Bob,
   I don't think we should reduce this to a discussion of forms. At what point does the child learn copula deletion? The same time a suburban kid is learning something else? At what points is it appropriate and at what points is it not? If we simply code switch (something some kids never have to learn to do), are they really adequate translations or is something very different being conveyed? Would code switching get in the way of other development? Does it take longer to learn the language patterns in two worlds than it would for one?
   I put "She be doing that some times" on the board the other day for a discussion about differences between the grammatical and the standard. A number of students recognized it right away as something they would say or something they had heard. Others were somewhat perplexed by it. At what age does someone pick up the "be doing that" structure? For some people, never. If I tried to use it, I probably would get it wrong or use it awkwardly.
   Lisa Delpit gives as an example of miscommunication the suburban teacher telling a child "Jimmy, would you like to put your crayons away now?" When the kid goes on using them, the teacher sees him as a discipline problem. At what point do we learn that a polite request is really an order? Delpit, by the way, makes a strong case for explicit teaching of language to inner city children for exactly these reasons, though she says African-American parents and educators aren't taken seriously when they try to have a role in these decisions. What seems natural to one group won't be natural to another.
   Smitherman says that the differences between Black English in phonology, vocabulary, and syntax are not nearly as important as what she calls "communicative style." She mentions, among other things, valuing the concrete over the abstract and preferring a lively give-and-take with the audience. Henry Louis Gates feels the cultural divide is so deep that African-American literature should be approached on its own terms, as a cultural outgrowth of its own community.
   If a child becomes adept at ritual insults (communicative competence in certain communities), how does that translate into another language world? Is there a natural stage for that? Would it displace other learning?
   I'm reminded, too, of Amy Tan's "Mother tongue", in which she says, among other things, that standardized tests tended to characterize her as weaker in English because of the influence of her "mother tongue", her mother's version of English. It's not, if I'm reading the essay right, that she failed to become competent, but that the competence she achieved was quite different from what the tests were testing. She eventually broke through with "The Joy Luck Club" by "using all the Englishes I grew up with." Her mother's "broken English" or "limited English" (Chinese flavored English) was a major resource for the book.
    When the Nuyorican poets chose to write in Spanglish, they were limiting their audience, but embracing Nuyorican as not just a language, but a shared experience of the world. How does one become fluent in Spanglish? What are the stages for that?
   From a cognitive perspective, grammar is learned much like vocabulary is learned, in interaction with the world. I would be very wary of saying that one size fits all, that there are "natural stages" for everyone, regardless of language or community.

Craig

Robert Yates wrote:

[log in to unmask]" type="cite">

Craig,

You miss the point about other dialects of English: they are remarkably similar to other dialects of English.

What are the differences that you find so remarkable?

Moreover, what do those differences reveal about the culture of that particular English that is so different from the culture of "Standard English."

Let me give an example.  We know from the work of Labov that copula deletion occurs in certain Black dialects.  What does that fact reveal about the culture of those dialects?

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri

Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 02/03/09 4:37 PM >>>

Bob,
   I thought this was a no-brainer. I would recommend Labov's "Language in
the Inner city" as well as Smitherman's work, but I assume you have
read them. Black English is not simply a broken form of standard
English, and the cultural patterns that come with it differ as well.
Certainly the rhetoric of Obama's pastor shocked people in part because
they had no way to put it into its cultural context. Many mainstream
Americans don't know what to make of rap. My students are very aware
that their community languages seem out of place in many situations.
   For my students, I would also include Spanglish and a number of hybrid
dialects. Their paths toward language maturity are very different.

Craig>

 What does the following mean?

Craig Hancock <[log in to unmask]> 2/3/2009 1:38 PM >>>

   Are we to assume that children in an inner city neighborhood will
develop language in the same way as the suburban kids, even though it's
quite apparent that the cultural context and the languages themselves
might differ remarkably? If we believe there's a "natural order", a
"universal order", we may end up with deficit models that are
misleading.

****
What  is the cultural context and the language that might make them differ
in remarkable ways?

I have no idea what cultural context would result in a kind of English
that would be remarkably different.

Could someone provide examples?

Bob Yates, University of Central Missouri

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