HELP!

[conuly]

I have this project due tomorrow. I had been planning to do a tape of people speaking and come up with results (it's for sociolinguistics) but the tape is impossible to hear for most of it. So I'm doing the OTHER project, which I had originally decided not to do because I didn't have enough people. Basically, I'm going to get a few results and extrapolate from them, instead of doing what I was supposed to do which is give the survey to two groups of 10 people each, which are alike in all respects except one. PLEASE help!

[Poll #360503]

Edit: Unless this affected your answers, don't worry about it. Just a clarification: AAVE is *not* supposed to be taken to mean slang. I lost the explanation we were supposed to give, which is just as well as I really thought that explanation was biased towards AAVE anyway. I mean, so am I, but that didn't seem fair. Anyway, AAVE is supposed to be considered as a dialect such as RP english or Brooklyn english, not as slang.

Non-americans, unless you know a lot about the subject (or think you can guess based on your knowledge of nonprestigious dialects where you are), don't answer. I'm locking this so that I can't be called out for rushing the assignment.

Comments

[ladytalon.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to say that I love the way you said all that, and I agree with you so much. Especially:

Proper grammar can be so beautiful and expressive, and people forget that these days.

That's the part that's dearest to my heart. I love the language.

[conuly]

All grammar can be beautiful and expressive, though. I know some people get so caught up defending nonstandard grammars that they denigrate the standard, but I'm not one of them.

What's interesting is that the rules of language are far more complex than anybody realizes, way beyond what they think they're teaching in school. I mean, you *think* you have an idea when you take spanish and learn that the adjectives go behind the nouns, but then you take your first linguistics course and end up trying to figure out why it's "a big green house" and never "a green big house".

[frogmajick.livejournal.com]

but then you take your first linguistics course and end up trying to figure out why it's "a big green house" and never "a green big house".

And that's when my head exploded. I got the general-to-specific rules about adjectives, but then there was more...and I wept.

I loved that class.

[conuly]

1. Ditto
2. Oh, ditto. And I got an A. I was so happy. So -plussed!

[ladyshrew.livejournal.com]

Language is such a beautiful thing, and it makes me cry when I see it so ignored!