The Lupyan (2016) study explores how people abstract away from specific triangles to a general notion of a triangle. I thought this was interesting because it is a question that has been argued over in multiple disciplines (Philosophy, Psychology, etc.) and goes back a long, long time. A famous theory from Philosophy that this article brings to mind is Plato's Theory of Forms. On a very basic level, part of his theory suggests that the objects of the material world (e.g. specific triangles that people encounter) are imperfect realizations of some idealized, unattainable form of that object. I found it interesting that Plato, who lived in the 400s and 300s BC, addressed this very same issue that we continue to explore today.
The Rickford (1997) reading discusses the issue that the field of sociolinguistics has gained a lot from the African American community, but has given little back in return. Rickford proposes multiple ways that the sociolinguistics community can give back, but the one I found most interesting and want to discuss further is his suggestion that sociolinguists should "[get] involved in classrooms with African American students, and [do] research on better ways of teaching reading and the language arts at the elementary, secondary, and adult education levels."
Something I have noticed in the linguistics classes I've taken at Stanford is that the Linguists I have met all pride themselves on how they engage in descriptive Linguistics rather than prescriptive Linguistics. Given this observation, I found Rickford's proposed solutions oddly, implicitly prescriptive.
While Rickford identifies many of the institutional shortcomings—especially in education—that hurt the African American community, he focuses solely on how to help the African American community conform to the institutions that have failed them rather than fixing the institutions to better appreciate and serve the African American community. On the one hand, Rickford talks about all that his field has gained from studying AAVE, yet on the other, his idea for how to help the African American community is to help African American children to read the English taught in schools. This may be a noble goal, but it seems to me an incomplete solution. Assuming that AAVE is an integral part of African American culture, it is odd to me that Rickford's idea of giving back is to distance African Americans from this part of their culture by helping them to conform to the English taught in schools. Why not, in addition to teaching the English already taught in schools, teach students about AAVE so that children of all backgrounds can learn about linguistic differences from a young age? By prioritizing one dialect over another, Rickford comes off as prescriptive, implying that AAVE is somehow less correct or important. A nobler solution to the problems Rickford identifies would not only help African Americans assimilate into schools, but also help schools to celebrate and appreciate the unique characteristics of the African American community and AAVE that differ from what they already teach. Rickford seems to really value AAVE for its value to his field; as a result, I found it surprising that teaching children about AAVE was missing from his suggestions.
While Rickford does (perhaps troublingly) imply that AAVE-speaking children should learn to "standardize" their English, I would note that he also mentions that this sort of education would be in conjunction with working with non-AAVE speakers to change their perceptions of AAVE. For example, he discusses a potential program in which linguists would both train job seekers to switch more easily between SE and AAVE depending on context and employers to recognize and revise their negative biases against AAVE. With this work on both sides, his suggestions seem far less prescriptivist.
ReplyDeleteI think Rickford talked about this issue from two different perspectives. First, he suggested that we should edit AAVE books to teach African American children to learn Standard English, just like we use students' first language as a bridge to teach them a second language. And teachers should also learn AAVE. From the perspective of linguistics, Rickford has already recognized AAVE's status as a different system of language. But for a practical reason, African American children need to learn Standard English in order to find a better job in the future.
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