Phonological Features Of The Consonant System Of African American Vernacular English

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Phonological Features of the Consonant System of African American Vernacular English

Author : Hanna Krause
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3656979731
Total Pages : 21 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (569 download)

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Book Synopsis Phonological Features of the Consonant System of African American Vernacular English by : Hanna Krause

Download or read book Phonological Features of the Consonant System of African American Vernacular English written by Hanna Krause and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2015-06-15 with total page 21 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2011 in the subject American Studies - Miscellaneous, , language: English, abstract: This term paper will give a descriptive summary of the sound patterns used in African American vernacular English, but will also go further by discussing the linguistic environments in which such patterns occur. It is restricted to the phonological features of the consonant system of African American vernacular English (AAVE) and does not deal with the characteristics of the vowel system. Furthermore, this term paper should show that speakers of AAVE do not haphazardly insert and delete sound and that it is not fair to evaluate the sounds as “lazy speech” since the patterns used in the sound system of AAVE are completely regular and the way in which sound combinations occur, is very systematic and based on defined rules. This work also tries to make clear what AAVE is and in which ways it is different and similar to general American and Standard English. The first chapter introduces two different theories about the question how African American English might have been developed. In some contexts, it has been suggested that the pattern of final consonant sounds in AAE has similarities with the pattern of final consonant sounds in West African languages. Part two deals with the feature of consonant cluster reduction, which has received the most attention in the phonological studies of AAE. Speakers do not always say the same thing the same way all the time, of course, so the percentage rate of reduction may be greater for some speakers than others Chapter 3 focuses on the fact that interdental fricatives, represented orthographically by th in Standard English, are often realized by labio- dental fricatives among some AAE speakers. It reveals that voicing value of consonant sounds plays a major role in the production of sounds. For example /f/ and /v/ occur in environments in which voiceless th and voiced th occur in Standard English. Part 4 concentrates on the feature of devoicing and especially on the correlation of the variable /d/ with social class. Data adopted from Wolfram helps to study the speech of Negroes from several socio- economic levels and shows the relationship between the use of sound patterns and extralingusitic factors. Chapter 5 continues the discussion of consonants, focusing on the liquids /r/ and /l/. It explains environments in which /r/ is not produced by speakers of AAE. The last chapter lists some other phonological features of AAVE, but not in a detailed way, as there is not enough data available.

Phonological Characteristics of American English

Author : Dominik Borner
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3638369994
Total Pages : 16 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (383 download)

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Book Synopsis Phonological Characteristics of American English by : Dominik Borner

Download or read book Phonological Characteristics of American English written by Dominik Borner and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2005-04-23 with total page 16 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,3, University of Bamberg, course: Proseminar: English Varieties, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction Even to non-native speakers of the English language it is in most cases an easy task to differentiate between British and American native speakers by listening to their pronunciation. In this term paper the most characteristic phonological features of American English will be named and explained and an overview of the variety of dialects within the United States will be provided. This can be done best by using British Standard English – also known as Received Pronunciation (RP) – as reference accent and pointing out the differences to American English. 2. General American However, it is hard to work with the term American English when doing a phonological analysis of American speech since it covers a broad spectrum of different dialects. For this reason the term General American (GA), which is widely used and preferred by most linguists today, will be introduced and worked with. General American can be seen as the Standard English of North America, but in contrast to Received Pronunciation, it is not defined by social reputation or a specific geographical origin. Throughout the United States one can not really find a socially preferred accent that is commonly recognized as the standard pronunciation. There have been several different approaches to defining a Standard English for the USA and in this paper General American will be used in means of a range of accents that do not exhibit any of the North-Eastern or Southern features which “are perceived as regional by the majority of American speakers.” One has to keep in mind that GA is not “a single and totally homogeneous accent. But since its internal variation is mainly a matter of differences in the phonetic realizations of a system of phonemes that is by and large shared by all GA speakers, the generalization expressed in the notion ‘General American’ is useful in phonological terms.”

African American Vernacular English

Author : Ismail Durgut
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3640290976
Total Pages : 18 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (42 download)

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Book Synopsis African American Vernacular English by : Ismail Durgut

Download or read book African American Vernacular English written by Ismail Durgut and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2009-03-17 with total page 18 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject American Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1.0, University of Duisburg-Essen, course: Language and Interaction, language: English, abstract: The majority of the US-citizens of African ancestry speak a characteristic variety of English that has been referred to by several names. It has variously been called Non-Standard Negro English, Negro Dialect , Black English Vernacular, Black English, African American English, African American Vernacular English, Ebonics, etc. In this paper, I will use the term African American Vernacular English, abbreviated AAVE, because it is the term most current among linguists today. The term “vernacular” refers to the everyday language spoken by a speech community, often a non-standard variety. No other variety inside the United States has been studied as much as AAVE. During the last fourty years, many works have been released concerning this topic. This paper is an overview of AAVE. It starts with the historical backgrounds of the variety by discussing the major theories concerning its origin. The main part of this paper deals with AAVE’s linguistic features in comparison to Standard American English. The features are subdivided into the sub-chapters phonology, grammar and vocabulary. A summary forms the final chapter of this paper.

African American Vernacular English - Origins and Features

Author : Haider Madhloum
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3640855728
Total Pages : 22 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (48 download)

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Book Synopsis African American Vernacular English - Origins and Features by : Haider Madhloum

Download or read book African American Vernacular English - Origins and Features written by Haider Madhloum and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2011-03-10 with total page 22 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pre-University Paper from the year 2011 in the subject Didactics - English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, Antwerp Local School, course: Last year of High School, language: English, abstract: 1. Introduction African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the variety formerly known as Black English Vernacular or Vernacular Black English among sociolinguists. It is also called Ebonics outside the academic community. While some features of AAVE are apparently unique to this variety, in its structure it also shows many similarities with other varieties including a number of standard and nonstandard English varieties spoken in the US. AAVE has been the subject of several public debates. The analysis of this variety has caused a lot of discussion among sociolinguists and also among the American people. AAVE is a language that I hear every day through the music I hear and the Internet I use. This was the main reason that I chose to learn more about AAVE. Many people think AAVE is the same as Standard American English but this is not true. In this paper I will investigate whether AAVE is a dialect or a slang. And also the origins of AAVE and the features of AAVE (Phonological-, grammatical and lexical features) and the social and educational context of AAVE will be explained more in this paper. Through many research in the library of the university of Antwerp and the library of the university of Leuven but also through many research on the internet I was able to collect and investigate this subject. With the great help of my teacher I was able to make this paper

African American Vernacular English

Author : John Russell Rickford
Publisher : Wiley-Blackwell
ISBN 13 : 9780631212447
Total Pages : 399 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (124 download)

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Book Synopsis African American Vernacular English by : John Russell Rickford

Download or read book African American Vernacular English written by John Russell Rickford and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 1999-07-16 with total page 399 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In response to the flood of interest in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) following the recent controversy over "Ebonics," this book brings together sixteen essays on the subject by a leading expert in the field, one who has been researching and writing on it for a quarter of a century.

African American English - properties and features

Author : Florian Paulus
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3638070719
Total Pages : 19 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (38 download)

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Book Synopsis African American English - properties and features by : Florian Paulus

Download or read book African American English - properties and features written by Florian Paulus and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2008-06-30 with total page 19 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0, University of Dusseldorf "Heinrich Heine", language: English, abstract: Content 1. Introduction..............................................................................3 2. The roots of African American English............................................3 3. Features..................................................................................5 3.1Phonetics..............................................................................5 3.1.1.The “th” in AAE.........................................................5 3.1.2The Consonant Cluster education(CCR)..............................7 3.2AAE as a non-rhotic dialect........................................................9 3.3 Grammatical Features...............................................................10 3.3.1Negation..................................................................10 3.3.2Time Reference.........................................................11 3.4 BIN.................................................................................12 4. Conclusion 5. Works cited 6. Appendix 2. The roots of African American English Geneva Smitherman answers the question where the “black language and style” came from with the beginning of slavery in Colonial America. In 1619 a Dutch vessel brought with a cargo twenty Africans to Jamestown, Virginia to work there as “indentured servants”. The blacks where mostly brought from countries of the African West Coast over the so called “West passage” to the Colonies in America. They were forced to work on the cash crop plantations, harvesting tobacco, cotton, Sugar and coffee. Because there is, of course, no tape recordings of the language the slaves spoke, linguists have “to rely on reconstructions of black talk based on indirect evidence [...] written reproductions of the dialect in Journals, letters and diaries by whites [...]. African slaves developed a pidgin, what Smitherman calls a “language of transaction” used to communicate between themselves and the whites. This pidgin developed over the years as a widespread Creole among slaves. It consisted of the West-African words which were substituted little by little by English words but with the same basic language structures of West- African Languages. These Languages for example allow sentence constructions without the verb to be. According to that, sentences like “He going” still occur today in African American Vernacular English environments. Because the American settlers did not speak Standard British English as they came from Ireland, Scotland, and Germany etc. the slaves adopted certain features of the pidgin the settlers spoke to their Creole. Especially in the South, where a lot of Irish settled, a typical feature of Irish phonology is wide spread. Words like red and hat are pronounced with diphthongs, as “reɑd” and “həat”, respectively, which the blacks adopted to their language.

The Development of African American English

Author : Walt Wolfram
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 047077990X
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (77 download)

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Book Synopsis The Development of African American English by : Walt Wolfram

Download or read book The Development of African American English written by Walt Wolfram and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2008-04-15 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on one of the most persistent and controversial questions in modern sociolinguistics: the past and present development of African American Vernacular English (AAVE).

African American Vernacular English

Author : Desirée Kuthe
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3638822222
Total Pages : 13 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (388 download)

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Book Synopsis African American Vernacular English by : Desirée Kuthe

Download or read book African American Vernacular English written by Desirée Kuthe and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2007-07-18 with total page 13 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2007 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,0, University of Córdoba (Spain: Universidad de Córdoba), course: Sociolinguistics, language: English, abstract: African American Vernacular English or AAVE, which is also variously labelled ‘African American English’, ‘Black English’, ‘Black Vernacular English’ or ‘Ebonics’, is the non-standard variety of English spoken by many African Americans, at least to some extent and in some contexts. The now very popular term Ebonics is a portmanteau of the words ‚ebony’ and ‚phonics’, created in 1973 by a group of black scholars, who disliked the term 'Nonstandard Negro English', which was in use at that time. The circumstances of the creation of the term, (which has gained considerable popularity during a huge debate in 1996, which will be discussed later), already highlights one of the main features associated with AAVE: the controversies which centre upon it, “even” – according to McCrum et al. – “within the Black community. For some, it is an authentic means of self-expression for Black English speakers throughout America and the world. For others, who prefer the norms of Standard English, Black English represents the disadvantaged past, an obstacle to advancement, something better unlearned, denied or forgotten.” The first thorough sociolinguistic study of AAVE was carried out by William Labov in 1968. It was funded by the US Office of Education, which was interested in “the relation between social dialects and the teaching of English.” The problems many Black American children had to acquire thorough reading skills was, in fact, what first brought attention to AAVE. Still scholars can’t seem to agree on what exactly AAVE is and where it comes from. Scholars on one end of the scale of opinions hold it to be very different from Standard English, even a distinct language, those on the other end claim it to be a mere product of regional and socio-economical differences between Blacks and Whites. These two aspects will be the main points of interest in this paper. After a rough linguistic description of the dialect I’m going to turn to its possible history, before finally concluding with a short outline of the main sociolinguistic aspects surrounding AAVE, including the educational problems it presents, which have, after all, been the catalyst for linguistic interest in the dialect.

A Survey of African American Vernacular English, Considering the Drama 'A Raisin in the Sun' by Lorraine Vivian Hansberry as an Example

Author : Jessica Schweke
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3638782832
Total Pages : 29 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (387 download)

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Book Synopsis A Survey of African American Vernacular English, Considering the Drama 'A Raisin in the Sun' by Lorraine Vivian Hansberry as an Example by : Jessica Schweke

Download or read book A Survey of African American Vernacular English, Considering the Drama 'A Raisin in the Sun' by Lorraine Vivian Hansberry as an Example written by Jessica Schweke and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2007-09 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, Ernst Moritz Arndt University of Greifswald, course: 'Varieties and Variability of English' - Proseminar 'English as a World Language', 11 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: This paper will give an overview of some distinctive features of African American Vernacular English. Since drama in general aims to demonstrate everyday speech, I will also give evidence from the drama "A Raisin in the Sun" by Lorraine Vivian Hansberry from 1959. This will underline these features as well as their use and show their practicability in speech. Generally speaking, the term vernacular describes a variety of speech which is often analyzed in contrast to the Standard of a language and which is used by a certain group of speakers. The term African American Vernacular English (AAVE) thus describes a dialect used by African Americans. In course of time this variety has also been called "Black Vernacular English, Vernacular Black English, Black English Vernacular, Afro-American English, or simply Black English". (Crystal 2003: 491) The African American Vernacular is a variety of the English language that "has set phonological (system of sounds), morphological (system of structure of words and relationship among words), syntactic (system of sentence structure), semantic (system of meaning) and lexical (structural organization of vocabulary items and other information) patterns". (Green 2002: 1) In the course of this term paper I will take a closer look at these patterns. However, it has to be kept in mind that even though these features are characteristics of the African American speech variety, not every African American uses this variety. Additionally, some speakers use certain features more often than others, depending on the speaker's age, social status, the situation of communication or the person they hold a conversation with. Belonging to the African American

Whether or not African American Vernacular English should be used in Schools

Author : Niklas Tänzer
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 366866689X
Total Pages : 5 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (686 download)

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Book Synopsis Whether or not African American Vernacular English should be used in Schools by : Niklas Tänzer

Download or read book Whether or not African American Vernacular English should be used in Schools written by Niklas Tänzer and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2018-03-21 with total page 5 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essay from the year 2017 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Osnabrück, language: English, abstract: The United States is characterized by a notedly broad linguistic diversity. One part of this diversity in American English has always been at the center of scholarly research and publications: African-American Vernacular English (AAVE). It is one of the most influential varieties of English that is spoken across the US. This paper will shortly present the most distinctive featuring AAVE. Further, the main differences between AAVE and Standard American English, which can be largely found in grammar, phonology and semantics will be explained. History, discussions and hypotheses about AAVE, as well as the scorching criticism it received in recent attempts to implement it into the curriculum will also be included. Having elaborated on that, the question arises whether AAVE should be integrated into the educational system these days. Although African-American Vernacular English has been chosen as the standard term in linguistics it is important to note that there are many labels referring to AAVE. It is also known as African American English, Black English Vernacular, Black Vernacular English, Black Vernacular, Black English or Ebonics. These terms are most common amongst linguists today and all refer to the same variety.

African American Language

Author : Mary Kohn
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108876749
Total Pages : 253 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (88 download)

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Book Synopsis African American Language by : Mary Kohn

Download or read book African American Language written by Mary Kohn and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-12-03 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From birth to early adulthood, all aspects of a child's life undergo enormous development and change, and language is no exception. This book documents the results of a pioneering longitudinal linguistic survey, which followed a cohort of sixty-seven African American children over the first twenty years of life, to examine language development through childhood. It offers the first opportunity to hear what it sounds like to grow up linguistically for a cohort of African American speakers, and provides fascinating insights into key linguistics issues, such as how physical growth influences pronunciation, how social factors influence language change, and the extent to which individuals modify their language use over time. By providing a lens into some of the most foundational questions about coming of age in African American Language, this study has implications for a wide range of disciplines, from speech pathology and education, to research on language acquisition and sociolinguistics.

African-American English

Author : Salikoko S. Mufwene
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1000428168
Total Pages : 368 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (4 download)

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Book Synopsis African-American English by : Salikoko S. Mufwene

Download or read book African-American English written by Salikoko S. Mufwene and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2021-09-30 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book was the first to provide a comprehensive survey of linguistic research into African-American English and is widely recognised as a classic in the field. It covers both the main linguistic features, in particular the grammar, phonology, and lexicon as well as the sociological, political and educational issues connected with African-American English. The editors have played key roles in the development of African-American English and Black Linguistics as overlapping academic fields of study. Along with other leading figures, notably Geneva Smitherman, William Labov and Walt Wolfram, they provide an authoritative diverse guide to these vitally important subject areas. Drawing on key moments of cultural significance from the Ebonics controversy to the rap of Ice-T, the contributors cover the state of the art in scholarship on African-American English, and actively dispel misconceptions, address new questions and explore new approaches. This classic edition has a new foreword by Sonja Lanehart, setting the book in context and celebrating its influence. This is an essential text for courses on African-American English, key reading for Varieties of English and World Englishes modules and an important reference for students of linguistics, black studies and anthropology at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

African American English

Author :
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3638631478
Total Pages : 15 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (386 download)

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Book Synopsis African American English by :

Download or read book African American English written by and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2007-04-03 with total page 15 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1, University of Hannover, 5 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Since there are different terms for the English of African Americans and in order to not confuse the reader chapter 2 lists and defines the most common terms used by linguists concerned with this topic. In chapter 3 the Oakland School Board proposal is mentioned and its contents are summarised. Before investigating the features of the African American dialect of English, I am going to take a look at its history as well as different theories of how it actually arose. Chapter 5 is concerned with various phonological, grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic features which are characteristic for the English of African Americans and make it an interesting and unique dialect.

A Study of African-American Vernacular English in America's "Middletown"

Download A Study of African-American Vernacular English in America's

Author : Xiaozhao Huang
Publisher : Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 332 pages
Book Rating : 4.F/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis A Study of African-American Vernacular English in America's "Middletown" by : Xiaozhao Huang

Download or read book A Study of African-American Vernacular English in America's "Middletown" written by Xiaozhao Huang and published by Edwin Mellen Press. This book was released on 2000 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wang (humanities, California State U.) studies six of Wilson's plays, including The Piano Lesson, Seven Guitars, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Fences. He treats each play separately and examines the thematic strands running through them, especially as the relate to the struggle of African-Americans to come to grips with their history, their place in American society, and their struggle for a just society. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR.

History of English in the US and of African American Vernacular English in particular

Author : Alissia Wiener
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 366875635X
Total Pages : 24 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (687 download)

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Book Synopsis History of English in the US and of African American Vernacular English in particular by : Alissia Wiener

Download or read book History of English in the US and of African American Vernacular English in particular written by Alissia Wiener and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2018-07-20 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Applied Geography, grade: 1.7, University of Duisburg-Essen (Geisteswissenschaften), course: English in North America, language: English, abstract: From the very start I was very interested in African American Vernacular English (AAVE). In this work I also wanted to include a bit of history. I consider that history is an important influence on the present, not only regarding language but everything. History shows us the roots of things and a person who knows history avoids doing the same mistake again. In case of AAVE the language is indeed connected to the history of the African Americans, to the history of slavery and so to the history of the United States of America. For me it is also important to give a wide range on the knowledge about AAVE, a frame of history starting with the broad picture about the settlement and the rest of the history of the US. Then I will look on the history of the African Americans and the origin of their language. Finally a description of AAVE and its features follows. The question this essay deals with was mostly inspired by the controversal views about the origin of AAVE, namely the Creole-based and the dialect theory. Those might be “only” theories about the origin of AAVE but assuming one of those theories is correct defines a certain point of view on AAVE. Is AAVE “only” a dialect derived from a pidgin which developed somewhere in the Caribbean or on in West Africa or is AAVE a dialect which developed in the same manner and at the same time like all the other American dialects? Is it correct to compare AAVE to Standard English listing the mistakes this variety makes or should it rather be compared to other varieties?

We loves it when you be smilin’!

Author : Richard Grünert
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3640358627
Total Pages : 14 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (43 download)

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Book Synopsis We loves it when you be smilin’! by : Richard Grünert

Download or read book We loves it when you be smilin’! written by Richard Grünert and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2009-06-25 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject Didactics for the subject English - Pedagogy, Literature Studies, grade: 15 Punkte, Justus-Liebig-University Giessen (Department of English), course: Grammar in the english foreign language classroom, language: English, abstract: Ebonics is probably the most popular and widespread linguistic phenomena in the world today. This is mainly due to the fact that American music is a worldwide predominant cultural reality. Black American music with its inherent linguistic characteristics, by the same token, looms large within that heritage. In this paper I will commence with a description of the term “Ebonics” and some information on the scientific state of affairs concerning its origins. Then I will proceed to some phonological aspects and conclude with a short look at its grammatical structure and idiosyncrasies. African-American English, the linguistic variety spoken by many African Americans in the United States of America, is a system with specific rules for combining sounds to form words, phrases and sentences. The first researchers who took an interest in this called it “Non-Standard Negro English”, “Negro dialect” or “American Negro speech”. However, because of the growing objections to the term Negro, other terms had to be found – parallel to the changes – in referring to black people. But even though the terms “African-American Vernacular English” (AAVE), “Black communications”, Black dialect”, “Black English”, “Black Vernacular English”, “African American language”, “African American English” and, as Stanford Afro-American Linguist John Baugh named it, “Black Street Speech” (Baugh, 1983: 11), have all been used to label this variety over the past forty years, the word “Ebonics” (a blend of ebony and phonetics that was created in 1973 by a group of black scholars) is probably the most popular one today. This essay is to be understood as a brief survey on its grammatical and linguistic features.

Features of African American English in the Context of Language Varieties

Author : Janine Lacombe
Publisher : GRIN Verlag
ISBN 13 : 3656569932
Total Pages : 31 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (565 download)

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Book Synopsis Features of African American English in the Context of Language Varieties by : Janine Lacombe

Download or read book Features of African American English in the Context of Language Varieties written by Janine Lacombe and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2014-01-08 with total page 31 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, University of Koblenz-Landau (Anglistik), course: Varieties of English, language: English, abstract: African American English in general is used to describe a wide range of language varieties spoken mostly by the black population in the United States. During the past decades however multiple names and definitions have been established including Black English (BE), Ebonics, Black Vernacular English (BVE), and African American Vernacular English (AAVE). The term “Negro Non-standard English” used until the late 1960s has been abolished by now due to the fact that it insinuates the presence of a superior “White Standard English” In the preface of her book African American English: A Linguistic Introduction Lisa GREEN points out that there has been a substantial amount of linguistic research on AAE, oftentimes however neglecting a closer look at the structural patterns and features. This is where the focus of the paper presented shall be on. After some developmental and socio-historical background information concerning AAE, phonological, morphological, and grammatical attributes will be examined and subsequently illustrated by an exemplary analysis of three different rap songs. The focal point here lies in the lyrical/ textual presentation of AAE in rap music and not in the actual vocal performance. The aim of this paper and the entailed analyses is to ascertain whether AAE consequently aims for persistent, stable patterns on some or even all linguistic levels or if certain features occur in a more elective, non-obligatory way. The rap songs chosen for the analyses offer a creditable alternative to hard to find authentic text material and display sufficient characteristic of AAE. A complete version of each rap text is attached in the appendix of this work. The textual extend of this paper is substantiated in the amount of examples given to illustrate features of AAE.