Cultural and linguistic factors in worker notification to blue collar and no-collar African-Americans.

Abstract

This presentation offers historical and sociolinguistic perspectives regarding the origins of the language used by African-Americans. U.S. descendants of slaves of West and Niger Congo African origin should not be thought of as native speakers of English. To the extent that they have lived in de jure or de facto social isolation from Euro-American English-speaking persons, they have retained a West and Niger Congo African thought process or substratum in the phonology and morphosyntax of their speech. Their mother tongue has been described by several African-American linguists, psychologists, and ethnologists as Ebonics. In a sense, Ebonics refers to the paralinguistic verbal and non-verbal sounds, cues, and gestures that are systematically used in the process of communication by many African-Americans. As one consequence of historical social isolation, African-Americans invariably score poorly on nationally standardized scales of "Standard American" English competence. Therefore, worker notification intended for African-Americans, especially among the blue- and no-collar levels, that does not contain an Afro-centric perspective will likely not prove successful. The linguistic factors, which can severely impede or tremendously enhance the effectiveness of worker notification to these groups, are therefore vital and should not be ignored. Worker notification targeted for limited English-speaking or unlettered populations should include the development of materials and presentations in the language or primary medium best understood by the audience. Based upon research findings on the psycholinguistics of learning modal preference, the development of notification materials that target a learning channel that is audio oral or aural-oral is promoted.