How Language Affects Us:
An Interview with Howard Mims

Aired May 26, 1999

David C. Barnett–Now, transportation can be a barrier for someone seeking to get a good job. How about the way we talk? In school, we're generally taught to use what's called "good grammar," no slang in our professional communications, but when does talk about the way we talk cross the line? In December 1996, a board of education in Oakland, California, issued a resolution which said adopting the report and recommendations of the African American Taskforce, a policy statement and directing the superintendent of schools to devise a program to improve the English language acquisition and application skills of African American students, and that raised a whirlwind of controversy over what has come to be called "ebonics," or African American vernacular English, or black vernacular English. There's going to be a conference on that very subject over the next few days sponsored by Cleveland State University. Howard Mims is a professor in the Departments of Speech and Hearing and Communication at CSU as well as being that school's director of Black Studies. Welcome, Dr. Mims, again.

Howard Mims–Thank you.

DCB–This is the eighteenth year we've talked about this?

HM–Yes, with Walt Wolfrom, who is one of the leading dialectologists in the country, if not in the world.

DCB–To what extent is what we've come to call ebonics different from other regional accents and dialects in ways of talking?

HM–Well, there are various dialects and many of them are what we call vernacular dialects, which means that they are not the standard, they're usually referred to by the average lay person as being incorrect, but of course those of us in linguistics don't view it that way. We view it as a different way of talking, and we don't talk about language differences as being correct or incorrect, because all human language is systematic and rule-governed, and if ebonics had been the language or the pattern that was spoken by the people in power, then that would be the language that we would call correct, because all of the dialects of the world, all of the varieties of the languages of the world, are equally capable of expressing all of the notions that anyone can express.

DCB–And as much as people would make fun or complain about ebonics, certain words from the African American vernacular creep their way into common parlance, as is the case always with English, it keeps reinventing itself.

HM–Yes, it's all languages are in a constant state of change, but what we're concerned about is language or dialect prejudice. There are many instances where the job that one applies for has nothing to do with the way the person talks, and however in some instances, you don't get the job because of the way you talk. The person who is interviewing may think you are less intelligent than others because of the dialect you're using, and we try to dispel these notions of dialect prejudice. This is one of the last bastions of prejudice, and we're getting to the point where we discriminate less on the basis of skin color and things of that kind, but certainly language bias continues with us.

DCB–How successful have we been, it's been three years since the controversy in Oakland, what has happened in the intervening years?

HM–You know, the interest goes in cycles, and once the interest dies down, people forget about it. They think it's a kind of fad. It was very useful to those of us who are interested in dialect differences, that is the Oakland controversy, because it sheds some light on what we think is an important subject. What we know is that teachers are teaching children for thirteen years, from kindergarten through 12th grade, English, and they continue to come out and go to college, and many millions of black students continuing to use non-standard grammar. Now I think it's useful to be able to speak standard grammar, I'm not talking about slang at all. Slang is not pedagogically significant because it can be turned on and off at will. When we use non-standard grammar, we're not conscious of it, we don't know that our language "gets no respect," and therefore we're often penalized or we may go to an interview where we're applying for a job where our grammar does matter, where you need standard grammar in order to do the job, such as the job the people in this radio station have to do, they have to speak standard English grammar, and you may not get the job and never know why you didn't get it, you'll think, "oh, they were just prejudiced," because the person who speaks the non-standard grammar doesn't know that he or she uses non-standard grammar and that their grammar gets no respect. We need to teach the teachers about the nature of language so that they can zero in on those grammatical patterns that are significant, and there are about 20 to 30 different grammatical rules that educators can work on, can focus on, particularly in black communities, from kindergarten through grade 12, and then they'll do a better job of teaching children to speak standard English grammar.

DCB–And that's the subject that will be discussed over the next few days, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. "Dialect Differences in the Schools-

HM–Can I give a number?

DCB–Sure.

HM–You can still enroll by calling 216-687-2144, that's the Office of Continuing Education at Cleveland State University, and the seminar begins at 9:00 tomorrow morning, you can get information from that number.

DCB–Howard Mims is a professor in the Departments of Speech and Hearing and Communication, as well as being the director of Black Studies at Cleveland State University. As usual, thank you for coming, Dr. Mims.

HM–Thanks for having me.