Some sociolingustic concepts of black language, Article Summary

In the article "Some sociolinguistic concepts of black language" by Orlando L. Taylor, the author delves into the topic of legitimacy of Black English as a social dialect and how it may be used in American classrooms.

First, the author begins by stating that sociolinguists and black community leaders call for re-evaluation of significance of Standard English in American schools. The claim is backed by the excerpt from the Washington Post, according to which, the decision was made by the committee of therapists to no longer make any efforts to "correct" the dialectal peculiarities of black children, instead shifting the focus towards working on speech defects.

Next, the author establishes a counterpoint by stating that the decision was not approved of unanimously. In particular, black community leaders in Chicago and Philadelphia argue that the committee’s decision is insulting to the black community, as it presumes that black children are not capable of learning Standard English. Furthermore, they suggest that deliberate neglect of Standard English may stagger the learning process immensely for black pupils.

After that, the author explains that there is some sort of stigma concerning any conversation about Black English. The reason behind it lies in general misunderstanding of the topic, due to lack of sociolinguistic expertise, personal bias and racist agenda. The author underlines that the children are ultimately the biggest victims of this controversy.

Next, the author states that the aforementioned problems raised interest in studying cultural and behavioral effects on acquisition of language.

Ultimately, what Orlando L. Taylor is trying to convey through his work is that the most amount of effort should be put towards sheding light on the topic of Black English and dispelling any sort of confusion.

I chose this topic because it is loosely connected to the topic of my course paper, in that it has the word "sociolinguistics" in it.

Questions:

1) Is this issue relevant at all in Russian society?

2) Do the children really care?

3) Are there any developments in the research of this phenomenon?