Code Switching in William Wells Brown's Clotel Essay

Talking Black In America addresses how advanced, unique, and culturally important African American English is (Hutcheson and Cullinan, 2017).

William Robbins’s plantation. “The boy Luke was happy. When Shavis Merle, a white man with three slaves to this name, sought to hire Luke during the harvest...for $2 a week. Merle believed in feeding his workers plenty of food, but they gave it all back in the field, from sunup to sundown, and no one that year gave up more than Luke did. After Luke died in the field, merle protested up and down about paying compensation, but Willy Robbins got him to pay Henry $100 for the boy. ‘Fair business is fair business,’ Robbins had to keep telling Merle. Moffett was early to the boy’s funeral, which Merle attended, and Moffett said some words at the gravesite, but no one said more than Elias and at the last his new wife had to put her arms around him to bring an end to all the words.” (Jones 103). Personally, this was the point in the novel where I began to get attached to Jones’s characters. This is an example of Jones’s use of imagery which is used not only show the meaning of the work, but as well as to leave an impact on the reader at the end of the chapter, which personally is why I really enjoyed this novel. Another example of imagery that Jones’s uses that leaves an impact on the reader is when when Sheriff John Skiffington shoots Mildred, Augustus’s wife, for hiding Moses, Henry’s first slave which ran

The Code Talker is a book written by Joseph Bruchac. It is a novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two. It especially focuses on one particular Indian code talker, Ned Begay. The book walks you through the life of Ned Begay from him being a small schoolboy to a Navajo Marine.

In another occasion, Thomas Phelps preserves his honor by showing how he never lost his integrity even in the midst of captivity. He remained true to his Christian morals and never absorbed the lowly attitude of submission as a slave. In one occasion, the Moors pulled the ship along the shore and fell asleep. At this time, all the captives were unshackled and remained in the ship. Phelps felt the urge to be the hero and make a break for it, naming it the “Christian resolution” (Phelps, p.46). However, there was one captive, Will Robinson, who was fearful and did not comply. This spoiled Phelps’ plan, and many others decided against it in fear of this one “recreant”. “The slave’s name was Will Robinson. He professed himself a Christian in words, but indeed we found more civility from the Moors than him” (Phelps, p.46). It is obvious to see that Phelps made a clear distinction between himself being a Christian, and the fearful Will Robinson who he didn’t hesitate to call a “slave”, thus retaining his honor and integrity. This also shows that Phelps, being a slave, had a place in society. Patterson believed that slaves had no worth or position in society. Phelps voice is heard as an appeal to the Christian society, revealing his worth as a Christian. Once again he places

The Conference on College Composition and Communication discusses two very important and controversial questions within their article “Students’ Right to Their Own Language”: “What should the schools do about the language habits of students who come from a wide variety of social, economic, and cultural backgrounds?” (2), and “Should the schools try to uphold language variety, or to modify it, or to eradicate it?” (2). While for academic writing purposes students should be expected to use standard American dialect, it is important to respect the diversity and various heritages throughout the country by allowing students to use the dialect they choose when speaking.

Ruth Biongo Mrs. Keeley English 111 08 September 2015 “Learning to Read and Write" by Frederick Douglass Douglass's "Learning to Read and Write", was a somewhat engaging and very informative essay. While observing the title of the story, based off of Frederick Douglass article, I thought he was going to take the audience on a learning how to read and write journey. I would have assumed it being all about reading and writing, because those that read about Frederick Douglass knew he was only a black man that set goals to being well educated. Especially in a world that he was not accepted in, due to his race back then. He did explain to how he started to learn how to read and write but the article was more than that.

After that was down, the two Irishmen asked Frederick, are you a slave? He replied yes. Furthermore, the Irishmen seemed to be deeply bothered by me saying yes, to being a slave, In addition, they both advised me to run away to the North; saying I would find friends up there. Moreover, Frederick pretended to not be interested in what they had just told him to do. In fact, white men have been know to encourage slaves to run and escape because in the long run they would catch them, so they could get a reward for a slave trying to escape. For instance, if Frederick ran away he would of not learned and he wished to learn how to write, Thus, writing his own pass to freedom and hope that one day he would find a good chance of writing his own pass. Meanwhile, Frederick wanted to stay and learn how to

Butler starts to reveal the way whites were more superior by having Rufus suggest to Dana to call him Master, like the other slaves. Once on the Weylin slave plantation, Dana looks around and sees old, young, black woman, and men working hard in the heat. Rufus explains to Dana that all the slaves calls him ‘master’, and she’s suppose to call him that too. As quoted on page 30,” And you don’t call me ‘Master’ either.” “ You’re supposed to.” He was very serious. “You want me to call you black?” Butler uses this conversation to show the readers, that in the 1800’s, the blacks were subservient. It also reveals that the language used then, was very powerful and is used to manipulate others. To this day, language is still abused and

William’s analogy between civil society and a group of people aboard a ship eased the dynamics of his letter. By illustrating how his ideas of liberty would take place on a ship, Williams’s ideas seem more approachable rather than terrifying his audience by explain it with everyday details of society. Since everyone other than the Indians in the New World had lived on a ship for months, to arrive to the New World, Williams made this analogy relatable to everyone’s previous experiences. Williams’s analogy could have been unsuccessful because he did not illustrate clear margins for what daily life would look like with his ideas in

The United States of America is one of the world’s most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations. Even though there is not an official national language, most Americans speak Standard American English (SAE). However, the most prevalent native English vernacular dialect in the United States is African American Vernacular English (AAVE). According to Sharon Vaughn, AAVE is “a dialect used by some African Americans” (110). In order to examine AAVE, one must explore the origins, grammatical features, and prominent resolutions, which created a precedent for educating students that speak dialects other than Standard American English.

In my day to day life I use several different forms of english depending on where I am at, whether that be at home with friends, or in a professional english setting. Code switching has definitely come in handy throughout my life. I feel it is crucial to be able to code switch in regards to using different types of english in today’s society due to social standards of “correct” english. The appropriate forms of english will most likely vary depending on your location and your position within that particular social group. Knowing how to use and navigate different forms of english in certain situation can lead to more opportunities for networking, because it allows you to appeal to a wider and diverse group of people.

African American English is diverging from Standard American English. As shown in Do You Speak American (2005), AAE originates from the time of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. English was introduced to trade ports in Africa by colonialists, resulting in the creation of pidgin - a mixture of English and African languages that is still in use today. More recently, African Americans who have moved from the South to the North have been more segregated, creating greater divergence between AAE and SAE. As many African Americans maintain ties to the South, such as continued contact with friends or family in the south, similarities between AAE and southern dialects remain. However, each group have selected features that are important, such as maintaining ‘r’ in the North or keeping certain features as a way of preserving history, resulting in different dialect patterns between the North and the South to develop.

Accordingly, harsh punishments were enacted if anyone was caught teaching a slave how to read. In turn, slave owners created a society where “It was dangerous to educate slaves” because “education made blacks dissatisfied with slavery” (236). This illustrates the immense power of knowledge as only an educated slave could discover an alternate world to slavery, which is exemplified with the use of the word “dissatisfied”. Slave owners recognize this power by ruthlessly attempting to keep the value of education away from their slaves despite their physical control over them. In addition, it was considered “dangerous to keep a [educated] slave” as they might “run away and [you would] lose your investment” manifesting the idea that only barrier standing in the way of slave from freedom is education (80). This illuminates that the power that emanates from the “whip” can’t suppress an educated slave as it exclusively relies on fear, but once educated there no longer exists the reason to fear. Moreover, the slave owners fear that they would lose their “investment”, portraying the idea that the slave owners can’t control their slaves through physical power. For example, Margaret and her husband “resent [Dana]” due to their “[lack of] education”, which is why “educated slaves aren’t popular” (80). Thus, Tom Weylin only despises educated slaves because of their threat to his authority emphasizing how education superior to the

African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety previously known as Black English Vernacular or Vernacular Black English by sociolinguists, and commonly called Ebonics outside the academic community. However, some characteristics of AAVE are seemingly unique in its structure. It also includes a number of standard and nonstandard English varieties are spoken by the US and the Caribbean people. AAVE has been the core of many public debates and also the analysis of this variety has encouraged and sustained debates amongst sociolinguists.  Some speakers may use some special aspects of pronunciation and vocabulary. Nevertheless, the grammatical features are not connected with the variety. Several sociolinguists would reserve the term AAVE for varieties which are marked by the existence of specific distinctive grammatical features and some of them are discussed below. The history of AAVE and what language varieties it is related to are also a matter of argument. Some scholars confirm that AAVE developed out a connection between speakers of West African languages and speakers of vernacular English varieties. According to such an opinion, West Africans learnt English on plantations in the southern Coastal States from very few native speakers. Some say that this led to the development of a rudimentary pidgin, a very simple language which has been extended through a process of colorization later.

Lauren Collister is correct in arguing that, instead of ignoring or deriding the variation in written language, embracing the change in language and the ability of speakers and writers to code-switch can lead to better communication skills in all contexts. In agreement with her point, she describes that text messaging is a conversation that involves a lot of back and forth, which is right because people use textspeak, not to generate thoughtfulness and literary communication, but to keep in contact and facilitate communication. We see this with the increased use of ellipses, which can invite the recipient to continue the conversation, says Collister by giving an example of the period which is a definitive stop that signals, as linguistics professor Mark Liberman has explained, “This is final, this is the end of the discussion” (qtd. in Collister). To recall, she says earlier this year, psychologist Danielle Gunraj tested how people perceived one-sentence text messages that used a period at the end of the sentence; whereby, participants thought these text messages were more insincere than those that didn’t have a period. “Texting is lacking many of the social cues used in actual face-to-face conversations,” lead researcher Celia Kin said in