First off some definitions seem in order. Keith Gilyard in his "Preface" to _Rhetoric and Ethnicity_ defines ethnic rhetoric as language use "inflected with an ethnic difference" (v). He breaks down the definition further to account for "two directions for study":
ETHNIC RHETORIC
1) "attention to ethnic people employing any style of rhetoric, and 2) concern for verbal forms and discursive strategies unique or characteristic of particular ethnic assemblages" (v).
CRITICAL ETHNICITY
Gilyard discusses the debate over the use of race as a terminology. He argues that "given how saturated with conceptions of race our society is, that utilizing the semantic term race is unavoidable if one is truly interested in communicating with large numbers not only to contest racial reasoning but also to contest, in a concrete way, racial hierarchies" (ix). Critical ethnicity is a term Gilyard uses to describe "a search for the elements in various ethnic narratives that have the most political potential in a push for a more humane society, and it represents an impulse to share the fruits of that search with our students" (ix).
The volume that follows this introduction, then, is a enactment of critical ethnicity, addressing essay across two areas: History and identity and Pedagogy. As a conference proceedings from the Penn State Rhetoric conference, the volume gives a multi-faceted glimpse of the possibilities of ethnic rhetorics. Because this volume is a proceeding, though, we often only get a quick glimpse of an argument or a critical framework. I found myself wishing the authors had had more room to expand their thoughts and develop more historical background and analysis.
I found Smitherman's essay to be the most complete and compelling of the ones we read as a class. In "Meditations on Language, Pedagogy, and a Life of Struggle," Smitherman discusses the debates over the Oakland, CA school board's Resolution on Ebonics (issued in December 1996). She discusses the furor and reaction to the proposal while, at the same time, narrating a running history of language politics interwoven with some personal stories. As she points out, the use of "ebonics" was not radical: "They were simply proposing to teach the students and literacy and communication skills in the Language of Wider Communication in the United States, also known as 'standard English'" (5). The idea was to "use the students' home language as a bridge to move them to competence in 'standardized English.'" (5). Woven throughout her analysis are the reactions of prominent public figures who reacted negatively against the proposal. Interestingly, most of the responses seem to believe the school is trying to keep their students from success. Bill Cosby's infamous "Igno-Ebonics" comment...Ebonics in the eyes of these commentators is simly bad English, and the school district is racist for trying to utilized a language pedagogy that acknowledges the validity of students' home languages. In other words, language variety is perceived as a threat. The irony is that later in the article Smitherman shows that the innovative work of linguists and educators has had an effect on everyday people (p.11) when she cites an predominantly African American call-in radio show where the callers prove more informed than the host about language issues.
Ebonics, though, is a "term that has been around since 1973, having emerged during a caucus of Black scholars at a conference convened in St. Louis Missouri, by Dr. Robert Williams" (6). Ebonics, as Smitherman, explains "is not to be subsumed under 'English.' Rather it should be considered a 'parent' language in its own right, with 'descendant' languages in a number of regions around the world" (7). Turner's research on the impact of West African languages on the descendants of slaves in the Sea Island Communities of South Carolina showed a link between African languages and the English the slave descendants who lived there were speaking. These patterns were found more widely beyond the islands, too, a United States Ebonics (USEB).
Given the furor over Ebonics, Smitherman calls for scholarly and pedagogical work that understands "how and when the speaker or writer makes the decision to change the linguistic flow," citing Gilyard's _Voices of the Self_ as groundbreaking in addressing code-switching. She calls for a "systematic study of the language of Black women:" black women preachers, in particular. The biggest change she argues for, however, is that "high school and elementary teachers" need national credentialing standards that involve a course in language diversity. Yes, and college teachers, too.
As I read the article, I thought, too, of the need for a critical public scholarship on language issues--one that goes beyond the usual miss-or-mr. manners approach to language _Eats, Shoots and Leaves_ being a popular example or William Safire's usual pomp and bluster (sometimes he was/is funny). I think Smitherman is right that linguists and educators have had an impact on everyday folks' thinking about language, but when so many notables--Maya Angelou, for one, Jesse Jackson--speak out against ebonics, there is a huge gulf and a general public illiteracy about language issues and language variety.
I remember discussing these issues with my students in 205 course in 1997. I gave them an article about the actual methods being used in the school district, and they were incredulous that the controversy had blown up so much. As one student said, "this is a good teaching technique--common sense, in some ways."
When have people ever been "common sense" about acknowledging the richness of language when it comes to education? Most of us are schooled to think of language as a limitation, a constraint, not as a rich and flexible, multiple resource. I love Brandt's notion of literacy as a resource. I love Smitherman's discussion of language as multi-faceted, flexible, and as an instrument of beauty and expression.
Smitherman's essay was also beautifully written. I loved her line about her dad's old car "smoking" and "catching a flat." Her report of her grandmother's use of language: "If you don't do x or y," I'll beat you from Amazing Grace to Floating Opportunity" or " Genesis to Revelation."
How does our lower and upper-division writing curriculum promote an exploration language diversity? I'm assigned the Politics of Language course next year, so I'm hoping I can do more work in this area.
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2 comments:
I liked Smitherman's essay as well, Eileen. I would have loved to be in the audience to hear all those scholars representing Cosby's and other's voices in reaction to the Ebonics controversy. In response to your question, in our 670 meetings, I don't think WRT 105 has really promoted an exploration of language diversity. In fact, early on in the semester, I asked a question about grading student writing coming from ESL students and was surprised to hear that as teachers/assessors in this program, we must not take into account the fact that some of our students our writing in their second or third or fourth languages.
At the last school where I taught composition, if an ESL student fully developed their ideas and wrote a compelling argument even though her/his sentence structure was not "perfect," I would grade according to the sophistication of ideas. I would point out that the student needed to work on sentence level issues, but I would not let those sentence level issues greatly affect their grade. Here, however, I was told to take another approach. A C-, I was told, sends the message to an ESL student that their ideas are strong but sentence level issues need work. My initial reaction was that to some extent, I feel that upholding ESL students to these standards is unethical. Students whose first language is not English, whom we encourage to come to school here, are automatically not on a level playing field when they enter our classrooms. I have a student from Germany right now in my class whose grades are suffering because his English language use is not as "perfect" as it could be even though his ideas and arguments are some of the most thought provoking in class. In a program committed to diversity, are we really respecting language diversity by implementing such rigid forms of assessment or are we rather acting as gatekeepers of the ivory tower on the hill?
I think you might want to read McWhorter on this, too. He's a top linguist. For instance, he disagrees with Smitherman and others about the continuity between AAVE and West-African languages. He was called in to comment on the ebonics debate because he's African American, as well as prominent linguist. He's also grown into a conservative African-American public intellectual-- conservative at least on this issue and its corrolaries(though I hesitate to call him conservative as if he'd fit in with the English only crowd , who also might be labelled conservative. He's not that conservative). It might be an interesting face-off.
I think what often gets lost in the public debate-- as opposed to the academic one-- is that no one has floated the suggestion that Ebonics replace Standard Written English as a vehicle for writing and instruction. That is, the most prominent proponents of addressing Ebonics never suggest that students shouldn't learn to write Standard Written English.
That misunderstanding is the source of a lot of confusion in this debate.
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