DW1b

The passage I am choosing to analyze is that from First Lessons, by Keith Gilyard. It is the passage from when his mother beats him for being home late from school, and I think it shows an interesting contradiction between my life and practices in comparison to Keith Gilyard's. The passage reads, "Haven't I told you about not coming straight home from school?" "Ma we had a substitute. We had a substitute Ma and she didn't know what time to let us out. I ran all the way home." "Boy don't tell me that barefaced lie. I'll take the skin off your backside for lyin to me." "But I ain't lyin Ma. I ain't." "Shut up boy! Ain't no teacher can keep no class late like that."

In this passage, Keith arrives home late from school, which his mother has warned him plenty of times about doing. However, the reason he is late is not because he was goofing off, but because a substitute teacher let the class out later than she was supposed to. Still, his mother refuses to believe this story that he tells her, so she proceeds to beat him anyway. The interesting thing that someone can notice about this passage, is that Keith and his mother both begin their dialogue using Standard English, but by the end of it, the tension and fear built up in the two of them cause them to use their more comfortable dialect of Black English. For example, Keith's mother at first says, "Boy don't tell me that barefaced lie" when he explains himself, but then uses a double negative and "ain't" when she says, "Ain't no teacher can keep no class late like that." Arguments are a particular situation in which most people are not so much thinking about how they convery a point, but rather that they convey the point strongly and confidently, so they often do so in the dialect or way of speech most comfortable to themselves.

The reason I chose the quote, is really because in my literary narrative, I also use a dialogue between my mother and I that is a type of argument. Besides the argument being between a little kid and his mother in comparison to a young adult and his mother, there are some other more interesting differences. Although changing dialects to Black English may only apply to some African American families, it is very common that people would change their dialects during arguments as I said earlier. However, the change that I exihibit while arguing with my mother is actually the exact opposite of Keith's situation. I instead begin to use a diction far above what I normally use, and have a more serious and flat tone. In my opinion, arguments are won by the person who remains calm and consistently brings the most supporting evidence to his or her side. My mother argues in the exact same way, so throughout our argument, we are just trying to one up the other without losing our tempers, lest the other retort with, "Well you're the one getting all worked up over this. Why don't you calm down?" I may not argue this way with my friends, however since my mother raised me to rely on logic and wits, as well as to always try to keep my temper, around her I follow these values (as does she).

Even though this may seem to be completely different than Keith's dialogue, it actually isn't exactly. I do use Standard English even during the argument, however I use a diction that is very uncommon for my everyday dialect. Therefore, we both still undergo a change in our dialects when we are in stressful situations. A lot of how our dialects change though, really has to do with who we are arguing with. For example, I'm pretty sure Keith and I argue in completely different ways with our friends. Keith would most likely begin the argument in Black English if it was an African American friend of his, and I might possibly swear or make jokes if I were to get into an argument with my friends. It really is interesting to see how a dramatic change in one's emotions can really affect how he speaks and presents himself.