BLACK ENGLISH AND THE AMERICAN VALUE SYSTEM
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Issue Date
1973-10-01Author
Drake, Glendon F.
Publisher
Department of Sociology, University of Kansas
Type
Article
Rights
Copyright (c) Social Thought and Research. For rights questions please contact Editor, Department of Sociology, Social Thought and Research, Fraser Hall, 1415 Jayhawk Blvd, Lawrence, KS 66045.
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The strategy of enlightened bi-dialectalism used by the schools in the United States to deal with the problem of Black English is a significant attempt at social engineering. This attempt is motivated by basic linguistic attitudes which reflect the American value system. Bi-dialectalism is a melting-pot theory of American culture, an attempt to implement the American Dream of social mobility for all. This value operates in concert with the school's prescriptive linguistic attitude, through a co-optive strategy, against a pluralistic ethic. Bi-dialectalists err not in supposing code-switching is feasible, but in supposing that the school is the primary and proper agency for implementing code-switching. The failure of twentieth-century relativism to penetrate the school's value system so far as "English" is concerned has frozen the school in the nineteenth century in terms of linguistic attitudes.
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Citation
Kansas Journal of Sociology, Volume 9, Number 2 (FALL, 1973), pp. 217-227 http://dx.doi.org/10.17161/STR.1808.4779
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