Retroflexion [was: McWhorter on "Negro English"]
Laurence Horn
laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Fri Jan 15 14:57:39 UTC 2010
At 6:22 AM -0500 1/15/10, Geoffrey Nathan wrote:
>Retroflexion with the accompanying affrication of the intervening
>/t/ is a marked feature of all varieties of Hawaiian English as
>well. It occasionally shows up in jocular spellings in newspapers,
>and a couple of 'Pidgin' poets who attempt to represent HE
>phonology, such as Joe Hadley have written, for example
><shchreeng> for [StSriN].
>
>Geoff
Interesting. Here I was proud of myself for having just invented the
"shchr..." representation (borrowing from Russian transliterations of
the "shcha" letter of e.g. "Khrushchev") for "shchreet" below when
it's apparently a standard device. Nothing new under the palate,
evidently.
LH
>
>Geoffrey S. Nathan
>Faculty Liaison, C&IT
>and Associate Professor, Linguistics Program
>+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT)
>+1 (313) 577-8621 (English/Linguistics)
>
>----- "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
>
>> From: "Laurence Horn" <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>> Sent: Thursday, January 14, 2010 11:44:54 PM GMT -05:00 US/Canada Eastern
>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro English"
>>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster: Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro English"
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> At 11:27 PM -0500 1/14/10, Wilson Gray wrote:
>> >I've not noticed this in BE, myself, though I find it to be quite
>> >common in the speech of whites.
>>
>> We have discussed this in the past, I'm pretty
>> sure--reading Herb's and Wilson's comments I get
>> the strong feeling of d?j? lu, so I'll add what I
>> no doubt did on other occasions, which is that
>> I've noticed this retroflexion in the speech
>> patterns of a number of white New York City area
>> speakers including those from areas (like Long
>> Beach on the south shore of Long Island, where I
>> went to high school) where I didn't notice
>> hearing it 40 years ago. A number of speakers
>> who have the "shchreet" pronunciation seem to be
>> of Italian-American backgrounds (e.g. both Mike
>> [Francesa] and the Mad Dog [Chris Russo] back
>> when they were together on sports talk radio) but
>> I have no way of knowing whether this was
>> statistically significant. On the other hand,
>> another Italian-American sports talk host on the
>> same station, Joe Benigno, doesn't (I don't
>> think) have the retroflex clusters but, on the
>> other hand, he does have positive "anymore",
>> which always strikes me as going oddly with his
>> non-rhotic delivery...
>>
>> LH
>>
>> > Unfortunately, now that this claim has
>> >been made, there's no way for me to check it in my own speech,
>> because
>> >I'll be monitoring it. As a WAG, I'll say that it's not present in
>> my
>> >speech, because the act of retroflexion appears to require special
>> >effort and, no doubt, if that was a normal feature of my speech, the
>> >retroflexion would be automatic and, therefore, would seem to
>> require
>> >no special effort at all. But, of course, you never know.
>> >
>> >I have the horrible example of my friend who says "skreek," unless I
>> >bring it to his attention. Then he says "street" and maintains that
>> he
>> >never uses any other pronunciation, apparently with no conscious
>> >knowledge of the way that he speaks when he's not monitoring
>> himself.
>> >
>> >-Wilson
>> >
>> >On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 10:11 PM, Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >> ---------------------- Information from the
>> >>mail header -----------------------
>> >> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> >> Poster: Herb Stahlke <hfwstahlke at GMAIL.COM>
>> >> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro English"
>> >>
>> >>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>
>> >> Retroflexion of /s/ in /str/ and even /spr/ onsets is fairly
> > common
>> >> across American dialects, but I've noticed it more consistently in
>> the
>> >> speech of African-American speakers like both Obamas, Powell,
>> Rice,
>> >> Eugene Robinson, Clarence Page, etc. Is it a marker of a social
>> >> variant of African-American speech? Or has it simply spread
>> widely
>> >> enough that it doesn't mark much of anything?
>> >>
>> >> Herb
>> >>
>> >> On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 5:44 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>> ---------------------- Information from the
>> >>>mail header -----------------------
>> >>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> >>> Poster: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>> >>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro English"
>> >>>
>> >>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>>
>> >>> Stick to your guns, Terry! I'm with you. If people feel that the
>> >>> opinion of any random BE speaker from the 'hood fails to meet
>> their
>> >>> academic standards, let them talk to to the Johns, Baugh and
>> Rickford.
>> >>>
>> >>> McWhorter is the academic equivalent of Michael Steele, the
>> titular
>> >>> head of the Republican party. They both probably sleep with The
>> Bell
>> >>> Curve under their pillows and cry themselves to sleep.
>> >>>
>> >>> As I've said before, considering Obama's background, IMO, his
>> speech
>> >>> patterns are surprisingly black, whatever the circumstances
>> under
>> >>> which he may have cause to open his mouth in public. The fact
>> that I
>> >>> don't like McWhorter for my own reasons doesn't prevent me from
>> >>> acknowledging that his more-or-less pointing out that, for most
>> >>> non-blacks, a black person who doesn't sound like Steppin
>> Fetchit,
>> > >> Andy Brown, or Willie Best is speaking the
>> >>> non-existent-except-in-Fowler "standard" English is spot on. Have
>> the
>> >>> speech patterns of Gen. Colin Powell already been forgotten? Did
>> > >> nobody pay attention to the way that he spoke as well to what
>> he
>> >>> spoke? In contrast to Powell, Obama sounds downright Chicago
>> >>> inner-city, beyond any doubt. You don't have to see him in order
>> to
>> >>> notice this. His speech is, therefore, unworthy of any special
>> notice
>> >>> as though it were, somehow, distinct from the speech of any
>> relatively
>> >>> well-educated Northern black man. But, somehow, the speech of
>> Powell,
>> >>> IMO, all but non-distinct from the speech of any well-educated
>> >>> Northern *white* man, drew - and draws - no comment, AFAIK.
>> >>>
>> >>> If you, as a white person, find anything "articulate" in the
>> speech of
>> >>> Obama distinct from the speech of any other black person, but
>> notice
>> >>> nothing worthy of note WRT about the pattern of Powell's speech,
>> you
>> >>> are, then, consciously or subconsciously, racist WRT your concept
>> of
>> >>> what constitutes black speech or maybe even WRT what constitutes
>> a
>> >>> black person. Isn't Powell a well-known speaker of English
>> generally
>> >>> regarded as a black man and not as a white man? So, where's the
>> >>> discussion, the comparison and contrast, of their speech
>> patterns?
>> >>>
>> >>> 'N' why *didn'* none a yawl never notice
>> >>>nuthin' special 'bout Powell speech?
>> >>>
>> >>> Well, as a reasonably late-comer to the set, perhaps I should
>> search
>> >>> the archives before posting. But, like Willie, I gits ti'ed.
>> >>>
>> >>> -Wilson
>> >>>
>> >>> On Wed, Jan 13, 2010 at 3:05 PM, Terry Irons
>> >>><t.irons at moreheadstate.edu> wrote:
>> >>>> ---------------------- Information from the
>> >>>>mail header -----------------------
>> >>>> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> >>>> Poster: Terry Irons <t.irons at MOREHEADSTATE.EDU>
>> >>>> Subject: Re: McWhorter on "Negro English"
>> >>>>
>> >>>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>>>
>> >>>> I retract my comments about his view on AAVE. It is more his
>> >>>> conservative views on victimology and race that I find
>> troublesome. In
>> >>>> that context, citing the passage from Matthew is appropriate for
> > him. I
>> >>>> think he fails to see that sometimes the log in the other guy's
>> eye is
>> >>>> more the problem than the speck in my own.
>> >>>>
>> >>>> Gordon, Matthew J. wrote:
>> >>>>
>> >>>>>I'm not sure where you got that impression,
>> >>>>>Terry. McWhorter's views are pretty much in
>> >>>>>line with the received wisdom within
>> >>>>>linguistics. For example in the piece
>> >>>>>linked in this thread, he says, "Black
>> >>>>>English is as systematic as standard
>> >>>>>English, and what we hear as "mistakes" are
>> >>>>>just variations, not denigrations."
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>-Matt Gordon
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>On 1/13/10 1:13 PM, "Terry Irons" <t.irons at MOREHEADSTATE.EDU>
>> wrote:
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>See Matthew 7:4-6 or Luke 6: 41-42.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>While McWhorter is well published, he views AAVE as a degenerate
>> form of
>> >>>>>standard English, not a legitimate variety of language.
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>>>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>>
>> >>>>
>> >>>> --
>> >>>> Fraternally, Terry
>> >>>>
>> (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)
>> >>>> Terry Lynn Irons t.irons at morehead-st.edu
>> >>>> Voice Mail: (606) 783-5164
>> >>>> Snail Mail: 150 University BLVD UPO 604 Morehead, KY
>> 40351
>> >>>>
>> (*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)=(*)
>> >>>>
>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >>>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> --
>> >>> -Wilson
>> >>> ---
>> >>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"--a strange
>> complaint to
>> >>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> >>> -Mark Twain
>> >>>
>> >>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> >>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> >> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> >--
>> >-Wilson
>> >---
>> >All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"--a strange complaint
>> to
>> >come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> >-Mark Twain
>> >
>> >------------------------------------------------------------
>> >The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
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