British Ebonics (fwd) (fwd)

[Lynne Murphy]

I asked my (British) colleagues about this and got one answer (below).
Lynne

---------- Forwarded Message ----------
Date: Thursday, May 9, 2002 8:59 pm +0100
From: Max Wheeler <maxwwheeler at beeb.net>
To: Lynne Murphy <lynnem at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Subject: Re: British Ebonics (fwd)

I think your correspondent is basically right. It may well be that 2nd
generation black Britons have a 'black' accent (e.g. Caribbean English, or
indeed patwa; or 'Indian English') as a part of their speech repertoire,
but they also have, probably as primary speech style, the local vernacular.

Reasons for this: black immigration to UK much more recent than to US,
slavery irrelevant, no apartheid ('segregation'), no ghettos.

Max


----- Original Message -----
From: "Lynne Murphy" <lynnem at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
To: <lingfac at cogs.susx.ac.uk>
Sent: Thursday, May 09, 2002 11:37 AM
Subject: British Ebonics (fwd)


> This query came up on the American Dialect Society list.  Can anyone tell
> me (and I'll forward to the ADS) whether Black Britons can be
> linguistically 'profiled'?
>
> Lynne
>
> ---------- Forwarded Message ----------
> Date: Wednesday, May 8, 2002 9:08 pm -0400
> From: Duane Campbell <dcamp911 at JUNO.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: British Eubonics
>
> I am addicted to Ground Force, a BBC gardening show carried here on
> BBCAmerica and the best gardening show since Jim Crockett died twenty
> years ago. (Try not to hyperventilate.) Their team goes into the yard of
> some unsuspecting resident who has been lured away by friends or
> relatives for two days and transforms their garden. One of the
> interesting things about the show is the varied dialects found around the
> British Isles, some of them nearly incomprehensible.
>
> Some of the subjects have been Black Brits. A few months back there was a
> discussion about linguistic profiling here. Regardless of the legal
> issues, I think most of us can recognize a Black speaker with something
> like 90 percent accuracy, regardless of what part of the country they
> grew up in. A typical Black Alabaman is easily differentiated from a Good
> Ol' Boy as is a Black NYC resident from a white Mahattanite of whater
> dialect.
>
> I wondered how this worked in GB, and I asked a friend there. He said
> that first generation was recognizable, but second generation was the
> same as whatever region they came from.
>
> Two questions. Is this true? Is there no British Ebonics, or does my
> otherwise astute friend just have a tin ear. And second, if it is true,
> why do Black Brits lose their differentiation by the second generation
> while American Blacks remain recognizable for the most part after
> multiple generations?
>
> And incidentally, the context of the program seems to indicate that
> Blacks there tend to live in largely Black neighborhoods and have Black
> friends.
>
> D
>
> ---------- End Forwarded Message ----------
>
>
>
> Dr M Lynne Murphy
> Lecturer in Linguistics
> Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
> School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
> University of Sussex
> Brighton BN1 9QH
> UK
>
> phone +44-(0)1273-678844
> fax   +44-(0)1273-671320
>
>


---------- End Forwarded Message ----------



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Lecturer in Linguistics
Acting Director, MA in Applied Linguistics
School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QH
UK

phone +44-(0)1273-678844
fax   +44-(0)1273-671320