Hurf durf Ebonics

The US Drug Enforcement Agency hires a lot of translators. They've announced that they're looking to hire translators for African-American Vernacular English (AAVE), or as it's sometimes known, 'Ebonics'.

I remember the Oakland controversy in 1996, and it's disappointing the discussion hasn't advanced since then. I know that people aren't born linguists, and I'm used to people having strong feelings about standard v. non-standard dialects, but I wasn't expecting the depth of ignorance and vitriol that I've seen on the Net in the wake of this announcement.

Many comments on this issue appear in a variety of English I call 'Ivorics'. For your convenience, I've given a translation, with some relevant facts.

From tooslow4me67

its like blacks are'nt american.they now have a half assed mumble language the dumb pres wants to glorify.learn correct english and excel.don't take credit for something that makes a joke of you.

Translation: AAVE is just lazy mumbling.

In fact, AAVE shows regular patterns of word-final consonant dropping, like many other varieties of English. A lot of people know about 'aks' instead of 'ask' -- one feature of AAVE. Turns out that speakers of standard English used to say 'aks' until about the 1500s. It's a normal process.

From an African American:

My point is . . . just about any Black person who has been around friends, family or whatever, can "translate" ebonics. It is not a separate language, it is simply people being lazy in speaking and not completing their words. It's not like it's Swahili or Ibo or some real dialect.

Translation: I can understand them perfectly well when they use their lazy ghetto slang.

In fact, AAVE, like any sufficiently divergent variety, may not be comprehensible to a speaker of standard English. And generating a sentence is another matter altogether. If you try to fake it, you will sound like a real jive turkey.

A commenter at the Washington Post

Have we all lost our minds? The 1996 introduction of "Ebonics" by some Oakland teachers was an attempt to get additional funding. The teachers believed that African-American students were not given their fair share of the various additional school board special funding. End of story

Translation: They're after your money.

In fact, the controversy in Oakland was, in part, the result of an attempt to procure funding to teach SE to AAVE speakers.

From the Washington Informer

But what’s sad and ironic here is that while Ebonics continues to be vilified and ridiculed, the drug trade and criminality has forced the DEA to see it as a legitimate language. And I can’t help but think that if more school systems had done that [offered academic help to AAVE speakers] years ago, many of the suspected black drug dealers that the DEA now needs to be able to understand to put in prison might not have chosen that route.

Translation: AAVE is an on-ramp to crime.

While this author has good intentions, and I agree with the education angle, I think we underestimate the extent to which speakers of AAVE are already familiar with standard English. It's the speakers of SE that are unfamiliar with AAVE. Speakers of AAVE are the bilingual ones, not SE speakers.

From some idiot.

In one corner, we have the ebonics apologist, Stanford linguistics professor H. Samy Alim, who said, “It seems ironic that schools that are serving and educating black children have not recognized the legitimacy of this language, yet the authorities and police are recognizing that this is a language that they don't understand. It really tells us a lot about where we are socially in terms of recognizing African-American speech.”

Umm ... no.

First of all, you, sir, are a proponent of ebonics, yet that quote shows your preferred version of English is pretty much indistinguishable from Winston Churchill's. In fact, you can communicate complex thoughts to other people BECAUSE THE SCHOOLS YOU ATTENDED DID NOT TEACH YOU TO SPEAK JIVE.

If they had, you'd be screwed. In fact, you might have to be a drug dealer, since no one doing the hiring in the non-criminal world would be able to understand you.

What ignorant twaddle. He thinks AAVE isn't capable of expressing complex thoughts, which it is. He also doesn't seem to grasp the idea that different codes are appropriate for different situations. And he doesn't question the wisdom of lecturing a linguist on linguistics. What a maroon.

The fact is that language changes. Eventually in any language, there will arise some variety that differs from the 'standard' variety. People will then consider that variety to be 'inferior', 'lazy', 'corrupt', or a lot of other bad names, depending on how they feel about the people who speak it. But what people don't usually realise is that the non-standard variety isn't just cobbled together. It has internally consistent rules of its own. The speakers aren't trying to speak standard English and failing.

Criticising someone on the basis of their race is seen as less and less acceptable these days. But as we can see, it's still acceptable to throw up the same old ugly caricatures on the basis of language use.

The role of disgust in opinion-forming

How do we go about forming opinions? As for me, when a moral or political decision comes up, I rationally sit down, weigh up the pros and cons of the options, and take the view that I think is best based on the evidence.

No, just kidding. I probably do it the other way around like everyone else. Form a snap opinion, and then hunt around for evidence to justify it. I don't like the idea that this is how we operate, but it's probably true all the same.

My first experience with political opinion-forming was the US election in 1972. My entire Republican family was voting for Nixon, but I thought I'd vote for McGovern. I didn't even know what voting was. I'd seen the primaries, and I thought that when you voted, you had to go and stand next to your candidate so they could count you. There I imagined my family, standing with Nixon (with his fingers in 'V for Victory' pose), while on the other side of the room it was just George and five-year-old me. Why did I take the view I did? Why did they? I don't know, but it is funny that no one in my family has changed voting patterns since then.

Sometimes my opinions lead on from prior opinions, or from values that I have, but where did they come from? I can't say it's anything more conscious than my 'voting' for McGovern all those years ago. I've often suspected that my opinions are based on some tendency, a leaning one way or the other that tips other decisions. But what tendency? Looking out for in-group v sympathy for out-group? Fearful or fearless? Authoritarian or democratic? Or something more primal?

New research highlights the role of simple ordinary disgust.

This is the argument that some behavioral scientists have begun to make: That a significant slice of morality can be explained by our innate feelings of disgust. A growing number of provocative and clever studies appear to show that disgust has the power to shape our moral judgments. Research has shown that people who are more easily disgusted by bugs are more likely to see gay marriage and abortion as wrong. Putting people in a foul-smelling room makes them stricter judges of a controversial film or of a person who doesn’t return a lost wallet. Washing their hands makes people feel less guilty about their own moral transgressions, and hypnotically priming them to feel disgust reliably induces them to see wrongdoing in utterly innocuous stories.
...
Psychologists like [Jonathan] Haidt are leading a wave of research into the so-called moral emotions — not just disgust, but others like anger and compassion — and the role those feelings play in how we form moral codes and apply them in our daily lives. A few, like Haidt, go so far as to claim that all the world’s moral systems can best be characterized not by what their adherents believe, but what emotions they rely on.

Primal emotions as atoms in the periodic table of our moral chemistry. Maybe these simple reactions are too simple to explain the complex range of opinions that grow out of them, but if opinion-forming goes back to something simpler, then disgust seems like a good candidate. I'll be looking forward to more of this research.

Election day and the Australian Sex Party

On Election Day, I volunteered for the Australian Sex Party, handing out 'how-to-vote' pamphlets at polling places for a few hours. Here's how it went.

Unable to have a word of your own? Adopt one.

The Oxford folks are urging, nay, imploring people to adopt a low-frequency word in their Save the Words campaign.

It's a very attractive website, but it's all a bit silly, really. Some words just don't catch on, so there's no point in trying to rescue them from obsolescence. But admit it -- aren't you glad that you could study 'siagonology', move about 'roomthily', or just act 'vappous' if you wanted to?

It's bringing out the word nerd in me, I'm afraid to say.

Why the Australian Sex Party?

I'm volunteering to help the Australian Sex Party. Yep, this election Saturday, I'll be at my local polling place, handing out 'How to Vote' cards and answering questions.

One question I've already gotten is "What on earth are you helping them for?" I'll confess, it does go deeper than the desire for a bright yellow ASP t-shirt, or to make fundy heads go asplody.

When I first heard about the Australian Sex Party, I thought, "Ha. Funny." Then when I saw their policies, I thought, "Wait a minute. I agree with most of this." Here are my favourite ASP policies.

To overturn mandatory ISP filtering of the Internet and return Internet censorship to parents and individuals.

The Internet filter is Labor's idea, and it's a shame they're clinging to it. Even the Liberal Party has disavowed it.

To bring about the development of a national sex education curriculum as a first step in preventing the sexualisation of children.

Yes, yes, and yes. This is what prevents pregnancies (and abortions): better information and availability of contraception.

To create total equal rights in all areas of the law including same sex marriage.

Neither of the major parties has had the courage to come out in favour of this. When someone who's an otherwise progressive thinker refuses to condone gay marriage, you know what that tells me? They're willing to let prejudice prevail, for no good reason. And that they're probably beholden to some religious ideology.

To enact national pregnancy termination laws along the same lines as divorce law — which allow for legal, no-fault and guilt-free processes for women seeking termination.

It's a medical matter, not a political matter.

Overturn restrictions on aid to overseas family planning organisations that reference abortion.

Why is this even happening?

Convene a Royal Commission into child sex abuse in the nation’s religious institutions.

This should have already been done.

An Ethics course along the lines of the current NSW trial, developed by the St James Ethics Centre, to be incorporated into the national curriculum.

I love the idea of getting young people to examine secular ethics and ethical issues. Much more relevant than the bronze-age tribalism they're currently getting.

Supports stem cell research, including embryonic stem cell research, and maintains it is a vital medical issue, not a religious issue.

Automatic yes.

The public education system should be secular in nature and not provide for any religious instruction whatsoever.

'Religious instruction' is an oxymoron.

Ending the tax exempt status for religions.

Cessation of tax-exempt status on all but the charitable work of religious institutions.

Religions don't pay their fair share, and we end up paying their tax burden. Let them pay taxes like all other businesses.

To be fair, there are planks in the platform that I find uncomfortable, unappealing, or complicated.

To bring about equal numbers of women in the Parliament through enabling the Federal Discrimination Act to have jurisdiction extending to political parties.

This is worded funny. You can't force equal numbers.

Decriminalisation, not legalisation, of purchase, possession and consumption of all drugs for personal use, such quantity to be defined as an amount equal or less than 14 day’s supply for one person.

I can't stand drugs and don't use them (including alcohol), but I see the value of moving enforcement to the supply side. Dealing would remain illegal.

Minors (under the age of 16) may obtain an abortion without the consent of a parent/guardian.

Touchy, but actually that's the way it is now.

I understand the reasoning behind these positions, but I'm not sure I'm entirely comfortable with them. Even so, these aren't deal-breakers for me. No one's going to agree with every party position, and this will be more pronounced when the party takes a strong stand on issues, as does the ASP.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to a volunteer info meeting, or as they call it, 'Slave Training'. You have your choice of two meetings; they describe one as 'vanilla'. I'm going to the other one! (Pictures soon.)

Americans: Don't you wish you could vote for a Sex Party? Oh, I forgot: Republicans. Let me reword that. Don't you wish you could vote for an unrepressed non-self-hating sex party?

Endangered religions

Linguist Michael Krauss defines whether a language is endangered or not partly by whether they're being taken up natively by children. It strikes me that the same criterion could apply to whether a religion is endangered or not.

And right now the stats are not looking good for religion among young people. Earlier this year, a Pew Forum report showed that young people are less likely to be affiliated with a religion than other generations were when they were younger. Now research from evangelical Christians shows the same trend.

"Bye-bye church. We're busy." That's the message teens are giving churches today.

Only about one in four teens now participate in church youth groups, considered the hallmark of involvement; numbers have been flat since 1999. Other measures of religiosity — prayer, Bible reading and going to church — lag as well, according to Barna Group, a Ventura, Calif., evangelical research company. This all has churches canceling their summer teen camps and youth pastors looking worriedly toward the fall, when school-year youth groups kick in.

"Talking to God may be losing out to Facebook," says Barna president David Kinnaman.

Interesting. Let's come back to this later.

"Sweet 16 is not a sweet spot for churches. It's the age teens typically drop out," says Thom Rainer, president of LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville, which found the turning point in a study of church dropouts. "A decade ago teens were coming to church youth group to play, coming for the entertainment, coming for the pizza. They're not even coming for the pizza anymore. They say, 'We don't see the church as relevant, as meeting our needs or where we need to be today.'"

Or here: (but caution: author is plugging a book)

'How can we stop the oil gusher?" may have been the question of the summer for most Americans. Yet for many evangelical pastors and leaders, the leaking well is nothing compared to the threat posed by an ongoing gusher of a different sort: Young people pouring out of their churches, never to return.

As a 27-year-old evangelical myself, I understand the concern. My peers, many of whom grew up in the church, are losing interest in the Christian establishment.

Recent statistics have shown an increasing exodus of young people from churches, especially after they leave home and live on their own. In a 2007 study, Lifeway Research determined that 70% of young Protestant adults between 18-22 stop attending church regularly.

Statistics like these have created something of a mania in recent years, as baby-boomer evangelical leaders frantically assess what they have done wrong (why didn't megachurches work to attract youth in the long term?) and scramble to figure out a plan to keep young members engaged in the life of the church.

Back to that Facebook comment. I don't think it's a coincidence that this shift is most pronounced among an age group that grew up with the Internet. The Internet is contributing to the demise of religion among young people in a couple of ways. First, by contributing to the sharing of knowledge. As knowledge becomes more available, religions (which teach things that are wrong) will seem less and less relevant. Second, the Net has allowed for the building of communities. Many people see value in churches as a social network, but if people have alternative social networks (even online ones), they're less likely to seek one in a church.

My concern now is that rejection of religion may not be matched by critical thinking and skepticism in other areas. They might just be shifting to other kinds of unreason, notably new age snake oil and other proto-faiths. I think education about how to reason and how to find good information are the most important areas we can be focusing on with this age group.

Why are we moral? It's a problem -- for Christians.

One of the main themes of the 'Collision' discussion was morality. Ben the Christian had no argument with the idea that atheists could be moral, but he thought they were borrowing Christian morality (which actually predates Christianity). Like Wilson in the film, he argued that Christians could explain why a deed was moral or immoral (God seddit), but atheists couldn't.

In fact, atheists can explain why we're moral: we have brains (with, yes, mirror neurons) that can feel the feelings of others. When we see someone that's hurt or sad, we feel like it's happening to us, and we don't like it. This gives rise to compassion, empathy, and all those nice things.

Here's the interesting part (and this line of thinking arose out of a discussion with Mark Ellison):
• A theory is better if it explains more.
• Atheists can explain why atheists and Christians are moral.
• Christians can explain why Christians are moral, but they have no idea why atheists are moral.
• Their theory explains less. This is a problem for their theory, not for the theory of atheists.

No, really, they simply have no idea why atheists are moral. Take a look at the recent column from Billy Graham.

DEAR DR. GRAHAM: The kindest, most thoughtful person I know says she's an atheist and doesn't even believe in God. I always thought we needed to believe in God before we'd behave like she does, but I guess this isn't necessarily true, is it?
...
[Graham responds:] Why is she such a kind and thoughtful person? I don't know the reason; perhaps she simply has a sunny personality (as some people do), or perhaps her parents taught her to be kind and considerate when she was growing up. But I do know this: She's not this way because she's an atheist. In fact, she's this way despite her atheism — because a true atheist has no real reason to believe in right and wrong or to behave sacrificially toward others.

But if they do behave this way, and you can't explain it, doesn't that mean there's something lacking in your explanation, and not with atheism?

By making this argument, Christians are trying to give us their problem. But the difficulty inherent in their position belongs to them.

Thinking about Hitch

I'm no Hitchens, but since clomping about in his enormous rhetorical shoes on 'Collision' evening, I've been thinking about the guy. He's published an article about his illness.

My father had died, and very swiftly, too, of cancer of the esophagus. He was 79. I am 61. In whatever kind of a “race” life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.

And appeared for an interview with Anderson Cooper.



And since I'm now teaching The Swearing Class at UWA Extension, here's a thought from Jeffrey Goldberg:

As for the few of you who wrote to Goldblog to say they were praying for Hitch's death, I can say that he does not care one way or another what you do or think or pray, but on behalf of myself and the entire team here at The Atlantic, let me just say, Go fuck yourselves.

I concur. Who said profanity was in poor taste?

I'm pulling for you, Mr Hitchens.

Mormonville

It would appear that some Perth Mormons fell for a Ponzi scheme.

A woman has defrauded Perth residents of more than $4 million by selling shares in a bogus land development she called `Mormonville', police say.

West Australian Police fraud officers, who have charged the 50-year-old registered finance broker on 24 fraud-related counts, say many of the woman's victims were pensioners.

They said the woman, from Canning Vale in Perth's south, set up "illusory schemes" in 2007 to fund her personal investments and affairs.

"She tricked people to invest by offering exceptionally high rates of returns with little or no risk to invested money," a police spokeswoman said on Friday.

The initial schemes allegedly involved selling investments in part-shares of land but later evolved into a scheme advertised as Mormonville, which claimed to be a village-type development for members of the woman's church.

Anyone can fall for a scam, religious or not. All it takes is a lack of critical thinking or just lack of experience in detecting frauds. But it's easy to get people's guard down by appealing to shared values, especially religious ones. I guess once you've found a group of religious believers, you can assume a certain level of gullibility right off the bat.

And all to make a Mormon village. It's too bad the victims were pensioners, but I can't say I sympathise much with a desire to establish religious tribalism.

Collision! Aftermath

Last night saw the screening of 'Collision', a combined event for the UWA Christian Union and the UWA Atheist and Agnostic Society.

Festivities actually got started earlier in the day, as Ben Rae (from the Christian Union) and I got together on RTRFM for a interview on Morning Magazine.

MP3

It went pretty well -- I only had one brain fart, which is pretty good for that time of day.

The real action happened at night, when 300 people packed the UWA Tav. Sincere apologies to everyone that had to be turned away. We had an inkling that it would be big, but in retrospect, maybe we should have hired the Octagon. Wait -- no beer in the Octagon. Oh, well.

First was the film, and it was great to see Christopher Hitchens at his most fluid and incisive. Douglas Wilson was a surprisingly tenacious fighter, and some of his arguments made me think, I must confess.

Then the discussion with me and Ben. I noticed a couple of things. One, people stuck around for it and didn't just leave after the film. That was a nice surprise. The other was how quiet the audience was. You'd think 300 tavern-goers would form a boisterous crowd, but they didn't. It was scary-quiet. I suppose the civilised nature of the documentary set the tone. There was an exception: toward the end one biology maniac could no longer restrain himself, and began explaining to everyone loudly about mirror neurons. There's always one. I did appreciate the assist, though.

Anyway, I think I managed to address the strengths of atheism, and Ben had a chance to get his message out, too. Overall, a very successful evening, and a fun time.

There were cameras, and we're working on a YouTube version of the discussion. In the meantime, here is a still.

If you were there, put your impressions of the night in comments.

No question: Antoine Dodson owns this speech event

I'm still mesmerised by Antoine Dodson's incendiary appearance on WAFF news last week. He's the guy that fought off an attacker who tried to rape his sister. The clip has gone viral. Here it is:



There's a lot you could learn about AAVE by watching this, but what's amazing to me is the pragmatic range he evinces in his speech performance. It's a theatrical display of bravado, anger, indignation, and taunting, all at once. Wow.

Best of all, it's been Autotuned by the Gregory Brothers.



Gritty.