AAVE and Post Aesthetics

  In Rickford’s “Unequal partnership: Sociolinguistics and the African American speech community”, he dives into African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and what needs to be done by sociolinguists. Rickford explains that there is an unequal relationship between the “researcher and [the] researched” (161). To solve this imbalance, he argues for multiple actions to be taken. Rickford suggests introducing more African American linguists into the field and using AAVE research to give back to the African American community. Linguistic research can help rectify the pay imbalance studies found based on AAVE research, linguists can often be of use in court decisions, and linguists can help the struggling school system as seen in the comparison between Palo Alto and Ravenswood students. Rickford also discusses some of the research going into AAVE itself, for example “the Creole Issue” of whether or not AAVE is closer to SE (Standard English) now than it was prior.  

  Lupyan’s “The paradox of the universal triangle: Concepts, language, and prototypes” focuses on the symbolic representation of triangles. In 4 different experiments (some having A and B parts), Lupyan explores how language can influence our perception of objects, and in this case, triangles. He also quotes Hume when he explains: “all general ideas are nothing but particular ones” (1), that perhaps we understand general concept but have a specific, go-to, particular understanding of the concept. I found Lupyan’s discovery of the differences between “triangle” and “three sided polygon” very interesting, because when I myself first thought of it I would do the same things as the participants in the study. By the end, he also discusses the importance of language to talk about concepts, and therefore, one of the important points of his research. 

  What really stuck with me was Rickford’s discussion of AAVE. I thought the merger of linguistics and social justice in his writing is profound, and could perhaps even expand to many other things we have read. For example, Carnie’s discussion of the logical problem of language acquisition could lead to help with the education system in many more ways for perhaps foreign or non-native students. Rickford also made me think about my own life and how the topic of AAVE has come up. Very recently, there was a big discussion in a Facebook group of over 40,000 people called “Post Aesthetics”— a place for people all over the world to share the funniest “memes” to everyone. One meme, “here come dat boi! o sh*t waddup!”, actually led to the dissolution of the group when many users pointed out the wrong usage of AAVE as humor. The meme started becoming so widespread that the group spiraled into chaos and had to be shut down (not making this up: http://www.papermag.com/dat-boi-1820277201.html). The words “waddup”, “dat”, and “boi” were all cited as examples. After doing this reading, I even realized that “come” could be part of AAVE as well, as Rickford explains. This reading really illuminated how prevalent linguistics is in our world.