Language and Life Project, North Carolina State University
Produced and Directed by Neal Hutcheson and Danica Cullinan
Executive Producer Walt Wolfram, former Chair, CAL Board of Trustees
Talking Black in America showcases the history and symbolic role of language in the lives of African Americans and highlights its tremendous impact on the speech and culture of the United States.
Linguistic discrimination continues to affect speakers of African American language in overt and insidious ways. For example, language is a common means of housing discrimination (view video). In school contexts, the link between dialect, educational achievement, and literacy is widely misunderstood by the public and by professionals in a number of allied fields (read more here).
The documentary addresses the persistent misinformation about African American speech and situates the dialect as an integral part of the historical and cultural legacy of all Americans.
Learn more about Talking Black in America.
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