Black/Urban English? Is the inability to speak correctly contributeing to unemployment?

I once met a Welsh girl with a really strong Welsh accent.. Do i really sound Welsh to you,?? Aye i replied, She was Embarrassed by what i consider to be a Beautiful accent.

Why anyone would feel embarrassed by there accent is beyond me.

It was Beautiful to listen to this girl. Beautiful red hair to go with the accent. A true Celtic Queen. Unfortunately she had a BF who was a dick.

originally posted by: Soloprotocol

originally posted by: grainofsand
On a related note, people from Glasgow who live years in England and refuse to use correct English words in place of their strong dialect and accent.

When I moved to England aged 16 there were many words I had to repeat because people failed to understand my strong Welsh accent/dialect. I started saying them the 'English' way first time and it became natural.
It is lazy and/or stubborn, and I defy anyone who says Glasgow folk are actually unable to say 'I don't know...' instead of 'I dinnae ken...' bull#.

I was back in Wales at the weekend and lot's of Welsh came out of my mouth, but it is not hard to use correct English when back in England.
Winds me right up, argh, /rant

Glaswegians dont use the term "I Dinnea ken" That would be East lothian east coast speak. Maybe you dont know anyone from Glasgow or Scotland for that matter. ?

I know loads of folk from Scotland living down here, only ones who are my friends though are from Edinburgh, lovely accent and easy to understand.
I've already been corrected about the Glasgee thing but you get my point, East Lothian/wherever, I know loads of Scots who've lived here for years and refuse to adapt their speech. I can hardly understand some at all and avoid conversation with them.
The good thing is though they don't really assimilate in the community either so the 'Scottish pub' in town is ignored by people who speak English, except when England or Wales are playing Scotland in the 6 Nations and I go there with a few mates to take the piss.

Dinnea Ken,???? people have been stabbed for less in Glasgow.

Doesn't surprise me, most of the Glasgow exiles I've met here are aggressive, angry little men with a full bag of chips on their shoulders...again, to be avoided if at all possible lol

The bark is worse than the bite.

a reply to: FormOfTheLord


No the point of the thread is people who dont speak clear English dont get jobs!

It is about if I can understand you. It about the inappropriate use of slang in the work place.

originally posted by: Soloprotocol
The bark is worse than the bite.

Haha, I know, I found that out when I fronted my first aggressive unintelligible 'refuse to speak English' Scot many years ago.
Like I say though, they are easy to avoid as they congregate in the 'Scottish pub' and I only ever go there to watch Wales or England play Scotland in rugby to take the piss with a load of mates.

It's cool because we can't usually even understand their insults lol

Your not laughed at if you don't speak ebonics. That's absurd. Try to spell correctly when making a post about someone's grammar. This thread is a joke!

a reply to: Jahari

Are there communication problems between those speaking ebonics and those speaking the language most commonly used?

I hate to break it to anyone but there have always been huge differences between dialects from different racial and geographical groups. English speakers today share more in common than ever before due to the pervasive effect of media passing along generalized speech patterns. Perhaps schools no longer teach how to diagram sentences or use of prepositions etc but I believe the media has equal if not more influence. People the world over learn English by watching movies and doubtless many can do a pretty good Schwarzenegger or Stallone imitation.

Communication skills are vital in many jobs this is true but when it comes to customer service what you want are those who speak exactly like your customer base - whoever that may be. There's a place for everyone regardless of their slanguage. I for one not only find it interesting but often charming in how similar things can be described so differently in the same language.

What a boring world this will be when everyone speaks exactly the same and all the accents that once gave humanity so much diversity in speech are long forgotten. I prefer to think of such dialects and accents as a positive rather than a negative.

originally posted by: Asktheanimals
I hate to break it to anyone but there have always been huge differences between dialects from different racial and geographical groups. English speakers today share more in common than ever before due to the pervasive effect of media passing along generalized speech patterns. Perhaps schools no longer teach how to diagram sentences or use of prepositions etc but I believe the media has equal if not more influence. People the world over learn English by watching movies and doubtless many can do a pretty good Schwarzenegger or Stallone imitation.

Communication skills are vital in many jobs this is true but when it comes to customer service what you want are those who speak exactly like your customer base - whoever that may be. There's a place for everyone regardless of their slanguage. I for one not only find it interesting but often charming in how similar things can be described so differently in the same language.

What a boring world this will be when everyone speaks exactly the same and all the accents that once gave humanity so much diversity in speech are long forgotten. I prefer to think of such dialects and accents as a positive rather than a negative.

I agree, and language is forever changin.

a reply to: crazyewok

Of course it's a reason!! If someone cannot communicate properly, then they cannot do a job properly. Here in the States, it's the same thing, though likely worse. I handled incoming applications for one place I worked, and would pass them along to the department heads with notes, on appearance, communication, etc. Anyone too questionable, I put in a separate pile. One cannot run a business properly by hiring people who are not capable, and that includes areas of simple communication. Some people will call it "racist", but it isn't. Businesses have a right to hire the best, and not be forced to hire people that will ruin their business.

I can't tell you how many times I have seen bad employees in some places, especially fast food places, because of either hiring quotas, or, more often, the person hiring fits into one group, and hires mostly from that group, regardless of skill and ability. That's for ANY ethnicity, for the record. Hiring on group membership instead of on ability, is flat out bad business. I know of cases when a business wouldn't fire someone who was bad, because of the race of the bad employee, and fears of being sued.

originally posted by: AugustusMasonicus

I received a resume last year and, under experience, the person listed, this is verbatim, 'Helping day customers wit day bags.'

This person, sadly, will never have meaningful employment.

My home schooling kids cringed when hearing that one!! They almost couldn't believe it. Sadly, I can!

originally posted by: Sremmos80
a reply to: seeker1963

I mean that that they south can have almost a completely different dialect, the rural urban areas of the south with heavy accents and just different ways of pronouncing words can be very hard to understand. And that is both black and white.
I agree it is not exclusive to the south though.

As a born Southerner, I do know what you mean. Most, even with an accent, are understandable, though. Some, I agree, are not, to anyone from elsewhere. My husband had a hard time understanding a black girl at a takeout window once, with what I would have called a "typical Southern black accent", no ebonics or anything, but I understood her easily. He tried, but simply couldn't. He even lived many years in the South, in a couple of states. Yet he couldn't understand what she said. I can sound VERY Southern, and do, when really relaxed, but I don't normally speak that way. When we relocated in my Jr. High years, the place we went, though still technically in the South, was very different in speech so I learned to adapt. Anyone can, if they make the effort.

originally posted by: Skid Mark
a reply to: crazyewok
Come to America. You'll find some real winners here.
By the way, I don't think it's a lack of finances that's to blame. I'm poor but am very well spoken.

I have to agree! My family was never rich, either, and was quite poor at times, but my parents still made sure to teach us to read, and we always had books. My own family is far from wealthy, and my kids still learned to read at young ages, have plenty of books, and are well ahead of their level for reading and other subjects. Then again, we home school!

Parents that don't teach their own children are being lazy. My oldest spent years in a single parent household, and she learned, and had plenty of books. How often do we see kids in poor areas with a cell phone, that can't speak properly? The phone and service cost a lot more than books!!

originally posted by: mikemars261
a reply to: OccamsRazor04

You ironically missed the point I was making in that very post. Incredible, considering how short it was. Let me slow it down for you. People will speak as it suits their needs. You may think it's dumbing down but they, on the other hand, wasted far fewer hours of their life learning all the rules of English just so that in the end, they can have the exact same conversation as you.

So, are you claiming it "suits their needs" to speak in a way that virtually guarantees they will be unable to ever hold a decent job? Really?

It IS "dumbing down", and it's bad for everyone but those in control. Learning to speak properly isn't about people having identical conversations; it's about being able to communicate well with one another, to learn, to advance, to function properly in society. When entire cultures choose to not learn and communicate, then members of those cultures have no right to blame anyone but themselves for their failure advance.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: uncommitted

Indeed, language changes, this is true. However, it is upon those of us remaining in possession of a significant vocabulary, to ensure that the language we love for its versatility and accuracy, is not dumbed down to the point where it cannot be used by the population, to achieve the goals set by that population.

When my great, great, great, great grandparents were walking the world, it was not at all uncommon for a person to have only the grasp of the language, or for that matter the education in general, that they specifically needed, to operate the station they had attained for themselves in life. But that was still in an age where one was, largely speaking, born into the position they would retain for the rest of their days, a time when social mobility was a concept for future generations to consider, an amusing notion to be discussed in theory by the select few who had the grasp of language necessary to be able to vocalise the concept in a concise fashion.

Education becoming common place changed all that, and placed knowledge in amongst communities whose members had been prevented from accessing it, by the lowness of their birth, or the emptiness of their pockets, or both. Now, information is a gift that a man or woman of any station, can pass to his or her children, and an education for all children is the product of battles, literal battles to ensure that the working people could educate their children in arithmetic, in reading and writing, and in other things besides. This was what lead rise to true social mobility, and to freedom from an iron clad fate.

To allow our language to backslide, so that once again it becomes the norm for individuals in low paid jobs to have a vocabulary which is limited by their trade, for those people to have children who will never learn anything, and therefore become as immobile as their parents socially... People fought their whole lives, generations of them, to promote balance and fairness, the distribution of education amongst all the social classes, and these people deserve our respect and our appreciation. My ancestors fought for better lives for all of us, more freedom, less oppression, more information and less ignorance. The efforts of some among us to dumb down, to turn up their nose at that gift, a gift fought for so hard, and by so many, are an affront to everything I believe as a working class person, and are an affront to those whose lives have been spent in our service.

Of course, concepts such as these are not easily grasped by those who lack the linguistic experience necessary to understand the English language, as an understanding of history requires a certain familiarity with language, and even very old uses of the language. Which rather makes my point. If you cannot even read history, you are doomed to repeat it.

This deserves repeating, and you hit the nail on the head with your analysis. That people would willingly allow themselves to be less educated, thus reducing or eliminating their chance of success, is appalling to me, on so many levels. As an American, this is a basic issue of freedom. What did we fight for, if people are so willing to just give it away to be "cool"??

originally posted by: crazyewok
I run a small buisness in the south London area. And I have noticed the extreme lack of communication skills among the black community.

I am binning around 8 out of 10 black applicants applications after speaking to them, not due to them being black, but there inability to string a coherent sentence together. In fact I have noticed this "urban" talk in some white candidates too, though not to the same extent, and resulting in equal binned applications.

Why is this?

Surely one must realise that urban "English " is not correct for the work place, interviews and especially not CV's?

Surely one can not expect to be employable with such poor communication skills?

Is this one of the reasons behind current black poverty and unemployment? Has a innercity culture incompatible with the job market established itself?

Is the poor communication skills driving the problems in community integration?


PS
I know it may be rich comings from dyslexic me! But I am not talking missing a letter here or there, useing a comma instead of a full stop or getting the odd i and e round the wrong way on a message board. Im talking barely legible spoken or written English here on CV's and interviews .

It's the opposite. Inter-generational cycles of poverty, a lack of social capital (i.e. in this case professional language passed on), lack of education opportunities, create what you are seeing. The social science research and literature is robust in this regard. Learn it.

a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

". . . lack of education opportunities . . ."
Tell that to a teacher if you want to see someone rip their hair out and run off screaming.

originally posted by: Kester
a reply to: Jahari

Are there communication problems between those speaking ebonics and those speaking the language most commonly used?

Not if you know both. Or just listen.

originally posted by: Kester
a reply to: Jahari

Are there communication problems between those speaking ebonics and those speaking the language most commonly used?

I am pretty sure that is what the thread is about.

originally posted by: Kester
a reply to: Quetzalcoatl14

". . . lack of education opportunities . . ."
Tell that to a teacher if you want to see someone rip their hair out and run off screaming.

Absolutely agreed.
I'm getting sick of people using that lame line about the UK, there are good teachers and schools everywhere in the UK, and even the most under performing schools still have a percentage of students leaving with A's in their GCSE's.
Those students are usually the ones who have supportive and attentive parents.

It is NOT the lack of educational opportunities or poverty, just crappy parenting and kids born of crappy parenting having kids themselves, rinse, repeat.