An Analysis of the Media Coverage in the Course of the Oakland Ebonics Controversy

The United States is characterized by extensive linguistic diversity. One variation of American English has always been at the centre of scholarly research and publications – African American Vernacular English (AAVE). In 1990, the African Americans made up 12 percent of the total population, which corresponds to 39.930.524 people of whom it is estimated that 80–90 percent speak AAVE. Because of its distinctiveness and its omnipresence in music and culture, AAVE has always been of great interest to sociolinguistic scholars. Especially since the “Oakland Ebonics Controversy” in 1996, lively debates about AAVE and the educational crisis facing African American students can be found in public discourses and in the media.

The Oakland School District’s proposal to use Ebonics to help African-American children learn Standard English met with much opposition. Few people supported the Oakland resolution which, backed by the LSA, acknowledged Ebonics as a language variety replete with its own syntax, structure, and grammatical rules. Although the issue of language and educational equity for African American students has been discussed many times before, basic opinions and prejudices of the US American society have not changed.

In the following text, this issue will be examined from two different perspectives. First, an analysis of opinion articles published in two major newspapers will present and argue basic core elements of the media’s critique. Thereafter, the linguists’ response concerning the media debate will be portrayed. Many linguists discussed the subject and critically assessed the way the media dealt with the hotly debated topic and the way it was represented. The crucial question is; why was there such a public outcry, despite the fact that the fundamental issues attending language diversity and education in Oakland differed little from those that language professionals have dealt with for several decades? And secondly, what can be learned from this.