In class on Tuesday we were asked to write a conversation between an eradicationist and a pluralist. I decided to stereotype both of them to absurdity and to see where it would lead. I think it turned out interesting.
Mr. Erad & Mr. Plura
Mr.E - Why hello there my good sir. How are you this morning?
Mr.P - Yo fat sick nasty slickin' grease off my belly.
Mr.E - Gehzundthight! You speak very poorly sir. You should take lessons
Mr.P - Shove it Charlie Brown. I spit the saliva I like to drool, fool.
Mr.E - Oh pish posh! You speak with the tongue of a heathen. You don't want people to think you're a heathen now do you?
Mr.P - I want people to think I'm breathin'. Speakin' yo wrinkly tongue skibbity scat would kill me. I'll stick alive wid mah words.
Mr.E - How rude of you! I'm trying to help you!
Mr.P - That's what Moms said to mah lil sis when she shaved her head thinkin' it would come back thick. Yo love ain't appreciated here cuz cuz it'd make me bald.
Mr. E - You certainly don't know what you're talking about. You must not have been educated.
Mr.P - I got a Master's Degree in beat downs and a Doctorate in ass whoopin'.
Mr. E - I see! You want this to come to fisticuffs! Well let's step outside old chap and I'll show you a thing or two.
Mr.P - Chizzle my rizzle. We bout to see our kids grizzle. There's my baby givin' the valedictorian speech.
Mr. E - Oh bother!
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6 comments:
This is highly amusing. The exercise that we did in class on Tuesday turned out to be a lot more difficult than I first thought. It gave me such difficulty, in fact, that while attempting to write in the "pluralist" voice, I began to see what it might be like for an AAVE student to attempt writing S.E. If writing in AAVE was so difficult for me, then writing S.E. clearly must be equally or more difficult for an AAVE student. I believe that because of our schooling or "brainwashing" throughout the years our minds have been programmed to think, speak, and write in S.E. and vise versa for AAVE speakers, making it difficult to break those habits.
Another reason I believe it was hard was because I felt like everything I wrote could be considered "racist" but thats a whole other story.
That's true. Of course I wasn't really going for accuracy with any vernacular. I was just writing to amuse myself. But if I was writing to be true to AAVE, it probably would've proved more difficult. Someone who uses AAVE might've looked at what I wrote and actually been offended at my misrepresentation of the dialect (perhaps the same is true for people who think they speak S.E.). My mind is programmed/brainwashed into writing S.E. and AAVE would probably be quite a challenge to use effectively.
To add on to that last comment, I would probably never care to learn the intricacies of AAVE since I would never have any social use for it since I don't know anyone that speaks it and don't need it to relate to anyone.
Haha oh Martin! I would expect nothing less from you. I agree with David, when we first started this exercise I thought it was going to be a piece of cake. However, when I placed my pen to the paper, I completely drew a blank. It turned out to be extremely eye opening, as I too felt when it might be like for an AAVE student to try writing in SE. I think that many people believe it should be easy for these students to just "turn it off" and work in SE. However, when someone has formed a habit of speaking one way for their entire life, how can they simply turn it off? I think we underestimate the difficulty these students have to face.
I think there is a degree of difficulty in writing in any dialect other than your own. If i talked about having to red up my room because I tracked the jaggerbush i fell in into the house before I stopped at the mac machine to get money for the pat bus so i could go dahn souside people might be confused too. If I wrote a paper in such a manner I would surely not receive a good grade on it, thus the importance for code switching. I agree with Jess that it isn't as easy as switching a light on and off but being able to speak in a language dictated by the environment is a very important skill.
Martin, you said something along the lines of "I would never have any social use for AAVE," struck a chord with me. I have a feeling that a lot of AAVE speakers feel that they will never have to use SE in their lives. However, since most reputable careers require a fair knowledge of SE, maybe learning to code switch between AAVE and SE could increase upward mobility of AAVE speakers. Because we are native SE speakers, we have no reason to learn AAVE (I suppose...) to pursue our career goals whereas AAVE speakers do.
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