Talk:African American Vernacular English
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[edit] Poor citations revisited: An appeal for library research
Above, there's the comment:
Well said.
I examined three books by Smitherman's and found every "Smitherman" quote to have been (very scrupulously) taken from just one of them. Something similar has to be done for Romaine, Coulmas, and Trudgill. Each of these three has written quite a lot; finding the quotations may not be a trivial task. If you see a book by one of these three authors that is the source for one or more of the quotations, of course adjust the article accordingly. But if it isn't the source, please edit what follows in order to save work for others. Thank you. -- Hoary 06:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
- By the way, if anybody is interested, the contributer to these poor citations is a user named Melanix. Unless this contributer has changed usernames, they have not returned to Wikipedia since they made these edits in December 2006. Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:48, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
- The quote "About '80 to 90 percent of American blacks' speak AAVE “at least some of the time" is taken from a source that is dated by 35 years, and therefore cannot serve as a source to assert the frequency of AAVE among African Americans presently. Unless someone can offer a more reliable source, I have deleted the sentence. Kemet 20:53, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
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- I've removed most of the references to Trudgill and Romaine. I didn't find the proper Coulmas reference but her 2005 sociolinguistics book had some similar statements and I found a couple of resources on JSTOR and google books to fill in the other gaps. The longer these remain as such, the more compelling it is to mark them as uncited (rather than poorly cited). Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:16, 16 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Trudgill
The quotations are not in any of:
[edit] Coulmas (citations removed)
The quotations are not in any of:
- The Handbook of Sociolinguistics (Blackwell, 1997). -- Hoary 06:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
- Language and Economy (Blackwell, 1992). -- Hoary 03:25, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
- Sociolinguistics: The Study of Speakers' Choices (Cambridge, 2005) Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 21:30, 15 September 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Romaine
The quotations are not in any of:
- Bilingualism (Blackwell, 1989). -- Hoary 06:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
- Bilingualism, 2nd ed (Blackwell, 1995). -- Hoary 06:32, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
[edit] Book from Universal Publishers
A recent edit introduced a lot of material from or about a book I'd never heard of by an author I'd never heard of from a publisher I'd never heard of. Of course there are many fine books, authors and publishers I've never heard of, and I decided to investigate. This book is from Universal Publishers, which says: Our authors subsidize the cost of bringing their book to market by sharing some of the preparation costs. Uh-huh. This page says First is the digital vanity press, of which prominent examples are Xlibris, iUniverse, and Universal Publishers. Like other vanity presses, these companies require the author to pay the initial set-up costs for a book’s production,... Here is a demonstration of how low Universal Publishers' standards can be.
This particular book may be good, for all I know. But if it's good I wonder why it isn't published by a university press, or by Blackwell, Wiley, Erlbaum or whoever. As it is, we were being asked to take seriously Travis's bald assertions merely because they were published in a grandly titled book. (It's not often that a book has "treatise" in its title.) And that won't wash, which is why I'm about to delete the whole thing. -- Hoary (talk) 09:55, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Lee in particular, bizarre referencing in general
In the past, Ƶ§œš¹ clearly knew what he was doing, so I really don't want to revert, but I don't understand this edit. A large reason is that I don't understand its reference to "harvcoltxt|Lee|1999|p=??". Ƶ§œš¹ is defending an additional attribution to "Lee 1999" by some IP. But if the IP has "Lee 1999", surely she can specify the page. Meanwhile, there's no indication anywhere of what "Lee 1999" is, despite its provision of a link (one going nowhere).
The introduction of author-date referencing within footnotes, with each author-date reference going exactly nowhere (some explained below; others like "Lee 1999") seems utterly bizarre to me. Footnotes, OK. Author-date, OK. But why author-date within footnotes? And if you have author-date, why link them to nowhere?
I'm hoping that whoever did this (and I didn't look in the edit history) has some Grand Plan, but if so this article needs "INUSE" at the top at the very least. In its present state, I fear that it lives down to some of the claims tiresomely made for it by the Cosby enthusiast all those months ago. -- Hoary (talk) 01:21, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
- For a second, you scared me. I thought I had failed to include the full reference to Margaret Lee's "Out of the Hood and into the News: Borrowed Black Verbal Expressions in a Mainstream Newspaper" in American Speech. The link goes nowhere because I goofed on the syntax (switched last and first names). In Lee (1999) Funky is mentioned on page 373, 374, and 383 and is part of her data that she uses. The IP may have been guessing but they happend to be right. Although I've got a pdf of the article, I hadn't really taken a good look at it till now. I guess if we're going to use any page numbers it would be 381-386. I've edited the article accordingly. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 01:35, 22 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Merger with Ebonics
I noticed that the first line of this article starts, "African American Vernacular English (AAVE) – also called Ebonics,..." If they are the same thing they should be in the same article. It appears that much of the content in Ebonics is either a duplicate of what's here, or deals with the use of the term "ebonics" rather than the variety of English it refers to. After posting the merger tags I see that it appears that the articles were split some time ago. If editors think there's a good reason to keep them split I'm fine with that too. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 01:15, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- The flip answer is that they're not the same thing. The more careful one is that they usually do refer to the same thing, but that while "AAVE" is a neutral and uncontroversial term, "Ebonics" is one that comes either with strong (and also in the opinion of most scholars wrong) intellectual connotations, or with strong sociopolitical connotations, or both. If the term "Ebonics" merits an explanation, it needs more than a rushed explanation. I think that what it gets now is about right (although I see that somebody has mangled the section titles since I last looked).
- AAVE is a distinctive form of nonstandard English that's unusual in being (i) widely spoken, (ii) not in decline, and (iii) (via music etc.) very familiar to many non-speakers. Perhaps these factors have encouraged its study. Whatever the reasons, it has been widely studied. In a worthwhile two- or three-hundred-page book about AAVE, the putatively academic concept of Ebonics typically gets a mere paragraph or so, and the pedagogic/political brouhaha about the recognition of Ebonics as a language typically gets a very few pages. These matters are peripheral to the language. If this material were reintroduced within the AAVE article, the AAVE article would be seriously lopsided. It's therefore a good idea not to reintegrate the two articles. -- Hoary (talk) 03:38, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- While I don't support a merger since the content of the Ebonics article is separate and notable, perhaps the title is a bit confusing. Periodically, I look at what links to Ebonics and editors most often link to it intending to refer to the phenomenon described in this article. Perhaps Ebonics can be renamed to Ebonics (something in perentheses) and Ebonics can serve as a redirect to here. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 04:40, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'll agree that something isn't right here. While the AAVE article is encyclopedic, the Ebonics article is an odd hybrid of (a) an encyclopedic article about a (very dubious) theory, and (b) a kind of disambiguation page for a problematic term, mostly pointing back to AAVE. See this earlier discussion (or at least the first part of it, before it descends into prejudice and bickering) on other possible divisions. One problem is that if "Ebonics" were to be a redirect to AAVE, then AAVE would need a hatnote for "Ebonics (Pan-African)" or even for "Ebonics (disambiguation)" -- and all in all you'd get about as much disambiguation and redirection and general confusion (perhaps more) as you get now. Or anyway you would unless I lack the imagination/intelligence to think of the really good solution that awaits discovery. ¶ I do think that the term "Ebonics" is now too conspicuous within the AAVE article. I wouldn't want to suppress it, but it's so conspicuous as to make people wonder why the article isn't simply titled "Ebonics" (what with all those Google hits etc.). I hesitate to make it less conspicuous in fear of the wrath of all those right-thinking editors who might well trot out their clichés about "political correctness" (the standard term for challenges, however reasoned, to conservative/retrogressive received wisdom). ¶ On balance, I think it's better to keep things the way they are and remember to search for and check links to "Ebonics", redirecting many of them to AAVE. -- Hoary (talk) 02:05, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- Looking through this article, "Ebonics" is used only a handful of times in reference to the Oakland and San Bernardino incidents when they actually used the term Ebonics (as opposed to using "AAVE" dozens of times throughout the article). The main difference between either of the options you've mentioned and the status quo is that, in the former, people are made aware of an Ebonics (Pan African) article. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- But consider the very start of the article:
- African American Vernacular English (AAVE) – also called Ebonics, African American English, Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular (BEV) and Black Vernacular English (BVE) – is [blah blah]
- I'd prefer to skip "Ebonics" completely here; or if it must be included then something like:
- African American Vernacular English (AAVE) – also called African American English; with some ambiguity Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular (BEV), Black Vernacular English (BVE); and controversially Ebonics – is [blah blah]
- though I recognize that this is longwinded and am unenthusiastic about it. -- Hoary (talk) 05:17, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- But consider the very start of the article:
- Looking through this article, "Ebonics" is used only a handful of times in reference to the Oakland and San Bernardino incidents when they actually used the term Ebonics (as opposed to using "AAVE" dozens of times throughout the article). The main difference between either of the options you've mentioned and the status quo is that, in the former, people are made aware of an Ebonics (Pan African) article. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'll agree that something isn't right here. While the AAVE article is encyclopedic, the Ebonics article is an odd hybrid of (a) an encyclopedic article about a (very dubious) theory, and (b) a kind of disambiguation page for a problematic term, mostly pointing back to AAVE. See this earlier discussion (or at least the first part of it, before it descends into prejudice and bickering) on other possible divisions. One problem is that if "Ebonics" were to be a redirect to AAVE, then AAVE would need a hatnote for "Ebonics (Pan-African)" or even for "Ebonics (disambiguation)" -- and all in all you'd get about as much disambiguation and redirection and general confusion (perhaps more) as you get now. Or anyway you would unless I lack the imagination/intelligence to think of the really good solution that awaits discovery. ¶ I do think that the term "Ebonics" is now too conspicuous within the AAVE article. I wouldn't want to suppress it, but it's so conspicuous as to make people wonder why the article isn't simply titled "Ebonics" (what with all those Google hits etc.). I hesitate to make it less conspicuous in fear of the wrath of all those right-thinking editors who might well trot out their clichés about "political correctness" (the standard term for challenges, however reasoned, to conservative/retrogressive received wisdom). ¶ On balance, I think it's better to keep things the way they are and remember to search for and check links to "Ebonics", redirecting many of them to AAVE. -- Hoary (talk) 02:05, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- While I don't support a merger since the content of the Ebonics article is separate and notable, perhaps the title is a bit confusing. Periodically, I look at what links to Ebonics and editors most often link to it intending to refer to the phenomenon described in this article. Perhaps Ebonics can be renamed to Ebonics (something in perentheses) and Ebonics can serve as a redirect to here. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 04:40, 13 April 2008 (UTC)
- Why skip it? — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 06:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- Because it's a loaded term. Used as first intended, it has a much wider meaning than AAVE; used for what we term AAVE with an awareness of the meaning originally intended, it implies acceptance of a dodgy theory; used without any awareness of its original intention, it's often pejorative. -- Hoary (talk) 09:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- I have a strong suspicion that "Ebonics" is the only term many people are familiar with to refer to the speech of African Americans. Mixed with the low prestige AAVE has, it's not surprising that there's a common negative connotation with the word but that's the social baggage people carry. For people with a positive or neutral attitude towards AAVE but are either unfamiliar with or unwilling to enunciate the thirteen-syllable term, it's not pejorative. Similarly, Nazi is often pejorative but it has a non-pejorative definition. That people sling the term around during heated political arguments doesn't mean we should avoid it in our article on Nazism.— Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 10:05, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- I haven't suggested or wanted to suggest that the AAVE article should avoid the term "Ebonics". I've suggested that "Ebonics" should not be given the prominent treatment that it gets right now. Perhaps "pejorative" was too strong; for me (very likely atypical), when "Ebonics" is used as a synonym for AAVE it's often in the context of piffle about either how its speakers are too lazy etc to talk proper, or how it's just a collection of slang. Since December '06, the NYT seems to have used it just once, in the first sentence of this article and where it may well mean what's perceived as an aggressive use of aggressive slang rather than a lect. Admittedly "AAVE" is not such a common term, but however common or rare it is, it's a four-syllable term (cf the three-syllable "USA"). ¶ So what do you want to do with the term "Ebonics"? -- Hoary (talk) 10:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- I'm leaning towards the idea of making Ebonics redirect to here and renaming the Ebonics article Ebonics (Pan African). That's only if we're in the mood to change things. People don't link to Ebonics all that much and going through the "what links here" page every so often isn't terribly time consuming. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 19:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- I haven't suggested or wanted to suggest that the AAVE article should avoid the term "Ebonics". I've suggested that "Ebonics" should not be given the prominent treatment that it gets right now. Perhaps "pejorative" was too strong; for me (very likely atypical), when "Ebonics" is used as a synonym for AAVE it's often in the context of piffle about either how its speakers are too lazy etc to talk proper, or how it's just a collection of slang. Since December '06, the NYT seems to have used it just once, in the first sentence of this article and where it may well mean what's perceived as an aggressive use of aggressive slang rather than a lect. Admittedly "AAVE" is not such a common term, but however common or rare it is, it's a four-syllable term (cf the three-syllable "USA"). ¶ So what do you want to do with the term "Ebonics"? -- Hoary (talk) 10:28, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- I have a strong suspicion that "Ebonics" is the only term many people are familiar with to refer to the speech of African Americans. Mixed with the low prestige AAVE has, it's not surprising that there's a common negative connotation with the word but that's the social baggage people carry. For people with a positive or neutral attitude towards AAVE but are either unfamiliar with or unwilling to enunciate the thirteen-syllable term, it's not pejorative. Similarly, Nazi is often pejorative but it has a non-pejorative definition. That people sling the term around during heated political arguments doesn't mean we should avoid it in our article on Nazism.— Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 10:05, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
- Because it's a loaded term. Used as first intended, it has a much wider meaning than AAVE; used for what we term AAVE with an awareness of the meaning originally intended, it implies acceptance of a dodgy theory; used without any awareness of its original intention, it's often pejorative. -- Hoary (talk) 09:22, 14 April 2008 (UTC)
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- Any more thoughts on this? I don't see a clear consensus to maintain the status quo, but I don't see agreement on what to do. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
- It looks like we're keeping the status quo for now. There's too little consensus to make any changes. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 20:57, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
- Keep the status quo but move "Ebonics" to the end, or to near the end, of the list of other terms used for AAVE. -- Hoary (talk) 16:17, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
- Any more thoughts on this? I don't see a clear consensus to maintain the status quo, but I don't see agreement on what to do. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 20:05, 22 April 2008 (UTC)
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- I've removed the merge tags. I suggest that, at a minimum, Hoary's suggestion would improve the clarity. ·:· Will Beback ·:· 07:24, 4 May 2008 (UTC)
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[edit] To-do list
I've just now removed most of the to-do list. Here's what I removed, with my comments:
- Add info about usage of the word "Nigger"
- ...added by User:Davron at 00:29, 1 November 2007; "N-word" changed to "Nigger" by 71.220.108.144 at 03:59, 22 November 2007
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- Neither the word "nigger" nor the euphemism "n-word" is specific to AAVE. And if it were specific to AAVE, I'd reject the suggestion for the reason given below.
- add the word "mad" as "a lot" or "really"
- ...added by User:Davron at 00:29, 1 November 2007
- Add "alright" as "iight", "ight" "aight" "ite" and/or "arite"
- ...added by User:Davron at 00:29, 1 November 2007
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- AAVE is a lect, and the individual lexical items specific to a lect are of rather trivial importance compared with other aspects. (Thus for example Cockney -- a fairly good article till it starts listing names -- rightly doesn't dwell on mush, etc.)
- Explain why this article isn't crap.
- ...added by 64.222.149.167) at 22:56, 12 March 2008
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- PDFTT.
-- Hoary (talk) 16:27, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
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- Are the references formatted per WP:CITET? — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 18:29, 23 April 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Phonology
If AAVE truly does differ very little over a wide geographical area, then surely it has a common phonology that can be put into tables? Consonants, vowels, diphthongs, all of that, like any other distinctive English dialect. Also a more complete description of vowels before liquids as well as vowels without liquids. - Gilgamesh (talk) 02:29, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- Yes, we can expand on the phonology, though if I understand things correctly, the phonological inventory is nearly identical with Standard American English. If the article doesn't make that clear, it should. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 02:33, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- But is it closer to General American or Southern American English? Does it have the cot-caught merger? Does it have Southern-style front short vowel tensing? I could ask lots more questions, but it would help to have charts and sample word lists with IPA guides, à la English phonology, Australian English phonology, etc. Where I live has virtually no AAVE speakers, so solid absolute information (and less relative information) would be helpful. - Gilgamesh (talk) 07:46, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- Honestly, AAVE is a fascinating (and often quite beautiful) dialect. I want to know all about its logic and structure in a way as methodical as possible. - Gilgamesh (talk) 22:39, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
- Since you're interested, you can check out Language in the Inner City: Studies in Black English Vernacular by William Labov. I started to incorporate stuff from it a little while ago but got too busy with school. I might do some more this summer. — Ƶ§œš¹ [aɪm ˈfɻɛ̃ⁿdˡi] 23:37, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
[edit] "Jive"
(See here for a civilized but disappointingly inconclusive earlier discussion on this.)
This article doesn't mention "jive", but Jive is a disambig that points here.
Without actually bothering to open any book (yet), I hazily recall that "Jive" is used for any or a mixture of: (i) the slang of AAVE, (ii) the verbal sparring, joking, etc. that AAVE is famous for, (iii) AAVE. And that as (iii), it's either (a) a jokey but rather amiable term (cf the Rickfords' use of "Spoken Soul"), or (b) the result of this or that misconception of AAVE (that it's a mere collection of slang, that it's some kind of weapon against non-speakers or even speakers, etc.).
This ought to be looked into, preferably before the next, um, how shall I phrase this, opinionated and underinformed person arrives here. Because there's clearly bizarre about having one page acting as a disambig to a second which then doesn't mention the title of the first.
At the same time I realize that WP isn't a dictionary and as for articles that attempt to tease out incompatible meanings I'm not happy with the Ebonics article (but am less unhappy about it than about any alternative yet suggested). -- Hoary (talk) 08:55, 16 May 2008 (UTC)
