Date:  Thu, 13 Jul 1995 14:20:43 -0800

From:  "Alan S. Kaye" <AKAYE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CCVAX.FULLERTON.EDU>

Subject: Re: oj trial



RE: OJ Trial



Folks, come on, let's get serious. I am not an expert in AAVE; however,

I would like to see the "expert" identify correctly out of 100 tape recordings

of, say, 100 different people born and raised in a southern state, e.g.,

chosen at random, and identify blacks from non-blacks. My guess is that

this is next to impossible. Then, too, we can have whites who sound black

(phoneticians, e.g.) and blacks who sound white. So where does it all end,

and what is the point of such non-scientific judgements. So I must say

that Johnny Cochran's point seems to me to be a good one.



Alan Kaye

akaye[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]fullerton.edu

Linguistics, CSU, Fullerton