Bilingual and Bidialectical Language Play

Abstract

Bilingual and Bidialectical Language Play* Don L. F. Nilsen Arizona State University A story is told about an educator who asks a black what should be done about the "black problem." The black responds, "Dey ain't no black problem; dey a white problem." One of the great ironies of our education system is that at the same time the system is trying to teach English and French and Spanish to Americans, it is somehow signalling to the blacks of Detroit and the Chícanos ofTexas and the French of Montreal that their language is some sort of social disease to be cured. Cultural pluralism is not something we have to cope with in the composition class. It is a fantastic and marvelous resource that can be used to make composition classes much more exciting. Speakers of nonstandard English living in the United States have some very important language skills in at least two different dialects. Rather than telling black students that they are inferior because they do not have an excellent command ofstandard formal written English, tell them that they have some very important linguistic skills that are very different from, and, in many cases, superior to the linguistic skills of speakers of standard English. These are linguistic skills that many standard speakers are only vaguely aware of, likejiving, shucking, rapping, coming down hard, louding, sounding, laying it on, running it down, running a game, playing the dozens (e.g. ya mammaing) and other types of linguistic styling. At the same time as teachers are teaching the standard dialect, they should be letting nonstandard speaking students tell the class something about their language games. Not only will teachers learn something about the way language works but, in addition, the students will gain a higher impression of themselves. They will be less on the defensive, more receptive to the study of standard formal written English, and able to make a much more positive contribution to the class. Once it is accepted by the class that bidialecticalism and bilingualism is a good thing the classroom atmosphere becomes less tense. Humor is an important teaching tool, but only if humor makes as much fun of standard formal written English as it does of nonstandard dialect. * This paper was originally read at the CCCC Convention in Dallas, Texas on March 26, 1981, as part of Section B-Il: "Coping with Cultural Pluralism in the Composition Class." The author is indebted to John Hakac (ASU English Department ) for the Brooklyn example and to Eugene Valentine (ASU English Department ) for the French Humpty-Dumpty example. Don L. F. Nilsen129 A speaker of standard English meets a person from Brooklyn in a park. The Brooklynite speaks first, "Chees, look at da boids." The standard speaker responds, "Those aren't boids; they're birds," to which Brooklynite reacts with "Dat's funny, dey choip like boids." Have we offended the Brooklynite? Perhaps a little, but the story launches us into a discussion of dialects. Humor happens in prestige dialects as well as in nonprestige dialects. Many people have the impression that British English is somehow superior to American English, yet they laugh at the British nurse who asked by a patient, "Did I come here to die?" "No," she responded, "it wasyesterdie." Or they laugh at the misunderstanding that occurs between a Britisher who says he works in a hotel as a clerk, and an American who thinks he must therefore sit around all day going "tick tock tick tock." These anecdotes simply aren't funny to a person who doesn't have some bidialectical facility. England and American are two regions where the English language is spoken. In England the Northumbrian dialect is not the same as the West Saxon dialect. An American who pronounces Mrs. as Miz., who talks about/ritters, and about carrying someone home, and who says he "belongs to be careful," is not using incorrect forms, but only regional forms, which are perfectly appropriate to some contexts, and completely inappropriate to other contexts in which standard formal written English or some other form of English is expected. In encouraging bilingual skills, the realization is essential that some errors are more salient than...