Date: Thu, 9 Oct 1997 17:10:09 -0400

From: "Jeutonne P. Brewer" jpbrewer[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]HAMLET.UNCG.EDU

Subject: Re: The Lords Prayer/Ebonics



On Wed, 8 Oct 1997, Salikoko S. Mufwene wrote:



may ask. Do you know of any African-American family in which the variety

putatively adopted in the Bible translation, per your example, is the

default vernacular? Or are we back to the days when we discussed how people

cook chittlins... just to satisfy some emotions but with little

contribution to our intellectual curiosities?



If you really want to be concerned, you can look at the texts

published as examples of Ebonics (John Milton, Elizabeth Barrett

Browning, etc.). (http://novusordo.com/indexn.htm) I don't mention

this as an attempt to promote distribution of these ecamples, but to

point out what many people on the Web are reading as examples. One of my

students found this site when doing a class exercise to find information

and discussion about Ebonics. So now I plan to do a class exercise

in which students analyze one of the examples using summaries of

legitimate research. My point is that these examples are there.

People will read them, and teachers may consider using them as

examples. I want my students to be informed on the subject and

able to make judgments about such examples.



Jeutonne





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Jeutonne P. Brewer, Associate Professor

Department of English

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Greensboro, NC 27412

email: jpbrewer[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]hamlet.uncg.edu

URL: http://www.uncg.edu/~jpbrewer

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