Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.06.1970, Page 217

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language must begin a few steps earlier with a study of the
various functions of speech within a society or a community.
I will try to illustrate my point with an example taken
from a community which has some resemblance to the speech
community studied by Bernstein. I am referring to the condi-
tions in the American Negro ghetto. Ulf Hannerz’s detailed
socioanthropological study, Soulside (1969), contains some
important observations on the speech behavior in the ghetto.
Here, as a rule, the men are unskilled manual laborers
(often unemployed), who, though their work may be outside
the ghetto, have far less opportunity to hear, or engage in
speech with, white mainstreamers. On the other hand, the
working ghetto women, who are likely to be waitresses,
domestics, and cleaning women, are employed outside the
ghetto and are more directly exposed to white mainstream
culture and language. Thus, their speech is influenced by
Standard English, while their men are more tied to the ghetto
dialect. The women are also generally the ones who handle
the contacts with the surrounding white society; for instance,
they are in charge of rent payments, bills, and other official
business, and are also more likely to deal with school officials
and social welfare workers. Also, the women are the ones
involved in church organizations.
So, here it would be realistic and natural to record conversa-
tions between Negro women and various members of the
surrounding white society (including field linguists). However,
it would be artificial to put their husbands in the same situa-
tion. That is to say, in this way you could illustrate diíficulties
of the Negro men in a particular speech situation, but this
material could not be used to draw general conclusions or
make evaluations concerning their speech behavior.
It is also a well-known fact that extended conversations
between parents and children occur rarely in the black
ghetto families (with the possible exception of such between
mother and daughter). As meals are not necessarily eaten
together nor at the same time, this opportunity to socialize