Scholar Finds Gold in Special Brand of Urban Humor
Popular form of black wit used as springboard to traditional literacy skills.
Whether they’ve heard them on television or on a city playground, many Americans are familiar with “your mama” jokes. “Your mama is so skinny she could do the hula hoop in a Cheerio,” goes one such playful gibe. Or, “Your mama is so dumb she thinks a quarterback is a refund.”
For many African-Americans, such wordplay is a form of “signifiying”—a way of talking that employs insults and colorful, figurative language in the service of humor. To Northwestern University researcher Carol D. Lee, though, “signifying” is more than a good playground joke. It’s a bridge that teachers can use to help disadvantaged black students decipher the complex literary works they encounter in the classroom.
Intellectually, signifying is a complicated undertaking, says Ms. Lee, who has taught in Chicago schools for almost 40 years. To be adept at it, one has to think quickly and understand how to use symbolism, irony, innuendo, hyperbole,...
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