Ebonics and Black English

When the Oakland school board issued a resolution calling for schools to acknowledge the reality of black English in the classroom, a huge national outcry and media frenzy arose. The debate about "Ebonics" made national headlines, quickly became politicized and divisive, opened wounds about ra ce, then faded from public consciousness. But in the classrooms of America, the question of how to engage the distinctive language of many African-American children remains urgent. In The Real Ebonics Debate, some of our most important progressive educators, linguists, and writers, as well as teachers and students reporting from the field, examine the lessons of the Ebonics controversy and unravel the complexities of the issue, covering realities never acknowledged by the media. They discuss the meaning of th e political debate; they think through the detailed dynamics of teacher-student interaction; and they give wonderfully precise linguistic insight into the structure and uses of African-American English-from colloquial speech to the literary voice of Toni Morrison. The Real Ebonics Debate cuts to the heart of how America educates African-American children. It will have immediate and enduring value for anyone thinking about race and schools.

The media frenzy surrounding the 1996 resolution by the Oakland School Board brought public attention to the term "Ebonics", however the idea remains a mystery to most. John Baugh, a well-known African-American linguist and education expert, offers an accessible explanation of the origins of the term, the linguistic reality behind the hype, and the politics behind the outcry on both sides of the debate. Using a non-technical, first-person style, and bringing in many of his own personal experiences, Baugh debunks many commonly-held notions about the way African-Americans speak English, and the result is a nuanced and balanced portrait of a fraught subject. This volume should appeal to students and scholars in anthropology, linguistics, education, urban studies, and African-American studies.

"Rich and powerful-and funky and bold-dissects black writing and speech, its grammar and history, its controversy, and the media coverage of it. . . . A book that's truly da bomb."-Geneva Smitherman "The language, only the language. . . . It's a love, a passion. Its function is like a preacher's: to make you stand up out of your seat, make you lose yourself and hear yourself. The worst of all possible things that could happen would be to lose that language."-Toni Morrison (1981) Claude Brown called it "Spoken Soul." Legendary author James Baldwin referred to it as "incredible music." Writers from Paul Laurence Dunbar to Toni Morrison and Alice Walker have employed it to fully convey the experiences of black America. In Spoken Soul: The Story of Black English, scholar and linguistics expert John R. Rickford and journalist Russell J. Rickford offer a fascinating, definitive history of the use of Black English in literature, the performing arts, religion, and everyday conversation. The Rickfords also explore America's love/hate relationship with Black English and its role in our ongoing dialogue about why and how race matters. From our embrace of Black English as the language of jazz, funk, hip-hop, and rap, to the media-fanned furor surrounding proposals to use Ebonics as a springboard to teaching Standard English, Black English is as deeply rooted in America's politics as it is in America's culture. The Rickfords scrupulously show how education, the media, and society have been affected by the power and tenacity of Spoken Soul. If you love words or are interested in the connection between language and identity, Spoken Soul will intrigue and enlighten you. "Spoken Soul brilliantly fills a huge gap. . . a delightfully readable introduction to the elegant interweave between the language and its culture, its admirable linguistic structure, its multifaceted history, and its potential use in education."-Ralph W. Fasold, Georgetown university "Spoken Soul provides a profound portrait of the power, passion, and poignancy of Black English beyond the Ebonics controversy and the perplexing paradox of linguistic prejudice."-John Baugh, Stanford University, author of Black Street Speech In Praise of African American Vernacular English "It possesses a pronounced lyrical quality which is frequently incompatible with any music other than that ceaselessly and relentlessly driving rhythm from poignantly spent lives."-Claude Brown (1968) " . . . this passion, this skill, this incredible music." -James Baldwin (1978) "Three qualities of Black English-the presence of life, voice, and clarity-testify to a distinct black value system."-June Jordan (1985) "That mainstream English is essential to our self-preservation is indisputable. . . but it is not necessary to abandon Spoken Soul to master Standard English, any more than it is necessary to abandon English to learn French or to deprecate jazz to appreciate classical music."-John R. Rickford and Russell J. Rickford (2000)

This authoritative introduction to African American English (AAE) is the first textbook to look at the grammar as a whole. Clearly organised, it describes patterns in the sentence structure, sound system, word formation and word use in AAE. The book uses linguistic description and data from conversation to explain that AAE is not a compilation of random deviations from mainstream English but that it is a rule-governed system. The textbook examines topics such as education, speech events in the secular and religious world, and the use of language in literature and the media to create black images. This much-needed book includes exercises to accompany each chapter and will be essential reading for students in linguistics, education, anthropology, African American studies and literature.

A highly readable collection of key articles and essays by a leading scholar on African American language and politics. Discussing the inter-relationship between African American language, culture and education, Talkin' that Talk is divided into sections, each introduced by the author, which include:* African American language and education* Language theory, research and the Black intellectual tradition* Black language and culture* Black women's discourse* Language policy and global multilingualism.

This volume presents a comprehensive introduction to the connection between language and ethnicity. Since the "ethnic revival" of the last twenty years, there has been a substantial and interdisciplinary change in our understanding of the connection between these fundamental aspects of our identity. Joshua Fishman has commissioned over 25 previously unpublished papers on every facet of the subject. This volume is interdisciplinary and the contributors are all distinguished figures in their fields. After each chapter Fishman pulls together the various views that have been expressed and shows how they differ and how they are alike. The volume is useful as a scholarly reference, a resource for the lay reader, and can also be used as a text in ethnicity courses.

Enslavement, forced migration, war and colonization have led to the global dispersal of Black communities and to the fragmentation of common experiences.The majority of Black language researchers explore the social and linguistic phenomena of individual Black communities, without looking at Black experiences outside a given community. This groundbreaking collection re-orders the elitist and colonial elements of language studies by drawing together the multiple perspectives of Black language researchers. In doing so, the book recognises and formalises the existence of a "Black Linguistic Perspective" highlights the contributions of Black language researchers in the field.Written exclusively by Black scholars on behalf of, and in collaboration with local communities, the book looks at the commonalities and differences among Black speech communities in Africa and the Diaspora. Topics include:* the OJ Simpson trial* language issues in Southern Africa and Francophone West Africa* the language of Hip Hop* the language of the Rastafaria in JamaicaWith a foreword by Ngugi wa Thiong'o, this is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the linguistic implications of colonization.

Whenever we open our mouths to speak, we provide those who hear us, chosen interlocuters or mere bystanders, with a wealth of data, linguistic clues others use to position us within a specific social strata. Our particular uses of language mark us geographically, ethnically, by age or sex, and, especially in stratified societies, according to class or caste. This collection of papers by researchers in cultural and linguistic anthropology examine these concepts as well as many others.