This isn't something that's bothering me, but something I've been thinking about a lot today -
The first thing is that in Linguistics, we were discussing AAE (African American English) - which I do agree is can be considered its own dialect on its own. I have no prejudice against people who speak African American English. Growing up, though, we were implicitly taught that it is the language of the uneducated, that it isn't as sophisticated and 'good' as Standard American English - so it's difficult to not let that pass slip by. When explaining in class today about various differences between AAE and SAE, such as phonological differences - I said that AAE was simpler - which is in some senses true, phonologically. They don't use their entire mouth, tongue, lip, muscles to say things as we would in SAE - but I didn't bring my point across very clearly, so now my linguistics professor hates me even more (it's okay, I don't really like her either). What I found interesting is that no one really had any shocking reactions to what I unintentionally said - and what's more - someone else said the same thing too, but she explained herself better. Honestly, I think everyone in that class agrees that AAE is a somewhat simpler dialect - but ultimately it does not define people who speaks it. It's just a good thing that no one in my class speaks AAE so I wouldn't feel even more bad about what I said accidentally.
The second thing is that my friend in Linguistics said that if I ever do have children, they'll probably not be able to speak Mandarin. If a child's parents can't speak a language fluently, they won't exactly catch on. And even though the thoughts of having a family or children are far from my mind - somehow it's a frightening thought. Of course, everyone secretly wants to understand more than one language and would like future generations to as well. But you know, we'll see.
The first thing is that in Linguistics, we were discussing AAE (African American English) - which I do agree is can be considered its own dialect on its own. I have no prejudice against people who speak African American English. Growing up, though, we were implicitly taught that it is the language of the uneducated, that it isn't as sophisticated and 'good' as Standard American English - so it's difficult to not let that pass slip by. When explaining in class today about various differences between AAE and SAE, such as phonological differences - I said that AAE was simpler - which is in some senses true, phonologically. They don't use their entire mouth, tongue, lip, muscles to say things as we would in SAE - but I didn't bring my point across very clearly, so now my linguistics professor hates me even more (it's okay, I don't really like her either). What I found interesting is that no one really had any shocking reactions to what I unintentionally said - and what's more - someone else said the same thing too, but she explained herself better. Honestly, I think everyone in that class agrees that AAE is a somewhat simpler dialect - but ultimately it does not define people who speaks it. It's just a good thing that no one in my class speaks AAE so I wouldn't feel even more bad about what I said accidentally.
The second thing is that my friend in Linguistics said that if I ever do have children, they'll probably not be able to speak Mandarin. If a child's parents can't speak a language fluently, they won't exactly catch on. And even though the thoughts of having a family or children are far from my mind - somehow it's a frightening thought. Of course, everyone secretly wants to understand more than one language and would like future generations to as well. But you know, we'll see.
No comments:
Post a Comment