With a heated debate still raging over the Oakland school board's recent decision recognizing ebonics as a distinct language, the Graduate School of Education brought in John Baugh, a professor of Linguistics and Education at Stanford University, to discuss the true nature of African American linguistics. An attentive group of faculty and graduate students attended last night's speech. Their interest in the subject was apparent from the fast-paced question-and-answer session that followed. Baugh began the talk with a joke about his days as a doctoral student at the University. "People ask me, as an African American, whether I had ever been treated badly here due to my skin color," he said. "I respond that, at Penn, it doesn't matter what race you are, everyone is treated badly." But after some good-natured teasing about the Wharton School, the professor jumped into the current ebonics controversy, which he described as a "mixed blessing." "While I wish the Oakland School board had explored different options in developing an English proficiency program, I think their resolution has opened up an important discussion on the significance of linguistics," Baugh said. He demonstrated that significance with a language stratification chart showing the close correlation between dialect differentiation and class, with the upper echelons of society speaking what is considered the most "standard English," and the lower classes using non-standard variations. And he explained that such a phenomenon is not exclusive to African Americans, but is common to a variety of groups. But Baugh said that while certain variations -- such a European-sounding dialects -- are "appreciated," others are cause for discrimination. He showed the audience an advertisement from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, picturing a note an apartment landlord had written to himself after a phone conversation from a prospective tenant. In the ad, under the lines, "Sales Manager," "Two kids," the landlord had written "sounds black." "While this is just an advertisement, such language discrimination is unfortunate part of daily interaction," Baugh commented. "I've had much different responses from people I talk to like this," he said in standard English, "then like this," and he switched to the stereotypical African American vernacular, "or like this," and suddenly his words were spiced with a Latino accent. He explained that another form of discrimination is the stereotypical assumption that ebonics is simply "broken-down" English slang and incorrect grammar, rather then a genuine dialect with a unique linguistic history. This history was documented by linguist Robert Williams in 1973 as containing various "idioms, lexicon, argots and phonetics." And to demonstrate the genuine structural variations that distinguish a dialect, he wrote the sentence, "It ain't no way no girl can't wear no platform shoes to no amusement park," on the blackboard. "It is impossible to directly translate this sentence into standard English, for such a translation, 'There isn't anyway that any girl cannot wear platforms to any amusement park' has the opposite meaning of the original sentence," he explained. But he said it is crucial to differentiate between a different dialect and a different language. "The problem with the Oakland resolution was its failure to use true linguistic analysis," he said. "[The school board] applied for funding set aside for students who speak another language. Ebonics is not another language, but rather a non-standard dialect. If it had been appreciated as such, we might not have this controversy."
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