Ebonics Term Paper
Ebonics, or (the study of) Black English as a separate language in itself and
not just another dialect of Standard English, is a notorious topic that,
although not as “newsworthy” in England has been whipping up a storm in the
American press, and of course to linguists of all persuasions. In the course of
this thesis, I will be examining what Ebonics really is. While some linguists
are obstinate that Ebonics is simply a variety of white Standard English (in
fact, a variety like any other dialect to be found within the United States of
America). The majority appears to believe that the roots of this ‘language’ are
to be originating in Africa, therefore arguing against it being just a dialect
of Standard English and a separate language in itself. In the present climate of
so-called ‘political correctness’, which is mainly prevalent in the United
States, might it not be possible.
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Ebonics has been defined as being, a made-up term stressing two things colour
and phonetics that have entirely nothing to do with the structure or definition
of a language. Dillard (1975) in his introduction to the book Perception on
Black English (p. 9) argues that Black English is the main variety of language
that is spoken by a very great mass of the poor and disadvantaged Black people
within the United States. He goes on to state that these citizens are generally
descended from workers of the plantation fields (but that the current Black
middle-class were the descendants of servants in plantation owners’ homes, and
also of freedmen, rather than sharecroppers.) Over 300 years ago, on the West
African coast, in Sierra Leone, Nigeria, Ghana and the Ivory Coast there were
several hundred local languages, which incorporated Gullah, Hausa, Bulu, Akan,
and Twi. The natives of these lands would not have heard English until the
arrival of sailors on slave ships derive from places like Liverpool and Bristol,
when the slaves were then transported to the Caribbean. Because both the slaves
and the sailors arrive from many different backgrounds, there was an anxious
need for some kind of ‘lingua franca’ and so began the process of pidginisation,
which in turn developed into a language that had become the principle means of
communication within a meticulous speech community. After a period in the
Caribbean, the ships began to arrive in the ports of Georgia and South Carolina,
which were still British colonies, at the beginning of the seventeenth century.
More than one hundred years later, Black English was ingrained amongst the
workers on the huge Southern plantations. This had come about through the
immigration of black slaves brought into South Carolina via Georgetown to work
the rice fields that were stretch throughout the marshy lands of the state. The
black people were enslaved because of the high skills in working the land of the
Windwood Coast and Sierra Leone, which was geographically very alike to the
swamplands of the American South. It was only after they had been used in the
rice fields that the white Southern plantation owners, taking their holidays on
the coast, took them off to work the plantations. It has been expected that
three out of every four black Africans passed through Georgetown, where the rice
plantations along the rivers have now disappeared, and all that is left to
remember them is the Rice Museum. All the slaves on the South Carolina coast
naturally worked tremendously hard. However, they execute a daily task system,
which did allow time for investment in the land, under the eyes of black, not
white overseers.
Dillard suggests that because the oldest Plantation Creole had close links with
the slave trades of West Africa and the West Indies and the trade’s language
contact situation, the origins of that particular Creole on the first
plantations (in the eighteenth century) have once again become a concern. He
then ponders as to the possibilities of it being a more general Gullah and cites
J.F.D. Smyth’s account of 1775 where it was recommended that many of the Black
people spoke in a dialect that was a mix comprised of that of the Guinea and the
English. Dillard then goes on to propose that the slave communities of the
continental colonies at the time of 1775 were represented by at least two
varieties. That of the Guinea variety, which was so full of Africanisations,
combined with a possibly non-English language variety from an unknown source
that it was impossible to understand unless a person had studied it. A diversity
that had already partially merged with white varieties but still differed far
too much from any recognizable British language to be viewed as anything except
a Creole, which was understood, but not actually completely exclusive as such.
This, then, was the state of the language in the South in the latter part of the
eighteenth century. Slightly earlier, in the North on Manhattan Island in 1741
the trial of a man called Jack had strike after he had been accused of leading a
slave plot. In “The New York Conspiracy…1741-42” Justice Horsemanden concluded
that:
“His dialect was so perfectly Negro and unintelligible, it was thought it would
be impossible to make anything of him without the help of an interpreter.”
An example of Jack’s speech was included:
“His master live in tall house Broadway. Ben ride de fat horse.”
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Although the New Yorkers were aware of one Negro dialect, they were not familiar
with what Dillard postulates as being the Guinea variety: the dialect they were
indistinctly familiar with was the “variety” mentioned above. By 1772, there
were half a million slaves in America, half of whom lived in Virginia and South
Carolina. There was of course an enormously close relationship between the
plantation owners and their slaves. Following the American Civil War, in the
1880’s and 1890’s, after the by-now free Blacks saw the Civil Rights Act savaged
by the Supreme Court as ‘unconstitutional’ there began an extraordinary black
migration North to escape segregation. Combined with a gigantic growth in
manufacturing, there were powerful reasons for leaving the South, particularly
as the impression that Black language and culture was now beginning to have on
white Americans was starting to make its presence felt. Blacks were now moving
away from the often-isolated country plantation areas of the South and were
pouring into the Northern cities, where large communities of black people were
becoming recognized. After the First World War, the ’twenties saw the acceptance
by whites of Jazz. Black activists proposed that as Black English had its
own rule based structure rather than random patterns there should be stipend
made at school for children speaking in this way. Standard English for something
that they thought would hinder their children both socially and economically.
What was to be hoped for, said William Stewart in 1967 was that the people
responsible for educating children would one day come to comprehend that the
forms of Black English were still representative of a historical ritual. Just as
those of Standard English were, and that they would recognize as fact that even
though the speech of Black English was not very divergent throughout the country
it was different from that of the White non-standard dialects. Those educators
would also have to accept that they were not going to accomplish something in
changing the Black English speakers into Standard English speakers instantly,
and that dialect features specific to Black English were likely to remain within
the speech of most black people, including educated ones. Eventually, he felt
that nobody should have the power to say that one form is right and another form
is wrong. Until that happened there would have been no chance for communication
between linguists and educationalists, and therefore no chance of contact with
the non-standard-speaking black child. (1-7)
Today the debate regarding the teaching and promotion of Ebonics is still raging
ferociously. In 1996, the school board in Oakland, California made the decision
to formally recognize Black English as a distinct second language. It has been
suspected by some that the so-called “disadvantaged” social groups in the United
States of America have long been related with having severe problems with
language and, therefore, communication, which in turn affects educational
prowess. What to do about solving these problems, however, is another matter. If
a member of one of these groups is unable to use language as efficiently as a
person from the middle-class then it is argued that that member is automatically
prejudiced against.
Linguists argue that there is cause for disagreement when the structure of a
non-standard dialect (i.e. in this case, Black English) that might have been
assimilated at home or by interaction amongst friends. As compared with the
equal formations that are located in Standard English, which is unambiguously
regarded as being the language of modern technology and the middle class.
Stewart recommends that there are various ways that the problem apparent. In
fact, immaterial pronunciation variations between the dialects of Standard
English and a non-standard variety, such as Black English Vernacular, combine to
render any non-standard speech confused to a speaker of the standard dialect.
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On the old Southern plantations, until about age six or seven both black and
white children mixed and it must not be forgotten Black women undertook that
most of the child intelligence. Much to the chagrin of some, it appears apparent
that in the South at this time, it was Black English that was leaving its
impression on the speech of the Whites and not the other way round. Dillard
observes that: “It is highly controversial to say that Southern White English
has been influenced by Black English. The Southern Whites often dislike that.
Yet, if you look at the map it is rather striking that what we call the Southern
dialect survives precisely where the Confederate states were, and where slavery
was the institution. There are details of accent, for example, in Southern White
English that match Black English and even match Africanisms. Take the so-called
plosive consonant the pronunciation of ‘beel’ rather than ‘bill’ – which is
characteristic of Black English. This plosive consonant exists in African
languages. It’s not characteristic in Northern White English, and there has
never been any language like that reported in England.” (214)
This belief is surely shared by many linguists, including McDavid and McDavid
who stated in 1951 that the normal processes of cultural transmission allowed
Negroes to derive speech forms from an African background. (16-40)
William Stewart, in his lecture Teaching blacks to read against their will
inveterate this when he compared transcripts of his and William Labov’s
recordings of urban inner-city children’s speech with plantation literature
written in dialect and exposed the similarities between the two. (Stewart)
Joan Fickett says that Black English has four levels of what she calls
‘pastness’ and two of ‘futurity’ that have a relationship with the present
‘now’. She also assert that ain’t, don’t and not are important in their
relationship to these tenses and that the reference point for the present is
that instant at which people are in communication with each other. The three
negatives mentioned above are used in order to negate something with reference
to a particular point in time. Fickett gives the following as illustration:
Present She singing. She is singing right now.
1) Inceptive She do sing. She just started to sing.
2) Pre-present She did sing. She just finished singing.
3) (3) Recent She done sung. She sang recently.
4) (4) Pre-recent She been sung. She sang a long time ago.
The future has what Fickett describes as the ‘Imminent’ and ‘Post-Imminent’
markers. She uses She’s a-sing to mean “She will sing momentarily” and the
post-imminent She’s a-gonna sing to mean, “She will sing soon.” Combining the
various forms with the three forms of reversal does this. The use of these
allows identification of the disparity between standard negatives and negatives
related to time limits. This system of tenses means that Black English permit
its speakers to discuss degrees of the past and the future, which is something
not possible in normal English. (Dillard, 1975)
Today, the old ways of life, sung through the years in the great tradition of
oral history are still apply on the group of islands off the South Carolina
coast. Where the inhabitants practice the old customs, although the islands have
been occupy by a succession of academics and linguists, as well as African
Americans from all walks of life who are making a pilgrimage to try to discover
what life was like for their intimates. There are still thought to be about a
quarter of a million people living on the islands off the South Carolina coast
like St. Simons who speak Gullah. One of the reasons given for this strange
segregation and preservation of African tradition and language form is simply
that because there are few white people living on the islands there are no
bridges and so the only means of reaching them is on one of the few ferries that
cross the water.
Works Cited
Dillard, J. L. Ed. Perspectives on Black English. The Hague: Mouton. 1975
Stewart, William. First Wisconsin Symposium on Linguistic Perspectives.1970
McDavid, Raven I., Jr. and Virginia G. McDavid. "The relationship of the speech
of American Negroes to the speech of Whites." American Speech 26(1). 1951.
Stewart, William A. "Sociolinguistic factors in the history of American Negro
dialects." Florida Foreign Language Reporter 5(2): 1967.
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