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| Alondra Oubre (Medical Antropologist) |
Black English Vernacular (Ebonics) and Educability: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on
Language, Cognition, and Schooling.
̋Innovative and creative potential solutions to widespread African American academic underachievement, therefore, warrant appraisal -- at least preliminary evaluation. One innovation revolves around the linguistic approach -- an approach predicated on the idea that African American students who speak traditional Black dialects of the English language are less apt to do well in school because they generally cannot comprehend Standard English in terms of its deeper meanings. This idea is not just hypothetical. The consistent structural features of the grammar and syntax of Black English Vernacular have been well documented by experts in the field for several decades. In addition, as cognitive anthropologists and psychologists have noted, the ways in which many Black Americans (youth and adults alike) use words and phrases of the English language both reflects and reinforces somewhat different cognitive constructions of the world than those associated with standard English.
Social scientists almost unanimously agree that culture, class, gender, and social status all influence how an individual uses a language to communicate. Clearly, speech and language patterns reinforce the stratification of American ethnic and socioeconomic (SES) groups. Although other societal indicators -- social, political, and economic -- can be revealing, speech usually gives an immediate clue to an individual's social status. Nearly everyone acknowledges the need for African American youth to improve their scores on intelligence tests and scholastic examinations, and to increase their overall academic achievement. The relevance of learning to fluently speak and write Standard English to improving academic performance cannot be overemphasized. Indeed, the language factor may be one of the chief underlying causes of poor academic performance in many Black students, particularly those residing in inner cities.̋
Glossary:
Ebonics = term introduced by Black linguists in the mid-1970s, refers not only to a particular grammar and syntax, but also to paralinguistic (i.e., noises such as laughing and crying) and gestural (movement) features of African American communication.
