Fox News and Black English - Ebonics

Garrard McClendon and his book, Ax or Ask?: The African American Guide to Better English talks about the speech and grammar issues that young African American students struggle with. He stresses the importance of teaching children the correct way to pronounce words. In the beginning of the video, he gives a lesson on how to pronounce "ask." He carefully breaks down that "s" sound comes in the middle, and the "k" sound comes at the end. But some young people even adults and not only African Americans pronounce the word as "ax." It is hard for people struggling to get it right after it has already been apart of their normal speech, because they is all they've heard and what they're used to. The problem here is not that children can't learn the correct way to pronounce the word, but that children get comfortable saying the word incorrectly. The major issue that he raises is that teachers as well as parents aren't correcting children. Breaking this particular language barrier is a huge problem is society. If children never learn the correct way to pronounce words, it is hard for them to change their speech after it has been embedded into their everyday vocabulary. I think this is a common issue because many of us today tend to use slang, but some people speak their "proper english" as if they were talking in slang. I think the problem lies where young people tend to mix up slang and proper english. I, myself use slang but I also understand the difference of slang and proper english. Technology could potentially also have an influence of how students tend to speak. The language students use online could be considered "internet talk" or "slang" and contain a serious of abbreviated words and modified words. For example, online instead of saying "what's up" they may say "whaddup." I believe people of all cultures, classes, and ethnicities use slang but the particular problem here is when people can't make a distinction between the two and it becomes the social norm for them and their peers.