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Black people’s accent

  Tags: Accent
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63 messages over 8 pages: 1 2 3 46 7 8 Next >>
culebrilla
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 Message 33 of 63
25 December 2013 at 6:38am | IP Logged 
kujichagulia wrote:
culebrilla wrote:
emk wrote:

I don't want to pick on you specifically here, because
you're right--many white Americans would choose pretty much
those phrases for their attempts to imitate AAVE. But it's
still worth noticing that two of the five phrases involve a
reference to drinking or drugs. I really would appreciate it
if this tread could avoid going any further in that
direction, especially on Christmas Eve when the moderators
are busy.


So the non-native speakers here don't hate me: I wasn't trying to be jerkish or anything; a lot of those expressions are from Dave Chappelle's stand up. If you went to any college town in the mid 2000s you could just yell out random lines from his skits and everybody would know them.

"So we was drinking..." (From a stand up performance of David Chappelle)

Tripping: doesn't necessarily refer to drugs.

"When someone is overreacting or getting all bent out of shape over something small."

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=trippin

I know that you were not trying to be jerkish; I understand that. And I know that Dave Chappelle's stand-up was quite popular (although I never really heard any myself). And yeah, I made a mistake mentioning drugs, when none of the lines you wrote talked about drugs.

I hope you don't think I was tripping, but... using the terms "African Americans" and "Black" together with "drinking" or "alcohol" is a very sensitive and touchy situation for many African Americans, because we have had to fight those stereotypes for decades. Some people seem to think that Blacks do nothing but get drunk and rap and commit crimes and shoot guns. I have to tell my high school students here in Japan every year that nothing is farther from the truth.


I'm very sorry if I did give that impression. To be VERY honest, I honestly wasn't making reference to any possible stereotype of blacks drinking and using drugs a lot. To be honest, I didn't even know of that stereotype of blacks drinking a lot.

I just like that one stand up show of Chappelle's where he says that he doesn't smoke with white friends anymore because they do "interesting" things when high. He's my favorite comedian because he deftly discusses sensitive topics like race via the disguise of comedy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDjkRiNLeJU
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emk
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 Message 34 of 63
25 December 2013 at 12:46pm | IP Logged 
culebrilla wrote:
So the non-native speakers here don't hate me: I wasn't trying to be jerkish or anything;

Yeah, I figured you were quoting somebody or something, not that you were trying to be a jerk. :-) Thank you for clarifying and for providing some context. And now the two of us should probably drop this topic, because if we keep talking about it, it's probably going to get all weird and "sidetracky", OK? :-)

kujichagulia, aokoye and Zarmutek: I just wanted to say that those were some seriously interesting posts, with tons of great details about the linguistic situation. Thank you.

Edited by emk on 25 December 2013 at 1:13pm

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James29
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 Message 35 of 63
25 December 2013 at 3:02pm | IP Logged 
This thread reminds me of when the two black lawyers in the OJ Simpson case went banannas at each other when one suggested that black voices sounded different than others and wanted a witness to be permitted to testify that the voice he heard sounded like a black man.

Article
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Serpent
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 Message 36 of 63
25 December 2013 at 3:42pm | IP Logged 
kujichagulia wrote:
But - especially as a boy - some Blacks (even ones in my family!) were shocked at my accent, saying that I "sound White." I never thought races had a "sound". I guess some Blacks thought I was turning my back on the community by speaking standard American English. But then, other Blacks were proud of me. I remember my mother introducing me to some of her friends, and when I spoke, they said, "Wow, you speak such proper English! You must be smart!" What in the world? But yeah, there's that image in the Black community that if your English is standard, you must be intelligent.

Relatedly, I had a few cases where I talked on the phone with someone, and then I would meet them in person and they would say, "Wow, I didn't think that you were Black! You didn't sound Black on the phone!" I didn't know if that was a compliment or what.
I think it's often intended as a compliment, but you have every right to point out that singling you out can be disrespectful to other people like you, including your family members. There are many similar examples at microaggressions.com.
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s_allard
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 Message 37 of 63
25 December 2013 at 5:06pm | IP Logged 
What this discussion boils down to is the role of geographic and social separation in the emergence, development
and persistence of linguistic features. ÀAVE or what used to be called BEV (Black English Vernacular) is not a racial
phenomenon, i.e. not all black people speak it and it is not spoken exclusively by blacks. I am sure there are similar
varieties of English in the various immigrant communities in the United States. I'm thinking particularly of some
forms of Spanish American English.

It should also be noted that there are significant black populations in Great Britain, France, and certainly more and
more in other European countries. After a generation or maximum two after initial immigratiion, they sound exactly
like their white fellow citizens. Unless, of course, as has been mentioned with reference to the Netherlands, people
remain in closed groups.

The persistence of AAVE is a testament to the persistence of certain kinds of social distinctions.
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culebrilla
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 Message 38 of 63
25 December 2013 at 7:40pm | IP Logged 
You are thinking of types like Chicano English. There are also Denglish and Chinglish to give two more examples.
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AlexTG
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 Message 39 of 63
26 December 2013 at 3:31pm | IP Logged 
Jewish and Italian Americans seem to also have fairly distinctive accents. Atleast that's what I, a foreigner,
think I hear in movies.
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mrwarper
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 Message 40 of 63
26 December 2013 at 6:40pm | IP Logged 
kujichagulia wrote:
[...] using the terms "African Americans" and "Black" together with "drinking" or "alcohol" is a very sensitive and touchy situation for many African Americans, because we have had to fight those stereotypes for decades. Some people seem to think that Blacks do nothing but get drunk and rap and commit crimes and shoot guns. I have to tell my high school students here in Japan every year that nothing is farther from the truth.
Now that'd be a real *facepalm* moment, but I guess you can't ask for much more from high school students anywhere. Unless they get better information from other sources, lots of the black rappers whom they seem to love so much further promote those stereotypes themselves. That's also the impression I get from the bits of American TV we get here, where the worst inducers of negative black stereotypes I see are usually black too. I can see TV and reality don't go exactly hand in hand, so I keep hoping that US programs are hopeless, hopelessly unrealistic too.

Anyway, WRT to the "so I says" bit, I wonder if somebody can clarify why this can suggest a speaker is using AAVE, or any particular variant of English for that matter. The first time I heard it --and it hasn't been too many times since-- it was used in a film, by an all-white woman witness who was telling some story during a trial in the late 1940s -- I don't think there were even any black characters. To me, the woman didn't look or sound particularly rich, high class, well-educated or none of the opposites, and I don't remember other characters even batted an eyelash at how she said anything. Maybe it has to be used along with any other phrases, I missed something as an outsider to the culture, or...?

Edited by mrwarper on 28 December 2013 at 11:49am



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