I. Opening: FIRST HYPE PRESENTATION
TERESA
II. Next Hype Presentation: GABBY (click here for the schedule)​

III. General Announcements

• Grades/points are now available for this class on TCU online; other than that, we will not be using that platform
• If you see a mistake, please let me know ASAP

february 11

This week, we go all the way back to slavery and look at the distinct language of many African Americans.  We will suggest here that African American language takes on distinct meanings here in the ways that it adds emphasis and tense/time markers.

Reminders

1. Remember to include a bibliography on your RRs
2. Remember to name the article/author you are referencing (usually circled on the RRs when missing)
3. Remember to single-space RRs and hit double return for non-indented new paragraphs (it will be torturous at the end of semester to go back and do this)
4. Experiment and play with your openings/opening paragraphs... if personalized, narrative sequencing is so powerful, where yours at?

IV. Overview of Project #1: The Multimedia Definitions Project

The Chronology of Names: Black Dialect, Black Vernacular, Black English, Ebonics, African American Vernacular (AAV), African American Vernacular English (AAVE), African American English (AAE), African American Language (AAL)... and now, Black Language (BL)
*The difference between calling something a language (has a standard, written form) and a dialect (usually only spoken) is related to power/imperialism; for linguists, grammar just means rules and do no require formal/school teaching

Part ONE: imagining black grammar...
​Six basics

1. HABITUAL BE

"Despite the stereotypes, people who use this feature do not use it in all sentences with the be verb, and they do not suffer from a lack of ability to conjugate be. Rather, uninflected be is used only to refer to habitual or regularly occurring actions...Note that Standard English does not have a special form of the be verb to indicate habituality. It uses an adverb or adverbial phrase with the verb to indicate this meaning (We usually play basketball; She often works late)."  click here for source

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3. 3RD-PERSON SINGULAR-S DELETION

"Another common feature of AAE is omitting the –s with verbs following a third person singular subject (compare Mainstream English I jump, you jump, we jump, they jump--but in AAE, it is she jump vs in ME, it is she jumps)." click here for source

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5. REMOTE PAST MARKER

"This (stressed been) communicates that not only is something the case, and not only is it completed (ie. perfective aspect), but it has been for a long time. example: "he been got a job." meaning: he got a job a long time ago." click here for source

2. COPULA ABSENCE

"AAE speakers will occasionally omit any form of the verb to be in sentences that require a form of to be in Standard English. Example sentences would include She going or They hungry. But am and past tense was and were are never left out; thus you would never hear sentences like *I going or *They hungry last night. (The asterisk that precedes these sentences is a convention that linguists use to mark forms that would not be characteristic of a particular speech variety.)" click here for source

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4. DOUBLE NEGATIVE

"Also common in AAE is what is called double negatives, as in We don’t know nothing bout nobody." This is common in Shakespeare and the like but is used especially for emphasis in Black Language. click here for source

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6. PRETERITE HAD 

"This refers to grammatical constructions that do not use had (ALWAYS USED IN NARRATIVE, but use the simple past: "he had went to work and then he had called his client." meaning: he went to work and then he called his client." click here for source

Now take the BL Grammar Quiz and see how you do...

Part Two: Conversations

In small groups, answer these questions:

1. What do we know now? 
2. What questions or curiosities do we have now? 
3. What do we think of the 1996 Oakland Ebonics Resolution now?*  What do we make of the backlash (which was so bad the resolution was backtracked)? 

The 1996 Oakland Ebonics Resolution (click here) recognized BL as a language in Oakland schools (which were predominantly Black at the time--- and also the original home to the Black Panther Party Breakfast Program).  If a "language," its students/speakers are entitled to extra resources: teachers who have linguistic understanding/training of the language; curriculum that depicts BL favorably; protections for teachers who are fired or paid less because they speak BL, etc.  The backlash was so severe that the school board basically retracted and said Ebonics was basically just another dialect (no extra resources).

*Apologies for not contextualizing this before last week's assigned reading!