Ebonics & Black Culture

Ebonics has recently created what Black America's Newsmagazine Emerge calls "Histrionics over Ebonics" (1997, April, pp. 32-36). Yet, neither the concept nor the term are new. It is said that it was Psychology Professor Robert L. Williams who coined the term nearly a quarter of a century ago: Ebony + phonics = Black English = African-American English = Black Idiom = Black Dialect. Whatever the name, Ebonics is an American linguistic phenomenon as is, for instance, Cajun in southern Louisiana.

William Labov (1972) studied what he called Black English Vernacular (BEV) in the Inner City. This was the language of poverty. "Many leaders of the African-American community believe that there is no distinctive African-American English and that dialect described by linguists is simply the same bad English spoken by uneducated people anywhere"(p. 171). The critic John Simon (1980) wondered "Why should we consider some usually poorly educated, subculture's notion of the relationship between sound and meaning? And how could a grammar any grammar possibly describe that relationship?" (n.p.).

Ebonics has also been called the language of freedom, of the street, of the young. Richard Wright (1997), professor of sociolinguistics at Howard University, contends that

Black people have helped enrich the vernacular of the American culture� We have to understand that this thing they're calling Ebonics is really nothing but the American vernacular of mass popular culture� Language is culture

Related Essays

Ebonics .... to contribute to the national dialogue and the national culture. .... high school children in Oakland study Ebonics as a .... who happen also to be black or African .... (2931 12 )

EBONICS AND LITERACY .... individuals must have access to the culture of power .... Hanni Taylor's 1989 book, Standard English, Black English, and .... reduction in the use of Ebonics features in .... (1961 8 )

Ebonics as a Controversial Dialect .... individuals must have access to the culture of power .... Hanni Taylor's 1989 book, Standard English, Black English, and .... reduction in the use of Ebonics features in .... (1935 8 )

Community Service .... In other words, instead of interacting with black street kids .... looking down on their use of ebonics or street .... one does not impose their own culture or values on .... (1606 6 )

Teaching Minority Students .... Baldwin says that popular culture in America is really nothing .... and "talk the talk" of the black vernacular .... one cannot see Ms. Hooks writing in "Ebonics", but if .... (2873 11 )

tendency to drag sounds, even as they drag movement, in order to save energy). Consonant pairs are avoided: "Ah wuz jus leavin wen you come." (Again, natural laziness shuns voice and lip movements that demand an extra effort, whether by Blacks or Whites: "ain't" demands less muscular effort than "isn't"). Prediction with optional copula: a noun followed by an adjective, adverb, verb, noun or prepositional phrase is often found in Ewe macamba or in Kimbundu: "She crazy, man!" "Mah poppa name Jack." (Not an uncommon simplification in many languages, particularly, of course, in grammatically simple ones such as are found in most African tribes.) Given the strong influence of preachers among Southern Blacks, it is not surprising that Ebonics readily appropriates and secularizes Christian lingo: "He testify. "On T." Semantic inversion typical of, say, Mandingo's "a ka nyi ko-jugu", viz. "It's good badly", i.e. "It's so darn good that it's bad." Remote past indicated through structure rather than declension: "He been gon fur tree day now." Habitual actions indicated through verbal structure, particularly with the use of "be" as the verb: "Dey be tellin us a bunch of crap, in spite of de fac dat we sure be doin it all de tahme."

Category: Psychology - E