Language Diversity in the Classroom - ymerleksi - home

The Language Debate 115terms, then, Labov suggested that the ‘non-verbality’ of disadvantagedchildren is a myth (see also Keddie, 1973), that it is dangerous to inferunderlying ability from particularities of language usage, and thatarguments for the superiority of the middle-class elaborated code maybe facile.Labov also turned more directly to the central question here: theinternal adequacy (i.e. the ‘logic’) of disadvantaged and nonstandardlanguage. The arguments all revolve around the central point of rulegovernedusage. To show that a dialect is not some inaccurate anddeficient approximation of ‘correct’ language, it is necessary to demonstratethat it follows rules of its own. Two or three of Labov’s exampleshere will make the point that such regularity is indeed a feature of BlackEnglish and, by extension, of all dialects (see also the similarlypioneering work of Shuy, 1970; Wolfram, 1969). References to ‘BlackEnglish’ and its rules should not, incidentally, be taken to mean that thevariety is some linguistic monolith, spoken by all black people. Theinvestigations of Labov and most other American linguists focus uponinner-city urban populations, and the linguistic features they report arenot necessarily found in other communities (in rural black settings inNova Scotia, to cite one context: see Edwards, 1999b). Similarly, in herstudy of Barbadians in New York, Callender (2005: 17) notes that thecommon use of BEV as a synonym for AAVE (African AmericanVernacular English) neglects other varieties: thus, ‘black dialects ofEnglish that are not American have been largely unrecognized’. Hintonand Pollock (2000) draw particular attention to the neglect of regionalvariation in BEV, calling explicitly for more study of smaller and ruralcommunities. Of course, the essential points made by linguistic researchersabout dialect validity remain unaffected.One frequently stigmatized feature of BEV is the deletion of the copulaverb, in sentences like ‘We goin’ to the store’. In other instances, however,the verb appears: ‘She was goin’ with me’, for instance. The regularityhere depends upon tense (present or past) and it maps perfectly onto amore standard template. Thus, where standard English allows verbalcontraction (‘They are going’ can legitimately become ‘They’re going’), soBEV allows deletion. And, where standard usage bars contraction (in pasttenseusages, for example), so BEV disallows deletion. Different rules, tobe sure, but equally ‘logical’. It is worth pointing out here that presenttensecopula deletion is hardly unique to BEV. In virtually all varieties ofEnglish it is common to hear constructions like ‘This your car?’ (as apoliceman might ask a double-parked motorist). Such verbal ellipsis alsooccurs in ‘headline’ English (‘Richard Burton dead’) and on signs (‘Exit at