is no reason you should. But there is no reason that outside of formal papers or speech, African American students, or other minority groups, should have to either. Entitled might actually be a really good way to put it. It's just that they're actually correct in that entitlement. They deserve their version of English too. And while people might not mean it that way, among people who have studied languages and racial history in America especially, discriminately correcting one pronunciation over another is considered a clear form of racism and racial oppression. I don't say that to criticize, I just think that so many people have never encountered a need to think about it. So I'm so glad this topic came up!
@jefinley1 which is why people call me racist and I'm like but whyy?? Haha il try and explain this to my brother too. Maybe sit down the whole "fam" while I'm at it. Remember kids, you can change the world. One smart person at a time. Thank you for the clarification. One thing I learned today, is how not to sound like a sheltered white girl from suburbs. Check!
@jefinley1 No, I think the vast majority of teachers do not distinguish or know how to distinguish between standard and local dialects. I have taught both English and French, and being in the English department for 3-4 years was eye-opening. Most of the English teachers had zero linguistics training. Teacher training is heavily focused on literature and the writing process (not to mention the loads of mostly useless teaching methodology classes), and grammar is not routinely taught at the high school level.
Dialect differences are certainly viewed as errors in most cases. High school English teachers, for the most part here anyway, view grammar as something that should have already been taught, so errors are errors by the time they get to us. And then we mumble about the middle school and elementary teachers... Then the foreign language teachers just pick up and fill in the gaps
There is definitely a lack of awareness about speech differences, though the focus seems to be more clear in teaching writing. There is a lot of emphasis placed on formal vs. informal writing at the high school level. The concept of "academic" writing is heavily taught.
I do think that if more teachers were aware of and respectful of dialects, it would help a lot misconceptions. Some students, minorities especially, don't realize the value of code-switching. Those who choose not to switch between standard and AAVE, for example, will sadly be at a disadvantage when job-seeking, which just continues to add to the socioeconomic divide. If we could more freely discuss and understand the use of dialects, maybe minorities would feel less judged and more willing to switch to the standard in concepts that "require" it. Now, I don't think they should have to, but that would require a huge societal shift that I don't foresee happening.
- Are always late to everything, even though everyone else manages to get there at a reasonable time.
- Are a grown adult who shows up to a planned even severely hungover, and then complains how awful you feel and how pissed you are that you had to follow through with your priorities.
- Brag on social media how perfect your marriage/relationship is and how you and your kids couldn't survive without your perfect spouse, but you spend all your time in real life crying about the abuse you continuously face.
- Group everyone into specific stereotypes and refuse to believe that individuals are individuals.
@jefinley1 which is why people call me racist and I'm like but whyy?? Haha il try and explain this to my brother too. Maybe sit down the whole "fam" while I'm at it. Remember kids, you can change the world. One smart person at a time. Thank you for the clarification. One thing I learned today, is how not to sound like a sheltered white girl from suburbs. Check!
All of us sheltered suburban white girls hit a moment as adults where we have to either acknowledge and learn, or deny. A lot of people choose to deny and those are the only ones that will send me into a raging conniption. As an entitled, elitist teen and young adult, I used to argue against AAVE, calling it a "degradation and devolution of the English language." Then I read some great books and articles, which helped me gain some perspective and tolerance. After that I went to finish my degree in North Philly with students who grew up a lot differently than me. At that point I pretty much started hanging my head in shame at the recollection of my former opinions. I'm still learning. The process never really stops, and knowing that is really all that matters.
@komorebi your intellect scares me. Haha ( brain hurts when reading your posts ). I'm asking this question only because I value your answers and you seem to know your stuff. When people are taught across the U.S. basic English, why is it that its so hard to understand that slang is improper English? We're all guilty of it. I grew up in a suburb primarily white. But still had minorities in my school. Who grew up the same way I did. Same classes. Yet, these individuals still continue to mispronounce their words. I feel like it's a sense of entitlement. I had corrected someone very nicely and they called me racist. I don't see color and I never have. But it's hard to understand why? I know you just posted explaining this. I am asking you to dumb it down for me haha.
@carlymarie021 that is so sweet. I promise i just read a lot.
It's been explained better than i can but i can say i grew up around a variety of dialects. My Grandma was a poor southern woman, my dad grew up in Los Angeles during a time where young Mexicans were punished in school for speaking Spanish and sounding ethnic, and i went to a middleand high school with predominately poor black students. I've never formerly studied linguistics but it's so interesting to me because I've always understood that there is more than one way to express yourself with language. My dad drilled into us that we needed to sound "white". He was hyper critical of any slang we picked up and i adored my Grandma and thought she sounded so cool. I still use a lot of her sayings and fall into sounding southern and into the African-American dialects i grew up with. My parents were in the service when we were young and i also have a tendency to pick up accents which will change the way you say things.
I know that people will throw out the racist stuff when certain dialects are criticized but it's not that simple. Like my dad who is mexican American is not a bit racist, he just had the "right" way of speaking drilled into him to the point that he can't imagine why any one would want to speak otherwise. And i know plenty of African-American parents who feel the same way.
My parents moved here from another country and had to learn proper grammar in English. If they could do it, anyone can. It would so easy for them to use their ESL learning curve as an excuse, but they didn't. That is probably why I have such an issue with improper grammar. I completely understand that there is history behind the many dialects, but that shouldn't be an excuse for people to stop trying to at least get it right in a professional setting.
Ask is spelled A-S-K, not A-C-K-S. Ain't nobody got time fo dat.
@jefinley1 No, I think the vast majority of teachers do not distinguish or know how to distinguish between standard and local dialects. I have taught both English and French, and being in the English department for 3-4 years was eye-opening. Most of the English teachers had zero linguistics training. Teacher training is heavily focused on literature and the writing process (not to mention the loads of mostly useless teaching methodology classes), and grammar is not routinely taught at the high school level.
Dialect differences are certainly viewed as errors in most cases. High school English teachers, for the most part here anyway, view grammar as something that should have already been taught, so errors are errors by the time they get to us. And then we mumble about the middle school and elementary teachers... Then the foreign language teachers just pick up and fill in the gaps
There is definitely a lack of awareness about speech differences, though the focus seems to be more clear in teaching writing. There is a lot of emphasis placed on formal vs. informal writing at the high school level. The concept of "academic" writing is heavily taught.
I do think that if more teachers were aware of and respectful of dialects, it would help a lot misconceptions. Some students, minorities especially, don't realize the value of code-switching. Those who choose not to switch between standard and AAVE, for example, will sadly be at a disadvantage when job-seeking, which just continues to add to the socioeconomic divide. If we could more freely discuss and understand the use of dialects, maybe minorities would feel less judged and more willing to switch to the standard in concepts that "require" it. Now, I don't think they should have to, but that would require a huge societal shift that I don't foresee happening.
Resident English language arts teacher chiming in! I would love to speak to teacher preparation programs across the board. You mentioned that many teachers do not have adequate linguistics training, and you couldn't be more right. The unfortunate reality of American teacher preparation programs is that they are not fulfilling the needs of P-12 by the end of a four-year stint. There are upwards of 3.6 million teachers in the U.S. They are all trained and licensed within four years on average, and many of them spend close to half of that time in general education courses that are unrelated to their license. Consider how many years doctors spend in training. First, they earn an undergraduate degree, then they prepare for a rigorous exam whereby they are either waved into the next level or closed off from the rest of the med-school journey. They complete an additional series of courses and then move on to residency and on-the-job training. There are approximately 970,000 doctors across the U.S. One would hope that the demand for quality teachers and improved education would motivate communities and lawmakers to support change in the teacher preparation process (requirements, time, funding/scholarships, etc.). Unfortunately, the greater discussion has been geared toward assessing teachers in the field, rating them based on student performance without consideration for student demographics or school funding, and students aren't winning. Instead, many people have continued to ignore the need for improved teacher preparation programs and redirect attention to the product those programs produce (the new teachers) as though there is no connection or accountability to the place of higher education. This isn't an excuse for teachers to not be aware of language and all of its intricacies, rather, it is a commentary on the disarray of the status of teacher preparation.
Regarding all of the comments about language, I hope others who read this thread are recognizing the incredible passion and value that many of us place on the human experience. So much of the language discussion has been rooted in valuing who people are and where they are from, both home life and regional location. Threads like this remind me why I enjoy being a part of O'15.
I can never like take myself seriously because I like use the work like too much! At least when I'm typing I put the likes in then can go back and replace them with more appropriate words!
1. People who use "is " instead of " it's" . Is a beautiful day . NO, it's a beautiful day . WTF ? My grammar is far from perfect but some people are just ridiculous.
2. Daily selfies with meaningful quotes as captions. Thanks, that shows how deep you are. Also, thanks for the daily reminder of your face because I'm sure it has changed since yesterday.
3. People who talk badly about our military. I can't deal I really cant!
My parents moved here from another country and had to learn proper grammar in English. If they could do it, anyone can. It would so easy for them to use their ESL learning curve as an excuse, but they didn't. That is probably why I have such an issue with improper grammar. I completely understand that there is history behind the many dialects, but that shouldn't be an excuse for people to stop trying to at least get it right in a professional setting.
Ask is spelled A-S-K, not A-C-K-S. Ain't nobody got time fo dat.
Actually, learning the most recent and standard form of a language is way easier if you're learning it as an outsider. I've studied Spanish, French, and Arabic (not by any means to the level of complete fluency, but enough that after a few weeks of immersion I can get by in at least the French and Spanish, and with a brush up, can conduct basic communication in Arabic) and the ultimate goal in linguistic study for communication is to not sound so dang grammatically perfect. Ask anyone who studies Spanish about their efforts to not get laughed at for speaking Castillano in Mexico. Or Standard Arabic speakers who talk with Egyptians.
As far as your whole ask versus aks humor, before you start mocking ax, you should probably start reading Old English Lit (the first English versions of the Bible) or go back in time and trying telling that to the likes of Shakespeare and Chaucer. Most cultures that learned English through British imperialization use the old form, which is axe. So technically it's more grammatically correct than ask if we're going by chronology. Insert awkward and damning implication of white imperialization and cultural domination here....
My parents moved here from another country and had to learn proper grammar in English. If they could do it, anyone can. It would so easy for them to use their ESL learning curve as an excuse, but they didn't. That is probably why I have such an issue with improper grammar. I completely understand that there is history behind the many dialects, but that shouldn't be an excuse for people to stop trying to at least get it right in a professional setting.
Ask is spelled A-S-K, not A-C-K-S. Ain't nobody got time fo dat.
Actually, learning the most recent and standard form of a language is way easier if you're learning it as an outsider. I've studied Spanish, French, and Arabic (not by any means to the level of complete fluency, but enough that after a few weeks of immersion I can get by in at least the French and Spanish, and with a brush up, can conduct basic communication in Arabic) and the ultimate goal in linguistic study for communication is to not sound so dang grammatically perfect. Ask anyone who studies Spanish about their efforts to not get laughed at for speaking Castillano in Mexico. Or Standard Arabic speakers who talk with Egyptians.
As far as your whole ask versus aks humor, before you start mocking ax, you should probably start reading Old English Lit (the first English versions of the Bible) or go back in time and trying telling that to the likes of Shakespeare and Chaucer. Most cultures that learned English through British imperialization use the old form, which is axe. So technically it's more grammatically correct than ask if we're going by chronology. Insert awkward and damning implication of white imperialization and cultural domination here....
Except we are not going by chronology when we are all taught how to pronounce ask in school.
I really don't care what color your skin is. The only reason we are taught to say "ask" in school is because of how white English evolved in America. If a kid grows up saying "axe" from their infancy because of the enforced linguistic segregation in the United States I will get mad when someone starts telling them that they have have to start speaking just like "everybody else" just because we've finally decided they can legally participate in our education system (forced racial integration in schools was still occurring into the '80's because of the institutionalized racism here). Or that they can interact and actually speak with white people when they go to movie theaters, or get on buses. It can be incredibly hard to break linguistic habits learned from childhood, especially when you remain within that culture, and honestly why should they have to? White people in America effectively forced them to develop independently, and now we're suddenly saying that to be taken seriously they have to adapt to white standards? I'm certainly not going to make fun of people for speaking a form of English that should, by all reasonable standards, be as valid as mine.
Edit: The reason that I get so passionate about this, and even if it bothers people, unapologetically so, is that I see the continued racial and economic inequality in the US, and it is enforced by ideas of what is and isn't culturally appropriate based on one dominate culture's standards. It affects the daily lives of so many people, many whom I personally care about deeply, and it enrages me. It makes me livid to know that in this country, someone who is as qualified as I am, statistically will not get the job I apply to simply because me saying "y'all" because I get nervous in an interview is cute, and them saying "axe" is unprofessional. To me, stomping out the ideology that perpetuates that is more important than not being seen as a crazy b*tch. If I can get one person to see just how messed up the above is, it's worth it to me.
I really don't care what color your skin is. The only reason we are taught to say "ask" in school is because of how white English evolved in America. If a kid grows up saying "axe" from their infancy because of the enforced linguistic segregation in the United States I will get mad when someone starts telling them that they have have to start speaking just like "everybody else" just because we've finally decided they can legally participate in our education system (forced racial integration in schools was still occurring into the '80's because of the institutionalized racism here). It can be incredibly hard to break linguistic habits learned from childhood, especially when you remain within that culture. I'm certainly not going to make fun of people for speaking a form of English that should, by all reasonable standards, be as valid as mine.
This is related to an interesting situation I have encountered in my first decade of teaching in a rural area. The community in which I teach is riddled with grammatical structures that are not aligned with SAE (e.g., "I seen you yesterday."). My students often struggle when I see them in 9th and 12th grade because they spent their childhood hearing and engaging in conversations wherein "I seen" is standard and "I saw" is nonexistent. They can learn the structure and they can edit for it in their written work, but when it comes to shifting their spoken and written work entirely, the task seems insurmountable to many of them. I also have colleagues at every level in a variety of disciplines who use "I seen" rather than "I saw." I just thought of this as I read your comments regarding ask/aks. What do you think about the relationship between the two?
@jefinley1 No, I think the vast majority of teachers do not distinguish or know how to distinguish between standard and local dialects. I have taught both English and French, and being in the English department for 3-4 years was eye-opening. Most of the English teachers had zero linguistics training. Teacher training is heavily focused on literature and the writing process (not to mention the loads of mostly useless teaching methodology classes), and grammar is not routinely taught at the high school level.
Dialect differences are certainly viewed as errors in most cases. High school English teachers, for the most part here anyway, view grammar as something that should have already been taught, so errors are errors by the time they get to us. And then we mumble about the middle school and elementary teachers... Then the foreign language teachers just pick up and fill in the gaps
There is definitely a lack of awareness about speech differences, though the focus seems to be more clear in teaching writing. There is a lot of emphasis placed on formal vs. informal writing at the high school level. The concept of "academic" writing is heavily taught.
I do think that if more teachers were aware of and respectful of dialects, it would help a lot misconceptions. Some students, minorities especially, don't realize the value of code-switching. Those who choose not to switch between standard and AAVE, for example, will sadly be at a disadvantage when job-seeking, which just continues to add to the socioeconomic divide. If we could more freely discuss and understand the use of dialects, maybe minorities would feel less judged and more willing to switch to the standard in concepts that "require" it. Now, I don't think they should have to, but that would require a huge societal shift that I don't foresee happening.
Resident English language arts teacher chiming in! I would love to speak to teacher preparation programs across the board. You mentioned that many teachers do not have adequate linguistics training, and you couldn't be more right. The unfortunate reality of American teacher preparation programs is that they are not fulfilling the needs of P-12 by the end of a four-year stint. There are upwards of 3.6 million teachers in the U.S. They are all trained and licensed within four years on average, and many of them spend close to half of that time in general education courses that are unrelated to their license. Consider how many years doctors spend in training. First, they earn an undergraduate degree, then they prepare for a rigorous exam whereby they are either waved into the next level or closed off from the rest of the med-school journey. They complete an additional series of courses and then move on to residency and on-the-job training. There are approximately 970,000 doctors across the U.S. One would hope that the demand for quality teachers and improved education would motivate communities and lawmakers to support change in the teacher preparation process (requirements, time, funding/scholarships, etc.). Unfortunately, the greater discussion has been geared toward assessing teachers in the field, rating them based on student performance without consideration for student demographics or school funding, and students aren't winning. Instead, many people have continued to ignore the need for improved teacher preparation programs and redirect attention to the product those programs produce (the new teachers) as though there is no connection or accountability to the place of higher education. This isn't an excuse for teachers to not be aware of language and all of its intricacies, rather, it is a commentary on the disarray of the status of teacher preparation.
Regarding all of the comments about language, I hope others who read this thread are recognizing the incredible passion and value that many of us place on the human experience. So much of the language discussion has been rooted in valuing who people are and where they are from, both home life and regional location. Threads like this remind me why I enjoy being a part of O'15.
I love your idea for changing the education system and teacher requirements.
Here's my thoughts on grammar. ..some of the best people i know aren't necessarily the most educated so i try to take that into account. It's easy to think it's simple when there are so many reasons why that could be. I'm also a slang talking fool.
Just want to point out that I never finished anything other than elementary school in a non-english speaking country. I'd like to believe that despite me being an uneducated foreign weirdo, I do quite well in avoiding most of the mistakes that have been pointed out in this thread. Imo, not having received education isn't an excuse for even half of the grammar fails I see on a daily basis.
*continues reading thread, while nodding at pretty much every post*
I really don't care what color your skin is. The only reason we are taught to say "ask" in school is because of how white English evolved in America. If a kid grows up saying "axe" from their infancy because of the enforced linguistic segregation in the United States I will get mad when someone starts telling them that they have have to start speaking just like "everybody else" just because we've finally decided they can legally participate in our education system (forced racial integration in schools was still occurring into the '80's because of the institutionalized racism here). It can be incredibly hard to break linguistic habits learned from childhood, especially when you remain within that culture. I'm certainly not going to make fun of people for speaking a form of English that should, by all reasonable standards, be as valid as mine.
This is related to an interesting situation I have encountered in my first decade of teaching in a rural area. The community in which I teach is riddled with grammatical structures that are not aligned with SAE (e.g., "I seen you yesterday."). My students often struggle when I see them in 9th and 12th grade because they spent their childhood hearing and engaging in conversations wherein "I seen" is standard and "I saw" is nonexistent. They can learn the structure and they can edit for it in their written work, but when it comes to shifting their spoken and written work entirely, the task seems insurmountable to many of them. I also have colleagues at every level in a variety of disciplines who use "I seen" rather than "I saw." I just thought of this as I read your comments regarding ask/aks. What do you think about the relationship between the two?
It seems like they would be dropping the "have" in their use of the past participle. I feel like I remember learning about this in one of my linguistic courses and it also had to do with an older version of English, but I'm going to have to go on a Google hunt. I actually feel that within certain bubbles or regions, grammar and pronunciation anomalies should be accepted even in professional settings, so long as the standard English grammar is taught as well. Many already are, so long as they are associated with whatever the upper crust is in that area, as opposed to the ones people connect to the poor and under-educated. Our world is getting so much more diverse, and so much more globalized that I think we are going to start seeing more and more crazy fun variations and dialects, and we are going to have to learn to accept that. Just as racial background is becoming less and less clear cut, so is speech.
In a professional setting even, speaking and using the regional dialect can be incredibly helpful and even polite. Say you work as someone in customer service, but in a position of authority. Like a bank manager who has the power to give or deny loans. It can go so far if you are serving someone who speaks the regional dialect, to use it as well instead of Standard English even in that professional setting. Instead of seeming pretentious and as though you're looking down on them, you are respecting and relating to that person and their culture. At the end of the day, standardized language is only important in that it allows people across an entire nation to communicate effectively. Yet people attach so many other connotations to it that, when assessed more deeply, only exist to enforce a certain standard of class or privilege. I also like to remind people that technically, there is no official language in the United States. So any way of speaking being prioritized over another is entirely constructed by whichever group holds power.
What an interesting conversation this has turned into! My grammar annoyances are in written forms only. In my schooling, there was emphasis on not writing how you speak, meaning, in casual speech you may say "axe" and not "ask", or you may pronounce pass/past/passed the same, but know they're different words. How I speak with my family/friends is one thing, but when I go to communicate in writing, I pay attention to my words because these different spellings have different meanings.
If I'm intentionally misspelling something, it would be to convey how I would say something out loud(like, "yaaaaas!" or "chile, please!" instead of yes, and child please), but I find that to be very different from (and easily distinguished) using a different word because I don't know/understand the differences in the spelling. And again, from people who were in my classes, so I know what they were taught.
I really don't care what color your skin is. The only reason we are taught to say "ask" in school is because of how white English evolved in America. If a kid grows up saying "axe" from their infancy because of the enforced linguistic segregation in the United States I will get mad when someone starts telling them that they have have to start speaking just like "everybody else" just because we've finally decided they can legally participate in our education system (forced racial integration in schools was still occurring into the '80's because of the institutionalized racism here). Or that they can interact and actually speak with white people when they go to movie theaters, or get on buses. It can be incredibly hard to break linguistic habits learned from childhood, especially when you remain within that culture, and honestly why should they have to? White people in America effectively forced them to develop independently, and now we're suddenly saying that to be taken seriously they have to adapt to white standards? I'm certainly not going to make fun of people for speaking a form of English that should, by all reasonable standards, be as valid as mine.
Edit: The reason that I get so passionate about this, and even if it bothers people, unapologetically so, is that I see the continued racial and economic inequality in the US, and it is enforced by ideas of what is and isn't culturally appropriate based on one dominate culture's standards. It affects the daily lives of so many people, many whom I personally care about deeply, and it enrages me. It makes me livid to know that in this country, someone who is as qualified as I am, statistically will not get the job I apply to simply because me saying "y'all" because I get nervous in an interview is cute, and them saying "axe" is unprofessional. To me, stomping out the ideology that perpetuates that is more important than not being seen as a crazy b*tch. If I can get one person to see just how messed up the above is, it's worth it to me.
I'm clapping over here. Yes!
Even if something is what we should have learned in school, how do you know who had access to a quality education and who did not. If i hadn't been taught the value of a good education and sounding "proper"(not to mention being good at independent learning), I'm not sure what my life would be like today. But that upsets me more than it causes me to have any disdain for people who didn't have those same qualities instilled.
@LiveNLove44 This article talks about saw/seen and addresses it way better than I just did, along with a bunch of other awesome insight from people infinitely more qualified. It also discusses the arbitrary nature of "proper" speech and why defining it in a way that demeans other speech groups can be incredibly harmful.
@komorebi I'm so glad that made sense to at least someone. I normally try to stay so calm and cool and nice on here, and try to just stop contributing if it seems like it isn't going anywhere good. But mocking other people's way of speaking or behaving especially when it has racial, ethnic, or class implications will send me over the edge without fail in a way something like throwing baby showers, wishing for a certain gender, or opting out of vaccines never could. As much as I enjoy discussions like this, this is a terrible forum for it. I feel like if we could just all sit and talk over decaf beverages this would be way more pleasant and efficient.
Re: I'm sorry, I can't take you seriously if...
=D> All of this. Criticism of AAVE makes me especially angry as it seems to receive way more judgment than other English dialects in America, and the only reason it does exist is because of the institutionalized segregation of black people by whites through three hundred plus years of slavery, separate but equal, and the continued inequality of education access to poor communities. So of course African American English f*cking sounds different.
I am a first generation college student. And despite my family's lack of higher educational exposure, there was still an importance placed on learning and communicating correctly. @BrooklynBroussard hit the nail on the head.
Wow. All you ladies are so smart!
My contributions:
I cant take you seriously if you...
- Are always late to everything, even though everyone else manages to get there at a reasonable time.
- Are a grown adult who shows up to a planned even severely hungover, and then complains how awful you feel and how pissed you are that you had to follow through with your priorities.
- Brag on social media how perfect your marriage/relationship is and how you and your kids couldn't survive without your perfect spouse, but you spend all your time in real life crying about the abuse you continuously face.
- Group everyone into specific stereotypes and refuse to believe that individuals are individuals.
I think I'm getting more persnickety about these as I age, poor Bebe.
It's been explained better than i can but i can say i grew up around a variety of dialects. My Grandma was a poor southern woman, my dad grew up in Los Angeles during a time where young Mexicans were punished in school for speaking Spanish and sounding ethnic, and i went to a middleand high school with predominately poor black students. I've never formerly studied linguistics but it's so interesting to me because I've always understood that there is more than one way to express yourself with language. My dad drilled into us that we needed to sound "white". He was hyper critical of any slang we picked up and i adored my Grandma and thought she sounded so cool. I still use a lot of her sayings and fall into sounding southern and into the African-American dialects i grew up with. My parents were in the service when we were young and i also have a tendency to pick up accents which will change the way you say things.
I know that people will throw out the racist stuff when certain dialects are criticized but it's not that simple. Like my dad who is mexican American is not a bit racist, he just had the "right" way of speaking drilled into him to the point that he can't imagine why any one would want to speak otherwise. And i know plenty of African-American parents who feel the same way.
Ask is spelled A-S-K, not A-C-K-S. Ain't nobody got time fo dat.
I agree with so many of these . I've lost count.
1. People who use "is " instead of " it's" . Is a beautiful day . NO, it's a beautiful day . WTF ? My grammar is far from perfect but some people are just ridiculous.
2. Daily selfies with meaningful quotes as captions. Thanks, that shows how deep you are. Also, thanks for the daily reminder of your face because I'm sure it has changed since yesterday.
3. People who talk badly about our military. I can't deal I really cant!
As far as your whole ask versus aks humor, before you start mocking ax, you should probably start reading Old English Lit (the first English versions of the Bible) or go back in time and trying telling that to the likes of Shakespeare and Chaucer. Most cultures that learned English through British imperialization use the old form, which is axe. So technically it's more grammatically correct than ask if we're going by chronology. Insert awkward and damning implication of white imperialization and cultural domination here....
Nice job assuming I'm white though.
I love your idea for changing the education system and teacher requirements.
If I'm intentionally misspelling something, it would be to convey how I would say something out loud(like, "yaaaaas!" or "chile, please!" instead of yes, and child please), but I find that to be very different from (and easily distinguished) using a different word because I don't know/understand the differences in the spelling. And again, from people who were in my classes, so I know what they were taught.
Even if something is what we should have learned in school, how do you know who had access to a quality education and who did not. If i hadn't been taught the value of a good education and sounding "proper"(not to mention being good at independent learning), I'm not sure what my life would be like today. But that upsets me more than it causes me to have any disdain for people who didn't have those same qualities instilled.