AAVE stressed BEEN interpretation

[Beverly Flanigan]

I can understand your students' confusion; mine had the same doubts.  But
in conversational context the past-but-not-now interpretation does make
sense, esp. with slightly rising intonation or hesitation at the end, as if
to say "but she isn't now/I'm not sure if she is now."  Even Rickford's
context-free response might well be interpreted that way.  Once students
and other hearers catch on to the frequent zero-BE rule, the site of
ambiguity moves to the BIN, and that's a lot less clear; even my
African-American students expressed some uncertainty.

However, don't give up on teaching AAVE in class!  I find that the
improvement in understanding of most of the rules (and the fact that there
ARE rules) as well an appreciation of the basis of the "slang" of rap,
hip-hop, etc. is vast, and well worth the time (I usually spend a week on
AAVE in our 10-week quarter).  If ambiguity remains on BIN, DONE, and a few
other rules, that's to be expected.  (I've added STEADY and STAY this year,
with the help of Chicago ADS handouts.)  And hopefully, teachers and others
WILL approach their students with more understanding.  By the way, this
understanding spreads, in my area, to attitudes toward Appalachian English
speakers as well; tolerance diffuses, if we give it a try!

At 09:52 AM 3/6/00 -0500, Mai Kuha wrote:
>Thanks to all for the helpful comments. The potential ambiguity of "marry"
>hadn't occurred  to me. However, my feeling is that the actual wording of
>Rickford's survey item makes it far less ambiguous:
>
>"Someone asked, 'Is she married?' and someone else answered, 'She BIN
>married.' Do you get the idea that she is married now? Yes___  No___"
>
>(This is the question to which most of my students answered "no".) The
>question 'Is she married?' pretty clearly refers to a state (right?)  so
>the 'exchanged vows a long time ago' interpretation isn't entirely
>relevant.
>
>Also, my sense is that GET passives are somewhat informal, so, in
>conversation, and all other things being equal, I would interpret "be
>married" as a stative, because I'd expect the speaker to observe the
>Cooperative Principle by specifically saying "get married" if that's what
>was meant. (If I'm way off on this, I'd be glad if native speakers of
>English could comment.)
>
>In any case, I still question whether "She BEEN married" can mean that she
>no longer is, even under the non-stative interpretation. As I understand
>it, the interpretation that goes with the stative is "She has been in the
>state of being married for a long time, and still is", and the
>interpretation that goes with the non-stative is "She exchanged marriage
>vows with someone a long time ago, and the marriage ceremony is totally
>completed." Why would it mean "She exchanged vows a long time ago, and
>the marriage is over"? Am I missing something?
>
>Whether this ambiguity was the crucial problem or not, I certainly
>recognize that my students may have run into all kinds of complications
>that haven't occurred to me. One reason I brought up this topic is that it
>occurs to me that we all have an interesting research opportunity in our
>classes, since not very much is known about the process of learning a
>second dialect.
>
>There are also pedagogical reasons to find out more about it: if it's
>unreasonable to expect students to be able to apply the rules of a dialect
>not their own, possibly I should take the AAVE questions out of my final
>exams, and re-think why the AAVE section is in the course and what
>students are supposed to get out of it. I'm laughing as I realize that I'd
>had visions of the education majors in my classes going forth to teaching
>careers in which they interact with AAVE-speaking children in their
>classes with never a mental speedbump. What was I thinking!
>
>-Mai
>_____________________________________________
>Mai Kuha                  mkuha at bsuvc.bsu.edu
>Department of English     (765) 285-8410
>Ball State University