Response Question 2 - Aesthetics/Politics of Dialect

In the next week, we will read short stories by Harris and Chesnut and selections for Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.   Each writes dialogue in a style meant to represent a spoken (vernacular) dialect of American English.  What effect do non-standard spelling and other "dialect" features have on you as you read each piece? What differences do you note in the way dialect is conveyed? What accounts for them (author's skill, region, etc.)?  When is it used?   Why is it used (realism, entertainment)?  How would your impressions of characters and the stories themselves differ if the dialect was standardized? An important African-American writer who rejected dialect, James Weldon Johnson, once wrote that the dialect style has only two variations: pathos and comedy. What might he have meant?

Posted 1/27 - Due 2/4