African-American Vernacular English
African-American Vernacular English | |
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Black Vernacular English | |
Region | United States |
Ethnicity | African Americans |
Indo-European
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Early forms | |
Latin (English alphabet) American Braille | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | – |
Glottolog | afri1276 |
Part of a series on |
African Americans |
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African-American Vernacular English
As with most English varieties spoken by African Americans, African-American Vernacular English shares a large portion of its grammar and phonology with the rural dialects of the Southern United States,[8] and especially older Southern American English,[9] due to the historical enslavement of African Americans primarily in that region.
Mainstream linguists maintain that the parallels between AAVE,
Origins
African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) may be considered a dialect, ethnolect or sociolect.[20] While it is clear that there is a strong historical relationship between AAVE and earlier Southern U.S. dialects, the origins of AAVE are still a matter of debate.
The presiding theory among linguists is that AAVE has always been a dialect of English, meaning that it originated from earlier English dialects rather than from
Linguist
However, a creole theory, less accepted among linguists, posits that AAVE arose from one or more
Phonology
Many pronunciation features distinctly set AAVE apart from other forms of
Final consonant groups or clusters in AAVE have been examined as evidence of the systematic nature of this language variety, governed by specific rules. Additionally, such analyses have been utilized to bolster arguments concerning the historical origins of AAVE. Consonant cluster reduction is a phonological process where a final consonant group or cluster, consisting of two consonant sounds, is simplified or reduced to a single consonant sound. The analysis of consonant cluster reduction in AAVE assumes that, initially, final clusters are present and intact in the language. For example, the word "tes" in AAVE is seen as originating from "test," with the final "t" being deleted under specific conditions. According to this analysis, AAVE treats a word like "test" as identical to its counterpart in mainstream English. Any differences in pronunciation between the two varieties, such as "test" in mainstream English and "tes" in AAVE, are attributed to phonological processes rather than differences in underlying word representations.
Vowels
Pure vowels (monophthongs) | ||
---|---|---|
English diaphoneme
|
AAVE phoneme[29] | Example words |
/æ/ | [æ~ɛː~ɛə] | act, pal, trap |
[ɛː~ɛə~eə] (/æ/ raising) | ham, land, yeah | |
/ɑː/ | [a~ɑ̈~ɑ] | blah, bother, father, lot, top, wasp |
/ɒ/ | ||
[ɒ(ɔ)~ɔ(ʊ)] | all, dog, bought, loss, saw, taught | |
/ɔː/ | ||
/ɛ/ | [ɛ~eə] | dress, met, bread |
/ə/ | [ə] | about, syrup, arena |
/ɪ/ | [ɪ~iə] | hit, skim, tip |
/iː/ | [i] | beam, chic, fleet |
/ʌ/ | [ʌ~ɜ] | bus, flood, what |
/ʊ/ | [ʊ~ɵ~ø̞] | book, put, should |
/uː/ | [ʊu~u] | food, glue, new |
Diphthongs | ||
/aɪ/ | [äe~äː~aː] | prize, slide, tie |
[äɪ] (Canadian raising[dubious ]) | price, slice, tyke | |
/aʊ/ | [æɔ~æə] | now, ouch, scout |
/eɪ/ | [eɪ~ɛɪ] | lake, paid, rein |
/ɔɪ/ | [oɪ] | boy, choice, moist |
/oʊ/ | [ʌʊ~ɔʊ] | goat, oh, show |
R-colored vowels | ||
/ɑːr/ | non-rhotic: [ɑ~ɒ] rhotic: [ɑɹ~ɒɹ] |
barn, car, heart |
/ɛər/ | non-rhotic: [ɛə] rhotic: [ɛɹ] |
bare, bear, there |
/ɜːr/ | [ɚ] | burn, first, herd |
/ər/ | non-rhotic: [ə] rhotic: [ɚ] |
better, martyr, doctor |
/ɪər/ | non-rhotic: [iə~iɤ] rhotic: [iɹ] |
fear, peer, tier |
/ɔːr/ | non-rhotic: [oə~ɔə~ɔo] rhotic: [oɹ] |
hoarse, horse, poor score, tour, war |
/ʊər/ | ||
/jʊər/ | non-rhotic: [juə~jʊə] rhotic: [juɹ~jʊɹ] |
cure, Europe, pure |
- African American Vowel Shift: AAVE accents have traditionally resisted the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,[31] in Charleston, South Carolina,[32] Florida and Georgia,[33] and in parts of California.[33]
- Reduction of certain voiceless consonants (this is also found in most White Southern dialects). The vowel sound in CHOICE (/ɔɪ/ in General American) is also monophthongized, especially before /l/, making boil indistinguishable from ball.[35]
- The distinction between the KIT /ɪ/ and FLEECE /i/ vowels before cure–force merger).[35]
Consonants
- Word-final devoicing of /b/, /d/, and /ɡ/, whereby, for example, cub sounds similar to cup,[39] though these words may retain the longer vowel pronunciations that typically precede voiced consonants, and devoicing may be realized with debuccalization (where /d/ is realized as [.], for instance)[40][41]
- AAVE speakers may not use the fricatives [θ] (the th in "thin") and [ð] (the th of "then") that are present in other varieties of English. The phoneme's position in a word determines its exact sound.[42]
- Word-initially, /θ/ is normally the same as in other English dialects (so thin is [θɪn]); in other situations, it may move forward in the mouth to /f/ (Th-fronting).
- Word-initially, /ð/ is [ð~d] (so this may be [dɪs]). In other situations, /ð/ may move forward to /v/.
- Realization of final ng /ŋ/, the alveolar nasal [n] (assibilation, alveolarization) in function morphemes and content morphemes with two or more syllables like -ing, e.g. tripping /ˈtrɪpɪŋ/ is pronounced as [ˈtɹɪpɨn] (trippin) instead of the standard [ˈtɹɪpɪŋ]. This change does not occur in one-syllable content morphemes such as sing, which is [sɪŋ] and not *[sɪn]. However, singing is [ˈsɪŋɨn]. Other examples include wedding → [ˈwɛɾɨn], morning → [ˈmo(ɹ)nɨn], nothing → [ˈnʌfɨn]. Realization of /ŋ/ as [n] in these contexts is commonly found in many other English dialects.[43]
- A marked feature of AAVE is final consonant cluster reduction.[44] This is a process by which the pronunciations of consonant clusters at the end of certain words are reduced to pronouncing only the first consonant of that cluster.[45] There are several phenomena that are similar but are governed by different grammatical rules. This tendency has been used by creolists to compare AAVE to West African languages since such languages do not have final clusters.[46][45]
- Final consonant clusters that are homorganic (have the same place of articulation) and share the same voicing are reduced.[46][47] For instance, test is pronounced [tɛs] since /t/ and /s/ are both voiceless; hand is pronounced [hæn] (alternatively [hæ̃] or [hɛən]), since /n/ and /d/ are both voiced; but pant is unchanged, as it contains both a voiced and a voiceless consonant in the cluster.[48] It is the plosive (/t/ and /d/) in these examples that is lost rather than the fricative; the nasal is also either preserved completely or lost with preservation of nasality on the preceding consonant.[49] Speakers may carry this declustered pronunciation when pluralizing so that the plural of test is [ˈtɛsɨs] rather than [tɛsts].[50] The clusters /ft/, /md/ are also affected.[51]
- More often, word-final /sp/, /st/, and /sk/ are reduced, again with the final element being deleted rather than the former.[52]
- For younger speakers, /skr/ also occurs in words that other varieties of English have /str/ so that, for example, street is pronounced [skɹit].[34]
- Clusters ending in /s/ or /z/ exhibit variation in whether the first or second element is deleted.[53]
- Final consonant clusters that are
- Similarly, final consonants may be deleted (although there is a great deal of variation between speakers in this regard). Most often, /t/ and /d/ are deleted. As with other dialects of English, final /t/ and /k/ may reduce to a glottal stop. Nasal consonants may be lost while nasalization of the vowel is retained (e.g., find may be pronounced [fãː]). More rarely, /s/ and /z/ may also be deleted.[54]
- Use of metathesized forms like aks for "ask"[55] or graps for "grasp".
- General non-rhotic behavior, in which the rhotic consonant /r/ is typically dropped when not followed by a vowel; it may also manifest as an unstressed [ə] or the lengthening of the preceding vowel.[56] Intervocalic /r/ may also be dropped, e.g. General American story ([ˈstɔɹi]) can be pronounced [ˈstɔ.i], though this doesn't occur across morpheme boundaries.[57] /r/ may also be deleted between a consonant and a back rounded vowel, especially in words like throw, throat, and through.[58]
- The level of AAVE rhoticity is likely somewhat correlated with the rhoticity of White speakers in a given region; in 1960s research, AAVE accents tended to be mostly non-rhotic in Detroit, whose White speakers are rhotic, but completely non-rhotic in New York City, whose White speakers are also often non-rhotic.[59]
- /l/ is often vocalized in patterns similar to that of /r/ (though never between vowels)[60] and, in combination with cluster simplification (see above), can make homophones of toll and toe, fault and fought, and tool and too. Homonymy may be reduced by vowel lengthening and by an off-glide [ɤ].[61]
"Deep" phonology
McWhorter discusses an accent continuum from "a 'deep' Black English through a 'light' Black English to standard English," saying the sounds on this continuum may vary from one African American speaker to the next or even in a single speaker from one situational context to the next.[62] McWhorter regards the following as rarer features, characteristic only of a deep Black English but which speakers of light Black English may occasionally "dip into for humorous or emotive effect":[27]
- Lowering of /ɪ/ before /ŋ/, causing pronunciations such as [θɛŋ~θæŋ] for thing (sounding something like thang).[34]
- Word-medially and word-finally, pronouncing /θ/ as [d] (so those and doze sound nearly identical). This is called th-stopping. In other words, the tongue fully touches the top teeth.
- Glide deletion (monophthongization) of all instances of /aɪ/, universally, resulting in [aː~äː] (so that, for example, even rice may sound like rahss.)
- Full gliding (diphthongization) of /ɪ/, resulting in [iə] (so that win may sound like wee-un).
- Raising and fronting of the vowel /ʌ/of words like strut, mud, tough, etc. to something like [ɜ~ə].
Grammar
Tense and aspect
Although AAVE does not necessarily have the simple past-tense marker of other English varieties (that is, the -ed of "worked"), it does have an optional tense system with at least four aspects of the past tense and two aspects of the future tense.[64] The term TMA marker is used for forms that are an integral part of the predicate phrase.[65] The markers gon, done, be, and been were defined as markers of future tense, completive aspect, habitual aspect, and durative aspect, respectively.[65]
Phase | Example | |
---|---|---|
Past | Pre-recent | I been bought it |
Recent | I done bought ita | |
Pre-present | I did buy it | |
Past inceptive | I do buy it | |
Present | I be buying it | |
Future | Immediate | I'ma buy it |
Post-immediate | I'ma gonna buy it | |
Indefinite future | I gonna buy it |
^a Syntactically, I bought it is grammatical, but done (always unstressed, pronounced as /dən/) is used to emphasize the completed nature of the action.[67]
Harvard professor Sunn m'Cheaux says the immediate future tense (for example "I'ma") originated in the Gullah language (an English creole), which uses "a-" instead of "-ing" for this type of verb inflection.[68]
As phase auxiliary verbs, been and done must occur as the first auxiliary; when they occur as the second, they carry additional aspects:[66]
- He been done working means "he finished work a long time ago".
- He done been working means "until recently, he worked over a long period of time".
The latter example shows one of the most distinctive features of AAVE: the use of be to indicate that performance of the verb is of a habitual nature. In most other American English dialects, this can only be expressed unambiguously by using adverbs such as usually.[69]
This aspect-marking form of been or BIN[70] is stressed and semantically distinct from the unstressed form: She BIN running ('She has been running for a long time') and She been running ('She has been running').[71][72] This aspect has been given several names, including perfect phase, remote past, and remote phase (this article uses the third).[73] As shown above, been places action in the distant past.[74] However, when been is used with stative verbs or gerund forms, been shows that the action began in the distant past and that it is continuing now. Rickford (1999) suggests that a better translation when used with stative verbs is "for a long time". For instance, in response to "I like your new dress", one might hear Oh, I been had this dress, meaning that the speaker has had the dress for a long time and that it isn't new.[73]
To see the difference between the simple past and the gerund when used with been, consider the following expressions:
- I been bought her clothes means "I bought her clothes a long time ago".
- I been buying her clothes means "I've been buying her clothes for a long time".
Auxiliaries in African American Vernacular English are related in a typical pattern. They can be grouped into negative forms and affirmative forms for each of the words. For example, "had" is an affirmative form, while "hatn" is the corresponding negative form. These same auxiliaries can be used to mark sentences for the anterior aspect. As another example, was marks type 1 sentences. These are sentences that are interpreted by default as being in the present tense but actually refer to a time before the present. Take, for instance, "She at home": the word was can be inserted to mark this sentence, making the marked equivalent "She was at home". Auxiliaries such as these also have opposing negative and affirmative forms.[65]
Aspect | Example | Standard English meaning |
---|---|---|
Habitual/continuative aspect[75] | He be working Tuesdays. | He frequently (or habitually) works on Tuesdays. |
Intensified continuative (habitual) | He stay working. | He is always working. |
Intensified continuative (not habitual)[76] | He steady working. | He keeps on working. |
Perfect progressive | He been working. | He has been working. |
Irrealis[clarification needed] | He finna go to work. | He is about to go to work.a |
- ^a Finna corresponds to "fixing to" in other varieties.[77] It is also written fixina, fixna, fitna, and finta.[78]
In addition to these, come (which may or may not be an auxiliary[79]) may be used to indicate speaker indignation, such as in Don't come acting like you don't know what happened and you started the whole thing ("Don't try to act as if you don't know what happened, because you started the whole thing").[80]
Negation
Negatives are formed differently from most other varieties of English:[81]
- Use of amn't.
- Negative concord, popularly called "double negation", as in I didn't go nowhere; if the sentence is negative, all negatable forms are negated. This contrasts with standard written English conventions, which have traditionally prescribed that a double negative is considered incorrect to mean anything other than a positive (although this was not always so; see double negative).
- In a negative construction, an indefinite pronoun such as nobody or nothing can be inverted with the negative verb particle for emphasis (e.g., Don't nobody know the answer, Ain't nothing going on.)
While AAVE shares these with Creole languages,[83] Howe & Walker (2000) use data from early recordings of African Nova Scotian English, Samaná English, and the recordings of former slaves to demonstrate that negation was inherited from nonstandard colonial English.[81]
Other grammatical characteristics
- The Arabic and other languages. For example: You crazy ("You're crazy") or She my sister ("She's my sister"). The phenomenon is also observed in questions: Who you? ("Who're you?") and Where you at? ("Where are you (at)?"). This has been sometimes considered a Southern U.S. regionalism, though it is most frequent in Black speech.[84]On the other hand, a stressed is cannot be dropped: Yes, she is my sister. The general rules are:
- Only the forms is and are (of which the latter is anyway often replaced by is) can be omitted; am, was, and were are not deleted.
- These forms cannot be omitted when they would be pronounced with stress in General American (whether or not the stress serves specifically to impart an emphatic sense to the verb's meaning).
- These forms cannot be omitted when the corresponding form in standard English cannot show contraction (and vice versa). For example, I don't know where he is cannot be reduced to *I don't know where he just as in standard English forms the corresponding reduction *I don't know where he's is likewise impossible. (I don't know where he at is possible, paralleling I don't know where he's at in standard English.)
- Possibly some other minor conditions apply as well.[85]
- Verbs are uninflected for number and person: there is no -s ending in the present-tense third-person singular. Example: She write poetry ("She writes poetry"). AAVE don't for standard English doesn't comes from this, unlike in some other dialects which use don't for standard English doesn't but does when not in the negative. Similarly, was is used for what in standard English are contexts for both was and were.[86]
- The genitive -'s ending may or may not be used.[87] Genitive case is inferrable from adjacency. This is similar to many creoles throughout the Caribbean. Many language forms throughout the world use an unmarked possessive; it may here result from a simplification of grammatical structures. Example: my momma sister ("my mother's sister")
- The words it and they denote the existence of something, equivalent to standard English's there is or there are.[88]
- Word order in questions: Why they ain't growing? ("Why aren't they growing?") and Who the hell she think she is? ("Who the hell does she think she is?") lack the inversion of most other forms of English. Because of this, there is also no need for the "auxiliary do".[89]
- Relative clauses which modify a noun in the object or predicate nominative position are not obligatorily introduced by a relative pronoun.[90]
Vocabulary
AAVE shares most of its lexicon with other varieties of English, particularly that of informal and Southern dialects; for example, the relatively recent use of y'all. As statistically shown by Algeo (1991: 3-14),[91] the main sources for new words are combining, shifting, shortening, blending, borrowing, and creating.[92] However, it has also been suggested that some of the vocabulary unique to AAVE has its origin in West African languages, but etymology is often difficult to trace, and without a trail of recorded usage, the suggestions below cannot be considered proven.[93] Early AAVE and Gullah contributed a number of words of African origin to the American English mainstream, including gumbo,[94] goober,[95] yam, and banjo.[96]
Compounding in AAVE is a very common method in creating new vocabulary. The most common type of compounding is the noun–noun combination.[97] There is also the adjective–noun combination, which is the second most commonly occurring type of combination found in AAE slang. AAE also combines adjectives with other adjectives, less frequently, but more so than in standard American English.[98]
AAVE has also contributed slang expressions such as cool and hip.[99] In many cases, the postulated etymologies are not recognized by linguists or the Oxford English Dictionary, such as to dig,[100] jazz,[101] tote,[101] and bad-mouth, a calque from Mandinka.[102] African American slang is formed by words and phrases that are regarded as informal. It involves combining, shifting, shortening, blending, borrowing, and creating new words. African American slang possess all of the same lexical qualities and linguistic mechanisms as any other language. AAVE slang is more common in speech than it is in writing.[98]
AAVE also has words that either are not part of most other American English dialects or have strikingly different meanings. For example, there are several words in AAVE referring to White people that are not part of mainstream American English; these include gray as an adjective for Whites (as in gray dude), possibly from the color of Confederate uniforms; and paddy, an extension of the slang use for "Irish".[103] "Red bone" is another example of this, usually referring to light skinned African Americans.[104]
"
Kitchen refers to the particularly curly or kinky hair at the nape of the neck, and siditty or seddity means "snobbish" or "bourgeois".[106]
AAVE has also contributed many words and phrases to other varieties of English, including chill out, main squeeze, soul, funky, and threads.[107]
Influence on other dialects
African-American Vernacular English has influenced the development of other dialects of English. The AAVE accent,
Variation
Urban versus rural variations
The first studies on the African American English (AAE) took place in cities such as New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, to name a few.[24][page needed] These studies concluded that the African American Language (AAL) was homogeneous, which means that AAE was spoken the same way everywhere around the country.[24][page needed] Later, sociolinguists would realize that these cities lacked the influence of the rural south; the early studies had not considered the representation of the south of America, which caused the AAE studies to change.[24][page needed] To make those changes, the newer studies used the diversity of the country and took into consideration the rural south.[24][page needed]
African-American Vernacular English began as mostly rural and Southern, yet today is mostly urban and nationally widespread, and its more recent urban features are now even diffusing into rural areas.[112] Urban AAVE alone is intensifying with the grammatical features exemplified in these sentences: "He be the best" (intensified equative be), "She be done had her baby" (resultative be done), and "They come hollerin" (indignant come). On the other hand, rural AAVE alone shows certain features too, such as: "I was a-huntin" (a-prefixing); "It riz above us" (different irregular forms); and "I want for to eat it" (for to complement).[113] Using the word bees even in place of be to mean is or are in standard English, as in the sentence "That's the way it bees" is also one of the rarest of all deep AAVE features today, and most middle-class AAVE speakers would recognize the verb bees as part of only a deep "Southern" or "country" speaker's vocabulary.[27]
Local variations
There are at least 10 distinct regional accents in AAVE,[114] and regional patterns of pronunciation and word choice appear on social media.[115][116][117]
Regional variation in AAVE does not pattern with other regional variation in North American English,[118] which broadly follows East-to-West migration patterns,[119] but instead patterns with the population movements during the Great Migration,[120] resulting in a broadly South-to-North pattern, albeit with founder effects in cities that already had existing African American populations at the beginning of the Great Migration.[121][122] There is no vowel for which the geographic variation in AAVE patterns with that of White American English.[123]
New York City AAVE incorporates some local features of the
Californian AAVE often lacks aSocial context
Although the distinction between AAVE and
Another misconception is that AAVE is the native dialect (or even more inaccurately, a linguistic fad) employed by all African Americans. Wheeler (1999) warns that "AAVE should not be thought of as the language of Black people in America. Many African Americans neither speak it nor know much about it".[5] Conversely, not all native AAVE speakers are African American, and nonnative speakers also incorporate elements into their speech.[6]
Ogbu (1999) argues that the use of AAVE carries racially affirmative political undertones as its use allows African Americans to assert their cultural upbringing. Nevertheless, use of AAVE also carries strong social connotations; Sweetland (2002) presents a White female speaker of AAVE who is accepted as a member into African American social groups despite her race.
Before the substantial research of the 1960s and 1970s—including William Labov's groundbreakingly thorough grammatical study, Language in the Inner City—there was doubt that the speech of African Americans had any exclusive features not found in varieties spoken by other groups; Williamson (1970) noted that distinctive features of African American speech were present in the speech of Southerners and Farrison (1970) argued that there were really no substantial vocabulary or grammatical differences between the speech of Black people and other English dialects.[140]
It is also seen and heard in advertising.[141]
In the legal system
The United States courts are divided over how to admit statements of ambiguous tense made in AAVE under evidence. In United States v. Arnold, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that "he finna shoot me" was a statement made in the present tense, so it was admissible hearsay under the excited utterance exception; however, the dissent held that past or present tense could not be determined by the statement, so the statement should not have been admitted into evidence.[142] Similarly, in Louisiana v. Demesme, the Louisiana Supreme Court ruled that the defendant's statement "why don't you give me a lawyer, dog" was too ambiguous to be considered a Miranda request for a lawyer.[143]
In US courts, an interpreter is only routinely available for speakers of "a language other than English". Rickford & King (2016) argue that a lack of familiarity with AAVE (and other minority dialects of English) on the part of jurors, stenographers, and others can lead to misunderstandings in court. They especially focus on the Trayvon Martin case and how the testimony of Rachel Jeantel was perceived as incomprehensible and not credible by the jury due to her dialect.[144]
A 2019 experimental study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania, NYU, and Philadelphia Lawyers for Social Equity, found that court stenographers in Philadelphia regularly fail to transcribe AAVE accurately, with about 40 percent of sentences being inaccurate, and only 83% accuracy at the word level, despite court stenographers being certified at or above 95% accuracy.[37][145][146] Their study suggests that there is evidence that court reporters may potentially introduce incorrect transcriptions into the official court record, with ramifications in cross-examination, jury deliberations, and appeals. A 2016 qualitative study by researchers at Stanford University also suggests that testimony in AAE—and other nonstandard varieties—is not necessarily always understood in a judicial setting.[147]
In music
Artist | Song | Lyric | AAVE feature |
---|---|---|---|
Nina Simone | "It Be's That Way Sometime" | "It Be's That Way Sometime" | habitual aspect with be |
Vera Hall | "Trouble So Hard" | "Don't nobody know my trouble but God" | negative concord |
Texas Alexander
|
"The Rising Sun" | "She got something round, and it look just like a bat" | lack of inflection on present-tense verb |
WC Handy
|
"The Saint Louis Blues" | "'Cause my baby, he done left this town" | use of "done" to indicate the recent past |
More recently, AAVE has been used heavily in hip-hop to show "
Artist | Song | Lyric | AAVE feature |
---|---|---|---|
LL Cool J | "Control Myself" | "She said her name Shayeeda" | absence of copula |
LL Cool J | "Control Myself" | "I could tell her mama feed her" | lack of inflection on present-tense verb |
Jay-Z and Kanye West | "Gotta Have It" | "You can bank I ain't got no ceilin'" | negative concord |
In addition to grammatical features, lexical items specific to AAVE are often used in hip-hop:
Artist | Song | Lyric | AAVE lexical itema | Standard English definition |
---|---|---|---|---|
Jay-Z and Kanye West | "Otis" | "Or the big-face rollie, I got two of those" | rollie | Rolex (watch) |
Tupac Shakur | "Straight Ballin" | "And getting ghost on the 5-0" | 5-0 ("five-oh") | police |
Lil Wayne | "Blinded" | "I can put bangles around yo' ashy ankles" | ashy | dry skin |
^a Lexical items taken from Smitherman (2000)
Because hip-hop is so intimately related to the
AAVE is also used by non-Black artists in genres other than hip-hop, if less frequently. For instance, in "Tonight, Tonight", Hot Chelle Rae uses the term dime to mean "an attractive woman".[152] Jewel's "Sometimes It Be That Way" employs habitual be in the title to indicate habitual aspect. If they do not employ similar features of AAVE in their speech, then it can be argued that they are modeling their musical performance to evoke aspects of particular musical genres such as R&B or the blues (as British pop musicians of the 1960s and beyond did to evoke rock, pop, and the blues).[153] Some research suggests that non-African American young adults learn AAVE vocabulary by listening to hip-hop music.[148]
In social media
On Twitter, AAVE is used as a framework from which sentences and words are constructed, in order to accurately express oneself.[154] Grammatical features and word pronunciations stemming from AAVE are preserved.[154] Spellings based on AAVE have become increasingly common, to the point where it has become a normalized practice. Some examples include, "you" (you're), "they" (their/they're), "gon/gone" (going to), and "yo" (your).[154]
In education
Educators traditionally have attempted to eliminate AAVE usage through the public education system, perceiving the dialect as grammatically defective.
In academia
Generally in academia, most academicians are very strict in regard to the use of AAVE in academic writing due to the common use of academic English. There have been open discussions by some academicians as to whether AAVE in academia should be permitted due to its history of disadvantage and discrimination in education.[160] In 2022, data from students in Indiana were collected between 2015-2016 and 2018-2019 statewide[160] and showed that overall Black students, who most likely utilized AAVE,[161] had lower scores on writing assignments, which likely contributes to Black students' rejection rates to higher education programs.[162]
See also
- Africanisms
- Glossary of jive talk
- Gullah language
- Languages of the United States
- Is-leveling
- North American English regional phonology
Notes
- ^ Also known as Black English, Black Vernacular English, Black English Vernacular, African-American English, or occasionally Ebonics (a colloquial, controversial term).[1]
References
- ^ For the reasons that linguists avoid using the term Ebonics, see for example Green (2002:7–8).
- ^ Edwards (2004), p. 383.
- ^ Rickford (2015), pp. 302, 310.
- ^ Spears (2015).
- ^ a b Wheeler (1999), p. 55.
- ^ a b "Do you speak American?: African American English". PBS.
- .
- ^ McWhorter (2001), p. 179.
- ^ Thomas (2006), pp. 16, 19–20.
- ^ Wardhaugh (2002), p. 341.
- ^ a b Poplack (2000), p. ?.
- ^ a b Poplack & Tagliamonte (2001), p. ?.
- ^ See Howe & Walker (2000) for more information
- The Oakland school board's resolution "was about a perfectly ordinary variety of English spoken by a large and diverse population of Americans of African descent. . . . [E]ssentially all linguists agree that what the Oakland board was dealing with is a dialect of English."Pullum (1997)
- ^ McWhorter (2001), pp. 162, 185.
- ^ McWhorter (2001), pp. 162, 182.
- ^ Mufwene (2001:29) and Bailey (2001:55), both citing Stewart (1964), Stewart (1969), Dillard (1972), and Rickford (1997a).
- ^ Smith & Crozier (1998), pp. 113–114.
- John Rickford.
- ^ Green (2002), pp. 1–11, 'Introduction'.
- ^ William Labov, in the Foreword to Poplack & Tagliamonte (2001), says "I would like to think that this clear demonstration of the similarities among the three diaspora dialects and the White benchmark dialects, combined with their differences from creole grammars, would close at least one chapter in the history of the creole controversies."
- ^ Ludden, Jennifer (September 6, 2010). "Op-Ed: DEA Call For Ebonics Experts Smart Move" Archived 2018-01-08 at the Wayback Machine. NPR.
- ^ Wolfram (1998), p. 112.
- ^ a b c d e f Bloomquist, Green & Lanehart (2015).
- ^ a b Dillard (1972), p. ??.
- ^ Read (1939), p. 247.
- ^ a b c McWhorter (2001), pp. 146–7.
- ^ Green (2002), p. 131.
- ^ Heggarty, Paul; et al., eds. (2013). "Accents of English from Around the World". University of Edinburgh. Archived from the original on April 26, 2016. Retrieved January 7, 2018. See pronunciation for "Chicago AAVE" and "N.Carolina AAVE."
- .
- ^ Eberhardt (2008).
- ^ Baranowski (2013).
- ^ a b Jones (2020), p. 165.
- ^ a b c Green (2002), p. 123.
- ^ a b c Labov (1972), p. 19.
- ^ King, Sharese (December 1, 2016). "On Negotiating Racial and Regional Identities: Vocalic Variation Among African Americans in Bakersfield, California". University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics. 22 (2).
- ^ Project MUSE 727848.
- ^ Jones (2020).
- ^ Green (2002), p. 116.
- ^ Bailey & Thomas (1998:89), citing Wolfram (1994)
- S2CID 149592143.
- ^ Green (2002), pp. 117–119.
- ^ Green (2002:121–122) although her examples are different.
- OCLC 900606048.
- ^ a b Green (2002), p. 107.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-979539-0
- S2CID 244227668
- ^ Rickford (1997b), p. ??.
- ^ "Phonological Features of African American Vernacular English". www.rehabmed.ualberta.ca. Retrieved August 30, 2020.
- ^ Green (2002), pp. 107–116.
- ^ Labov (1972), p. 15.
- ^ Labov (1972), pp. 15–16.
- ^ Labov (1972), pp. 17–18.
- ^ Labov (1972), pp. 18–19.
- ^ See Baugh (2000:92–94) on "aks" and metathesis, on the frequency with which "aks" is brought up by those who ridicule AAVE (e.g. Cosby (1997)), and on the linguistic or cognitive abilities of a speaker of another variety of English who would take "aks" to mean "axe" in a context that in another variety would probably call for "ask".
- ^ Green (2002), pp. 119–121.
- ^ Green (2002:121), citing Wolfram & Fasold (1974:140)
- ^ Labov (1972), p. 14.
- Sonja Lanehart, Lisa Green, and Jennifer Bloomquist (eds.), The Oxford Handbook on African American Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 147.
- ^ Green (2002), p. 121.
- ^ Labov (1972), pp. 14–15.
- ^ McWhorter (2001), pp. 146.
- ^ McWhorter (2001), pp. 148.
- ^ Fickett (1972), pp. 17–18.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-19-979539-0. Retrieved June 17, 2022.
- ^ a b Fickett (1972), p. 19.
- ^ Green (2002), pp. 60–62.
- WBUR.
- ^ Aspectual be: Green (2002:47–54)
- ^ In order to distinguish the stressed and unstressed forms, which carry different meaning, linguists often write the stressed version as BIN
- ^ Green (2002), pp. 54–55.
- ^ "Stressed BIN (been) | Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English in North America". ygdp.yale.edu. Retrieved June 14, 2022.
- ^ a b Rickford (1999), p. ??.
- ISBN 978-0-19-979539-0.
- ^ Fickett (1972:17) refers to this as a combination of "punctuative" and "imperfect" aspects.
- ^ Green (2002), pp. 71–72.
- ^ Green (2002), p. 71.
- ^ Green (2002:70–71), citing DeBose & Faraclas (1993).
- ^ See Spears (1982:850)
- ^ Green (2002), pp. 73–74.
- ^ a b Howe & Walker (2000), p. 110.
- ^ Labov (1972), p. 284.
- ^ Winford (1992), p. 350.
- ^ Labov (1972), p. 8.
- Geoff Pullum (October 17, 1998). "Why Ebonics Is No Joke". Lingua Franca (transcript). Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Archivedfrom the original on February 9, 2010. Retrieved May 1, 2014.
- ^ Green (2002), p. 38.
- ^ Green (2002), pp. 102–103.
- ^ Green (2002), p. 80.
- ^ Green (2002), pp. 84–89.
- ^ Green (2002), pp. 89–91.
- JSTOR 416548.
- OCLC 1090422253.
- ISBN 978-1-107-07417-0.
- ^ Shorter OED, 5th edition, cf Bantu kingumbo
- Kikongonguba
- ^ Nagle, S., & Sanders, S. (Eds.). (2003). English in the Southern United States (Studies in English Language). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 12.
- ISBN 978-1-316-24061-8.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-139-69656-2)
{{citation}}
: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of April 2024 (link - ^ Guralnik (1984), p. ?.
- ^ This is from Wolof dëgg or dëgga, meaning "to understand/appreciate" according to Smitherman 2000 s.v. "Dig"; or, it may instead come from Irish tuig, according to Random House Unabridged, 2001
- ^ a b Rickford & Rickford (2000), p. 146.
- ^ Smitherman (1977) cited in Rickford & Rickford (2000:240).
- ^ Gray: Smitherman, Black Talk, s.v. "Gray". Paddy: Dictionary of American Regional English, s.v. "Paddy".
- )
- ^ Smitherman (2000) suggests either a general West African or the Pig Latin origin. Black Talk, s.v. "Ofay".
- ^ Smitherman (2000), s.v. "Kitchen". Kitchen, siditty: Dictionary of American Regional English, s.vv. "Kitchen", "Siditty".
- ^ Lee (1999), pp. 381–386.
- ^ Blake, Shousterman & Newlin-Łukowicz (2015), pp. 284–285.
- ^ Singler, John Victor (2004). Liberian Settler English: phonology. In Edgar W. Schneider, Kate Burridge, Bernd Kortmann, Rajend Mesthrie & Clive Upton (eds.), A Handbook of Varieties of English: Phonology. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 875-876.
- ^ Reyes, Angela (2007). Language, Identity, and Stereotype Among Southeast Asian American Youth: The Other Asian. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
- .
- ^ Wolfram, Walt (2004). "The Grammar of Urban African American Vernacular English". In Handbook of Varieties of English, edited by Bernd Kortmann and Edgar Schneider. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 334.
- ^ Wolfram, Walt (2004). "The Grammar of Urban African American Vernacular English". In Handbook of Varieties of English, edited by Bernd Kortmann and Edgar Schneider. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. p. 335-336.
- ^ Jones (2020), p. 263.
- .
- ISBN 978-3-11-049081-7.
- .
- ^ a b Jones (2020), p. 225.
- ^ Jones (2020), p. 35.
- ^ Jones (2020), p. 253.
- ^ Jones (2020), p. 264.
- hdl:1794/24866.
- ^ Jones (2020), p. 226.
- Sonja Lanehart, Lisa Green, and Jennifer Bloomquist (eds.), The Oxford Handbook on African American Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 149-151.
- ISSN 0883-2919.
- .
- ^ Labov (2001), pp. 506–508.
- ^ Wardhaugh (2002), p. 339.
- ^ Green (2002:217), citing Burling (1973) Labov (1969)
- ^ Luu, Chi (February 12, 2020). "Black English Matters". JSTOR Daily. Retrieved June 14, 2022.
- ^ Green (2002), p. 221.
- ^ Lanehart (2001:4–6) argues that it is no coincidence that a population that has historically been "ridiculed and despised" would have its characteristic speech variety treated the same way.
- ^ DeBose (1992), p. 157.
- ^ Wheeler & Swords (2006).
- ^ Cited in Kendall & Wolfram (2009:306)
- ^ Coulmas (2005), p. 177.
- ^ Rickford & Rickford (2000), p. 8.
- ^ DeBose (1992), p. 159.
- ^ Linnes (1998).
- ^ Cited in Green (2002:218)
- ^ Escalas, Jennifer Edson (1994). "African American Vernacular English in Advertising: a Sociolinguistic Study". ACR North American Advances. NA-21. Archived from the original on April 21, 2023.
- ^ U.S. v. Arnold, 486 F.3d 177 (2007) http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/07a0181p-06.pdf Archived 2015-09-23 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved on Sept 23, 2013.
- ^ Rosenfeld, Jordana (January 29, 2018), "In the Legal System, Talking White Is a Precursor to Justice—and That's Wrong", The Nation, retrieved June 8, 2021
- ^ Rickford & King (2016), p. ?.
- ^ Ownes, Cassie (January 22, 2019). "Are Philly court reporters accurate with black dialect? Study: Not really". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Retrieved June 8, 2021.
- ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved July 23, 2021.
- ^ Rickford & King 2016.
- ^ a b Chesley (2011).
- ^ a b c Cutler (2007).
- ^ Roundtree, Cheyenne (July 2, 2021). "Iggy Azalea Called Out for Blackfishing in New Music Video". The Daily Beast.
- ^ Cutler, Cecelia. (2014) White Hip-Hoppers, Language and Identity in Post-Modern America. Routledge.
- ^ Smitherman (2000), p. 108.
- ^ Trudgill (1983).
- ^ a b c Florini (2014), p. 233.
- ^ Wardhaugh (2002), pp. 343–348.
- ^ Smitherman (1999), p. 357.
- ^ McWhorter (2001).
- ^ Flood, J., Jensen, J., Lapp, D., Squire, J. (1991). Handbook of research on teaching the English language arts. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Company.
- ^ Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an Accent (Second ed.). Routledge. pp. 304–321.
- ^ a b Nesbitt, Jaylin. "Writing while Black: African American Vernacular English (AAVE) and perceived writing performance". JMU Scholarly Commons.
- ^ "English with an Accent: Language, Ideology and Discrimination in the United States". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
- ^ "A Multivariate Analysis of Writing Skills in BSW Case Study Papers". meridian.allenpress.com. Retrieved June 22, 2023.
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Further reading
- Bailey, Guy; Baugh, John; Mufwene, Salikoko S.; Rickford, John R. (2013), African-American English: Structure, History and Use, Routledge, ISBN 978-1-135-09756-1
- Delpit, Lisa; Dowdy, Joanne Kilgour (2002), The Skin that We Speak: Thoughts on Language and Culture in the Classroom., New York: New Press, ISBN 1-56584-544-7
- McDorman, Richard E. (2012). "Understanding African-American English: A Course in Language Comprehension and Cross-Cultural Understanding for Advanced English Language Learners in the United States" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved October 8, 2012.
- from the original on September 23, 2009, retrieved March 4, 2010
- Oubré, Alondra (1997). "Black English Vernacular (Ebonics) and Educability: A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Language, Cognition, and Schooling". African American Web Connection. Archived from the original on June 14, 2007. Retrieved March 4, 2010.
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- Pollock, K.; Bailey, G.; Berni; Fletcher; Hinton, L.N.; Johnson; Roberts; Weaver (1998). "Phonological Features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE)". Child Phonology Laboratory. University of Alberta. Archived from the original on May 29, 2010. Retrieved March 4, 2010.
- Rickford, John R. (December 1996). "Ebonics Notes and Discussion". Archivedfrom the original on March 1, 2009. Retrieved March 4, 2010.
- Sidnell, Jack. "African American Vernacular English (Ebonics)". Archived from the original on February 10, 2010. Retrieved March 4, 2010.