Question

In at least 150 words, write at least three statements that analyze Baldwin’s main points, and support your summary with quotes from the essay.

Answer 1

Answer:

Baldwin's work, "If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me What Is" was revolutionary for black culture. He explained how the roots of both American English and Ebonics were fundamentally different, regardless of their subtle similarities. Additionally, he spoke of how a language is used to verify someone's culture or existence, some that validates a group, which American English had failed to do for African Americans. Baldwin makes it obvious that American English does not recognize black people and their role in a predominantly white society, nor does it aid in the cultural development of African Americans. The basis for Baldwin's entire essay is that the question of Ebonics being a language isn't what it appears on the surface, it's about language itself, and, according to Baldwin "Language, incontestably, reveals the speaker. Language, also, far more dubiously, is

meant to define the other--and, in this case, the other is refusing to be defined by a language that has never been able to recognize him," Thus meaning that rather than a dialect, Ebonics is a language in itself.

Explanation:

Answer 2

Three statements that analyze Baldwin's main points in "If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?”

• One of the main points that Baldwin puts forward is that Black English is not considered a proper language not because of semantic reasons, but because of the inferior role that African Americans have in the country.

"The brutal truth is that the bulk of white people in American never had any interest in educating black people, except as this could serve white purposes. It is not the black child's language that is in question, it is not his language that is despised: It is his experience."

• Language is different in various areas because it reflects a different reality. Therefore, although different groups might speak the same language, they will never fully understand each other:

"A Frenchman living in Paris speaks a subtly and crucially different language from that of the man living in Marseilles; neither sounds very much like a man living in Quebec; and they would all have great difficulty in apprehending what the man from Guadeloupe, or Martinique, is saying, to say nothing of the man from Senegal--although the "common" language of all these areas is French. But each has paid, and is paying, a different price for this "common" language, in which, as it turns out, they are not saying, and cannot be saying, the same things: They each have very different realities to articulate, or control. "

• Language is not only a cultural trait, but it can also be an expression of power:

"It goes without saying, then, that language is also a political instrument, means, and proof of power."