LSA SUMMER INSTITUTE, 2019

AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH

JUNE 24, 2019 SCHEDULE OF ACTIVITIES CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH

ORIENTATION

• The Roadmap: Where we are going

• Reviewing the Syllabus

• Please complete a sign-in sheet: Your name, Your email address

• The evolution of pertinent nomenclature

• The linguistic legacy of the African Slave Trade

• Some of the foundational figures in linguistic scholarship

• Our introductions

• Where I began: The difference vs. deficit debate

• Plans for June 27, and the remainder of the course

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS OR ETHNOGRAPHIC SENSITIVITY CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH

THE EVOLUTION OF TERMINOLOGY

• 1964: Nonstandard Negro English

• 1972: Black English Vernacular

• 1975: Ebonics: (The concept becomes most visible in 1996 as a result of the Oakland School board proclamation).

• 1981: African American (Vernacular) English

• 1986: African American Language

• 2019: Back to the Future: Harris Stowe University: We are “Moorish” people

• What would be the most accurate label? English (or other Lgs?) as spoken by descendants of (African) slaves?

• United States slave descendant English?

BLACK LANGUAGE STUDIES WERE CENTRAL TO THE FORMULATION OF QUANTITATIVE SOCIOLINGUISTICS

SOME OF THE FOUNDATIONAL FIGURES

• The battle of the Bills: William Stewart and William Labov

• William Stewart, J.L. Dillard: Proponents of the “Creole Hypothesis”

• William Labov: An indirect proponent of the “Dialectologist Hypothesis.”

• Walt Wolfram: Synchronic foci: The Neutral Hypothesis (My assessment) No need to get entangled in historical debate (speculation?) because they contemporary speech is available for study.

• Any questions thus far?

• CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH

PLEASE BE SURE TO COMPLETE THE SIGN-IN SHEET

BRIEF PERSONAL INTRODUCTIONS

• Your name

• Your home institution and your primary linguistic interests

• A brief (very brief) introduction to you. Please share something about yourself that you would like us to know about you.

• If you already know it, please share a brief account of your goals for the course.

• Although we will only meet for eight classes, I hope you will make acquaintances with those enrolled or participating in this class, and join the community of scholars who study the linguistic legacy of the African slave trade.

• CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH

PROJECT

DATE CLIENTDATE NAME

PROJECT

DATE CLIENTDATE NAME

MY FIRST EXPOSURE TO LINGUISTICS: LABOV, 1969 CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH

DEFICIT VS. DIFFERENCE

• The logic of Nonstandard English

• My initial (inadvertent) racist reaction

• Arthur Jensen, Bereiter and Englemann, Basil Bernsten

• William Labov

• Historical relevance to “Dialectologist” vs. “Creole” origins

• Is it [ /Iz/ > /z/ > /0/ ] i.e., ([is] > [s] > [0])

• Or, is it [ /0/ > /z/ > /Iz/] i.e., ([0] > [s] > [is])

• 1983: Thomas Farrell: IQ and Standard English

JUNE 27 AND BEYOND CLASS BY JOHN BAUGH

NEXT STEPS

• Next class: The historical issues, debates, and controversies in greater detail.

• Lorenzo Turner, Melville Herskovitz, and the marginality of black studies in the sister social sciences, and the centrality of these studies in the development of sociolinguistics.

• Michael Montgomery and Shana Poplack: Finding early attestations of English in language usage among African slave descendants

• Derek Bickerton: His early creole studies, critiques of Labov (and me) and the emergence of the Bioprogram.

• How to select your first assignment: What is best for you? Working toward collective knowledge and shared expertise.