- Email: [email protected]
Three Perspectives of African American English as a Linguistic and Cultural Resource in Education
Linguistics and Education 15 (2004) 431–434
Book reviews Three Perspectives of African American English as a Linguistic and Cultural Resource in Education Marcyliena Morgan, Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture, Cambridge, New York, 2002, ISBN 0521806712/0521001498 (pbk), p. 181. Elaine Richardson, African American Literacies, Routledge, New York, 2003, ISBN 0415268826/0415268834 (pbk), p. 177. Lisa Green, African American English: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge, New York, 2002, ISBN 0521814499/0521891388 (pbk), p. 285. Three books which make significant contributions to scholarly research on African American language have been published in the last two years: Lisa Green’s (2002), African American English: A Linguistic Introduction, Marcyliena Morgan’s (2002), Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture, and Elaine Richardson’s (2003), African American Literacies. Prior to the publication of these works, each scholar was considered a major player in research on various aspects of language and culture of African Americans. Each has now focused her experiences and knowledge into a book that illuminates aspects of African American language, power, culture, literacies, discourse, linguistic structures, and application to education in uniquely intersecting ways. Students, educators, and scholars concerned with African American language or culture can gain a host of knowledge from these volumes whether theoretical and practical or individual and community-based. While each author’s perspective differs somewhat from the next, their works radiate into many points of relevant scholarship which can enlighten the work of educators nationwide, including ideas for curricula development, language awareness, cultural awareness, structural linguistic elements, and artistic modes of interpretation to name a few. Morgan’s book, Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture, serves as a culmination of her previous articles on African American discourse, African American Women’s Language, and African American English (AAE) in general. This volume would serve well as one of a few books chosen for a course in AAE, Discourse Analysis, Women’s Studies, Language Variation, or as an introduction to multiple aspects of AAE for those less familiar with scholarship on the variety. While it provides an overview of many aspects of African American culture through the examination of language structure, use, and practice, 0898-5898/$ – see front matter © 2005 Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.linged.2004.08.004
432
Book reviews
it also contextualizes this knowledge in an easily accessible approach for those seeking a greater understanding of AAE. Few works covering this topic with a similarly broad scope have allowed the reader such a clear view into the language variety under discussion. Her concrete examples of signifying, reading dialect, playing the dozens, etc. come from her own extensive research and presented in the discussion of various features and forms found in AAE such as women’s discourses, urban youth discourses, and educational discourses surrounding the culture and language of African American children. Along with rich descriptions of discourse norms, Morgan also discusses empirically grounded structural forms found in the variety. She gives an invaluable introduction to the historical progression of AAE from its origins in the slave trade in North America to the growing issues of identity, acculturation and social schema of AAE in the broader scope of the U.S. today. Morgan gives nicely transparent examples of data grounded in socio-political commentary, which account for the multifaceted viewpoints and lives within African American culture and scholarship. Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture presents broader applications for knowledge than the classroom, but her book aptly focuses its final sections on educational implications. Many scholars look toward the application that research on AAE has in the real world—our children and students. Morgan’s book allows educational researchers, educators, administrators, parents, and students a broader view of African American culture, evoking further applications of empowerment, acceptance and use of cultural and linguistic practices associated with African American communities in the educational sphere. Richardson’s book, African American Literacies, begins where Morgan’s book ends. While the former highlights the intersection of culture and language in African American life and language with mentions and intentions of educational applications and issues, Richardson devotes her entire volume’s focus to the analysis and implementation of effective language arts curricula for African American students. Through a humanistic lens, Richardson walks the reader through the steps to envisioning, planning and undertaking an Afro-centric writing curriculum. Many scholars have posed questions such as, “Why are so many African American children failing in school?” or “Why are reading scores lower among African American students than non-African American students?” (see Baugh, 2000; Lanehart, 1998; Smitherman, 1980). Richardson takes a powerful and unique approach to these issues by introducing and documenting how she came to implement a pilot program among college students using African American cultural themes, linguistic-scapes, and an accepting attitude that runs against what many expect from mainstream U.S. public education. This book provides an impetus, an assessment and a map for educational planning. The growing popularity of the notion of “literacies” versus the binary concept of literacy versus orality (or non-literacy) allows for a more accurate conception of how many students of non-middle-class, white backgrounds come at learning and is the most valuable message of this book. Richardson’s first three chapters examine structures and styles within African American literacies focusing on individuals as students and composers (of the written and spoken word). These initial chapters pave the way for the final three chapters which outline Richardson’s successful study involving the use of these styles and techniques within the classroom. Her Afro-centric curriculum involves cultural themes and products as central to the learning, criticism, and production of student-based rhetoric and composition. By
Book reviews
433
using texts and encouraging discussion of topics which are Afro-centric (such as African American writers, political interests of African Americans, and books with African Heritage or African American heritage at the forefront to name a few), students are given access to discourses and a voice that are from within as opposed to being constricted by dominant cultural identities which is so often the case in writing curriculum today. This book focuses the quagmire of “what to do” in education for African American students into a clear notion of accountability and groundwork for planning curriculum that serves African American students rather than marginalizing or silencing them. While this book may seem radical to those unfamiliar with educational research on student populations associated with African American language and culture, Richardson does a wonderful job explaining why this approach is necessary for some students and how it can succeed. One of the author’s intents with this book is to question the mainstays of public education that fail many African American students and to offer alternatives. To some readers, this will be a breath of fresh air; to others it may ride against deeply felt beliefs. I encourage those in both camps (and those in between) to read this book. For those who do not yet believe in the autonomy of AAE as a language, cultural artifact or mode of discourse, Richardson makes a good case for a change of heart, and this potential discomfort is necessary for educational reform to serve this population. Those who believe in the centrality of AAE to its communities would do well to read and spread the word. Administrators, educators, students, and scholars of education, language, anthropology or African American studies will benefit from Richardson’s well laid out message that encourages positive change. In her textbook, African American English: A Linguistic Introduction, Green breaks new ground in linguistic studies on AAE by dovetailing her research with a formulated academic approach—a course book on the structure of African American English. While Morgan and Richardson’s books are aimed at the description of AAE through African American culture and literacies, Green focuses on culture and literacies through the lens of language itself. Much more linguistically oriented than the other two volumes, Green breaks down syntactic, morphological, and phonological aspects of AAE exhaustively with an aim to illustrate beyond the shadow of a doubt the systematicity of the variety. Following the text-book format, Green is somewhat apolitical when discussing issues such as names, origins, and definitions of the variety, but this approach allows her to successfully and succinctly work through the topic without becoming bogged down in debate. After covering the structural linguistic elements, she moves on to discuss discourse, media portrayals of AAE, and AAE in schools. The highlight of Green’s book is the logical arrangement of the text— brief abstracts for each chapter, summaries at the end, and exercises for each section serve as a guide for readers. Well-suited to serve as a classroom text, this book is readable, predictably organized, and allows readers/students to check their knowledge gained from the book with the author’s intentions through well-thought-out homework sections. While this book reads less narratively than the other two (with Richardson’s being the most narrative), its scope and detail make it a great text. At points, the many examples lack a frame of commentary leaving this reader bogged down with difficult detail to work through. However, Green brings us back in before too long. While the writing may be dense at points, the myriad empirical examples from her data are an appropriate vehicle to understanding the author’s points. The gap in the literature on AAE for this type of research has now begun to be filled.
434
Book reviews
The first four chapters in the book, those which deal with structure, seem the most coherent and solid. This is Green’s area of expertise, which she shares with very few peers. The last chapters are necessarily included to round out the book, especially if it is to be use as a text to study AAE; however, they read mainly as mini-lit reviews interspersed with relevant data from Green’s corpus. I do not believe this detracts from the book, but it does give one good reason to read all three texts instead of one in isolation. Highlights in the last half of the book include Green’s mention of communicative competence and the need for revamped methods of testing AAE speaking children for communication disorders. While Morgan and Richardson focus a great deal on curricula and teaching styles, Green also touches on the diagnostic/assessment vein of education for African American students. For the purposes of a text designed for a course on the structure of AAE, Green’s book covers all elements of AAE necessary for a coherent picture of relevant research and compositional detail. The publication of these three works in the last few years has been a windfall for studies in African American language and educational research. Coming from important scholars in the field of linguistics, they seem to complement each other well. In isolation each would prove a worthy body of knowledge and scholarship; but having read all three, I feel that each of these women—as African American scholars, educators, and researchers—enlightens multiple grounds of knowledge regarding linguistic accounts of African American language and culture with emphasis on educational ramifications and needs. Focusing on culture and discourse, education, and the teaching of the language as an entity, each author respectively addresses specific terrain. However, the authors intersect at many points giving the reader a comprehensive account of the cultural, linguistic, and educational past, present and future of African American language. Kate Anderson The University of Georgia E-mail address: [email protected]
Book reviews Three Perspectives of African American English as a Linguistic and Cultural Resource in Education Marcyliena Morgan, Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture, Cambridge, New York, 2002, ISBN 0521806712/0521001498 (pbk), p. 181. Elaine Richardson, African American Literacies, Routledge, New York, 2003, ISBN 0415268826/0415268834 (pbk), p. 177. Lisa Green, African American English: A Linguistic Introduction, Cambridge, New York, 2002, ISBN 0521814499/0521891388 (pbk), p. 285. Three books which make significant contributions to scholarly research on African American language have been published in the last two years: Lisa Green’s (2002), African American English: A Linguistic Introduction, Marcyliena Morgan’s (2002), Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture, and Elaine Richardson’s (2003), African American Literacies. Prior to the publication of these works, each scholar was considered a major player in research on various aspects of language and culture of African Americans. Each has now focused her experiences and knowledge into a book that illuminates aspects of African American language, power, culture, literacies, discourse, linguistic structures, and application to education in uniquely intersecting ways. Students, educators, and scholars concerned with African American language or culture can gain a host of knowledge from these volumes whether theoretical and practical or individual and community-based. While each author’s perspective differs somewhat from the next, their works radiate into many points of relevant scholarship which can enlighten the work of educators nationwide, including ideas for curricula development, language awareness, cultural awareness, structural linguistic elements, and artistic modes of interpretation to name a few. Morgan’s book, Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture, serves as a culmination of her previous articles on African American discourse, African American Women’s Language, and African American English (AAE) in general. This volume would serve well as one of a few books chosen for a course in AAE, Discourse Analysis, Women’s Studies, Language Variation, or as an introduction to multiple aspects of AAE for those less familiar with scholarship on the variety. While it provides an overview of many aspects of African American culture through the examination of language structure, use, and practice, 0898-5898/$ – see front matter © 2005 Published by Elsevier Inc. doi:10.1016/j.linged.2004.08.004
432
Book reviews
it also contextualizes this knowledge in an easily accessible approach for those seeking a greater understanding of AAE. Few works covering this topic with a similarly broad scope have allowed the reader such a clear view into the language variety under discussion. Her concrete examples of signifying, reading dialect, playing the dozens, etc. come from her own extensive research and presented in the discussion of various features and forms found in AAE such as women’s discourses, urban youth discourses, and educational discourses surrounding the culture and language of African American children. Along with rich descriptions of discourse norms, Morgan also discusses empirically grounded structural forms found in the variety. She gives an invaluable introduction to the historical progression of AAE from its origins in the slave trade in North America to the growing issues of identity, acculturation and social schema of AAE in the broader scope of the U.S. today. Morgan gives nicely transparent examples of data grounded in socio-political commentary, which account for the multifaceted viewpoints and lives within African American culture and scholarship. Language, Discourse and Power in African American Culture presents broader applications for knowledge than the classroom, but her book aptly focuses its final sections on educational implications. Many scholars look toward the application that research on AAE has in the real world—our children and students. Morgan’s book allows educational researchers, educators, administrators, parents, and students a broader view of African American culture, evoking further applications of empowerment, acceptance and use of cultural and linguistic practices associated with African American communities in the educational sphere. Richardson’s book, African American Literacies, begins where Morgan’s book ends. While the former highlights the intersection of culture and language in African American life and language with mentions and intentions of educational applications and issues, Richardson devotes her entire volume’s focus to the analysis and implementation of effective language arts curricula for African American students. Through a humanistic lens, Richardson walks the reader through the steps to envisioning, planning and undertaking an Afro-centric writing curriculum. Many scholars have posed questions such as, “Why are so many African American children failing in school?” or “Why are reading scores lower among African American students than non-African American students?” (see Baugh, 2000; Lanehart, 1998; Smitherman, 1980). Richardson takes a powerful and unique approach to these issues by introducing and documenting how she came to implement a pilot program among college students using African American cultural themes, linguistic-scapes, and an accepting attitude that runs against what many expect from mainstream U.S. public education. This book provides an impetus, an assessment and a map for educational planning. The growing popularity of the notion of “literacies” versus the binary concept of literacy versus orality (or non-literacy) allows for a more accurate conception of how many students of non-middle-class, white backgrounds come at learning and is the most valuable message of this book. Richardson’s first three chapters examine structures and styles within African American literacies focusing on individuals as students and composers (of the written and spoken word). These initial chapters pave the way for the final three chapters which outline Richardson’s successful study involving the use of these styles and techniques within the classroom. Her Afro-centric curriculum involves cultural themes and products as central to the learning, criticism, and production of student-based rhetoric and composition. By
Book reviews
433
using texts and encouraging discussion of topics which are Afro-centric (such as African American writers, political interests of African Americans, and books with African Heritage or African American heritage at the forefront to name a few), students are given access to discourses and a voice that are from within as opposed to being constricted by dominant cultural identities which is so often the case in writing curriculum today. This book focuses the quagmire of “what to do” in education for African American students into a clear notion of accountability and groundwork for planning curriculum that serves African American students rather than marginalizing or silencing them. While this book may seem radical to those unfamiliar with educational research on student populations associated with African American language and culture, Richardson does a wonderful job explaining why this approach is necessary for some students and how it can succeed. One of the author’s intents with this book is to question the mainstays of public education that fail many African American students and to offer alternatives. To some readers, this will be a breath of fresh air; to others it may ride against deeply felt beliefs. I encourage those in both camps (and those in between) to read this book. For those who do not yet believe in the autonomy of AAE as a language, cultural artifact or mode of discourse, Richardson makes a good case for a change of heart, and this potential discomfort is necessary for educational reform to serve this population. Those who believe in the centrality of AAE to its communities would do well to read and spread the word. Administrators, educators, students, and scholars of education, language, anthropology or African American studies will benefit from Richardson’s well laid out message that encourages positive change. In her textbook, African American English: A Linguistic Introduction, Green breaks new ground in linguistic studies on AAE by dovetailing her research with a formulated academic approach—a course book on the structure of African American English. While Morgan and Richardson’s books are aimed at the description of AAE through African American culture and literacies, Green focuses on culture and literacies through the lens of language itself. Much more linguistically oriented than the other two volumes, Green breaks down syntactic, morphological, and phonological aspects of AAE exhaustively with an aim to illustrate beyond the shadow of a doubt the systematicity of the variety. Following the text-book format, Green is somewhat apolitical when discussing issues such as names, origins, and definitions of the variety, but this approach allows her to successfully and succinctly work through the topic without becoming bogged down in debate. After covering the structural linguistic elements, she moves on to discuss discourse, media portrayals of AAE, and AAE in schools. The highlight of Green’s book is the logical arrangement of the text— brief abstracts for each chapter, summaries at the end, and exercises for each section serve as a guide for readers. Well-suited to serve as a classroom text, this book is readable, predictably organized, and allows readers/students to check their knowledge gained from the book with the author’s intentions through well-thought-out homework sections. While this book reads less narratively than the other two (with Richardson’s being the most narrative), its scope and detail make it a great text. At points, the many examples lack a frame of commentary leaving this reader bogged down with difficult detail to work through. However, Green brings us back in before too long. While the writing may be dense at points, the myriad empirical examples from her data are an appropriate vehicle to understanding the author’s points. The gap in the literature on AAE for this type of research has now begun to be filled.
434
Book reviews
The first four chapters in the book, those which deal with structure, seem the most coherent and solid. This is Green’s area of expertise, which she shares with very few peers. The last chapters are necessarily included to round out the book, especially if it is to be use as a text to study AAE; however, they read mainly as mini-lit reviews interspersed with relevant data from Green’s corpus. I do not believe this detracts from the book, but it does give one good reason to read all three texts instead of one in isolation. Highlights in the last half of the book include Green’s mention of communicative competence and the need for revamped methods of testing AAE speaking children for communication disorders. While Morgan and Richardson focus a great deal on curricula and teaching styles, Green also touches on the diagnostic/assessment vein of education for African American students. For the purposes of a text designed for a course on the structure of AAE, Green’s book covers all elements of AAE necessary for a coherent picture of relevant research and compositional detail. The publication of these three works in the last few years has been a windfall for studies in African American language and educational research. Coming from important scholars in the field of linguistics, they seem to complement each other well. In isolation each would prove a worthy body of knowledge and scholarship; but having read all three, I feel that each of these women—as African American scholars, educators, and researchers—enlightens multiple grounds of knowledge regarding linguistic accounts of African American language and culture with emphasis on educational ramifications and needs. Focusing on culture and discourse, education, and the teaching of the language as an entity, each author respectively addresses specific terrain. However, the authors intersect at many points giving the reader a comprehensive account of the cultural, linguistic, and educational past, present and future of African American language. Kate Anderson The University of Georgia E-mail address: [email protected]