Abstract
Ebonics or African American English (AAE) has long been treated as a “street slang” spoken by African Americans and as a result, it has a stigma attached to it. Linguists prefer to use the latter term because there is evidence that this is yet another variety of English ? as linguistically important as British English, American English, Australian English, etc. The goal of this workshop is to discuss the history behind the term “Ebonics”, to explain the difference between slang and a linguistic variety, and to provide just some of the grammatical rules that govern AAE.
GOAL/OUTCOME #1 Increase ability to analyze language.
GOAL/OUTCOME #2 Understand the complex history behind Ebonics.
GOAL/OUTCOME #3 Understand the difference between “slang”, “variety” and “language”.
Description
Ewelina Barski, PhD, Assistant Professor, Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, The College at Brockport
Dr. Ewelina Barski, assistant professor, has been at Brockport for four years. She teaches all levels of Spanish and Linguistics and specializes in (Spanish) heritage speakers. Dr. Barski earned her PhD at the University of Western Ontario in Canada. Her research interests include Polish and Spanish heritage language acquisition, second language acquisition, and bilingualism. Dr. Barski teaches FCE 473 “Linguistics and Second Language Acquisition” where she teaches about African American English.
