[New Rooster] crowed just as he had every morning back home…
OCK CAY AWAY! OODLE Day OODAY.
and waited for the day to begin.
But it didn’t.
He took a deep breath and yelled at the top of his lungs.
OCK CAY AWAY! OODLE Day OODAY.
. . .
And so, even after he learned how to say COCK A DOODLE DOO!
and KIKERIKI, WŌ WŌ WŌ, QUI QUI RIQUI, and KO KE KO KOO,
the rooster started every day with breakfast.
It was something everybody understood.
from The New Rooster
written and illustrated by Rilla Alexander
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2022
Most of my grandparents and their friends learned English as a second language. They spoke with Russian and Eastern European accents. Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, and other Slovic languages were the languages they learned at their parents’ knees.
When considering language, an accent refers to a person’s particular pronunciation. It does not include grammar, word order, or vocabulary. One interesting phenomenon is the cot/caught dichotomy. When my family and I moved from Cleveland to Youngstown, I was much slower to lose my Cleveland twang than my daughters were.
We’d sing rhyming songs on the way back and forth to visit their grandparents, and when my daughter rhymed “ball” with “doll,” I knew her language had transitioned to match Youngstown’s. My pronunciation of “doll” has no equivalent sound in the Youngstown area. And it does not rhyme with ball. Hot, father, box all have that same sound. Indeed, many people around here do not even hear the difference.
But dialects are a whole different ball game. Dialects are variations of a language. Although some expressions, word patterns, and even the tone or rhythm differ, people speaking a dialect of the same language can generally understand each other. American English and British English are dialects of English. African American Vernacular English
(AAVE) is its own dialect. So is ValSpeak.
Dialects serve a purpose. Since they are usually associated with a particular region of the country, “fitting in” can be important when a person relocates. The opposite is also true. Holding on to one’s identity by holding on to one’s own dialect makes a statement of its own.
My mom used to tell us that what you say is not as important as how you say it. She was onto something. Language is full of nonverbal cues, including facial expressions, volume, pacing, and inflection.
Katherine Kinzler, a researcher and psychology professor at the University of Chicago, agrees with my mom. She goes further, though, to describe how that works. Before we can speak, we listen. Even very young babies can distinguish between their native language and foreign languages. They prefer what they know, at least in the “language department” of their developing brains.
It’s human nature to want to be around people who are like us. And because children absorb so much information from their environment, it’s easy for them to learn assumptions from those around them. They can learn that some styles of talk are “better” than other styles. Then they might move to the next assumption, identifying “others” as less than. Less intelligent, less informed, less capable, less successful…
Dr. Kinzler studied children in the North (her own Chicago) and children living in the South. She and her team played voices from both regions and discovered (after factoring in TV’s and social media’s influence) that the kids preferred voices that were familiar to them. Kindergartners made no judgment distinction, but by fourth grade, both groups of children (Northern and Southern) said speakers from the North sounded smarter and those from the South sounded nicer.
Dialects can define a culture and reinforce stereotypes. ValSpeak (Vally Girls and Guys) users are usually young, white, and upper-middle-class. Their sentences tend to end with an uptick, so it sounds like they’re always asking a question. ValSpeak implies a ditzy consumerism.
The very definitions that intended to explain the origination of AAVE (African American Vernacular English) unintentionally reinforced a negative stereotype. AAVE is a recognized dialect of English with its own grammar rules, vocabulary, and distinct pronunciations. Because its speakers are descendants of Africans kidnapped to serve the slave trade, a racial element became part of the definition. In the 1960s, Dr. Robert Williams, a Black social psychologist, combined “ebony” with “phonics” to coin the term Ebonics. Because its speakers were all Black, racial stereotypes overlaid the spoken language. Speakers of Ebonics, later named AAVE, were imagined to be less intelligent, lazy, sloppy…
On the other hand, people whose dialect is Standard American English are presumed to be intelligent, thoughtful, altruistic…
Language is not only about communication. It’s about social connection. The term code-switching refers to a person changing language or dialect within a single conversation. People use it to “fit in” with the dominant social group. Or hope to rise in social status. Immigrants, especially those who are new to a language, might speak Standard English when in public, but switch to their native language within their own speech community. Here's an article from NPR that discusses several reasons code-switching is used.
Lots of the time it’s unconscious. When I return from a trip to Cleveland, it takes a little while to drop my twang.
When Michelle Obama said, at the beginning of her speech last week, “You know what I’m talkin’ about,” with a casual inflection, she reached her audience of young and not-so-young people of every color and every background. Her speech was a perfect blend of eloquence, sophistication, and “down-home.”
Language is alive. It is always changing, sometimes quickly and sometimes not so quick. New dialects are being created or merged or redefined as our diverse population physically moves from place to place, participates in social media, and meets face-to-face in schools, at the gym, and at work.
On a recommendation, I just started reading The Sewing Girl’s Tale by John Wood Sweet (Henry Holt and Co., 2022). From the publisher, it’s “a riveting Revolutionary Era drama of the first published rape trial in American history and its long, shattering aftermath, revealing how much has changed over two centuries—and how much has not.” Sweet’s meticulous research and engaging writing style have won him multiple awards and prizes for this piece of nonfiction.
Be curious! (and speak your mind)
OCK CAY AWAY! OODLE Day OODAY.
and waited for the day to begin.
But it didn’t.
He took a deep breath and yelled at the top of his lungs.
OCK CAY AWAY! OODLE Day OODAY.
. . .
And so, even after he learned how to say COCK A DOODLE DOO!
and KIKERIKI, WŌ WŌ WŌ, QUI QUI RIQUI, and KO KE KO KOO,
the rooster started every day with breakfast.
It was something everybody understood.
from The New Rooster
written and illustrated by Rilla Alexander
Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 2022
Most of my grandparents and their friends learned English as a second language. They spoke with Russian and Eastern European accents. Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Czech, and other Slovic languages were the languages they learned at their parents’ knees.
When considering language, an accent refers to a person’s particular pronunciation. It does not include grammar, word order, or vocabulary. One interesting phenomenon is the cot/caught dichotomy. When my family and I moved from Cleveland to Youngstown, I was much slower to lose my Cleveland twang than my daughters were.
We’d sing rhyming songs on the way back and forth to visit their grandparents, and when my daughter rhymed “ball” with “doll,” I knew her language had transitioned to match Youngstown’s. My pronunciation of “doll” has no equivalent sound in the Youngstown area. And it does not rhyme with ball. Hot, father, box all have that same sound. Indeed, many people around here do not even hear the difference.
But dialects are a whole different ball game. Dialects are variations of a language. Although some expressions, word patterns, and even the tone or rhythm differ, people speaking a dialect of the same language can generally understand each other. American English and British English are dialects of English. African American Vernacular English
(AAVE) is its own dialect. So is ValSpeak.
Dialects serve a purpose. Since they are usually associated with a particular region of the country, “fitting in” can be important when a person relocates. The opposite is also true. Holding on to one’s identity by holding on to one’s own dialect makes a statement of its own.
My mom used to tell us that what you say is not as important as how you say it. She was onto something. Language is full of nonverbal cues, including facial expressions, volume, pacing, and inflection.
Katherine Kinzler, a researcher and psychology professor at the University of Chicago, agrees with my mom. She goes further, though, to describe how that works. Before we can speak, we listen. Even very young babies can distinguish between their native language and foreign languages. They prefer what they know, at least in the “language department” of their developing brains.
It’s human nature to want to be around people who are like us. And because children absorb so much information from their environment, it’s easy for them to learn assumptions from those around them. They can learn that some styles of talk are “better” than other styles. Then they might move to the next assumption, identifying “others” as less than. Less intelligent, less informed, less capable, less successful…
Dr. Kinzler studied children in the North (her own Chicago) and children living in the South. She and her team played voices from both regions and discovered (after factoring in TV’s and social media’s influence) that the kids preferred voices that were familiar to them. Kindergartners made no judgment distinction, but by fourth grade, both groups of children (Northern and Southern) said speakers from the North sounded smarter and those from the South sounded nicer.
Dialects can define a culture and reinforce stereotypes. ValSpeak (Vally Girls and Guys) users are usually young, white, and upper-middle-class. Their sentences tend to end with an uptick, so it sounds like they’re always asking a question. ValSpeak implies a ditzy consumerism.
The very definitions that intended to explain the origination of AAVE (African American Vernacular English) unintentionally reinforced a negative stereotype. AAVE is a recognized dialect of English with its own grammar rules, vocabulary, and distinct pronunciations. Because its speakers are descendants of Africans kidnapped to serve the slave trade, a racial element became part of the definition. In the 1960s, Dr. Robert Williams, a Black social psychologist, combined “ebony” with “phonics” to coin the term Ebonics. Because its speakers were all Black, racial stereotypes overlaid the spoken language. Speakers of Ebonics, later named AAVE, were imagined to be less intelligent, lazy, sloppy…
On the other hand, people whose dialect is Standard American English are presumed to be intelligent, thoughtful, altruistic…
Language is not only about communication. It’s about social connection. The term code-switching refers to a person changing language or dialect within a single conversation. People use it to “fit in” with the dominant social group. Or hope to rise in social status. Immigrants, especially those who are new to a language, might speak Standard English when in public, but switch to their native language within their own speech community. Here's an article from NPR that discusses several reasons code-switching is used.
Lots of the time it’s unconscious. When I return from a trip to Cleveland, it takes a little while to drop my twang.
When Michelle Obama said, at the beginning of her speech last week, “You know what I’m talkin’ about,” with a casual inflection, she reached her audience of young and not-so-young people of every color and every background. Her speech was a perfect blend of eloquence, sophistication, and “down-home.”
Language is alive. It is always changing, sometimes quickly and sometimes not so quick. New dialects are being created or merged or redefined as our diverse population physically moves from place to place, participates in social media, and meets face-to-face in schools, at the gym, and at work.
On a recommendation, I just started reading The Sewing Girl’s Tale by John Wood Sweet (Henry Holt and Co., 2022). From the publisher, it’s “a riveting Revolutionary Era drama of the first published rape trial in American history and its long, shattering aftermath, revealing how much has changed over two centuries—and how much has not.” Sweet’s meticulous research and engaging writing style have won him multiple awards and prizes for this piece of nonfiction.
Be curious! (and speak your mind)
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