Speaker Encourages Ebonics
Des Moines, Iowa (Feb. 27, 1997)-- Ebony means black and phonic means speech sounds. Put these words together and you have what Robert Williams calls Ebonics.
"The purpose of a language is to communicate, Ebonics is a language," said Williams, founder of the term Ebonics. "It is something that children learn in the home by parents and grandparents." Williams spoke in Sheslow Auditorium as a part of Black History month.
Williams got his master's degree at Wayne State University in psychology and received his Ph.D from Washington University in clinical psychology. In 1973 during a conference regarding the meaning of the black language, Williams coined the term Ebonics.
Ebonics came into the media in 1996, when the Oakland, Calif. school board recognized Ebonics as a language and incorporated it into the school system.
Ebonics is something that children have been punished and scolded for in school, said Williams. When a person's language is criticized so is the person, Williams said.
Williams said he felt IQ tests were not really an accurate way of measuring intellect. He used code switching as an alternative way of testing children. An example of code switching would be taking a phrase like "identify where the crib is in this picture" to "identify where the baby bed is in this picture." The idea behind code switching, he said, is that objects have different several different meanings. An African-American child might see the first sentence and look for an apartment yet with some rewording the child will understand what the question asks. The idea is that different cultures understand what the object is but label it differently, Williams said.
"The basic issue we need to deal with here is the academic underachievement of African-American students." Williams said.
Can we provide a world class quality education to students and how do we do this were some questions Williams posed. Williams said he feels that Ebonics should be used as a tool to help bring African-American students up to standard.
Ebonics can be dated back to slavery. Slave masters did not permit slaves to attend
school. The slaves developed a broken standard language, and the slaves' children modified and carried on the language, Williams said.
The overall goal in acknowledging Ebonics it to get students to master standard English. "Ebonics is not teaching down to the students... if you do not connect with the students, they get left behind," Williams said.
"Ebonics is not solely an issue related to black children but any non-standard English speaking children," Williams said. Williams said he feels it is important to develop a bilingual program that recognizes Ebonics and offers instruction in standard English. African-Americans need to be able to speak, read and write to survive in this competitive, Williams said.
Williams has retired been for about four year from teaching at Washington University.
© 1997 CyberPress Communications, School of Journalism and Mass Communications, Drake University 50311.
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