Author: American Dialect Society at INETGW Date: 12/27/96 5:32 PM Priority: Normal BCC: Ellen Johnson at wkunet2-po TO: ADS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU at inetgw Subject: Re: "Ebonics" ------------------------------- Message Contents ------------------------------- ---------------------- Information from the mail header ----------------------- Sender: American Dialect Society Poster: Andrea Kortenhoven Subject: Re: "Ebonics" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At 01:08 PM 12/27/96 -0600, Salikoko Mufwene wrote: >The reality is that AAVE >speakers interact perhaps more often with speakers of white nonstandard >vernaculars (especially in rural areas) than with those of standard >English--if educated colloquial English is what is meant by "standard >English" in the same literature. This is certainly my experience. I grew up in a predominately African American working-class neighborhood, which bordered a lower-working class largely Appalachian white neighborhood. In my 50-50 black/white high shcool, African American students dominated the top of the class, student government, and sports. Our Appalachian white peers were seen as the smokers, the drop-outs, the druggies... Nevertheless, there was a thing called 'acting white' and 'talking white' which did not refer to our classmates or neighbors. There was a clear understanding that speaking 'proper English'--not speaking like the white kids around us--was among activities seen as attempts to separate oneself from other African Americans. The language of our teachers (for the most part), our doctors, our newscasters, etc., we were well aware, was not our language. But IT (some 'educated' variety) was still out there and we knew it was 'more correct' than our own. andrera