David’s Comments (group member since Sep 12, 2010)

David’s comments from the Ling AP Lit. and Comp. 2010-11 group.

I think tttc and Cronon state a different perspective about truth than 1984 and George Orwell's essay. Our previous novel, 1984, strongly criticized the government's manipulation of literature in order to indoctrinate proles with certain relative truths. Orwell continued to comment on his essay that such destruction of truth is extremely detrimental to humanity's natural rights and freedom.
tttc and Cronon seemed to say the same thing: that human beings cannot define absolute truth in any way. However, the two literatures didn't really criticize or warn readers that manipulated truth is necessarily dangerous to individuality and freedom. In fact, O'Brien and Cronon almost seem to encourage subjective narration and bias accounts as seen in tttc.

To me, 1984 is the novel form of Orwell's essay. Almost every statement in the article mirrored the Party and its crimes in the book. I think that Orwell is conveying how language can be abused to conceal truth. I strongly believe that humans have no capability of altering or even grasping absolute truth. The only thing that the Party can do is to cover the world with lies and false truths by altering and destroying language. Unfortunately, such acts are so effective in dominating society and consuming individuality.

Thanks guys for the feedback. I completely agree that Ebonics should not modify the entire language curriculum in schools but maybe taught as a "cultural understanding" course.
I also agree that applying Ebonics in this way will create and develop an appreciation and clarify any misconceptions of this precious dialect.

If Ebonics were an actual language, then can it be taught in the classroom? Well, I believe teaching Ebonics would be extremely difficult. How can we truly learn anything without passion? How can students read summer assignments and produce a quality essay without a true appreciation for the literature works? Likewise in order for Ebonics (or any other subject) to become a school's second language, elective, or even a main curriculum, students and faculty must have a firm appreciation and a desire to learn it. However, the article states a few points that contradict this condition. The author quotes Bill Cosby saying, "'You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth... There's no English being spoken...'" (8). This "crap" is Black English. According to the author's explanations in my assigned section (Black speech--language or dialect?), non-linguists consider language as a symbol of social status. However, students like us and most people (like Bill Cosby) do not consider dialects as "high status" (15). Hence, people (even the launchers of SEEK) naturally label AAL as a symbol of poverty and under-education(?) among the southern populations. This being said, I believe that America and its young students will find it extremely difficult to accept AAL as not only as an education curriculum but also as a part of everyday life because of natural, subconscious tendencies to look down upon Ebonics.

I just want to share a quick personal experience. Sometimes when my family decides to eat at Five Guy's (no doubt one of the best hamburger restaurants in our region), my mom dares herself to order food for the family and commands my dad and me to simply observe. Apparently, her challenge to order with her broken English is all for "self-educational" purposes. Anyways as my mom talks to the employee, I could see that the cashier fought to conceal his frustration. Observing how the line behind us kept getting longer, I felt ashamed about this entire situation. I did not want my family to be looked down upon by others because my mom talks in "Konglish." I love my mom to death, but situations like this make me want to take over with my "standard English."

Connecting this to the article, I think that the African-American students in Jordan's class had almost the same feelings. They were initially silent when the teacher had asked for their reactions to the novel because they felt confused, stressed, and somewhat ashamed about the book's language. They rejected any possible similarities between the traditional dialect and their own casual speech. And like me, they wanted to "take over" by translating the first passage of the novel into what they called "Standard English" (125).

Thanks Grace for clarifying what Eitan had mentioned in class. But instead of discussing about how subtle or vast the differences between the two dialects are I think it's more important to note that both "Konglish" and Celie's "Black English" share a simple, crucial key: they are deviations from the norm. I think Chunsoo brought up "Konglish" as his personal example simply because Konglish, like Celie's writings, are very different from the "standard English" that we are so accustomed to.