BLACK ENGLISH AND THE AMERICAN VALUE SYSTEM

Abstract

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.