When we talk about language, what are we actually saying?

[maeveenroute]

(La traduction/adaptation s'en vient, je vous jure, j'ai mes exemples et tout, j'ai juste pas le temps ce soir!)Ok, so I should be doing my homework, but I have to get this out. I just had a fascinating but frustrating conversation with a French Lit major, and I think I’m beginning to see why Lit people (and layman) and linguists don’t understand

Comments

[anonymous]

you're glossing over the 3rd point, which is the most important. "Less certain"? i would say AAVE is a strong disadvantage. your comparison to japanese doesn't make much of a point b/c they have equal credibility and thus status. minority dialects and languages, such as AAVE or even esperanto, have always been and prob. always will be looked down upon, in the same way that many minority accents (e.g. southern, asian) and religions (e.g. mormons, quakers) are. obviously standard english is much more preferable than any derivative in the majority of any situation you could think of (not only in terms of employment, but also in any situation outside of an AAVE-majority speaking setting which is rare).