Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
Resisting the urge to feed this wire report into an online Ebonics translator, I reproduce it here in the original English:
ATLANTA – Federal agents are seeking to hire Ebonics translators to help interpret wiretapped conversations involving targets of undercover drug investigations.
The Drug Enforcement Agency recently sent memos asking companies that provide translation services to help it find nine translators in the Southeast who are fluent in Ebonics, Special Agent Michael Sanders said Monday.
Ebonics, which is also known as African American Vernacular English, has been described by the psychologist who coined the term as the combination of English vocabulary with African language structure.
Some DEA agents already help translate Ebonics, Sanders said. But he said wasn't sure if the agency has ever hired outside Ebonics experts as contractors.
[...] Linguists said Ebonics can be trickier than it seems, partly because the vocabulary evolves so quickly.
"A lot of times people think you're just dealing with a few slang words, and that you can finesse your way around it," said John Rickford, a Stanford University linguistics professor. "And it's not — it's a big vocabulary. You'll have some significant differences" from English.
Critics worry that the DEA's actions could set a precedent.
"Hiring translators for languages that are of questionable merit to begin with is just going in the wrong direction," said Aloysius Hogan, the government relations director of English First, a national lobbying group that promotes the use of English.
"I'm not aware of Ebonics training schools or tests. I don't know how they'd establish that someone speaks Ebonics," he said. "I support the concept of pursuing drug dealers if they're using code words, but this is definitely going in the wrong direction."
H. Samy Alim, a Stanford linguistics professor who specializes in black language and hip-hop culture, said he thought the hiring effort was a joke when he first heard about it, but that it highlights a serious issue.
"It seems ironic that schools that are serving and educating black children have not recognized the legitimacy of this language. Yet the authorities and the police are recognizing that this is a language that they don't understand," he said. "It really tells us a lot about where we are socially in terms of recognizing African-American speech."
Rickford said that hiring Ebonics experts could come in handy for the DEA, but he said it's hard to determine whether a prospective employee can speak it well enough to translate since there are no standardized tests.
National Ebonics standards now. How more absurd will the drug war get?
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May '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
The story that there is a huge amount of black Americans who do not speak proper English was immediately followed by a story about members of the Congressional Black Caucus complaining that their constituency is chronically underemployed and in poverty.
Jul '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
I don't speak Ebonics.
But I'm willing to work blue.
Jun '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
The best video commentary on Ebonics:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0j8disIFWo
Aug '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
Poor linguists, blinded by their own interests. Non-standard dialects are, linguistically speaking, coherent wholes with their own self-intelligible grammatical rules and vocabulary.
But that doesn't mean we should "legitimate" these dialects in the wider culture so that dialect speakers feel no pressure to also learn standard English. For that traps dialect speakers in a self-sealing bubble of mutual unintelligibility.
All the linguistic science in the world can't change the fact that learning to speak and understand "good English" provides a way out of poverty and squalor for the poorest among us.
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
James, this is the quotation that frightens me. A "professor of linguistics and hip-hip culture" concludes that the translator program proves that we must now accept ebonics as a legitimate language. What? How about this: the fact that we need translators -- translators! -- to interpret the speech of native-born Americans proves that we need to do more to educate black students. Is there anything more racist than the suggestion that standard, grammatical English is somehow not authentic African-American speech?
May '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
Every person knows multiple dialects. Poor blacks should be taught, like everyone else, that learning standard English doesn't require unlearning one's original dialect. Familiarity with standard English is generally necessary to excel in business that is cross-regional or cross-cultural.
In any case, all DEA agents working with a particular culture should strive to learn the relevant dialect (or even language) without need of formal training. If a DEA agent worked the Mexican border and relied completely on his fellows for interpretation, his effectiveness would suffer. It's not that hard to pick up a handful of words and phrases at a time if one simply immerses himself in the culture.
Perhaps the problem is that DEA agents are moved around assignments too often to learn the local subcultures.
Jul '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
carpenters
cooks
custodians
et al.
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
Aaron Miller: Every person knows multiple dialects. Poor blacks should be taught, like everyone else, that learning standard English doesn't require unlearning one's original dialect. Familiarity with standard English is generally necessary to excel in business that is cross-regional or cross-cultural.
[...] Perhaps the problem is that DEA agents are moved around assignments too often to learn the local subcultures. · Aug 24 at 10:22am
Spot on, Aaron. Such, and not just for the DEA, are the perils of top-down thinking. I'd like to think everyone knows multiple dialects -- just look at the way many kids toggle between kidspeak and talk-to-your-parents language -- but I'm afraid there's tremendous pressure, maybe from the top down but also the bottom up, to let kids speak however they want -- or should I say however they wind up speaking. Where do generations of illiteracy, willfully bad grammar, and casual public obscenity, etc., come from? For any race or group, an important part of the story is a sense that nobody's entitled to tell kids that there's such thing as a right way to speak -- much less to make them speak that way.
May '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
James Poulos, Ed.
For any race or group, an important part of the story is a sense that nobody's entitled to tell kids that there's such thing as a right way to speak -- much less to make them speak that way. · Aug 24 at 10:42am
I took many linguistics courses in college, and it seems the "right" way to speak really does boil down to power. Whatever group founds or controls a nation, it is that dialect which will be the official (stated or not) preference. So it is unsurprising that persons who feel oppressed are the most likely to stubbornly stick to their subcultural dialects.
The habit of refusing to speak the "proper" dialect is common among the poor of any ethnicity (and any nation). If we want them to improve their economic potential by acknowledging the need for a dialect of formality, then we must first convince them that there is a space for them at the table. The problem is generally less that they have no such opportunities as that they have been convinced by miseducation and political propoganda that they are fated to the oubliette of society.
Aug '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
Every person knows multiple dialects. Poor blacks should be taught, like everyone else, that learning standard English doesn't require unlearning one's original dialect.
Amusing (to me) fact. I speak two quite distinct dialects of English -- one peculiar to the area I was born and raised (and which other speakers of English often find difficult) and one that I might as well call generic-American-TV-anchorman, which is what I use professionally and in most social interaction. But every roommate I've ever had has found my family members hard to understand and noticed the pronounced difference in my speech when I was on the phone with them
But when I learned to write in school, we were taught the same Standard English as everyone else and were not allowed to use local slang. And even in oral communication, there was also an implicit understanding that "we talk THIS way amongst ourselves and THAT way with outsiders."
Those were the bad ol' days of the 1970s though, before egalitarianism had seeped into every nook and cranny of social life and made "code-switching" a dirty word, a sign of inauthenticity.
May '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
Incidentally, I tend to favor my regional dialect (a mix of Texan and Deep South) over formal English in most settings, including formal ones, because it counteracts my tendency toward assertive (seemingly arrogant) claims. A country dialect is humbling in common perception, so I find that it makes conversation easier to discuss weighty subjects with a drawl and colorful expressions while refraining just enough to remain clear.
Aug '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
it seems the "right" way to speak really does boil down to power.
Which makes it unjust because ...?
If we want them to improve their economic potential by acknowledging the need for a dialect of formality, then we must first convince them that there is a space for them at the table.
I'm sorry, but that's nonsense. To speak of only Britain and the US, social mobility has been rising in recent decades co-terminus with the insistence (the roots of which are ideological not practical) that there is no "right" way to speak and thus people should feel free to talk however they want. Plus, and again to speak only of Britain and the US, the dialects of the upper classes are just as distinct and oft-parodied as those of the lower classes or the poorer geographic areas.
Jul '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
No, etoiledunord, this is the best video commentary on ebonics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhJDvI3gUO8
If Barbara Billingsley can figure it out, how hard can it be?
But seriously. It is all as simple as a common culture must have a common language. If any given group chooses to separate itself from the larger culture by language, it does so to its disadvantage. If the large culture encourages this, it will eventually begin to splinter under the strain.
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
Well, this story challenges my position, I must admit. I'm a big believer in standardized English and have always felt that teaching children Ebonics or any other dialect in school is tantamount to child abuse. But that was when I thought it would keep them from finding work. Now that I realize the opportunities available in the DEA...
May '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
courageman: it seems the "right" way to speak really does boil down to power.
Which makes it unjust because ...?
I didn't say it was unjust. That's simply the way it is. It's like pointing out the simple fact that all nations are founded through force.
I think you might be confusing accent with dialect. Accent is how one pronounces words. Dialect refers to vocabulary and grammar. Accents vary more widely than dialects among our elites. And "elites" include some media in modern societies, because they exercise great control over the tone and direction of public discourse. But you're right that rule and mobility in our society are uniquely open.
Standard English was established generations ago, but constantly evolves. Our current politicians are more subject to it than movers of it.
Anyway, I was talking about perception. Regardless of whether or not a poor person is actually oppressed, his perception of oppression encourages either individualism or stronger identification with his subculture. Proper English must be presented as his own language, as opposed to merely the language of politicians and professors.
Aug '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
I think you might be confusing accent with dialect.
In the US, for the most part, class and geography differences are more notable in accents than full-blown dialects, true. But sometimes an accent can become so thick or eccentric that it becomes unintelligible to outsiders.
May '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
Agreed. I expect that's part of the problem the DEA agents are having. They want those translators for the South, where we tend to slur our words a lot.
Aug '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
I wonder how an African language structure has managed to infiltrate the slang of American blacks. I daresay fewer than 1% of them have ever been to Africa, and few have any ancestral connection to Africa more recent than 150 years ago. Is this something carried in the blood? Or is it genetic? Or do they secretly teach African language structure in predominantly black schools?
Jun '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
Aaron Miller
it seems the "right" way to speak really does boil down to power. Whatever group founds or controls a nation, it is that dialect which will be the official (stated or not) preference. So it is unsurprising that persons who feel oppressed are the most likely to stubbornly stick to their subcultural dialects.· Aug 24 at 11:06am
Even more, as a white middle-class male growing up in California, I did not "stick" to my ebonics, I spent a lot of time learning it so I could be cool, i.e., NOT part of the square conventional culture.
We model our dialect on the group we want to be associated with (among the options we perceive, of course). And, I suffered because of my ebonics choice. The people using the conventional dialectic of my region and, surprisingly enough, in positions of power, thought I was an idiot, and gave me responsibilities and privileges appropriate to that idiocy.
I lost "power" in the conventional culture, but I gained the right to bitch with my cohorts, which was more important to me at the time.
Aug '10
Re: Fluent in Ebonics? The DEA Wants YOU!
Paul DeRocco
I wonder how an African language structure has managed to infiltrate the slang of American blacks. I daresay fewer than 1% of them have ever been to Africa, and few have any ancestral connection to Africa more recent than 150 years ago. Is this something carried in the blood? Or is it genetic? Or do they secretly teach African language structure in predominantly black schools?
There are two competing linguistic theories here.
The other theory (which makes more sense to me) is that African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) has much less to do with Africa than it does with the redneck dialect spoken by Southern whites.
Southern whites came mostly from the UK's Border Country, where the speech was already different from the part of England Northerners came from, and the pre-emigration speech differences were strikingly similar to the differences between Standard American English and the commonalities (which are many) between "redneck" and AAVE today.
Examples of African-language impact on AAVE are few or ambiguous.