Abstract

I have many anecdotes and experiences that I could tell about how the way I spoke was seen negatively. The reason I am here at this point and writing this piece of literature is to educate and show how BAVE (Black American Vernacular English) is not negative, dumb, or improper. It is just one variety of English that is spoken in the United States. There is a big controversy surrounding BAVE and whether Black Americans should even speak it and only speak Standard English for some reason. The main one is that to be successful in this country, you have to speak Standard English and not speak “black.” The uncomfortable conversation of whether or not students should eliminate their home dialect to succeed in the classroom, land a job, or break stereotypes. While those issues are important, I argue this: Society should embrace BAVE as a choice because it is an aspect of identity, community, and empowerment. I am advocating that Black Americans who speak BAVE accept their choice of their using vernacular dialect instead of trying to mainstream their language, which in the end, will dissolve their history and sense of community. Learning that there is a broad and enriched history behind how you speak every day is lacking in today’s society. Dialect and language, in any form, move beyond putting words together or thinking that there is no structure. There is, in fact, a design and a specific way the language works; otherwise, people would not understand one another. Even the laughs, hand gestures, body movements, all of that is Black English. There is a very beautiful rhythm when we speak together that I want to capture the rawness of that. On the other end of that spectrum, I tried to capture how wonderful and better it is when a person knows how to code-switch and speak more than one dialect. Having a multimodal method, I believe I was able to bring this topic as not only a new light but also in a creative way.