Sista, Speak! : : Black Women Kinfolk Talk about Language and Literacy / / Sonja L. Lanehart.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Texas Press eBook-Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Lanehart, Sonja L.,
• Place / Publishing House: Austin : : University of Texas Press, , [2021]; ©2002
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (264 p.)

The demand of white, affluent society that all Americans should speak, read, and write "proper" English causes many people who are not white and/or middle class to attempt to "talk in a way that feel peculiar to [their] mind," as a character in Alice Walker's The Color Purple puts it. In this book, Sonja Lanehart explores how this valorization of "proper" English has affected the language, literacy, educational achievements, and self-image of five African American women—her grandmother, mother, aunt, sister, and herself. Through interviews and written statements by each woman, Lanehart draws out the life stories of these women and their attitudes toward and use of language. Making comparisons and contrasts among them, she shows how, even within a single family, differences in age, educational opportunities, and social circumstances can lead to widely different abilities and comfort in using language to navigate daily life. Her research also adds a new dimension to our understanding of African American English, which has been little studied in relation to women.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part One. THE NARRATIVES -- 1. OUR LANGUAGE, OUR SELVES -- 2. MAYA -- 3. GRACE -- 4. REIA -- 5. DEIDRA -- 6. SONJA -- Part Two. THE ANALYSES -- 7. MAYA -- 8. GRACE -- 9. REIA -- 10. DEIDRA -- 11. SONJA -- 12. THE REST OF THE STORY -- Appendix 1. Participants’ Possible Selves Data -- Appendix 2. Participants’ Speech Samples Data -- Appendix 3. Participants’ Language and Literacy Ideologies Data -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index