Date:  Thu, 13 Jul 1995 18:11:25 -0800

From:  "Alan S. Kaye" <AKAYE[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CCVAX.FULLERTON.EDU>

Subject: Re: oj trial



Allow me to clarify my recent point on this network and the 2 responses:

I am a pretty good mimic and can imitate quite a few accents. So, too,

are many others. So if I say a sentence or two in AAVE, pronounced

perfectly, or even several sentences, a hearer might conclude that I am

African American. However, I am not, of course. In terms of auditory

phonetics, many people do not have good hearing, and many also have

distorted conclusions based on stereotypes, etc., as Sali Mufwene has

noted. Thus, listening to a few words, on tape, or on the telephone,

or in person, can result in misidentification of race.

Anyone out there who can identify someone's race from his/her speech,

let's put you to the test. It's that simple!

Now, am I missing something or what?



I hope everyone is having a nice summer.

--Alan Kaye--

Linguistics, CSU, Fullerton

akaye[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]fullerton.edu