Fwd: language attitudes

[Beverly Flanigan]

Thanks for the clarification.  I've just added a couple more comments:

At 10:34 AM 1/31/00 +0000, you wrote:
>On Sun, 30 Jan 2000, Beverly Flanigan wrote:
>
>}Since we're talking about British vs. American English again, I'd like to
>}return to the topic of grammar and DO-aux vs. 'got' in BritEng, raised by
>}Nancy Elliott and responded to by Aaron Drews.  I asked my graduate student
>}from London (raised very prescriptively and educated in private schools),
>}and here's part of our exchange (snipping out the school names issue, which
>}was resolved satisfactorily and confirmed by Lorraine).  In a nutshell, she
>}agrees that DO is used in BritEng (as we've known since Shakespeare) but is
>}(perhaps) less common than fronted HAVE; but HAVE GOT is also common and
>}not pejorative:
>}
>
>"have" + "got" strikes me a a common (widespread, as opposed to lower
>class :-) ) usage.
>Raised "have" - I seldom hear it here.  Still aceeptable, though
>"do" + "got" - This is what would be classified as an Americanism.  I
>don't think I've ever heard that here.  Then again, as Beverly Flanigan
>points out, it may be American, but it's not "standard" (whatever a
>standard is).

My point here was simply that I've never heard "do got" in the declarative
except as negative, and then only with negative concord (don't got none),
as in AAVE.  In the interrogative, it occurs in the tape transcript of
little black kids in DC, taped by Bengt Lowman (sp?) in the '60s (and
excerpted in _Language Files_); one kid asks, "Do you got a twenty dollar
coat?"  Whether this might also be said by adults, I'm not sure.


>}>(By the way, I don't like the dig at the 'colonialist'
>}>attitudes - slightly too aggressive perhaps?) OK,
>
>Most of the time, the comments are simply "silly Americans".  I have lost
>count how many times I've heard that.  But I have also heard, and have had
>directed towards me, very disdaining comments about colonial speech.
>Saying I'm a linguist doesn't help (nor does the fact that I'm in the
>English Language department).  However, such comments are very rare.

Yes, I'm sure you're right; I think my student was just being defensive
about her motherland!

>}>> >X-Authentication-warning: babel.ling.ed.ac.uk:
>}>> aaron owned process doing -bs
>
>Well, it seems that the server on my end has formed an opinion. :-)
>
>--Aaron
>
>
>
>
>________________________________________________________________________
>Aaron E. Drews                               The University of Edinburgh
>aaron at ling.ed.ac.uk                  Departments of English Language and
>http://www.ling.ed.ac.uk/~aaron       Theoretical & Applied  Linguistics
>
>"MERE ACCUMULATION OF OBSERVATIONAL EVIDENCE IS NOT PROOF"
>         --Death