A legitimate language

Several years ago, a school district in Oakland, California suggested that African-American children be taught standard English using teaching methods used to teach the English language to non English-speaking children. The ensuing brouhaha, which was national in scope, revealed the widespread ignorance of the general public, the media, and elected officials regarding issues of language and language use. Even more disturbing, the furor ignited by "Ebonics" (a term for African-American English that henceforth I shall resolutely not use) unleashed a profusion of brazenly racist jokes, e-mails, and editorials. Though linguists were occasionally consulted to weigh in on the issues, their voices were drowned out by dozens of politicians and celebrities who rushed to denounce African-American English as "ungrammatical gibberish."

I was eager to write this Viewpoint because, as an African-American linguist, African-American English is a subject about which I am passionate and to which I devote much of my research. As an African-American educator, I am deeply concerned about the education of all children, but particularly African-American children. As an African-American citizen, I am likewise passionately committed to the full equality and enfranchisement of African-American people in the United States.

I have been trained in linguistics, the scientific study of language. As a science, linguistics strives for objectivity rather than subjectivity, prefers description to prescription. So, before I write about my own opinion about African-American English and the education of African-American children, I want to share some basic tenets of my discipline:

1. All languages, and all varieties of a language, possess complex syntactic, morphological, and phonological structures. There is no such thing as an "ungrammatical" language. This also means that a native speaker's grammar cannot be thought of as "wrong" or "improper." Varieties of languages, known as dialects, may have different grammatical rules, but none of these rules is "wrong."

2. All languages and all varieties of those languages are equally suited to express their speakers' thoughts and desires. Just as we cannot claim that English is a superior medium of thought than Chinese, Arabic, or Yoruba, so we cannot acceptably maintain that one dialect of English is superior to others in expressing thought.

3. Any language, and correspondingly any dialect, can serve as a medium of instruction.

This said, as a sociolinguist, I recognize that, though all dialects are objectively equal, they are not all treated equally by society. Standard dialects are those dialects that enjoy exceptional social prestige. The reasons why a particular dialect becomes a standard dialect have nothing to do with its linguistic structure nor with its expressive capacities - it has to do with power. Standard dialects are those dialects that are spoken by people with power; they are the dialects are used in and required by institutions of power: radio and television stations, schools, universities, and government agencies.

I cannot deny that standard dialects have their advantages: they can serve as a medium of communication across boundaries of geography, ethnicity, and social class. But the requirement to use a standard dialect in institutions of power excludes those who do not speak it.

With regard to the use of African-American English and other non-standard varieties in school settings, my training as a linguist is at odds with my natural predisposition towards pragmatism.

As a sociolinguist, I believe that African-American English, like any dialect of English, can and should serve as a medium of instruction for African-American children. African-American English is as suitable a medium for literature, poetry, theater, and oratory as Scottish English, British English, or any other dialect - Alice Walker's novel, The Color Purple was in part written in African-American English; the poetry of Paul Laurence Dunbar was also written in African-American English, the moving plays of August Wilson resonate with the cadences of African-American speech and the fiery oratory of Jesse Jackson and Dr. Martin Luther King owe much to African-American rhetorical styles. Hip-hop, our era's most popular contemporary music, pulses with the rhythms of black speech. In fact, hip-hop is so inextricably linked to African-American language that even European-American rappers such as Eminem or the Beastie Boys adopt African-American speech patterns when performing.

As a pragmatist, however, I recognize that in the "real world," we must accept the reality of power. This means that speakers of African-American English and other non-standard dialects, if they wish to gain entry to the culture of power, must become proficient in Standard American English - not because it is a superior dialect, not because it is grammatically "correct," but because it is the language of power. Without Standard American English, it is essentially impossible to meaningfully participate in powerful institutions. As a pragmatist, I absolutely believe that African-American English-speaking children must become proficient users of Standard American English and that the responsibility for teaching them this dialect lies squarely on the shoulders of teachers and schools.

However, this must not be accomplished at the expense of African-American English. Language is an important token of a person's ethnic and cultural identity. When a teacher insults a child's language by suggesting that it is "ungrammatical," he is insulting that child's parents, her community and her heritage. Teachers of African-American English-speaking children must respect, appreciate, and celebrate black speech. They must recognize the beauty of African-American English and allow its use in the classroom. At the same time, they must insist that children use Standard American English in appropriate situations.

This may sound difficult, but it can be done. As a graduate student, I participated in a program in the Baltimore public schools that educated fifth and sixth graders about dialect diversity and the ability to use two dialects (bilectalism). Speaking to one class, I made the following analogy: "All of us wear different clothes depending on the occasion. It is just as inappropriate to wear jeans to a fancy ball as it is to wear a tuxedo to a picnic. Nobody says that a tuxedo is 'better' than jeans or that jeans are just poorly constructed tuxedos. Just as we change our clothes depending on the occasion, we can change our speech depending on the situation." It is a simple message but one that many of us have yet to learn.

Dr. Calvin L. Gidney is an Associate Professor in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development.