Southern accents, Eastern accents, Northern accents and Ebonics

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

soem idiots in Oakland....

Idiots = an educated and accomplished black scholar and years worth of scholars who have studied this?

Ok but you'd be the idiot if you attended a conference in any of the disciplines where Ebonics or Black English is discussed. You'd be debating based on emotion and your limited experiences and they'd be discussing based on research and studies in various times and spaces.

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

BTW....maybe it's just me, but I don't buy into the whole "Black English BS...."

You aren't the only one but thank God that none of the theory and research begin or end with you or any other naysayer.

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

I do however believe in dialects and that depending on where you are you will be able to distinguish....for instance if you go to some parts of Bal'more, you can hear this....

If you go to some parts of B-more, you will also be subjected to horrendous house music.

But the main point of studying linguistics and socio-linguistics is to celebrate patterns of language that expand across regional and other distinctions.

Originally Posted by DaemonSeid

I think either you speak 'proper' english or you don't.....

Right and most people who study Ebonics and Black English are not saying that all black people speak it (but not speaking it doesn't mean you don't understand it) or that this passes off as "proper" English. However, there are teachers and academics who try to change classroom climates in many schools to accomodate for students who speak Ebonics (similar to ESL) but this is generally a bad idea because you have to prepare kids for the working world.

It's also important to note that the average American regardless of race does not speak or write "proper" English. Even some very educated people make some very common mistakes when speaking and writing. It's only a "problem" that generates "outrage" when you associate a racial or ethnic minority group's linguistic patterns to this.

As an aside, I get bothered when people say "complected" and I usually hear black people say it so that shaped how I felt about its usage. But it actually isn't incorrect and has falsely been used as a sign of "poor education" and "Black English."