scholarly journals Attitudinal Judgments of Dialect Traits and Colorism in African Americans

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-20
Author(s):  
Akiah Watts
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
African American Males ◽  
African American Male ◽  
American English ◽  
African American Vernacular English ◽  
Social Perceptions ◽  
Standard American English ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
Social Traits

This study demonstrates how language and complexion influence professional and social perceptions of African Americans. This study contains an online verbal-guise survey where participants either saw a photo of a lighter skin-toned African-American male and female or an electronically darkened version. Audio was attached to each photo, which contains traits of African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) in the case of the male and Standard American English for the female. The results suggest African-American females are more likely to experience colorism in professional traits while African-American males are more likely to experience colorism in social traits. Additionally, the respondent’s race influences perceptions of AAVE. 

scholarly journals Folk Perception of African American English Regional Variation

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Mitchell ◽  
Marivic Lesho ◽  
Abby Walker
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
American English ◽  
African American Vernacular English ◽  
Uniform Structure ◽  
Linguistic Features ◽  
Map Labeling ◽  
Perceptual Dialectology ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
The Us

Contrary to previous “sociolinguistic folklore” that African American (Vernacular) English has a uniform structure across different parts of the US, recent studies have shown that it varies regionally, especially phonologically (Wolfram, 2007; Thomas & Wassink, 2010). However, there is little research on how Americans perceive AAE variation. Based on a map-labeling task, we investigate the folk perception of AAE variation by 55 participants, primarily African Americans in Columbus, Ohio. The analysis focuses on the dialect regions recognized by the participants, the linguistic features associated with different regions, and the attitudes associated with these beliefs. While the perceived regional boundaries mostly align with those identified by speakers in previous perceptual dialectology studies on American English, the participants consistently identified linguistic features that were specific to AAE. The participants recognized substantial phonological and lexical variation and identified “proper” dialects that do not necessarily sound “white”. This study demonstrates the value of considering African Americans’ perspectives in describing African American varieties of English.

Dialect accommodation in a bi-ethnic mountain enclave community: More evidence on the development of African American English

2002 ◽  
Vol 31 (5) ◽  
pp. 743-775 ◽  
Author(s):  
CHRISTINE MALLINSON ◽  
WALT WOLFRAM
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Language Change ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
African American Vernacular English ◽  
Dialect Contact ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
Local Dialect ◽  
Western North Carolina

The investigation of isolated African American enclave communities has been instrumental in reformulating the historical reconstruction of earlier African American English and the current trajectory of language change in African American Vernacular English (AAVE). This case study examines a unique enclave sociolinguistic situation – a small, long-term, isolated bi-ethnic enclave community in the mountains of western North Carolina – to further understanding of the role of localized dialect accommodation and ethnolinguistic distinctiveness in the historical development of African American English. The examination of a set of diagnostic phonological and morphosyntactic variables for several of the remaining African Americans in this community supports the conclusion that earlier African American English largely accommodated local dialects while maintaining a subtle, distinctive ethnolinguistic divide. However, unlike the situation in some other African American communities, there is no current movement toward an AAVE external norm for the lone isolated African American teenager; rather, there is increasing accommodation to the local dialect. Contact-based, identity-based, and ideologically based explanations are appealed to in describing the past and present direction of change for the African Americans in this receding community.

Shanna Poplack (ed.), The English history of African American English. (Language in Society, 28.) Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. Pp. v + 277. Pb $31.95.

2001 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-316
Author(s):  
John Baugh
Keyword(s):  
Historical Linguistic ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
English Language ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
African American Vernacular English ◽  
English History ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
History Of

Poplack and other contributors to this important volume are to be commended for an exceptionally well crafted book, with a succession of groundbreaking studies of African American English (AAE). Although this work will undoubtedly add fuel to the flames of historical linguistic controversy that continue to swirl around African Americans, Poplack and her colleagues go far to advance hypotheses and analyses that argue in favor of the English origins of African American Vernacular English (AAVE).

Negation and the history of African American English

1997 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 267-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Darin M. Howe
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
19Th Century ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
African American Vernacular English ◽  
Negative Concord ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nova Scotian ◽  
Negative Form

ABSTRACTThis article describes the use of negation in three corpora representative of early to mid-19th century African American English: the Ex-Slave Recordings (Bailey, Maynor, & Cukor-Avila, 1991), the Samaná Corpus (Poplack & Sankoff, 1981), and the African Nova Scotian English Corpus (Poplack & Tagliamonte, 1991). The specific structures studied are the negative form ain't, negative concord to indefinites and to verbs, negative inversion, and negative postposing. It is found that Early African American English (i) is far more conservative than modern African American Vernacular English; (ii) is generally similar to Southern White Nonstandard English; and (iii) displays no distinct Creole behavior. In other words, our study suggests that the negation system of Early African American English derived directly (i.e., without approximation or creolization) from colonial English, contrary to the findings of Rickford (1977, 1995), Labov (1982), Winford (1992), De Bose and Faraclas (1993), DeBose (1994), and others.

English in South Africa: parallels with African American vernacular English

English Today ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liesel Hibbert
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
South Africa ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
South African ◽  
The United States ◽  
African American Vernacular English ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
American Vernacular ◽  
South African Politics

A comparison between Black English usage in South Africa and the United StatesThere has been a long tradition of resistance in South African politics, as there has been for African-Americans in the United States. The historical links between African Americans and their counterparts on the African continent prompt one to draw a comparison between the groups in terms of linguistic and social status. This comparison demonstrates that Black South African English (BSAfE) is a distinctive form with its own stable conventions, as representative in its own context as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is in the United States.

The regional context of earlier African American speech: Evidence for reconstructing the development of AAVE

2000 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 315-355 ◽  
Author(s):  
WALT WOLFRAM ◽  
ERIK R. THOMAS ◽  
ELAINE W. GREEN
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Current Trend ◽  
African American Vernacular English ◽  
Generational Change ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
Pamlico Sound ◽  
The Face ◽  
Identity Based

Despite extensive research over the past four decades, a number of issues concerning the historical and current development of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) remain unresolved. This study utilizes a unique sociolinguistic situation – a long-standing, isolated, biracial community situated in a distinctive dialect region of coastal North Carolina – to address questions of localized dialect accommodation and ethnolinguistic distinctiveness in earlier African American English. A comparison of diagnostic phonological and morphosyntactic variables for a sample of four different generations of African Americans and a baseline European American group shows that considerable accommodation of the localized dialect occurred in earlier African American speech. Nonetheless, certain dialect features – e.g., copula absence and 3rd person verbal s marking – were distinctively maintained by African Americans in the face of localized dialect accommodation; and this suggests long-term ethnolinguistic distinctiveness. Cross-generational change among African Americans indicates that younger speakers are moving away from the localized Pamlico Sound dialect toward a more generalized AAVE norm. Contact-based and identity-based explanations are offered for the current trend of localized dialect displacement.

scholarly journals Unequal partnership: Sociolinguistics and the African American speech community

1997 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 161-197 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Russell Rickford
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Language Arts ◽  
African American Vernacular English ◽  
Variation Theory ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Vernacular English ◽  
Teaching Of Reading ◽  
Speech Events

ABSTRACTAmerican quantitative sociolinguistics has drawn substantially on data from the African American speech community for its descriptive, theoretical, and methodological development, but has given relatively little in return. Contributions from the speech community to sociolinguistics include the development of variable rules and frameworks for the analysis of tense-aspect markers, social class, style, narratives, and speech events, plus research topics and employment for students and faculty. The contributions which sociolinguistics could make in return to the African American speech community – but has not done sufficiently – include the induction of African Americans into linguistic, the representation of African Americans in our writings, and involvement in courts, workplaces, and schools, especially with respect to the teaching of reading and the language arts. This last issue has surged to public attention following the Oakland School Board's “Ebonics” resolutions on Dec. 18, 1996.The present unequal partnership between researcher and researched is widespread within linguistics. Suggestions are made for establishing service in return as a general principle and practice of teaching and research in our field. (African American Vernacular English, Ebonics, applications of sociolinguistics, community service, dialect readers, variation theory)

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document