Linguistics Ebonics Is a Term Coined by

Linguistics Ebonics Ebonics is a term coined by Robert L. Williams in 1975. It was developed by merging the words ebony and phonics. Ebonics is defined as a system of oral communication utilized by Americans of African ancestry that consists of phonology, syntax, morphology, semantics, lexicon, rate, rhythm, stress, and nonverbal communication. Ebonics started during the trans-Atlantic African slave trade during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

The Africans who were brought over to the new world spoke languages such as, Ibo, Yoruba, Hanusa, Wolof, Twi, Hausa, Dogon, Akan, Kimbundu, and Bambara, among others. In spite of the use of these isolating tactics, slaves developed ways to converse with one another. White slave owners also comprehended that they needed a way to converse their needs to their slaves and vice versa. This led to the advancement of a mixture of different African languages and English.

This type of language is normally referred to as pidgin or a basic mixture of two or more languages or the language of operation (Grant, Oka & Baker, 2009). Since the 1996 Oakland School Boards decision concerning the use of Ebonics as a tool of teaching, opinions has conflicted over whether Ebonics is a separate language or merely a dialect of English.

"Called Black Vernacular English (BVE) in the 1960's and 70's and African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the 1980's and 90's, Ebonics has conventionally been thought to be a dialect of English by educators and linguists. In order to comprehend why Ebonics might be measured a language other than English requires a closer look at what it takes to make a language, as well as what the dissimilarities are between a language and a dialect" (Fasold, 2010).

Linguists normally concur that the design of a language is mainly, or entirely, social and political. What it takes to make a language is not just a set of structural linguistic assets or lack of intelligibility with related linguistic systems, but rather the assurance that the linguistic system in question is a symbol of nationalist or ethnic distinctiveness. There are cases worldwide of the two logical potential cases in which equally incomprehensible linguistic diversities belong to the same language and others were equally intelligible varieties are separate languages.

"There is, consequently, no linguistic or geographical reason that Ebonics could not obtain status as a language distinct from English. Two objections that are likely to be raised are that 1) Ebonics is not a language, but rather English tainted by bad grammar and excessive slang, and 2) Ebonics and English are too similar to each other to be dissimilar languages" (Fasold, 2010). African-American English (AAE) is a dialect of American English used by a lot of African-Americans in certain settings and situations.

Like other dialects of English, AAE is a regular, systematic language mixture that contrasts with other dialects in terms of its grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary (Dialects, 2010). At its most exact level, Ebonics simply means black speech. It is a merge of the words ebony meaning black and phonics meaning sounds. The term was created in 1973 by a group of black scholars who did not like the negative implications of other terms that were being used at the time (Baik, 2011).

Yet, the term Ebonics never caught on amongst linguists, much less among the general public. But that all changed with the Ebonics debate of December 1996 when the Oakland (CA) School Board documented it as the primary language of its majority African-American students and resolved to take it into consideration in teaching them standard English (Rickford, n.d.).

Most linguists refer to the characteristic speech of African-Americans as Black English or African-American English (AAE) or, if they want to stress that this doesn't include the Standard English usage of African-Americans, as African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). In theory, scholars who favor the term Ebonics or alternatives like African-American language wish to emphasize the African roots of African-American speech and its associations with languages spoken elsewhere in the Black Diaspora, like Jamaica or Nigeria.

But in practice, AAVE and Ebonics fundamentally refer to the same sets of speech forms (Rickford, n.d.). AAE is an organized language selection, with patterns of pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, and usage that extend far beyond slang. Since it has a set of rules that is disconnected from those of Standard American English, the characterizations of the variety as bad English are inaccurate. Speakers of AAE do not fail to speak Standard American English, but do well in speaking African-American English.

Linguists are less worried with whether or not AAE is a language or a dialect than with distinguishing the organized nature of AAE (Dialects, 2010). The original Ebonics build was proposed to reflect the international linguistic consequences of the African slave trade. Prior to its invention, no single term described the linguistic consequences of this period in history. The huge preponderance of relevant studies had all been in the United States, and terms varied from year to year.

"Nonstandard Negro English was common during the 1960's, succeeded by Black English or Black English Vernacular (BEV) during the 1970's and most of the 1980's. Eventually the term African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) was introduced as yet another synonym for the speech of most blacks in America. Yet, unlike Ebonics, Black English or AAVE never explicitly referred to the linguistic legacy of the African slave trade beyond the United States" (Ebony + Phonics, 2005).

When looked at from a purely scientific viewpoint, the relative linguistic or educational value of Ebonics depends upon its exact definition, including the specific criteria by which it is come to recognize the systematic nature of a language or dialect and those who foster it through their daily speech. From a purely linguistic viewpoint, linguistic speech communities have never been defined based upon the race of their speakers.

On the other hand, because all African slaves were chosen, at least in part, for the reason that they shared physical characteristics, Ebonics forces scholars, educators, policy makers and others to consider the special linguistic circumstances of African slave descendants (Ebony + Phonics, 2005). A lot of educational policies and services are instituted based on a child's native language. Students who speak languages other than English may be qualified for special programs to help move forward their English fluency.

Oakland educators realized that many of their African-American students were at a severe educational drawback because they lacked sufficient skill in Standard English. Rather than dispute that AAVE speakers were in greater need of standard English fluency, though, Oakland educators quarreled that black students were linguistically similar to others for whom English is not their first language (Ebony + Phonics, 2005). Depending upon which definition of Ebonics one chooses, resulting policy and economic choices can have intense social, educational, legal and political consequences.

One such impact is the budgetary impact of expanding bilingual education programs to include African-Americans; clearly, neither educators nor politicians had ever pondered or planned for such a viewpoint. Furthermore, the highly articulate speech of African-Americans who are in the public eye serve as regular reminders that a lot of blacks have mastered standard English devoid of any benefit of or obvious need for special educational programs (Ebony + Phonics, 2005). The notion that Ebonics is very bad English is clearly false to linguists who have studied it in detail.

Outside the area of academic linguistics, though, the idea that Ebonics is bad English is usually held to be un-controversially true. Therefore, it is necessary to show that this notion is indefensible. It is clear on assessment that Ebonics, far from being bad English, is in fact superior to English in one of its subsystems, the verbal tense feature system.

Additionally, in regards to the verb structure that English has, Ebonics provides its speakers with rich possessions for making distinctions among kinds and times of actions and states that can be made in English only awkwardly through use of a longer and more uncomfortable expression (Fasold, 2010). The subject of Ebonics has been in the center of disagreement for many years. A lot of linguists and scholars have argued over whether or not Ebonics is a dialect of English, or a language in itself.

In order to deal with this issue one must in fact look at how language is defined. Language is made up of the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and comprehended by a society. Those who dispute Ebonics is just a dialect of English tend to look at its vocabulary. They say since it shares alike vocabulary with Standard American English, that it must be a dialect of English. According to linguistics, a language is determined by its grammatical structure not alike vocabularies.

A lot of languages like Spanish and Portuguese share words that have alike meanings, yet they are still two separate languages (Obasaju, Stewart, Jackson & Timberlake, n.d.). Some scholars suggest that there is connection in the grammar of blacks and whites. Yet there has been empirical evidence that proposes the grammar of blacks and whites are not the same. Ebonics may borrow or take on words from Standard American English, but there are grammatical dissimilarities.

In fact, there is substantiation suggesting that African-American speech has roots similar to that of Niger-Congo Africans. Ebonics shares African morphology and lacks certain phonemes. These phonemes play an important role in the syntax and comprehension of Standard American English. However since Ebonics lacks them, it affects the connotation and grammatical structure of Ebonics. Even though many will carry on to question the spirit of Ebonics, there is sufficient evidence supporting the notion that it is without a doubt a separate language (Obasaju, Stewart, Jackson & Timberlake, n.d.).

Traditional testing of cognitive ability, written and oral language, and reading skills have been reported as not giving exact results for African-American youths who speak Ebonics. These dissimilarities have been thought to be due to language and cultural differences, particularly in the view that The African derived language of Ebonics are inferior to English.

Additionally, many educators and psychologists are not completely aware of what Ebonics really is and what it means to African-American youths in terms of communication, understanding, and intelligence of life in general and in the educational system (Obasaju, Stewart, Jackson & Timberlake, n.d.). There are quite a few grammatical differences between Ebonics and standardized English. This is a big issue since the standardized tests used in education have proficiency in English grammar as a basic measure.

One instance of the differences in grammar is the mix-ups of certain words because of differences in pronunciation. Because of phonological differences were "th" is replaced with "f" in Ebonics differences in death and deaf, the words could be easily confused. In addition for the reason that of pronunciation words like mile and mild could be confused (Obasaju, Stewart, Jackson & Timberlake, n.d.).

When Ebonics speaking students hear or see certain words as part of a standardized test they can easily confuse the Ebonics word with the English word and vice versa. It appears that comprehension is not the issue; the problem is vocabulary for the reason that differences in language. Assessment tests, measure language beyond its factual meaning. They also test student's capabilities to draw inferences, which in turn are founded on their background information. Their background information is founded on their cultural frames of reference.

Ebonics speakers have very dissimilar frames of reference that they bring into the test than the standard test taker does. Not only will Ebonics speakers answer in a different way based upon their frames of reference, scores do not take this into account, generally because scorers do not know that this issue is present. "It would help if on test concerning verbal proficiency, Ebonics speakers would be told to give answers with added sentences or phrases so a scorer would know if they are using the English or Ebonics interpretation.

The population that is represented in most standardized assessment tests does not include the growing number of those who speak Ebonics" (Obasaju, Stewart, Jackson & Timberlake, n.d.). This helps to make clear why so many students that do speak Ebonics do so poorly on these tests. Ebonics differs so extensively from Standard English that it seems almost unjust to compare the two groups. The answers to standardized English tests that diverge from the conventional answer are marked wrong, even if they match with another language (Rickford, 1999).

These tests unjustly tie comprehension, knowledge and overall intelligence to aptitude in English. It is essential to make sure that tests are properly measuring what they are intended to measure. This does not seem to be the case in regards to those who speak Ebonics and the general tests that measure their aptitude. These factors influence which students are placed in special or remedial classes. The trouble does not seem to be their level of intelligence, but their comprehension of language.

It has been shown that as the gap between the everyday language of students and the language used on standardized tests get bigger, there is a comparative probability that the language dissimilarities will pessimistically influence the student's test scores (Obasaju, Stewart, Jackson & Timberlake, n.d.). Improving the academic performance of Ebonics speaking students divulges no easily discernible answers. Yet, a lot of suggestions are given that may advance the situation, and decrease linguistic and cultural prejudices on standardized tests. Perhaps, Ebonics translators could be made accessible during testing.

This would permit for all questions and answers between student and teacher, to be communicated clearly. If funding is not available for special translators, then teachers and other faculty should learn sufficient Ebonics to converse with students. Becoming more aware of and receptive to the cultural practices of this nonstandard language is an intricate part of breaking down linguistic barricades. Even utilizing current standardized test, answers made by students can be sensibly identifiable, and not simply regarded as wrong answers.

Possible lessons during classroom time that teach English and some Ebonics, for interpretive purposes, would be helpful so language dissimilarities could be broken down. With this advance, students are able to learn and understand both, English and Ebonics at the same time ((Obasaju, Stewart, Jackson & Timberlake, n.d.). The time has come for unconventional teaching. Ebonics was not an educational issue thirty years ago, but it is today. Without tangible solutions for African-American youth, they could, very well, be lost.

The educational system needs to step up to the challenge of generating a bright tomorrow for young people. Special foundation measures are taken to make sure Hispanic and Asian children overcome these linguistic barriers. It should be the same for those who speak Ebonics. Mastering the English language is extremely important for American students. Yet, the educational systems in this country must recognize that without understanding, learning cannot take place, particularly for African-Americans (Obasaju, Stewart, Jackson & Timberlake, n.d.).

Even though African-American students have been recognized by educators as non-standard English speakers, and their incapability to do well academically has been documented, very little has been done to improve the situation on a large scale. That is, with the exception of the Oakland Unified School District task-force composed of educators concerned with the poor academic performance of African-American students, predominantly in language arts.

They arrived at the conclusion that African-American students were speaking African-American English, a deviation of English influenced by African languages and therefore, like most other non-standard English speakers, having trouble comprehending content taught in standard English (Ebonics & Education, A Dystopian Fantasy, 2010). Over a decade ago, some well-intentioned educators created the Oakland Resolution in an attempt to address this dialectical issue. They felt that if students had a problem understanding the material in Standard English, then the school should try to educate them in other ways that they could comprehend.

One of these substitute ways included the incorporation of African-American English in the classroom, in a comparable fashion to the way English Second Language / Bilingual courses are carried out. Unfortunately, because there weren't any linguists involved in the formation of the original Oakland Resolution, the document made controversial statements about the native language of African-American students. It the wrong way claimed Ebonics was an African language, as opposed to one influenced by African languages.

Needless to say, commotion exacerbated by the media took place, stigmatizing the African-American English dialect and any hopes of its implementation in the education system. By the time linguists.