>Wardine be cry.
What did he mean by this?
Wardine be cry.
Wardine be cry.
>>7831322
Checked, verified and confirmed.
>>7831322
CHECKED
>>7831322
FUCKING CHEEEEEEEEEEECKED!
>>7831322
toasting in an epic bread
Wardine be cry.
>>7831286
He's just trying to emulate an AAE dialect and failing, because black people don't use the verb "be" followed by a verb unless it's a gerund or participle, so basically he's either a racist or dumbass.
Either way, he's generally just saying Wardine was crying. Nothing other than that, you faggot.
>>7831389
see, he's being ironically a dumbass here
>>7831506
Oh I get it cuz he's a stupid nigger right lol xd
>>7831530
Yes.
>>7831530
not sure what this means
Anybody else really dislike Infinite Jest? The entire book was a pain in the ass to read and none of the characters were really likeable, the story actually got pretty sappy and cliche at times, and overall it felt like Wallace was to impress his smart friends rather than write a piece of work that he actually cared about
stupid fucking autismo book
>>7831562
Everyone who isn't a pleb feels the same way. Praising it is a meme.
>>7831563
not praising it is also a meme
pleb/patrish is a spook
>lol i speak for everyone who's worth a damn
kys immediately
>>7831562
Nope. I loved all the characters, and I had really low expectations for everything in the book. So everything I fell in love with was quite by accident.
In fact, I probably didn't experience immediately the it was meant to be, because at first it was pretty much aesthetic for me, loving the characters as much as I had. Especially Mario, thay faggot broke my fucking heart.
>>7831389
>>7831506
In all fairness most of you weren't old enough back then to know how black people talked. They sure as hell didn't say shit like "heated" and "on fleek".
On the other hand, it's set in the future, so perhaps he was trying to imagine the new ebonics.
Sorry for the rationality. Digress back to your howls of "meme author meme author couldn't get into the book too hard omg so pretentious people like this?!?!?!?!?!??????!!?!?!"
>>7831595
Which is to say he assumed ebonics would digress into a much less sophisticated dialect.
>>7831666
And he was right, Santa.
>>7831680
But he also predicted the demise of broadcast tv, fag.
>>7831699
Broadcast TV is dying as we speak.
>>7831286
*What he meen bah dis?
>>7831286
DFW thought he understood AAVE without consulting any African Americans
A very /lit/ black dude I know ironically pinned the first page of the Wardine chapter onto his cubicle wall
DFW mistook the AAVE "be" to mean is, a common mistake. He also, bizarrely, assumed poor black people drop present-tense verb suffixes, but this literally never happens
>>7831562
>pain in the ass to read
"I don't enjoy reading"
>none of the characters were really likeable
"I judge writing based on whether it makes me feel good"
>Wallace was to impress his smart friends rather than write a piece of work that he actually cared about
He was.
>>7831562
>Wallace was to impress his smart friends rather than write a piece of work that he actually cared about
Why not both famalam
>>7831666
On what grounds do you have to say it's less sophisticated? I think he assumed the future would have hypersegregation and therefore increased dialectical shift.
What about the Bostonian-heroin-addicts also-all-in-""slang"" chapters? How are those not also as "offensive" or is just because those are low income whites and not low income blacks.
lol ya some languages are more sophisticated than others guys totes!
maybe .. a white man.. in the 90s.. was racist... in ways he wasnt aware of ! !
>>7833176
I know linguists hate this idea but I have never understood why there couldn't be more or less sophisticated languages. Especially literary languages, the people creating and using them essentially spend all their time reading and writing, why wouldn't there be greater sophistication than in the language of a people who are mostly occupied with other tasks?
>>7833246
The central question is defining sophistication. Semantic variation or semantic specificity, convoluted or concise grammar, any combination of those. Sometimes one or two words do the trick, sometimes you need a really complex sentence structure.
>>7833246
some people spend their time reading and writing, and others spend it talking and listening. linguistic competence isn't born out of the medium, writing isn't superior to speaking. Less than half the world's languages have a written form. writing has a profound influence on culture but it's p ethnocentric to suggest the written word is superior to the spoken word.
this has become a digression but the point's that difference between languages are just differences, and all languages are necessarily equivalent when it comes to communicating effectively
>>7833284
>>7833274
I'm asking why it's 'necessarily equivalent'. And why are written and spoken forms equivalent? And why does it matter if it's ethnocentric?
And the point was that one people would spend more time focused on creating the language, I was thinking specifically of aristocrats for the obvious reason that they could devote all their time to developing it being as they don't have to do anything else.
If different societies can have different levels of complexity why is the same impossible for language? Surely the correct perspective is 'until we can define sophistication more precisely we don't know if some languages are more sophisticated'.
I don't see why they should all be equal when it comes to communication, what reason is there for that?
I'm not too much of an avid reader but I'd really like to read Infinite Jest. Should I just go out and buy it or will everything go over my head?
>>7833324
It has vague similarities to Kafka, Dostoevsky, and Pynchon (this one the least, but still), and it references Hamlet in particular a whole bunch. But really just go ahead and trudge through it anyway. You can re-read (which you will inevitably want/have to do anyway) it later.
>>7833343
Kafka and Dostoevsky?
>>7833324
IJ isn't very difficult. Time consuming, yes. Some parts might fly over your head (I doubt there's anyone who completely understands every single aspect of a 1200 pg novel), but it's relatively simple to follow.
>>7833318
they're necessarily equivalent because all languages arise from and adapt to the same needs and competence.
I didn't mean to give the impression that written and spoken forms are equivalent. Writing is an imperfect representation of language.
I'm not sure what you mean by aristocrats creating/developing language. Different classes certainly affect the language of other classes in different ways, but it seems like you're suggesting language is developed top-down socially, which is an oversimplification. I'm not really sure, but you also might be misunderstanding the relationship between written and spoken words within a language? It's not uncommon for writing to influence speaking but the trend is overwhelmingly in the opposite direction.
idk how to address the third bit meaningfully without a reasonable definition of complexity, but my initial interpretation would respond that societies don't have different levels of complexity.
I think I already covered the last point but if I didn't I'll gladly expand.
This is an important conversation and I'm not the best advocate for my position so please don't attribute any of my flaws to others.
>>7833394
>any of my flaws
including but not limited to repeating your third point in responding to it lol
>>7833394
>they're necessarily equivalent because all languages arise from and adapt to the same needs and competence.
I don't think this is true, a hunter gatherer society does not have the same needs as an industrial capitalist republic. As for competence the individual human likely has the same innate ability but their social development might differ vastly, and this could influence the development of the language.
>I'm not sure what you mean by aristocrats creating/developing language
Simply an aristocratic class developing a language among themselves over the course of a few centuries, out of the surrounding dialects. High German is an example, ancient classical chinese is another. The only examples we know of are obviously written ones, literary languages.
>language is developed top-down
I wasn't saying this, but there might be some degree of truth to it, or to the opposite idea.
>societies don't have different levels of complexity
I am defining social complexity by number of types of specialization, size, incorporation and creation of technology, and levels of hierarchy, among other things. Societies definitely differ in this respect.
>>7833433
>High German
>High Ger·man
noun
the standard literary and spoken form of German, originally used in the highlands in the south of Germany. The establishment of this form as a standard language owes much to the biblical translations of Martin Luther in the 16th century.
>>7833433
I think the core of our disagreement is that you seem to be conflating what a person does talk about with what they can talk about? An individual's culture, development, experiences, etc. will of course influence their language but not in any way that makes it more 'complex' than another. If two different languages' speakers talk about different things in different ways that says a lot more about the speaker than the language, no? It wouldn't change the potential for each language to express the same thought.
>>7833585
for clarity that last bit should probably read "the potential for each _speaker_ to express the same thought"
>>7831562
>none of the characters were really likeable
>as criticism of a book
Why don't you make like a Walrus and belt up, lad?
So, I get what it means, but what purpose do you guys think that passage served, thematically? Because I'm a moron and I'm a bit stumped.
>>7833172
you have a misunderstanding of what ebonics is, but it's ok it's probably the fault of society not you personally. educate yourself nigga
