I'm going to try to make this as non-anecdotal as possible, but this topic of teaching black people proper English really makes me mad. Barbara Schneider starts her article by telling us how the different types of black people separate themselves based on clothes (economical standing). I immediately thought: where would I sit? Well, she placed me right, In the middle of the classroom, in the front, wishing I had sat closer to a cute guy who needed tutoring. Though interesting, this is not the main part that got my attention.
Further in the article she refers to something called "Black English." "In their reading of the 1979 Ann Arbor 'Black English' court case, Ball and Lardner explain that the plaintiffs succeeded in establishing that teachers' negative attitudes toward the children who spoke African American English created a nonstructural barrier that interfered with the education of African American English-speaking children" (925). Wow. When a Hispanic, Chinese, Italian, German, basically any other truly non-English speaking student makes a mistake with their English, a teacher would have every right and responsibility to correct them. But, since a black student is struggling, the negative attitudes are hindering their education in some way. I really do not understand.
What is worse is that there is no Black English. Since the beginning of my college career I have heard this term, describing the way some black people talk (and also most teens of all races) as a different type of English altogether, a whole new language. This is what irritates me. I have done no scholarly research on this subject, but being black, I think I can say with certainty that there is no Black language that other people can't speak, or wouldn't understand if I spoke it in front of them. This language is not a language at all, but slang, which in the world of academia should be stomped out and corrected immediately.
Lisa Delpit brushes on the same topic, but presents it in a different light. "There are two aspects of Gee's arguments which I find problematic. First is Gee's notion that people who have not been born into dominant discourses will find it exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to acquire such a discourse, He argues strongly that discourses cannot be 'overtly' taught, particularly in a classroom, but can only be acquired by enculturation in the home or by 'apprenticeship' into social practices. Those who wish to gain access to the goods and status connected to a dominant discourse must have access to the social practices related to that discourse" (1312). She disagrees (and I'm thinking: "Yea, you tell him!) then she gives us some rare exceptions to a widely known norm (ugh). But, her point is still valid and brings up some interesting things to think about.
First, black students can learn English, regardless of their background before entering school. If children can learn English as a second language (which they do all the time) then, I can't buy that black students would have a harder time than second language learners, when they already speak (no matter how poorly) English.
But, I want to look at the language and apply it to the gender topic. "Dominant Discourse" this screams to me: Patriarchal. Right now I am basically arguing in my paper that classrooms need to be more concerned with female students' learning, because of patriarchal elements in the classroom. But, how can I say on one hand black students should be able to learn English, despite their disadvantages, but argue for time to be taken out of "dominant discourse" to teach female students?
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This is a slippery slope, Autumn, and you raise some hairy questions. But it's a mountain that must be climbed and questions that must be answered. I'm not quite sure what you mean by "the negative attitudes." Are you referring to the instructor's or the assumed attitude of the student?
ReplyDeleteYou make another strongly debatable argument: "This language is not a language at all, but slang, which in the world of academia should be stomped out and corrected immediately."
Should it? Particularly that associated with a culture? The allowance of this language in written work may be attribted to over compensation by the white patriarchy as a result of guilt. I have no proof of that, but I feel it's a logical conclusion. But, as you claim, it is much to the detriment of those students who wish to take part in the dominant discourse. Sadly, we can not deny the existance and perpetuation of a dominant discourse. We may take steps to broadening that discourse but in doing so, we marginalize more groups while naturalizing the newcomers, a consequence of which may be erasing what makes those groups unique. Slippery slope, yeah? And think about Bordieu too when thinking about dominant discourse. It's inescapable! Bummer, right?
In higher education, we hear about process writing, but what is wanted in the is product. When students write as a process in first year composition courses, it is encouraged that their find their voices, but voices will eventually be stomped out and corrected as you say. Once students move beyond that first year and into upper division and graduate level writing, the expectation is clear; academic discourse is the only acceptable discourse and everyone has to learn it. Lisa Delpit asks whether students should learn the dominant discourse. It seems they - we - have no choice but to learn the dominant discourse. It is the traditional paradigm. It is Aristotelian, it is white, and it is patriarchal. It is, to revisit Maxine Hairston, "based on some idealized and orderly vision of what literature scholars...seem to imagine is an efficient method of writing" and "a prescriptive and orderly view of the creative act" (441). You're right, too, Andy. It is inescapable.
ReplyDeleteI think Andy is right on the money; over-compensation due to guilt is probably to blame for failure to teach the dominant discourse to African-American students. Like most types of guilt, it is self-defeating. We should never deny students access to a discourse in which they wish to participate. The story in Delpit's article about the teacher who refused to correct her adult students' English (even when they asked her to correct it!) shows the unhelpful extremes to which this type of thinking can go.
ReplyDeleteWhile the dominant discourse is often frustrating, we have to accept its existence and work within it (at least for now). But as Andy also suggested, there are ways we can be working to change it even as we are forced to operate within its parameters (think bell hooks!).
I think it is important to give all students the ability to participate in a variety of discourses. This doesn't mean that they are forced into one and denied their personality or voices. They simply have the ability to avoid being marginalized for their inability to participate in the "dominate discourse". If writers can express themselves sufficiently in a variety of discourses, their ideas are more likely to be widely heard and possibly accepted.
ReplyDeleteThis discussion reminds me of Gloria Anzaldúa and Linda Flower. Flower, with her research on community literacy, writes about intercultural discourse, which is basically the ideal that you learn and are able to use the dominant discourse to open the door of communication. Once this door is open, there is great opportunity to communicate with your own personal or cultural discourse. It is a hybrid approach. This is exactly the ideal that Anzaldúa explores in Borderlands/La Frontera. She plays with languages that exist on a border--both literally and figuratively. She uses the academic to open the door to her ideas and her own language. Again, it is a hybrid approach--or, as she calls it, la mestiza. These theorists demonstrate that one discourse (even if it is dominant) does not have to supplant another. They can co-exist.
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