Bobby's DW2b

            My DW2a compared to Lisa Nakamura:  In my first analysis of down-south.com, a music website, I talked mainly about the structural features of African American Vernacular English(AAVE) and the phonology of digital communication.  To go deeper into analysis I will need to look for rhetorical features of AAVE, as done by Lisa Nakamura in Cybertypes: Race, Ethnicity, and Identity on the Internet.  My first analysis was focused on the obvious structural features, which I will need to elaborate on in my paper.  I think one of the rhetorical features of AAVE, which would be appropriate to investigate is signifyin because of its role in much of the music presented on the site.  Signifyin is used in nearly every song found on Down-South and can also be found in some of the posts.  As seen in this post, quoting a line from a song:

written by wiz, February 22, 2009

 

weezy fuckin killed it nigga, weezy flyer in any weather hold on hhhh puew there goes a feather haha damnnnnnn

In this post signifyin is used to use an alternate meaning of “fly” and then refer to the literal meaning.  “Weezy flyer in any weather” is not referring to the actual act of flying, but referring to superior status no matter the situation.  Then, “puew there goes a feather” takes “fly” in a literal sense as if he were flying with the birds.  This is just one example of how signifyin is used on the site and in music.  Another rhetorical feature I would like to look at more closely is the changing in the meaning of words to their opposite.  For instance, using “bad” to mean “really good”.  This is used many times on Down-South in the comments.

written by DJ WREKSHOP, December 08, 2008

 

Boosie always wreks!!!

This post turns the word “wreck” around to be a good thing.  Not meaning to literally wreck or crash, but meaning to make real good music.

 

DW2a

            For my blog I have chosen to use my popular culture website, which is www.down-south.com.  Down-South is a hip-hop music site that allows people to hear new music and see people’s reviews and comments on the individual songs.  I use Down-South along with a few other music sites to find the music that I like to listen to.  African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is not discussed on Down-South but it is appropriated quite frequently.  Many of the comments and posts on the songs are written in AAVE.  Posted on the song “I Don’t Know Ya’ll” by Young L.A. and Young Dro: 

written by mz.loc, February 05, 2009

this song off da chain. dro in la did they dam thang.

In this post, AAVE is used by mz. loc.  A couple things can be seen like leaving out the word “is” in the first sentence.  Also, using “da” instead of “the” shows the AAVE tendency to not use “th-“ at the beginning of words.  In the second sentence, “dro in la did they dam thang,” the author uses AAVE structure rather than Standard English (SE) structure.  Saying “did they dam thang” would be wrong in structure for SE but in AAVE sentence structure like this is understood as “They did their damn thing.” 

            Also, a part of AAVE in digital communication, I believe, is the changing of how words are spelled in order to give the right sound to the reader.  This is used on Down-South a lot and you can tell when people don’t understand the reasoning behind the spelling alterations.  In a post on a new song by Drake, Lil Wayne, and Bun B (“Uptown”):

  written by al, February 14, 2009

wayne kilt that shit

...

written by really?, February 14, 2009

kilt? you are a fucking idiot. go back to first grade and learn your grammar.

You can see in the first post that obviously the author meant to spell killed as “kilt”, in order to get across the sound of how it is to be said.  In the second post, this person seems to think that the word was misspelled by mistake.  I see this as a disconnect in dialects, or possibly just a closed minded way to look at language.

DW1b

Myth Education: Rationale and Strategies for Teaching Against Linguistic Prejudice

Leah A. Zuidema

            In this reading, Leah Zuidema discusses the linguistic prejudices that are present in America and suggests strategies for stopping these prejudices.  In my experiences over the last couple weeks in my literacy log I realized things that wouldn’t have occurred to me had I not been looking for them.  People use language as a main source of judging who you are, along with other things such as intelligence, as suggested by Leah Zuidema.

            The ideas that the author brings up in the journal are good ways to stop linguistic prejudices.  The education she speaks of is the best way to inform people that the way you speak has nothing to do with intelligence or beliefs.  Speech is simply a way for people to communicate with one another. 

            In my literacy log I saw that people make overall judgments off of simple sentences.  One example came from when I was talking to a girl that I had met here at MSU.  In casual conversation I explained that I was due for a haircut, but apparently the way I said it led her to make a judgment.  I was just talking, not thinking about how I was speaking, and I said, “Yeah I needa get ma’ haircut, ma’ shits long.”  I thought nothing of the sentence but she stopped immediately and said, “You’re ghetto.  Why don’t you just say hair, instead of ‘my shits long’”?  I didn’t really have an answer, as I hadn’t thought about it I was just talkin.  Now, in this situation, I found it funny that she had made this assumption on one sentence, but nonetheless, in many circumstances judgments like this can be destructive. I connect this assumption to a passage from “Myth Education”.  Zuidema writes “We act as though dialects and accents are windows to people’s souls.  And sometimes, we dare to ignore or dismiss entire groups of people because of what we assume their linguistic habits reveal about them.”  Reading this after having the experience in my literacy log brought up questions in my mind.  Would this girl assume that people I hang with are “ghetto”?  And what exactly did she mean by that?  Because, true or not, it is a ridiculous assumption off of such a simple sentence.

            Zuidema hits the nail right on the head in this writing, in my opinion.  Not only does she point out the linguistic prejudices we see daily, but she gives legitimate options for changing things.  Teaching the idea that different dialects are simply that, different, not wrong, is something that should be started in elementary schools in order to stop the cycle of linguistic prejudice.  If everyone in this world spoke the same way I did, I would "Go Crazy" (like Jeezy).