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The article of David D. Troutt titled “Defining Who We Are in the Society” dedicated to the issue of introducing Ebonics, the characteristic spoken dialect of poor African American citizens of the USA, raises a set of questions on the issue of language policies pursued in the USA. At the very beginning of the article, the author agrees that the language people speak is a significant part of their identity influencing their life in many aspects:
depending on where we are, our ability to speak in certain ways entitled us to success, membership and social riches, such as employment and popularity” (Trout 818).
Thus, it becomes clear that the proposal to introduce Ebonics as a primary language for studies brought about much debate over what Ebonics is – it cannot be a separate language as it is a dialect of English. At the same time, there is a challenge for students belonging to the group speaking Ebonics to study. The principle ‘English for everyone becomes a challenge for some people on their way to education, since they cannot understand Standard English and have no chance to study it efficiently:
Ebonics is not as much the language of blackness as it is the only dialect of persistently poor, racially segregated people – the so-called black underclass. It is the dumbness against which all smartness is measured (Trout 818).
It is evident so far that both languages are as one, with Ebonics being a dialectic variant of the Standard language. Nevertheless, the seemingly slight difference between Ebonics and English creates a vast ground for the white American group of people to use Ebonics as a tool for deepening the class distinctions and segregation:
Many whites have used the issue as an opportunity to vent racist jokes ordinarily kept underground or in sports bars. Others invoke it to restrict black cultural influences, such as banning rap music or canceling TV shows in which black characters use slang (Trout 819).
Ebonics is more than a dialect – it bears a set of distinctive implications of racial and class segregation. The fact that Ebonics has become a distinctive peculiarity of a poor class shows the negative tendency of possible attitudes to people using Ebonics:
It then qualifies as a reliable measurement of the gulf between many poor blacks and the middle-class world where Standard English is spoken (Trout 819).
The way the author identifies feelings black Americans possess if they have been successful in mastering both dialects, the Standard English and Ebonics, also speaks for itself – it does not matter whether blacks know Standard English or not because it may do them not a good favor depending on the society in which they speak:
It is a mark of cross-cultural identification, involving a complicated mix of pride, achievement and lingering shame” (Trout 820).
Summing everything that has been said up, it is possible to track the discrepancies between the official position of the government on the issues of language policies, declaring English existing for everyone and still creating a great number of challenges on the way of obtaining basic skills of Standard English for the black population. Despite all federal efforts, racial segregation is deepening, and Ebonics has become one more tool to indicate the class, racial and material difference between white and black residents of the USA.
Works Cited
Trout, David D. “Defining Who We Are in the Society”, pp. 818-821.
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