Hyperwhites

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:36 pm

It'd be very difficult to teach the slang that is being used right now because it's mutating all the time. By the time you'd researched it and pinned it down, it'd be different.

"Cool" is positively prehistoric by slang standards. It originated during the jazz culture of the late 1930s, but every generation since has embraced it as its own.

The inherent attraction of slang is in each generation's opportunity to shape its own lexicon. Why deny that opportunity to nonnative students wanting to be a part of something they recognise as their foreign peers? One should at least try to find a way to accommodate such students.

As I said, I think that most teachers' resistance to helping students learn slang is based on the restrictions that teacher may be under from higher-up, the teachers own language preferences or feelings of inadequacy, and/or the fear that one may be teaching a degraded form of language.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 6:51 pm

Maybe you're more down with the kids than me, metal.

I'm not down with civil engineers, lawyers, corporate bankers, Catholic bishops, footballers and football managers, ambassadors, etc. but I teach them every day. They need a lot of "jargon" and much technical langauge, I help them research and master such language. To me, the challenge of doing similar with a bunch of teens wanting to imitate their foreign peers is a welcome challenge. I don't call such people wannbees, or judge their reasons for wanting to learn such langauge, but you do judge them.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:03 pm

"Dang! I haven't seen you in a minute, girl, where you been?"

No, but it's better to be cautious at first.

Another personal opinion?

You imply there's one "community" of people who don't speak SE.

Did you see the quotes around the word community? Do you think there is one community of Standard English speakers?

However, I for one haven't exactly been inundated with students wanting to know how to sound cool in Brooklyn.

With your attitude toward slang, that doesn't surprise me.

Go over to Urban Dictionary and try to guess how much of the language up there is current.

Go over to teen chat sites and find out. Don't be such a teachy teacher needing to rely on dictionaries to give you all the answers.

Or do you really consider yourself so down with it you can teach any current dialect of English?

What do you mean by "teach"?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:15 pm

In a time where so few are willing to 'keep up' with the ever-changing landscape of youth culture, Fred & Jonathan help us decipher many of the slang's, slogans and crazy sayings that our youth use to communicate. What's a Fo'Sheezy is an innovative resource that will get teens talking.

http://www.thesource4ym.com/BookSlanguage.asp

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 7:47 pm

metal56 quoting the advertising blurb verbatim wrote:In a time where so few are willing to 'keep up' with the ever-changing landscape of youth culture, Fred & Jonathan help us decipher many of the slang's, slogans and crazy sayings that our youth use to communicate. What's a Fo'Sheezy is an innovative resource that will get teens talking.

Why don't you give us your own opinion of this "innovative resource". Have you actually read it?

Don't be such a teachy teacher needing to rely on dictionaries to give you all the answers.

Now you're just being a prat. I love the way you just assume you know how everyone else here works. And, of course, it must be wrong if they don't share your principles.
BTW I was referring to www.urbandictionary.com , not a printed dictionary.

What do you mean by "teach"?

What do you mean by that FFS? Funny how when you're on shaky ground you always come out with a "what do you mean by..." and hope noone will notice what you're up to. Regular posters here know you far too well to fall for that old one.

When you actually can be bothered to produce an argument, I'll be waiting. Carry on blustering like that and I'll do my bit to ensure this thread sinks.[/url]

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 8:18 pm

Why don't you give us your own opinion of this "innovative resource". Have you actually read it?

No. Why should I have?

I love the way you just assume you know how everyone else here works.

Just two or three of you, that's all.

And, of course, it must be wrong if they don't share your principles.

Not wrong, but probably undertrained.

BTW I was referring to www.urbandictionary.com , not a printed dictionary.

I know. My comment still stands. Look wider.

Funny how when you're on shaky ground you always come out with a "what do you mean by..." and hope noone will notice what you're up to.

Not at all. I asked that question because you keep reverting to the same comments. I told you many times that one can help create an environment where the learning and mastering of slang can take place. If you call that teaching, it's fine by me. If you call teaching "knowing everything beforehand", I don't teach in that way.

And funny how you revert to comments such as this "Now you're just being a prat." when you cannot produce evidence that native speakers would be offended by a nonnative's attempts at slang.

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 8:49 pm

This thread is pants for sure. I agree that it should sink - just make sure you don't go down with the "Cap'n"!

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:00 pm

fluffyhamster wrote:This thread is pants for sure. I agree that it should sink - just make sure you don't go down with the "Cap'n"!

Aw, does Fluffy want nasty Metal to go away?

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 9:08 pm

25 teaching and teacher training years down the line I'm noticing an increase in teachers and trainees who insist on teaching a superstandard in their classrooms and an increase in forumites who support the learning of such a form. I despairingly ask myself what happened.

Superstandard:

Superstandard English contrasts linguistically with Standard English in
its greater use of “supercorrect” linguistic variables: lexical formality, carefully articulated phonological forms, and prescriptively standard grammar.
It may also go beyond traditional norms of prescriptive correctness, to the
point of occasionally over-applying prescriptive rules and producing hypercorrect forms.

http://www.linguistics.ucsb.edu/faculty ... LA2001.pdf

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:56 pm

Your hysteria is hysterical, metal. Go harangue some genuinely bad teachers for a change.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:12 am

fluffyhamster wrote:Your hysteria is hysterical, metal. Go harangue some genuinely bad teachers for a change.

So you haven't noticed that push from many teachers toward a superstandard?

lolwhites · Post by **lolwhites** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:15 am

I'm noticing an increase in teachers and trainees who insist on teaching a superstandard in their classrooms and an increase in forumites who support the learning of such a form.

Nobody here is advocating a superstandard. If you want to harangue someone who does, I suggest you look elsewhere.

metal56 · Post by **metal56** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 5:41 am

lolwhites wrote:
Nobody here is advocating a superstandard.

And nobody has said they are. Does that mean we can't discuss the phenomenon?

fluffyhamster · Post by **fluffyhamster** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 8:56 am

The only example of hypercorrection that I can recall is that 'didn't used to' business, which only one person actually seemed to be in favour of; but at least he had the decency to not resort to cheap shots like 'You're undertrained' (yeah, like we learn so much only from you, or should).

jotham · Post by **jotham** » Wed Aug 29, 2007 11:31 am

That's not hypercorrection.