True to the Language Game ─ African American Discourse, Cultural Politics, and Pedagogy

In True to the Language Game, Keith Gilyard, one of the major African American figures to emerge in language and cultural studies, makes his most seminal work available in one volume. This collection of new and previously published essays contains Gilyard’s most relevant scholarly contributions to deliberations about linguistic diversity, cultural identity, critical literacy, writing instruction, literary texts, and popular culture. The volume also features contemporary treatises on such timely topics as "students’ right to their own language," code-switching pedagogy, and political discourse surrounding the rise of Barack Obama. Gilyard weaves together serious analysis, theoretical work, policy discussions, and personal reflections on the interplay of language, literacy, and social justice to make True to the Language Game essential reading for students and scholars in rhetorical studies, composition studies, applied linguistics, and education.

Keith Gilyard is Distinguished Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, and an eminent scholar in African American studies. Specific areas of expertise include AAVE, rhetoric and composition, literature, sociolinguistics, pedagogy, and poetry. He is a former Chair of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) and will be the centennial president of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) starting November 2011.

Part One: Linguistic Principles. 1: From Voices of the Self. 2: Playing with the Patterns. 3: On My Disciplinary Birth. 4: Language Learning and Democratic Development. 5: One More Time for Professor Nuruddin. 6: It Ain’t Hard to Tell: Distinguishing Fact from Fallacy in the Ebonics Controversy. Part Two: Language, Race, and Rights. 7: The African American Contribution to Composition Studies. 8: Higher Learning: Composition's Racialized Reflection. 9: Kinship and Theory. 10: An Extended View of ‘Students’ Right". 11: Rethinking the Code-Switching Paradigm. Part Three: Diversity, Democracy, and Teaching.12: Literacy, Identity, Imagination, Flight. 13: I Have Fun Playing with Language. 14: Geneva’s Quartet: Notes on Linguistics, Aesthetics, Rhetoric, and Policy. 15: Julius and Jesse in 003. 16: Language, Identity, and Citizenship. 17: Socratic Commitment and Critical Literacy.Part Four: Rhetoric, Poetics, and Politics. 18: Aspects of African American Rhetoric as a Field. 19: Genopsycholinguisticide and the Language Theme In African American Fiction. 20: Cultural Heroes. 21: Liberation Memories: Interview by Rudolph Lewis. 22: Review of Ornate with Smoke. 23: Keeping Our Heads in the Language Game: On Political Talk, King, and Obama.