Developing Work 2a

For this task, I chose to explore some details in blogs.bet.com because in my mind it is easier to identify how AAVE appropriate in due to those kind of websites' popular and casual characteristics. At the first glance, the homepage are dazzling and informative. There are plenty of various information (eg. video, music, news and on tv etc.) and categorizing specifically (each column has specified into many tiny section, such as news contains news main, blogs, be heard, features and photos). In brief, it is really hard for me to start the exploration without finding out my assignment target from the tremendous information bowl. However, after a short period of time, I find it is not as difficult as I thought if I look specifically for some AAVE features like some Afrocentric words and distinctive notation mark usage, which we have discussed in last task. Consequently, I decide to explore more in "Hip Hop Vs America" section since it seems to be more controversial in my view which could release some inner facts to me. Thus, to help me understand and identify the appropriation of AAVE.

First of all, like Adam J. Banks said in Taking Black Technology Use Seriously that "charts divided into rooms based on interests" and "Nor do users have to wander around the site aimlessly in order to discover its content or get involved or connected with other Planet members, a connection that is one of the site's main goals". And this is what I want to say about "Hip Hop Vs America" section whose subtitle "the hip hop community weighs in on real issues!" tells us the main connection that people in this chart room share both interests in hip hop and real issue. Generally, it is one of the most fundamental factors of forming an online group and prerequisite of incorporating different language usage on website.

Additionally, based on previous idea, we could explore more specific example of how AAVE's features appropriate in website. Likewise, Banks stated in his book that "Given the fact that most attention paid to African American language and discourse in Composition has focused around AAVE or Ebonics-the grammatical, phonological, and semantic features of African American English" but "what's fascinating about BlackPlanet, for me, is the degree to which users have written an oral tradition into cyberspace". This is the same idea for me to explore and comprehend "Hip Hop Vs America". In fact, there are really very few direct grammatical feature of AAVE in this space. Instead, many sentences contain the features which Bank mentioned in his book-"tonal semantics" and "sermonic tone". "Tonal semantics" refers to the ways that intonation in a word or a phrase,different spelling of a word and typographic features can change initial meaning . For example, in "Hip Hop Vs America" sentences such as "barack obama did it so why not u do it right. WRONG u had to pick this nigg", "no entiendo naaaada jajajaj", and "Plies is Soo Fine!!! then its T.I.!!!!!!! plies is my baby".(Because I have never encountered Ebonics before, I could not explain these sentences' meaning to you). Moreover, "sermonic tone" refers to the ways in which plain statement are given a "gravity"-the speaker's emotion or "can be like a hyperbolic parable or fable, but without any story to illustrate its moral". For instance, a paragraph in "Hip Hop Vs America":

"AMEN!!! I agree with everything Vinne said except the reference to the Jay-Z and Beyonce. People need more tangible models-people they can, not only see, but touch, converse with, and hear CLOSE UP. That is more realistic. We need to stop living our dreams through Hollywood images. Jaze-Z and Beyonce are Hollywood illusion. Nothing against them as people of performers, but not everyone will reach the Carter-knowles celebrity and financial status. The obsessive longing for these lavish riches is what has destroyed us as a people. The people, our people need the "everyday brother and sister to be our best example model."

In this excerpt, the speaker initially want to identifies himself as someone share the interests with the poster in political issues about the step up of African American people. However, through his whole comments, he becomes an exhorter, attempting to foster a different kind of conversation in order to persuade people to choose their example model wisely. His voice takes on the sermonic tone, with the interesting adjustment for opinion. His particular voice in this paragraph is a hybrid of formal and informal register: the best example of this is the sentence:" People need more tangible models-people they can, not only see, but touch, converse with, and hear CLOSE UP."

Last but not least, those ideas I explored before are just some representative but tiny parts of the language integrating field, which means there are still a lot of things remaining to be discovered. Furthermore, the exploration also reveal a fact that we should not only narrowly focus on grammatical part of a language when analysing it, but also pay more attention to its actual application and context environment.