@roger,
Quote:Do you claim not to read cursive at all, and also claim to write letters in what would have to seem a foreign language to you?
When I was in high school, my best friend and I would often write letters for an elderly woman who could not read or write cursive. The woman, an immigrant, was able to print in a language other than English, but, even in printing the characters of that language, her fine motor coordination was poor and her handwriting was not always legible. When she received letters written in cursive, she needed us to read them to her. She had no problems understanding or speaking English, or other languages. And she could print in English if she had to.
So, this woman would dictate her letters to us, and we would take them down verbatim, in cursive, without altering them in any way. They were her letters--she authored them. We would read the letters back to her, and, if there were any changes or corrections, she made them. It would have been foolish to say they weren't her letters in every way, except for the handwriting.
So I don't find it all that odd that Rachel Jeantel couldn't read cursive but sent a letter written in cursive to Martin's mother.
Also, I read this--something I also just heard another professor discussing on CNN
Quote:Linguists who study African American Vernacular English (AAVE) — also called Ebonics — recognize all the features in Rachel Jeantel’s speech, including John Rickford, a professor of linguistics at Stanford University...
Khalil Gibran Muhammed, the director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture at The New York Public Library, said that scrutinizing Jeantel’s language is really about class and power.
She might be subjected to even higher scrutiny by African-Americans, Muhammed said, because she is expected to be representing the black community. And speaking “proper” English is bound up with black respectability.
“She [Jeantel] used a lot of the classic features of African-American English, which you can find spoken especially by working-class African-Americans almost every day. I don’t think most of these caused active problems of understanding in the courtroom, But I think they probably affected the jury’s and the public’s ability to respect and believe her testimony and relate to her. Relatability is very important.”
http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2013/06/28/n-word-language
The nature of that letter that Jeantel sent to Martin's mother was very sensitive and important to Jeantel, because it was about the death of that woman's son. Jeantel may have wanted it to be not only a very "proper" letter, in terms of the words/speech used (i.e. written in proper English, not African-American English), but she may have wanted it to look like a "proper" letter by having it written in cursive--and for that she needed help.
Trayvon Martin's mother acts and sounds like a very "proper" African-American woman, and Jeantel doesn't, and that may have also affected Jeantel's decisions about that letter, the language in it, how it was written, etc.--Jeantel might have been concerned about offending this "proper" woman, even inadvertently with her letter.
In court, that first day, Jeantel obviously wasn't concerned with appearing "proper". She was actually refreshingly natural. She conducted herself more appropriately the next day. I found her authentic and credible. But I'm familiar with young people who sound and act like Jeantel. I have no idea how she affected the jurors.
