Black English is the creation of the black diaspora.
Term + my working definition:
Black English = a language formed within the Black diaspora in the U.S., emerging from shared necessity and community, not merely a “dialect.”
Why this matters: Centers origin and legitimacy for concept map.
as designers of meaning, language architects carefully considerhow to work with their own languages and voice for the most successfulcommunication in a specific situation (25).
Term + my working definition:
Language architects = writers who intentionally design with multiple language resources for a given audience/situation.
Why this matters for my theme: Positions students as intentional designers, not error-correctors.
An approach that resists monolingual ideology,translingualism views our different and varied language practices as crit-ical in inquiring, supporting, and sustaining the full range of richness inour voices (Horner and Alvarez).
Term + my working definition:
Translingualism = resisting one-language norms by leveraging the full range of a writer’s language practices.
Why this matters for my theme: It names the orientation that re-frames “academic writing” around plurality.
Code meshing is the new code switching; it’s mulitdialectalism and pluralingual-ism in one speech act, in one paper.
Term + my working definition:
Code meshing = blending dialects/languages/rhetorical styles together in the same utterance or paper.
Why this matters for my theme: It’s the central practice Young advances.
Standard language ideologyis the belief that there is one set of dominant language rules that stem from a singledominant discourse (like standard English) that all writers and speakers of Englishmust conform to in order to communicate effectively.
Term + my working definition:
Standard language ideology = the belief in one dominant, mandatory set of English rules everyone must follow.
Why this matters for my theme: Names the system Young critiques.
Dialect literature questions "sociolinguistic wholeness" (51).
Term + my working definition:
Dialect literature = writing that uses non-standard varieties to challenge the idea of a single, unified “proper” language.
Why this matters for my theme: Supports the claim that Bambara’s AAVE disrupts linguistic hierarchy.
In Toni Cade Bambara's short story, "The Lesson" (1972), the narrator, Sylvia, speaks in African American Vernacular English (AAVE).
Term + my working definition:
AAVE = a vernacular dialect associated with African American communities that carries cultural identity and rhetorical power in the story.
Why this matters for my theme: Establishes AAVE as the story’s linguistic frame and vehicle for meaning.
AAVE also embodies Sylvia's and Bambara's ability to question their society and to resist pressure to conform to the dominant culture.
Term + my working definition:
AAVE = a vernacular dialect associated with African American communities that carries cultural identity and rhetorical power in the story.
Why this matters for my theme: Establishes AAVE as the story’s linguistic frame and vehicle for meaning.
That’s why we have a standardized language in the first place.
Term + my working definition:
Standardized language = shared norms that enable mutual understanding across diverse dialect users.
Why this matters for my theme: It grounds the claim that SAE reduces cross-audience miscommunication.
The word “standard” here is not prescriptive. It does not refer to a flag we must all salute. Rather, it simply describes accepted norms — in this case, accepted in the workplace by college-educated professionals.
Term + my working definition:
Standard American English = the accepted workplace dialect among college-educated professionals.
Why this matters for my theme: It frames SAE as pragmatic convention, not moral superiority.
paradigmatic
I was not sure what this term meant in this context. After looking the term up on google, the definition that seems to fit is the denotation of the relationship between a set of linguistic items that form mutually exclusive choices in particular syntactic roles.
marking.
"Whenever a person delineates a cultural boundary around a particular cultural space in human time"
discursive
Def. adjective
antanaclasis
vertiginous