As learned in class, black language, also known as AAVE or black English, has developed controversy in conversations debating the vernacular’s validity within the system’s linguistic competence. In my annotated bibliography, I discuss how the justification of black language as inaccurate English is rationalizing the social prejudices and misconceptions that the world places on the African American dialect and community. Racism against African Americans is undeniably an international issue, but within the history of the United States, in particular, American society promptly undervalues the various creations that develop through the Afro-American communities; one of these creations being the black language. The bibliography focuses on this creation through George S. Schuyler’s fiction novel Black No More, which uses black language as an aspect of the distinction between black and white communities as the main character and others’ transform from African American to Caucasian through newly-found scientific discovery. With this novel as the main text and with various texts based on black language and community, I attempt to deliver the idea that the problem that individuals have with black vernacular is subject to misconceptions about the African Americans and how its correctness is questioned only because of how society perceives the black community.
Sources in the annotated bibliography maintain or develop on the validation and connection between black social communities and vernacular. Black No More expands on the subject presenting how literature applies the vernacular features of black language to design distinctiveness, separation, and exclusivity within American cultures and society.
When someone undervalues the dialect of a particular group, it also undervalues the community as a whole. In one of the sources of the annotated bibliography, John Wideman, a novelist and writer of ‘Defining the Black Voice in Fiction’, explains the depiction of black language in the context of writing dialect in fiction. Speech in fiction is determined solely through context, but Wideman feels as though the black language needs approval under linguistic conventions and systems. Wideman bases his understanding of black vernacular in literature stating that “black speech like any other variety of language defines reality for its users” (Wideman 562) under the priori which devalues it (559). In another source by Rosina Lippi-Green, the writer of ‘The Real Trouble with Black Language’, discusses how the stereotypes under the African American community impact the acceptance of black vernacular as a legitimate dialect. Lippi-Green focuses on a variety of subjects surrounding the controversy of black language, though the stereotypical aspect of the problem is one of the subjects appropriate for the argument. The main discovery of the writing maintains the idea of the “general unwillingness to accept the speakers of that language and the social choices they have made as viable and functional” (Lippi-Green 209), between America, the black community, and the need for minority groups to have some course of distinction due to social exclusion.
What some linguists and doubters don’t consider when examining black language is the historical affairs of black vernacular and how black language has a prominent position in America, which retrogresses to slavery and the refusal to teach the English Language to African Americans during that time. Moreover, the acknowledgment of black language didn’t become a topic of linguistic conversation until desegregation and the vernacular became prominent in the educational and workspaces. These important factors contrast with the primary text but are still prominent points that account for the validation and acceptance of the black language in America. Black language is more than slang or internet talk, it is an assertion of history that reverts from the roots of America that progresses and maintains unity through social and political power.
Jevon Melvin
Jevon,
ReplyDeleteI really liked the choice of the fiction novel that you chose for this. I thought it was a good choice to display the misconceptions about Black English. I remember learning about how African Americans were not taught the English Language during these times through an article we read in class. I also liked the point you made at the end where you stated, 'Black language is more than slang or internet talk'.