Walt Wolfram Black Children Are Verbally Deprived Summary
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In the chapter 13, Walt Wolfram discussed about the myth “Black children are verbally deprived”. He did not agree to this myth. In this chapter, he firstly talked about the relation between culture and language, and it was obvious that there were culture differences between the black and the white in United State. In the essay, he wrote : “The basis for these language differences is historically, socially, and linguistically very natural and understandable”. Then, he disproved this myth by refusing the reasons or “evidences” that supported this myth one by one. One reason that people usually used to support this myth was the difference of lip size between the black and the white, because the lip size of the black was generally larger than the white. However, there was no scientistic…show more content… What’s more! There were also some white people who had larger lips than many black people. Therefore, this reason could not be a evidence to support this myth. In the scandalized English test, the black children tended to have a lower score than the white children, so some people also believed that this result demonstrated the myth that black children were verbally deprived. Walt had pointed out one fact that this test was established by the white people, and based on their English standard. In such situation, it was unsurprised that black children would get a lower score. If the test was created by the blacks, there might be a opposite result. This test was unfair, so this also could not be a reason for people to support the myth. Some people also said that black parents, especially those in working-class, was not as proactive as the white parents to talk with their children, which leaded to the result that black children were verbally deprived. However, surveys about this indicated that there were still many other ways for children to acquire language, like