Discovering the Work of Labov

(Continued from Thursday . . . )
In late August 1969, my dad drove me up to the University of Minnesota. Its sprawling campus straddles the east and west banks of the Mississippi. A vehicular and pedestrian bridge connects the two campuses. 

            For two years, I lived on the third floor of an old house located a few blocks from the East Bank Campus. It was there I took my first class in linguistics and learned about William Labov.

            By 1969, this now-famous linguist had already published several monographs on the  “Black English” spoken by the African American community in Washington, D.C. He had found there the same syntax and usage I had observed in Ohio.

            Explaining the intricacies of what is now called “African American Vernacular English” would take up too much space for this posting, but I’ve copied a few of the Wikipedia examples and pasted them here:

                        Phases/Tenses of AAVE

Phase		Example
Past	Pre-recent	I been flown it
	Recent	I done fly it
	Pre-present	I did fly it
	Past Inceptive	I do fly it
Present		I be flying it
Future	Immediate	I'm a-fly it
	Post-immediate	I'm a-gonna fly it
	Indefinite future	I gonna fly it

He been done work means "he finished work a long time ago."

He done been work means "until recently, he worked over a long period of time."

I been bought her clothes means "I bought her clothes a long time ago."

I been buyin' her clothes means "I've been buying her clothes for a long time."

Some of you may be interested in dialects and the history of the study of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). If so, you will find a wealth of information in the following:

·      The Wikipedia article on AAVE

·      A fascinating interview with William Labov

·      A news article on his groundbreaking book on AAVE, published in 1972

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      The third link reflects the comment Susan, a teacher, made on Thursday’s posting. She wrote that “one black student I had was a fluent writer, and the syntax was very much as you described. I wrestled with the question: should I cover her writing with corrections? should I let her write in her own fluent way? No easy answer.” I needed to address that same question when I returned to Ohio. Another reader, “Broad” from Great Britain, wrote the following comment on Thursday:

One of my dearest friends is a professor of English language. He has travelled all over the world assessing PhD’s in his field and has written many books. He does not believe that there is a correct way of speaking English and is fascinated by the development of language in different cultures and believes fervently that they are all important and relevant to understanding better the English speaking world. The trouble is that there is too much snobbery in the world of English speakers—speaking the “kings English” has become yet another way of separating and segregating each other when it could be a way of reaching better understanding.

Up to the time of William Labov’s pioneering work, sociologists were using the words I used in my Thursday posting: nonstandard and substandard English to speak of AAVE. To see how far we’ve come—at least in our dictionaries—look below at the entry from my computer dictionary. It provided this information for dialect.

I’ll sign off today. That’s more than enough for you to read! On Tuesday I’ll share additional happenings at the University of Minnesota that reinforced my quiet activism.
                                                    (Continued on Tuesday . . . )

THE RIGHT WORD

1.     When a New York City cab driver calls out the window, “Hey, wassa madda wichoo?” he is using the vernacular, which is the authentic, natural pattern of speech among those belonging to a certain community.

2.     In some areas of London, on the other hand, one might hear the Cockney dialect, which is a form or variety of a language that is confined to a specific group or locality; it has its own pronunciation, usage, and vocabulary, and may persist for generations or even centuries (: he spoke in the dialect of the Appalachian backwoodsman).

3.     A teenager who tells his parents to “Chill out” is using slang, which is a very informal language that includes “substitute” vocabulary (“wheels” for car, “rug” for toupee), grammatical distortions, and other departures from formal or polite usage.

4.     Argot refers to the slang of a group that feels threatened by the hostility of society as a whole; it traditionally refers to the slang used by criminals and thieves, although it may refer to any peculiar language that a clique or other closely knit group uses to communicate with each other.

5.     At one time cant was a synonym for argot, but now it usually refers to pompous, inflated language or the hackneyed use of words and phrases by members of a particular class or profession (: the cant of the fashion industry).

6.     In contrast to cant, which can at least be understood, jargon is nearly impossible for the average person to decipher. This term refers to the technical or highly specialized language used by members of an occupational or professional group (medical jargon; the jargon of the theater).

7.     If you are frustrated because you can't understand the language used by a particular class or group, you're apt to refer to their way of talking as lingo, which is a term for any language that is not readily understood (: she tried to reason with the cab driver, but she couldn't understand his lingo).

Both photographs are from Wikipedia.