Harris Gonna Code Switch

The New York Times ^ | Aug. 15, 2024, 3:00 p.m. ET | John McWhorter

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Traditionally linguists have bemoaned the fact that the general public knows little of what we do because the subject isn’t taught in schools. But that has changed over the past 20 years or so, as the internet and especially social media have been so effective at getting the word out. I have rejoiced to see the public becoming ever more hip to the fact that language always changes, that you aren’t handicapping your child by raising them to be bilingual, that the way I just used “them” does not spell the fall of our Republic.

Twenty years ago I never thought I would hear the term “code-switching” used as widely as it now is beyond the halls of academe. Code-switching is perhaps best known in reference to alternating between different languages, such as English and Spanish. However, the same concept applies to different dialects of the same language, such as between a standard dialect and a colloquial one. But as glad as I am to see this, my heart sinks at the way people are mocking Vice President Kamala Harris for code-switching according to the audience she is speaking to. Barack Obama attracted criticism for doing the same thing back in the aughts; I hoped we had gotten past this.

Harris does this readily. In an address in Atlanta responding to “Lock him up” calls about Donald Trump, she said, “The courts are gonna handle that,” later working up the crowd by referring in pep-talk style to “Novem-buh.” In a speech in Michigan she mentioned that “We have fun doin’ hard work.” Some of her switching is simply to good old colloquial American — gonna, doin’ — but at other times, especially for heavily Black audiences like the one in Atlanta, she switches into Black English...

[ponygirl]

My favorite was when she shouted, “Fo’ mo’ yehhs!” At some recent rally. The woman is so hardcore fake.

[irishjuggler]

FWIW, it’s pure mythology that the JFK’s audience snickered about his doughnut “mistake.” They didn’t.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-does-everybody-think-jfk-said-im-jelly-donut-180963779/

[ClearCase_guy]

Harris is from Canada? or Jamaica? Doesn’t really matter.

The whole “black English” thing seems like people who have been in the US for 200 to 300 years and still haven’t assimilated. Idiots.

[ponygirl]

I can’t remember who said it on X, but they said, “If Kamala is really black, make her say the N-word just once, so we can know for sure.”

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I ain’t no ways tarred.

[deport]

Harris, of course, will use it to pander.

++++++++

She’d be a fool not to. You speak to a crowd
with things, manners, etc to make them feel a
closeness to you.

[Jonty30]

I saw that being attributed to Kevin Sorbo.

[griswold3]

Aka “cultural appropriation “. No whites allowed

[Vaduz]

Language always changes learn to be bilingual.

I’m sure it’s aimed at all of the illegals huh Moe?.

fail ensues

Many have been here for 20 years and still haven’t.

[dforest]

People were laughing their butts off at her fake black accent.

Sooo, here comes the media to save her day by making it sound like she was really brilliant. LOL

[kawhill]

Code switching, is that like converting Fortran to Cobol to C++ to Java?

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Still, in German, in general, one uses the adjective form, not the noun, to indicate nationality.

Ich bin Amerikaner.

Not

Ich bin ein Amerikaner.

Let’s say, “Ich bin ein Berliner” is somewhat unnatural.

Google translate converts both “I am American” and “I am an American” to “Ich bin Amerikaner.”

[al baby]

And Hawk Tuey

[Niteranger68]

How in the world do they stomach this self-generated level of cringe?

[marktwain]

Pandering to your audience with a badly faked accent is good, you see. Acadame approves.

McWorter and the NYTs are certainly "Pandering" to Harris, the Democratic Party and the Deep State.

But... can you pander to organizations/cultures you are a member of? Most certainly you can.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

I'm with Calpurnia, in To Kill a Mocking Bird. She understands "code switching". Readd the whole thing, it's wonderful writing.

Towards the end of Chapter 12, Jem and Scout are intrigued at the way Calpurnia speaks differently to her community members at church than she does around the house. Scout casually asks Calpurnia why she talks "nigger-talk" to the folks in her community when she knows that it is incorrect. Cal explains to Scout that it would be out of place for her talk like white people in front her black friends. She says, "They'd think I was puttin' on airs to beat Moses". Calpurnia also tells Scout that it is not ladylike to make herself seem more esteemed than others. Cal then explains to Scout that it aggravates people when someone knows more than they do. Instead of trying to showcase her excellent English by articulating each word, Cal finds it better to speak like the rest of her community members so she doesn't upset them.

[Chicory]

Speaking one language to speakers of one language and another to speakers of that language is not code-switching, it is language switching. Speaking urban street to one’s homeboy and speaking mainstream English at a job interview is code-switching.

Putting on bad imitations of accents is not code-switching, it is condescending, as if the people you are speaking to have never been exposed to mainstream English and couldn’t possibly understand it.

There was a Yale study about the way conservative and liberal politicians speak to minority people: turns out the *liberals* change the way they speak — using simpler words for example — and conservative politicians just spoke normally.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article222424675.html

(As a side note, I also dislike it intensely when reporters put on an accent to say names of non-English, or should I say, non-European, places. Thus, Paris, not Paree, but Bo go ta instead of Bo ge tah. Soooo pretentious!

[Chicory]

Yeah, McWhorter is usually more insightful than this. I like him a lot but every so often....

[bigbob]

Like when we used to write time-critical stuff in Assembler?

[NetAddicted]

Code switching is supposed to mean speaking another language, but this doofus is applying it to accents? Good Lord! No wonder kids aren’t learning in school anymore.