There is -- and as far as I can tell, has been for a very long time -- a
distinction between how the national and local publics react to markers
of specific dialects when the markers manifest in speech vs. writing.
When I was a child in Alabama, we were quite firmly drilled in the
proper use of 'who' vs. 'whom', but no one tried to get me to pronounce
'thing' as anything other than 'thang'.

I don't think this is a sign of greater tolerance of dialects in speech,
however -- it's simply the case that the situation with speech is, in a
sense, much more complicated by issues involved in local social networks
and in maturational processes than is writing. *Sounding* Southern, in
the South, can have strong advantages. And pronunciation patterns appear
to "gel" in a way that use of grammar, etc. doesn't; one can find
non-native English speakers who have mastered English grammar to the
point where they pass for natives in writing, but almost no one who
learns English as an adult *sounds* like a native when speaking (Joseph
Conrad is the typical example of this effect). In other words, many
speakers have quite valid reasons for not wanting to sound "Standard,"
and those past puberty may not be able to without vastly more work than
is (from their standpoint) worth it.

There's something additional going on, though. The entire edifice of
"Standard English," as it has been instantiated in the teaching of
writing, is based on the cultivation of the notion that it's not *from*
anywhere, and that it's not a dialect. You can't try to modify people's
speech without their immediately recognizing that you're trying to get
them to sound like someone from somewhere else (culturally or
geographically), and that, in turn, immediately makes them aware of the
power issues involved. You can tell a Southerner to use 'who' and 'whom'
in writing, but telling him/her to say 'thing' instead of 'thang' makes
it obvious that you want everyone to sound like a Yankee.

What I'll non-neutrally call "enlightened" modern approaches to
prescriptive grammar deal with it by explicitly acknowledging the power
issues involved. We tell students that there is no valid historical
reason for the idea that two negatives equal a positive -- but also that
there's a vast gatekeeping structure that uses that point as a
shibboleth, and so they need to know about it and be able to manipulate
it to their advantage (in my college classes, I term the mindset that's
needed "Applied Grammatical Cynicism"). In a sense, it's
"metaprescriptive" grammar. Any attempt to explicitly connect spoken
dialect and written English in the education system brings into play the
unspoken assumptions about FSWE that most people have, and that's one
thing, I think, that triggers some of the animosity toward alternate
approaches to grammar. Traditional methods never brought this up, and by
not talking about grammar at all, some of the methods in the past thirty
years haven't either.

Bill Spruiell
Dept. of English
Central Michigan University    

-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Patricia Lafayllve
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 11:23 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: dialect use - a brief digression

Craig wrote:

    I'm more and more uncomfortable these days with the notion that
dialects are OK, but not "acceptable" in public discourse.  I don't
think that's at all true (public writing is far more interesting than
that) or desirable.  Effective writers draw on all their language
resources. And when mainstream writers do that, they enrich all our
lives.
   

This is a digression from the main points being discussed.  What Craig
said
above rang a chord in my head, though, and it might be worth noting.  My
husband is a high school administrator (assistant principal) in an urban
setting.  He is also very touchy about using SWE - he actually corrects
my
English, and more often than not, he's right!

That said, he has also taught himself the varying dialects in his
student
population.  He uses multiple dialects in his work as a way to enforce,
and
reinforce, his own points.  In short, he knows when to speak, and how to
speak, in a variety of situations and to the greatest effect.

This is something I admire in him, and a point which I think it would be
good to note.  Having the rules, and operating within them, greatly
enhances
one's ability to communicate - and that does mean knowing when to speak
which dialect.

I am certain that my husband is not the only one who practices this.  I
just
wanted to digress a moment and suggest that, as Craig mentions, not only
do
effective writers draw on their language resources, so do effective
people
in general terms.  

-patty

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