Purpose: On more that one occasion someone I have just met tells me that they hate English. They then often go into elaborate, detailed explanations of why it is they hate English. The entire explanation they give me is in English, usually a very Standard American English form. Not many people I have met don’t like to communicate (and a few like to communicate a bit too much), but “correct” English has intimidated them. It is part of my job to make sure you are intimately familiar with standard uses of English, but to think that Standard English is able to convey more sophisticated thoughts is one of the myths that hinder students more that help them. This assignment should convince you a bit more of your own intellectual sophistication (and of others) as well as make you more familiar with Standard American English.
Approach: Below I have given two examples of non-standard English vernaculars and a Creole. I have given two sentences from the non-standard form and followed them with a Standard American English "translation." Your assignment is to identify one non-standard vernacular form with which you are familiar and write down ten (10) sentences that one might utter when using that vernacular form and then "translate" the sentences.
Learning Objectives:
· Understand Standard American English (SAE) Use
· Grow more familiar with own linguistic sophistication
· Understand the various means of language use
He be working. He generally works, perhaps at a regular job.
He working. He is working at this very moment.
Brah, I like go back Hawaii Friend, I would like to go back to Hawaii
an’ t’row one big luau. and host a large party.
Ho, I get one bug; Hmmm, I own a Volkswagen Beetle;
da bugga stay real nice. it is very well maintained.
Professor Vernacular
I would care to engage in such an
activity from which I might derive I want to have fun.
some form of amusement.
When faced with a paradigm from
which I find mild to great discomfort,
I have been so inclined, on most occasions When something scares me I run.
(in similar and dissimilar circumstances),
to engage in a rapid pedal activity.