Style over substance

[jmc_bks]

I meant to blog about this the other day, right after it happened, but other things distracted me until now. We had a guest speaker at our board meeting, a student. Her school was closed and relocated to space in a church; the classrooms are drywall only and not really set up to be a place for educating 150 people. She decided it would be a more hospitable place (and students would be more engaged) if they could paint the walls, do murals, etc. So she picked up the phonebook and started calling places and eventually got in touch with the nonprofit close to my heart. On her own, with help from our director, she has applied for grants from various foundations and other organizations and has received ~$4,000 funding for painting murals on the walls of her school. This is a pretty awesome thing for a 16 year old to be doing, especially one who has a lot of not great stuff going on at home from what I gather.

Where am I going with this? Well, the entire time I was listening to her speak and being impressed by her vision and drive, I was cringing because of the style of presentation. Even discounting the normal uhs, likes, etc. of average teenage speech, the presentation was still very poor. Transposition of consonants (aks for ask), subject and verb disagreement (they was), ain’t all over the place, slurring and indistinct pronunciation, etc. Part of it was nervousness, I know, and lack of any training in public speaking. But ouch. Really. Because if I was a funder, I would not be willing to give money for paint and supplies; I would want to invest in some grammar text books and some sort of elocution instructor. I know they aren’t a high priority in a lot of schools, given the teaching to testing that goes on in my local school system, but simple debate and presentation skills could be integrated into assignments and various subjects in school. Not to sound too old fashioned or "back in my day....", but they were when I was in school.   I remember Mr. S making us learn debate skills when doing compare/contrast papers.  And Sra. P de O drilling us on presentation skills in Research Seminar, then making us "flip" our research and then present orally the side/argument most contrary to our theses. 

I guess this means I’m impressed by style over substance and am a shallow, shallow person. :sigh: It’s hard to divorce the two sometimes.

Comments

[dogzzz2002.livejournal.com]

Is 'aks' or as I hear it 'ax' a cultural thing or is it a new slang?

We did have to do some public speaking (just speeches) which were horrifying when I was young (panic attacks) but it would have been nice to be taught the way of debate and logic. The only time I was pressed to do something I thought was out of the norm (and thus cool) was to take a political topic and argue the merits of the view that opposes your own beliefs. I swear, since then I can almost always see both sides of a story. I think this is something every child and hell, adult should be made to do.

Other than that, no public speaking lessons or debating. It sounds like this young girl doesn't have the opportunity for a solid education but I hope that she makes it.

CindyS

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

Aks/ax is (I think) fairly common in American English dialects, and may be a carry over from older English as a non-standard pronunciation...or so my copy of Language Awareness tells me.

My discomfort stems from the fact that most of the things that made me cringe are recognized language patterns in Black English Vernacular (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_English_Vernacular). BEV (aka Ebonics) is recognized among linguists as a dialect of American English and attempts to correct it carry a lot of freight -- is it correct for the white mainstream to force black people to speak mainstream English? Is it appropriate for me as a listener to judge a speaker for not speaking mainstream English if s/he is speaking a valid dialect? And does it make a difference if I feel the same way when listening to a speaker of any other dialect of North American English (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_English_dialects#North_America), regardless of the color of her/his skin?

[(Anonymous)]

Ah, yes, I do see what you mean. I have also judged those who say 'aks' (I have heard it used by both black and white) as uneducated/poor and didn't realize it was a recognized dialect.

In another sense, have you seen the movie Fargo? I couldn't watch it to it's ending because it was just too much for me. For the first 30 minutes I wondered if it was supposed to be a comedy because of the way Macy was speaking. I have to say I had never heard that accent (?) before and was judging his speech as comedic. It was only after watching most of the movie that I realized that the actors were speaking in a real accent (hmmm, are accent and dialect the same thing?).

Also, judging someone by their speech is hardly a new thing. I have British friends who can explain the different dialects and what they say of the person. It is human nature to look at the whole person and make a judgement even when rationally we know it is wrong. And as much as I enjoyed Steve Irwin I really did think his enuciation was over done for showmanship when in reality he probably spoke that way all the time.

CindyS

Fargo

[jmc-bks.livejournal.com]

I love the movie Fargo! I think Macy's accent was a little exaggerated, but not by too much. One of my roommates in college dated a guy from North Dakota -- I'd never heard such round "ohs" before. The Chemist went to school at the South Dakota School of Mining and Engineering and picked up a bit of the "oh", too.