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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1855
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 4:02 pm: | 
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Labov,one of the worlds leading lights on the study of linguistics actually listened in to children"s conversations in one of New York"s Black Ghetto"s.He found that their language was as rich and as capable of expressing all the main linguistic features of a fully developed language
from the point of view of syntax and semantics
as any dialect of English.Because a dialect doesnt have the status of standard English doesnt mean it isnt as advanced linguistically speaking as any other dialect of English.Others have taken up his work and used it to gain access to the pupil"s codes and therefore insight into what will move them out of the ghetto and towards words that connect them to the wider world.Its a big subject.A bit too big for this thread I suspect.
Natalie
ps Most pupils in fact are bi-dialectal and can switch easily and effortlessly back and forth from local dialect to the language acceptable for school work.Some resist deliberately to give themselves Kudos in the area of street cred that is so fashionable at the moment -especially in various parts of London.To be black is very hip/cool. |
Maria Giordano
Inspector
Username: Mariag
Post Number: 373
Registered: 4-2004
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 4:12 pm: |
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That's just it,Nats, "the language acceptable for school work". And ebonics ain't it.
Mags
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1856
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 4:27 pm: |
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I know,I know we have had a few crack pot scheme"s here too beginning with the "phonetic" alphabet.At another school I know they refused to teach the children the alphabet and instead let them "make up their own" words to match the illustrations-it didnt matter whether the actual text was totally different-----at the end of the year there were quite a lot of very confused children! |
Andrew Spallek
Chief Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 790
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 4:55 pm: |
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Black American Street language would be somewhat analogous to Victorian Cockney, which was not a dialect but a collection of slang.
Now the latest "slang" appears in the written form of text message abbreviations.
c u l8r,
Andy S. |
Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1857
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 5:43 pm: |
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Andrew,
Cockney is considered to be one of the most inventive and imaginative dialects of English.So too is Black American Street Language according to researchers in the field....not only Labov.This is in terms of their syntax and semantics.I say this as someone who has studied linguistics to M.Phil level.
I accept that neither appear to be so but according to many of the major researchers in the field it has all the main features of language |
George Hutchinson
Inspector
Username: Philip
Post Number: 487
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 5:51 pm: |
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Personally, I would like to see a few more postings in Latin or Esperanto. I would say it would be nice to see more hieroglyphs, but I don't think Casebook supports them.
Phil - I am left-handed and delight in being sinister. Contextually, of course.
PHILIP
Tour guides do it loudly in front of a crowd!
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Natalie Severn
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Severn
Post Number: 1859
Registered: 11-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 6:12 pm: |
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Well Quite honestly Stanley Unwin had the edge on inventiveness with language.He did a form of Gobbledegook for radio 4 programmes! |
Thomas C. Wescott
Inspector
Username: Tom_wescott
Post Number: 336
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 7:46 pm: |
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Observation:
Half this board is hooked on phonics, the other half is hooked on chronic. Kinda like the rest of the world.
Random comments:
To Phil Hill: Where'd you get that blackboards are now called chalkboards due to political correctness? That's absurd. The change came about when blackboards became green. They're still called blackboards, though, and nobody's offended. You also wrote that 'Coke' is the best known word in the world, and that might be true. And I still say it's a damn shame that Patrick Mulshaw had to buy his own coke.
To all. Although I'm not as animous (I hope that's not too big a word for Cludgy, I'd hate to offend him with my snobbishness) as some towards people of average or below average smarts, I do get annoyed on a regular basis that SO many adults are so freaking stupid. To me there's no excuse for an adult not to be able to speak/read/write at AT LEAST a high school level. But so many do not. And many of these people, in turn, hate smart people and write them off as snobs, thus denying their own responsibility for their own shortcomings. The worst part of it is that these people reproduce at a more rapid rate than do the more educated classes, and pass these bad habits off to their kids, who then go to school with our kids, and influence their way of speaking, dressing, acting, and, indeed, their lives. For the love of Christ, Polly Nichols was a more apt writer than most adults today!
Regarding Ebonics, or 'talking black' as it's more commonly called in the states, it does share certain similarities to Victorian cockney, though it's not nearly as creative. I do find it fascinating, though, when reading an old, musty, Victorian text, and I find a slang word from the 1800's that is currently on the street here in the states. And I agree with Andrew that it's HIGHLY annoying when a Brit calls a Leuitenant a LEFtennant. What the hell? And why called a sidewalk 'pavement'. Are not the streets paved as well? Is that a leftover from the days of cobblestone? Sorry if I seem loud and mean, I'm still just miffed that Patrick Mulshaw aided in Coke becoming the most popular word in the world, while still having to pay for his own.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott
P.S. Dumbing down our language for lesser minds is ridiculous (unless you're David Radka). I like learner from those more knowledgeable than myself. And I couldn't do that if they dumbed themselves down.
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Andrew Spallek
Chief Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 791
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Saturday, April 30, 2005 - 7:57 pm: |
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Natalie,
I defer to yours as the "expert opinion." I have most often heard Cockney referred to as slang, but I don't know it well enough to have a meaningful opinion.
Black American street language is most definitely slang, however, in my opinion. Similarly, we White kids had our own street slang growing up in the city of Chicago. But I wouldn't be so presumptuous as to promote our slang as a dialect.
Andy S.
PS -- This post should really entertain Wintergreen! Somebody should check to make sure his heart can take it. |
Phil Hill
Inspector
Username: Phil
Post Number: 405
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 1:53 am: |
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Who on earth is Patrick Mulshaw and why are you so annoyed?
What do the phrases: "Although I'm not as animous..." and "I like learner..." mean?
I assume the later is just carelessness, or am I missing a joke here?
I think you'll find that "pavement" means an area to stand on, as against a "carriageway" for vehicles. Christ was tried on a "pavement" - in that case a courtyard - which is said still to exist in Jerusalem - it's paved!! I'd guess the word existed before the term "sidewalk".
As for LEFTenant, see the point about Arkansas above.
Ellision, older manners of speaking, local dialect, anglicisation of a foreign word, can all lead to vagaries of pronounciation.
You'd be amazed how many different words the scots have for things "messages" for "errands" is an example, I believe.
There are also local words, which have attracted some academic attention. I assume most nation's kids have a word for "truce" when they break of during a game. In parts of the Uk that is "Pax", when i was a boy it was "quits" where I grew up. In other areas it was "feynites" (Sp?).
Language is a wonderful and fascinating thing, don't let's standardise it too much.
I sometimes think Dr Johnson committed a horrible crime in inventing the dictionary, which led to the standardisation of spelling and vocabulary. Shakespeare had no problem and was not criticised for "inventing" words. If there is sense and logic to it, why should we be?
Phil
(Message edited by Phil on May 01, 2005) |
Caroline Anne Morris
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Caz
Post Number: 1684
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 5:15 am: |
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Hi Phil,
Let me be controversial (actually not) but it'll give some of you something to bite on - equality has it's place (though its over-rated...)
Language is a wonderful and fascinating thing, don't let's standardise it too much.
Let me be controversial and say that you do know how to use the apostrophe correctly, as your second sentence demonstrates, yet you use it incorrectly in the first - twice, by snatching it from your second its [sic], where it rightfully belonged, and putting it in your first it's [sic] where it is not wanted.
Standing up for equal rights for all apostrophes not to be abused,
Love,
Caz
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Phil Hill
Inspector
Username: Phil
Post Number: 409
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2005 - 7:43 am: |
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Quite right too - it's a case of more haste, less spell-checking, I'm afraid!!
Phil |
Andrew Spallek
Chief Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 792
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 11:53 am: |
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Well, well now, I never said it was "annoying" that Brits call their lieutenants "LEF-tenants." It just seems odd. In the US Army the most junior grade officer is a second lieutenant. In military slang he is a "second louie." Would then his British counterpart be a "second lefty?"
Sometimes commercialism causes conformity. Whenever I visit London I journey to he Food Halls at Harrod's and buy a tin of Ginger Biscuits to bring home. Last time I was struck by the new labeling on the tin: "Ginger Cookies." When did "biscuits" become "cookies" in England? Is this a blatant attempt to market the product to American tourists. (In America, a biscuit is a roll made with shortening and served hot and buttered. Sort of a scone).
One of the burning issues on the home front is how to express the second person plural pronoun. My wife, who is from the South, insists it must be "y'all." Of course, I, being from Chicago, know with absolute certainty that it it "yuz."
Don't yuz agree with me?
Andy S.
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Carolyn
Detective Sergeant
Username: Carolyn
Post Number: 65
Registered: 2-2005
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 12:55 pm: |
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Andy,
I'm afraid I have to agree with your wife.
It is "y'all"
Or at least it is in Okie!
Carolyn  |
Christopher T George
Assistant Commissioner
Username: Chrisg
Post Number: 1430
Registered: 2-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 1:34 pm: |
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Hi Andrew
In the British Army, a second lieutenant is known as a "subaltern." In terms of the marketing of British food, since products these days are marketed worldwide (vide the different languages today on the packaging of many products), it probably behooves the British ginger snap manufacturer to label their product as "cookies" rather than "biscuits."
All my best
Chris George
Christopher T. George
North American Editor
Ripperologist
http://www.ripperologist.info
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Andrew Spallek
Chief Inspector
Username: Aspallek
Post Number: 794
Registered: 5-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 2:40 pm: |
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In the British Army, a second lieutenant is known as a "subaltern.
How wonderfully British!
Andy S.
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Thomas C. Wescott
Inspector
Username: Tom_wescott
Post Number: 339
Registered: 4-2003
| | Posted on Monday, May 02, 2005 - 8:46 pm: |
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Phil,
Patrick Mulshaw is someone you'll be introduced to should you study the Ripper case, and then you'll understand my joke. 'Animous' as in animosity. To the best of my knowledge, it's a real word and I used it correctly. 'Learner' was a typo (or, as error-free folks such as yourself call it, "carelessness"). Thanks for the schooling on 'pavement'. I wasn't aware Christ had been tried on a pavement. Good thing he wasn't crucified on one or we'd now be wearing chunks of concrete around our necks instead of crucifixes.
Yours truly,
Tom Wescott |
Phil Hill
Inspector
Username: Phil
Post Number: 430
Registered: 1-2005
| | Posted on Tuesday, May 03, 2005 - 1:43 am: |
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If I ever study the Ripper case, I'll look out for Mulshaw then!!
Wonder what I have been doing all these years?
By the way, I think one has an "animus" (a mind) against someone else, not an "animous".
Regards,
Phil |
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