Research Project
“question mark” by Damián Navas is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
The bad idea I will be going over in this paper is that “African American Language is not good english”. In addition, African Americans may use this dialect in their professional writing academia, and teachers will often take points off because it’s not apart of the standard form of english. In the resolution to this common issue, an author named Jennifer M. Cunningham has formulated an article named “African American Language is not good english”. She explains the common occurrence of this issue and what can be done to solve it. Ms. Cunningham constucted this idea from reading other authors’ documents. Thus, Cunningham fortified her statement using the following source, African American English: A Linguistic Introduction By Lisa G. to add, One of Lisa G sources were “A Word-List from South Carolina” Publication of the American Dialect Society by F.W Bradley.
In “A Word-List from South Carolina” Publication of the American Dialect Society, F.W Bradley explains how “Dialect is generally understood to be at variance with standard English, and therefore to be avoided”. Meaning, the way you may talk and correspond with your pairs should not be used in a professional writing environment. For example, if you were to type “ion want to do dis no mo”, (According to the Standard Form Of English), in a professional writing assignment it would be grammatically incorrect. Therefore, I can infer from reading this document is that when writing in a professional environment African American should use the standard form of english.
In Lisa G.’s book “African American English: A Linguistic Introduction” she talks about how African Americans English or (AAE) has its own form of grammar as a whole. The sound system and sentence structure are much different from the standard form of English. Lisa stated “Words in AAE and general American English that have the same meanings may have different pronunciations due to constraints on sounds”. In addition, Lisa mentioned, “in AAE that sound in general American English (and other varieties of English)bathis pro-duced asf(i.e.,baf), and the sound in general
“Facts about Languages” by Elaine_Smith is licensed under CC0 1.0
American Englishbatheis produced asv(i.e.,bav).” Meaning, the way Africans Americans or (AA) say/pronounce their words, controverse with there writing.
In the book Bad Ideas About Writing, African American Language is not good english (page 88) Ms. Cunningham goes into depth about African American Language, and how it is commonly used in the professional writing academia. Accordingly, Ms. Cunningham mentions “Scholars like Lisa Delpit find that teachers in partic, in particular, likely to correct errors related to African American Language, which is why teachers, professionals, and society at large need to understand that African American Language is different from and a deficient form of Standard American English”. In other words, African Americans are using the words that they conjugated, pronounce written assignments which are in fact going to be grammatically incorrect. To summarize, the bad idea that Ms. Cunningham discusses is that African American Language is not good english and should not be used in a professional academia.
Finally, with all the given information about how African American uses a different form of english than the standard way in writing classrooms. Although, they have the same meaning. I can infer, my Better idea would be: to have all teachers, to be more strict towards using the Standard form of English when it comes to writing in a professional environment. Also, let students know, that (AAE) type of grammar is not accepted at all outside high school or any professional academia. Therefore, it needs to enforced before finishing high school.
To conclude, there are so many reasons why you should not use your (AAL) in a professional academia. For this reason, everyone else that does not use your grammatical lexicon will be left confused. Therefore, you should get familiar with the Common (Standard Form of English) and apply it when needed.
Work Cited
Cunningham, Jennifer M. “African American Language is not good english.” Bad Ideas About Writing, edited by Cheryl E Ball and Drew M Loewe, West Virginia University Libraries, (2017), pp. 88–92.
African American English: a Linguistic Introduction, by Lisa J. Green, Cambridge University. Press, 2009, pp. 12–31
F.W Bradley “A Word-List from South Carolina” Publication of the American DialectSociety.(1950)