Response 3: Wolfram, Reaser & Vaughn 2008

Operationalizing Linguistic Gratuity: From Principle to Practice

This assignment brings together many aspects of the course. In it, you will first focus on the structure of a published article as a possible framework for your own writing, developing your writing skills (Part A).
Then you will review some terminology (Part B).
In Parts C & D, you’ll analyze a syntactic variable from a non-standard dialect.
Finally, in Part E, you’ll develop and write up what you’ve learned in Parts A-D, switching to a different genre (refer back to Analysis 1. This last part, a contribution toward the community that provided the data for this assignment, will be conducted, as Linguistic Gratuity work almost always is, as group work. Use this assignment to consider how language affects and constitutes society.

Complete Parts A-D on your own. Start early, because you will need to work with a partner on Part E, and it will take some time.

Answers to Parts A-D should be brief. Consider the instructions for the previous response assignments (RR1 , RR2 ) to work out appropriate lengths.

Part A: Skim/Scan

1. As discussed in tutorials, the academic article is a genre with its own established conventions and structures. Considering what you know about the components of an academic and sociolinguistics paper, answer the following questions:
   1. List three structural components that this article shares with all research papers.
   2. List one major way that this article differs from a research paper.
2. Answer one of the following three (bulleted) questions. In your answer, quote a relevant sentence from the article. Paraphrase the quote into your own words, defining all technical terms. Then briefly explain why you found that quote relevant.
   • Is there a sentence in the Abstract or Introduction that you find particularly interesting?
   • What did you find to be the most useful/informative sentence in the Abstract or Introduction of this paper?
   • Was there a sentence in the Abstract or Introduction that you found hard to understand?

3. As we have seen in other articles for this course, the term “vernacular” can carry specialized meanings. Focusing on the following quotation from Wolfram et al., explain what the term means this time.

   When the vernacular language norms of the community stand in opposition to those of mainstream, Standard English varieties, an immediate ideological conflict is brought to the forefront (p. 1122).

4. In a short paragraph, discuss the principle of linguistic gratuity by answering the following questions:
   1. What is "linguistic gratuity"? Wolfram’s Principle of Linguistic Gratuity encourages linguists to “pursue positive ways in which they can return linguistic favors to the community” (Wolfram et al. 2008:1110). Paraphrase this quote into your own words; make sure that you have defined what the principle is.
   2. What are two examples of applying this principle that were discussed and/or illustrated in class?
   3. Are you aware of other applications of this principle? That is, have you seen this principle applied?

This part of the assignment is designed to get you thinking about how to talk about standard and nonstandard English, and what it means to “describe” language use, with non-linguists. The goal is to look at the data below closely, come up with descriptive rules that explain the distribution of the feature in question, and find a way to explain it to a non-linguist audience such as high school students.

African-American Vernacular English stressed bin

AAVE stressed bin [bɪn] is a marker of remote past tense; it’s used to indicate that an event occurred at some time in the not-too-recent past.

This temporal marker is something Standard English (SE) lacks. It has been identified by linguists as one of the characteristic aspectual markers that distinguish AAVE from other English varieties.

While there is a historical connection between SE been and AAVE stressed bin, they’re quite different now. Stressed bin can be used in lots of places where SE been can’t.

First data set - this illustrates a range of aspects that are possible with bin

1. I bin started my homework, so quit asking me
   (I started my homework a long time ago)
2. I bin running
   (I have long been in the habit of running)
3. Grandma bin sick
   (Grandma has been sick for a long time and she still is)

Second data set - this illustrates some additional restrictions on the use of bin

4. * I bin seen that movie a long time ago
   * (I saw that movie a long time ago)
5. * I bin asked her about that three weeks ago
   * (I asked her about that three weeks ago)


6. * Bin she a doctor?
   * (Has she been a doctor for a long time?)
7. * She bin a doctor, binn’t she?
   * (She has been a doctor for a long time, hasn’t she?)
8. * Does she bin a doctor?
   * (Has she been a doctor for a long time?)

5. Given the grammatical rules we just learned, would the following sentences be acceptable?

9. I bin ate my lunch.
10. The kids bin outside for five minutes.
11. Bin Jamie and Sam dating?
12. I bin understood the question, I just didn’t know the answer.

You should have completed Parts A-D, including writing responses to Questions 1-5, on your own. This final section, with two questions, is group work. Please work in groups of 2 - 4 students. NEW! Each student should submit this poster with their own assignment. Be sure that all documents for your responses to Questions 6 and 7 have the names of all group members.

6. Before continuing, compare your predictions (Part D) with one of your group members. Make sure you come to an agreement about which are acceptable sentences. Report your results.
7. Put together a handout or poster that explains:
   • The difference between prescriptive and descriptive approaches to language
   • the rules that account for how AAVE Stressed bin is used
   • Why it matters
   Your handout or poster should be aimed at high school students.
   NEW!: Each student should submit a PDF of this handout or poster via Quercus.

   NOTE: If you would like, you may create a set of data from some other non-standard variety to use in your handout or poster. However, you must submit the data set to the professor at least 1 week before this assignment is due, and receive her approval to use it in place of the data given here.

   

 Return to syllabus || Updated 28 November 2022