Then I first read it, I did not agree with most of what he had to say. There a few points that Baldwin brings up, but I am filled with conflicting ideas. Unfortunately for me, the three questions to answer imply that you agree with Baldwin’s opinion. Therefore, in order to answer them honestly, I must confess my disagreements. Throughout the essay he represses the term Dialect. Dialect is what defines someone. He says, “Language, incontestably, reveals the speaker. ” I must disagree with that statement.
Dialect is what defines the speaker, and language is what reveals, not the speaker, but, the audience. You speak the same language with another to communicate, what reveals you, or where you are from, culture, etc, is the way you speak that language. Changing a word or two, cutting a letter out, or using improper grammar does not give you the right to say that you speak another language. Baldwin believes that language is supposed to reveal who you are and where you are from; your social status. To write English in a way that is proper reveals that you know the language well.
If a person reads your writing, that ‘spell-check’ does not disagree, he will only determine your writing style and nothing about your speech, not where you are from, or what you look like. Only when you reveal yourself and speech, will a person know. The altercation in speech between one another is not called a different language but dialect. This means, that the functions of language is to communicate. The type of language you select is chosen by where you reside, or by your choice. It will not tell anyone anything else about you. To say that Black English is a language is to say that my English is a language.
The Term Paper on Variants and Dialects of the English and Armenian Languages
Every language allows different kinds of variations: geographical or territorial, perhaps the most obvious, stylistic, the difference between the written and the spoken form of the standard national language and others. English is the national language of England proper, the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. It is the official language of Wales, Scotland, in Gibraltar and on the island of ...
Why shouldn’t everyone just have they’re own English languages? I not only speak with a French accent but I use terms and phrases from all different types of people and literature. Telling people that Black English is a language is a disgrace to this language. Language is not just anything that can be created because people had not been educated enough to use it correctly. It is a highly important communication method that must be studied hard to fully comprehend it. A different, non scholarly, version should not be considered a language to make up for the experience of the original users of Black English.
Because it was written almost thirty years ago, it does not understand that there is no reason for anyone in this nation to not be able to learn it properly. If you disagree, Oh my brothers, then do me this one favor. Please, oh please, write your essays for the Standardized Assessment Tests in Black English. And please, tell us what you receive. Take another glance at it, and think: maybe, oh maybe, a double negative is not correct in the language of English. Maybe being “down with it” is not the way to say that you are ok, pleased, or agreeing with it.
And also, the nonstandard word ain’t, was not the best one to appease the test graders. Baldwin believes that anything can be language, but language is not just a small piece of history where s percentage of the world was discriminated against. They developed a way to talk, a dialect. Let’s be mindful that Baldwin calls it Black English. English is English, whether there is Black, Standard White, Irish, French, Jamaican, or anything before never removes the next word: English. There can be many types of English, that is what makes us differ from one another but keep us together under one language. Let’s not break it by dividing ourselves.
