Racial Vernacular

Racial Vernacular

  • Submitted By: tgray18
  • Date Submitted: 11/09/2008 3:40 PM
  • Category: English
  • Words: 1165
  • Page: 5
  • Views: 1

Racial Vernacular
Every culture has its own groups, some big some small; however all of the groups have their own distinct way of communicating, acting, and living. This is what separates these groups from the norm. These groups have one certain thing in common. Sometimes it’s race, or a very unique interest, like body modification or biker groups. In all these groups communication is different from others. When a racial group speaks in another vernacular, it means that they are separating themselves from the mainstream culture. As Savan points out in her essay “What’s Black, Then White, and Said All Over”, “Black language may have been the single most important factor in shaping generations of American slang…” (Savan 184). Even though African Americans created their own slang to isolate themselves from pop culture, they actually improved and changed pop culture into what it is today. Language plays a role of individualism in a racial conflict. By giving these groups a unique characteristic away from others, the groups feel like they are independent.
Languages are sometimes shared by people of different backgrounds, however sometimes this is the only thing connecting these people. In Hedges essay “The Myth of War” he states that the Serbs, Bosnians, and Croats have nearly identical spoken tongue; however they purposely changed the language to declare their own individual language (Hedges 141). These cultures shared many interests and traditions, until they were plagued by war and hate for each other. This had an immediate effect on the citizens of these war torn areas. They tried all ways to break themselves free from the normal culture that they were used to that the president of Croatia made new laws that would give fines to anyone that would speak “words of foreign origin” (Hedges 141). This conflict in Eastern Europe caused political and communicational turmoil. Each country thought that anyone who didn’t speak the same language or dialect...

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