Dialects in the Classroom

A fun way to observe and discuss language change with your students is through slang, or informal language. Providing any examples of local slang here would instantly date this document, because slang changes rapidly along with cultural trends, but you – especially if you are young or have teenage family members – can likely come up with some current slang terms fairly easily. It is usually defined and developed by society’s youth, and can be incredibly creative and productive. In American culture, a significant amount of slang originates in African American communities before becoming more mainstream (just as many musical, cultural, and other trends can often be traced directly back to African American traditions). For this reason, there is a common misconception that African American language practices are just slang. This is entirely inaccurate, as linguistic research has repeatedly demonstrated; in fact, African American English (AAE) is a rule-governed, regular dialect just as any other. One way we know this is that some variants in African American English are stable, or unchanging over time – unlike slang, which often changes rapidly. One example of this is the word stay in African American English. Linguists have demonstrated that this term, in combination with a verb, indicates habitual aspect, as in the sentence he stay bothering me (meaning ‘he is always/constantly bothering me’). An 80 year old AAE speaker and an 8 year old AAE speaker would likely both use this construction, which is simply a feature of AAE grammar, rather than a fleeting trend. And just like any other feature of AAE, it is rule governed, meaning there are ways to mis-use it, as in the examples below, which would be ungrammatical for speakers of AAE (linguists mark ungrammatical utterances, defined as utterances no native speaker would ever utter, with an asterisk):

*He stay bother me

*He be stay bothering me

*They stays bother me

In noting the ways certain features cannot appear within the grammar of AAE speakers, we see that contrary to frequent misperceptions, there are indeed specific grammar rules governing the use of these features. When teachers bring these misconceptions into the classroom, they risk alienating students who use these features in their Playground English. A key example of this comes from applied linguist Uju Anya, who shared this slide from her teacher training materials:

The answer, of course, is Cookie Monster, though he is not actively eating in the image and Elmo is. Anya explains that this is “[b]ecause the “be” is grammatically significant. It means normally, usually, perpetually eating cookies, and that’s Cookie Monster.” She goes on to note that this common feature of AAE, called habitual be, is often considered ignorant or dismissed as slang by teachers who are unfamiliar with its grammatical structure and meaning, which creates a classroom environment in which Black students are devalued and marginalized. Understanding these features makes their value clear and allows us to celebrate diversity rather than misidentify it as pathological.  The result is more inclusive, supportive classrooms (and hopefully, society!).