Klanderud's list

[Robert Orr]

On Mon, 3 Mar 1997, Keith GOERINGER wrote:
>
> (As an aside, for the past few years, it has become "fun" for the press to
> go to MLA and pick selected panel names or paper topics to print in the
> papers.  I guess these go under the headings of "Those wacky
> perfessers...", but they don't help public opinion much.  Perhaps in
> retaliation, a bunch of Slavists could crash a journalists' convention and
> mock their...oh wait, no one would *read* our mockery, outside of other
> Slavists!)
>
Well, we could always try to sell it to a rival - what price crashing a
US journalists' convention, and mocking their ...., and then trying to
sell/give away the material to a Canadian/British/Australian publication,
etc.?


>
> Witness the media distortion syrrounding the whole Ebonics issue.  Those
> linguists who have attempted to explain the logic behind Ebonics have in
> most cases been ignored, or have had their explanation edited to the point
> that it matches the reporter's own bias.  Even those who made extremely
> cogent and careful reports to the press often suffered a similar fate.  (I
> am writing this from the Bay Area, which is the source [Oakland,
> specifically] for the current Ebonics debate.  You can imagine how much
> local media coverage the issue got.)  The bottom line is, the public
> doesn't see things the way we do.  What is important, or apparent, to us is
> by no means that way to the average Joe (or Ivan, Jan, Jean, or whoever --
> I'm sure this problem holds true, albeit to varying degrees, in much of the
> world).  A linguist explaining the importance of Ebonics is dismissed as
> being an ivory tower dweller who doesn't care that these poor kids would be
> growing up speaking "bad" English.  And that "our tax dollars" would be
> paying for it.
OK, I have been half-following the debate from thousands of miles away,
but the whole Ebonics issue seems to be a wonderful example (maybe even
better than Mapplethorpe, or, in the Canadian context, the "Voice of
Fire"!) of what Paul Klanderud was discussing.  Actually, Slavists would
definitely have a substantial contribution to make to the debate - we
could research any possible parallels to Ebonics in the comparatively
recent emergence of literary languages in Macedonia, Slovakia, etc. etc.
(also the language debate going on in the former Yugoslavia)  Come to
think of it, there's a dissertation topic - even if there are no parallels
at all, this should still be documented ........  Any takers?


Robert Orr