American Vernacular Research Articles

Styles and stereotypes

The article examines how two Laotian American teenage girls in a multiracial California high school take divergent pathways through two contrasting stereotypes of Southeast Asian Americans: The model–minority nerd and the dangerous gangster. The two girls, both first-generation immigrants, each draw on contrasting linguistic and youth-cultural practices to align themselves to some degree with one of these stereotypes while distancing themselves from the other. The absence of an ethnically marked variety of Asian American English does not prevent the construction of Asian American identities; instead, speakers make use of locally available linguistic resources in their everyday speech practices, including African American Vernacular English and youth slang, to produce linguistic and cultural styles that position them partly inside and partly outside of the school’s binary black/white racial ideology. The article argues that linguistic resources need not be distinctive either between or within ethnic groups in order to produce social identities.

A quantitative sociolinguistic analysis of Bahamian copula absence

The study of isolated Bahamian enclaves provides essential data with which to address sociolinguistic questions: Do monoethnic enclaves foster ethnolinguistic distinctiveness and if so, which features and structures demarcate these varieties? How homogenous is linguistic patterning in the Bahamas, given the non-continuous settlement, subsequent urbanization of some areas, and the ethnic diversity and segregation still apparent in Bahamian society? To what extent does copula absence in out island speech communities align with potential donor sources such as Southern White Vernacular English, African American Vernacular English, and Gullah? The comparison of previous analyses of other parts of the Bahamas with new data from Abaco Island reveals the multiplicity of linguistic patterning in the Bahamas. Cherokee Sound and Sandy Point, historically isolated monoethnic enclaves, represent two dissimilar linguistic situations. Cherokee Sound involves a transplant community of approximately 165 white loyalists founded in the late 1700s Sandy Point represents the traditional Afro-Bahamian community of approximately 400 residents settled by ex-slaves in the 19th century. This study reveals variation within the copula systems of Bahamian varieties sensitive to ethnicity, urban-ness, and regionality, as well as the multiple input varieties and diverse histories of the speech communities.

Assessment of phonology in preschool African American Vernacular English speakers using an alternate response mode.

The purpose of this study was to determine whether an adapted stimulus elicitation format would reduce the amount of final consonant absence in African American Vernacular English (AAVE) speakers and to determine the extent to which the adapted and standard response formats would differ in their predictions of membership in a delayed and a typical group. Findings revealed that the alternate response mode resulted in statistically significant decreases in the use of final consonant absence and that it was less likely than the standard response mode to penalize the AAVE speaker to a degree that was clinically significant.

Reexamining the Development of African American English: Evidence from Isolated Communities

Despite extensive research over the past several decades, a number of issues concerning the development of AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH (AAVE) remain unresolved. These include the regional accommodation of earlier African American speech; the sources of its current, distinctive structural features; and the past and present trajectory of change. To address these questions, this study examines several longstanding, isolated biracial sociolinguistic situations in the coastal and the Appalachian regions of North Carolina. One of these situations involves a core community of African Americans, whereas two of the situations involve case studies of isolated speakers. A comparison of diagnostic phonological and morphosyntactic variables for speakers representing different generations of African Americans and baseline European American speakers suggests that extensive accommodation to localized dialects characterized earlier African American speech. At the same time, the maintenance of an exclusive subset of dialect features suggests persistent substrate influence and long-term ethnolinguistic distinctiveness along with local dialect accommodation. Younger African Americans in some historically isolated rural regions appear to be moving away from the localized dialects toward a more generalized AAVE norm.

Relation of dialect to phonological processing: African American Vernacular English vs. Standard American English

Standard American English (SAE) and African American Vernacular English (AAVE) dialects differ in emphasis and use of word-final consonant sounds, with some consonants and clusters that are fully pronounced in SAE reduced or absent in AAVE. In two studies, SAE and AAVE speakers (age 7–11) completed phoneme deletion tasks in which the position of the deleted phoneme was varied. In general, SAE speakers performed better on word-final deletions than on word-initial deletions, whereas AAVE speakers performed better on word-initial deletions than on word-final deletions. Also, phoneme deletion performance tended to correlate more strongly with reading ability among SAE speakers than among AAVE speakers. Implications for phonological reading instruction and for the use of phonological screeners to identify at-risk readers are discussed.

Narrative Representation Theory: The Macrostructure in I-Language

Narrative Representation Theory has emerged as a linguistics-based framework to account for the formation of macrosuperstructure in natural human languages. Previous studies on a wide range of linguistic systems including Native American languages, African American vernacular, varieties of Englishes, and Chinook jargon have discovered a systematic rule-governed pattern in their narrative discourse. This article claims that Creole languages, archetypal forms of human languages, also present fundamental similarities with these languages in the organization of their narrative superstructure. They manifest such fundamental structural relations as constituency or hierarchical ordering, precedence or linear sequence, and componentiality or atomic elements, which cooperate with other linguistic constituents, namely, phonology, morphology, and syntax. Narrative representations, which function as part of the underlying language faculty, are direct projections of the supersentential module in the mind. They are realized as 5-layered external levels of hierarchical narrative units. Each of these levels may consist of a linear-sequential unit of internal constituents. Also, the terminal node of the linear sequence must be filled with the appropriate atomic element of "a structured idea." These findings suggest that the system of narrative superstructure is rule governed and autonomous, and thus should be regarded as part of internalized language.

Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic Pride and Racial Prejudice (review)

Reviewed by: Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic pride and racial prejudice by John Baugh Edwin Battistella Beyond Ebonics: Linguistic pride and racial prejudice. By John Baugh. New York: Oxford University Press, 2000. Pp. 149. John Baugh begins this book by reminiscing about his youth in Philadelphia. He grew up codeswitching between the ‘proper speech’ insisted on by his parents, teachers, and church elders and the rejection of white speech by the hippest and coolest of his role models. B became an expert codeswitcher and even developed skills as a mimic, which as a youth led him to make fun of the accents of some of his classmates. As a result, B came to appreciate at an early age the notions of linguistic pride and shame and the ways in which racial prejudice connects with linguistic devaluation. In Beyond Ebonics, B draws on this perspective and on his professional work in linguistics and education to put the Oakland School Board episode into historical perspective. Beyond Ebonics consists of nine relatively short chapters dealing with the history of the notion of Ebonics, the Oakland School Board resolutions of December 1996 and January 1997, various legislative reactions, the legal implications and policy concerns raised by the Ebonics resolutions, and the media and public reactions (including attempts at satire). B also teases apart the various theoretical perspectives that researchers bring to the study of African American speech and culture, and he includes three appendices: the LSA’s January 1997 resolution on Ebonics and bills passed in 1997 by the Texas 75th Legislature and the California Senate. B emphasizes a number of important facts that have gone unnoticed in the press commentary and other folklore that has arisen from the Ebonics discussion—he notes for example that the 1973 coining of the term ‘Ebonics’ by Robert Williams was intended to reflect a grouping of language varieties with African roots broader than just African American Vernacular English but that this sense of Ebonics was soon morphed into synonymy with Black English. B also reminds us that the Oakland School Board revised its resolution in January of 1997, clarifying its intent. Especially valuable also is B’s description of the political reactions to the Ebonics discussions, from Education Secretary Richard Riley’s position on Title VII funding to the comments of African-American political leaders such as Jesse Jackson and Kweisi Mfume and legislators such as Arlen Specter, Lauch Faircloth, Maxine Waters, and Peter King. And B discusses the media and public reactions—describing the positions of African-American opinion makers such as Brent Staples, Bill Cosby, and Oprah Winfrey as well as the reactions of editorial cartoonists and late-night comedians and some of the more openly racist material on the internet. Of special interest to linguists are the chapters on ‘Ebonics genesis’ and ‘Disparate theoretical foundations’. The first provides background on the origins of the term ‘Ebonics’ and its ‘definitional derailment’ (74); the second explicates the various theoretical traditions involved in discussions of Ebonics and African American English. B has done linguists and the public a service by providing a lucid, readable, and engaging overview of the issues surrounding Ebonics and public policy. Edwin Battistella Southern Oregon University. Copyright © 2002 Linguistic Society of America

The Shot Heard from Ann Arbor: Language Research and Public Policy in African America

This article is an overview of the research and educational public policy implications of work done on African American Language (also known as Black English, Black language, African American Vernacular English, Ebonics, and African American English). We begin with the Martin Luther King Junior Elementary School Children v. Ann Arbor School District Board case in Ann Arbor, Michigan, because Judge Charles Joiner's 1979 ruling in that case served as an educational catalyst, resounding as loudly throughout the United States as ''the shot heard around the world.'' From the time of King through the end of the twentieth century, and on into the new millennium, there has been a voluminous body of research on the speech of Africans in America. This work has come not just from the field of linguistics, but also from speech pathology, education, psychology, literature, and African American Studies. We summarize the most critical research conducted during this period, including African-centered studies, as well as research efforts to resurrect the Anglicist paradigm. We conclude this article with a call for scholarly responsibility on the language question and a bold agenda for future research and public policy on language and the African American community.

Review of Rickford (1999): African American Vernacular English: Features, evolution, educational implications

Review of Rickford (1999): African American Vernacular English: Features, evolution, educational implications

Knowledge held in common. Tales of Luther Burbank and science in the American vernacular.

During the first half of the twentieth century, the horticulturist Luther Burbank was largely considered an irrelevant figure by the scientific community, despite winning acclaim from the public as an eminent scientist. In examining the intellectual, social, and political claims embedded in texts by and about Burbank, this essay argues that consideration of the Burbank stories as they circulated in the vernacular realm can aid historians in understanding the dynamics of science in American life. Among the themes it addresses are how the Burbank stories directly engaged the question of who should legitimately count as a student of nature; the varied philosophical perspectives that derived from siting science within the deomestic sphere; and how these stories played with the possibility of a philosophy of nature based on the concept of "living matter," as opposed to one grounded on mechanistic principles. The essay also discusses how Burbank's views on evolution were mediated by the image of the child and the way in which his convictions regarding the power of the environment to release latent characteristics in physiological material presented a view of the future of the American "race" that was at odds with conventional eugenic thinking and assigned a central role to women in the drama of American evolution.

The Workings of Language: From Prescriptions to Perspectives, and: Language Alive in the Classroom (review)

Reviewed by: The workings of language: From prescriptions to perspectives ed. by Rebecca S. Wheeler, and: Language alive in the classroom ed. by Rebecca S. Wheeler Susan Meredith Burt The workings of language: From prescriptions to perspectives. Ed. by Rebecca S. Wheeler. Westport, CT, & London: Praeger, 1999. Pp. 250. Language alive in the classroom. Ed. by Rebecca S. Wheeler. Westport, CT, & London: Praeger, 1999. Pp. 228. Over the past decade, we have seen several public debates on language issues take place in which some policy promoters were uninhibited by linguistic expertise (the most recent example is the California initiative against bilingual education). Despite efforts by organizations such as LSA or TESOL to influence such public discussions, linguists’ voices are hardly heard, let alone appreciated, at least in part because of the prevalence of folk-beliefs about the nature of language. One indication of growing awareness of this problem is the series of pamphlets published by LSA, edited by Betty Birner, which address linguistic questions such as ‘Does the language I speak influence the way I think?’ and ‘Why do some people have an accent?’ Although it is not clear how and where they might best be distributed, the pamphlets attempt to educate nonlinguists about the importance and fascination of our discipline. At the same time, linguists frequently find themselves employed in English departments, possibly surrounded by colleagues who may or may not have a clear idea of what exactly a linguist should bring to an English program or to general education (something also not often addressed by graduate programs in linguistics). Rebecca S. Wheeler addresses both these situations with a pair of edited volumes, one aimed at students in a general education linguistics course, the other aimed at English teachers at all levels (elementary grades through college) who want to know how linguistics can contribute to the teaching of language and literature. What unifies her enterprise is a concern for determining what is important for an educated person— teacher or citizen—to know about language. The goal for the first volume, The workings of language, is to ‘help undo common misinformation on language’ (xi) by covering what college graduates should know about language. Seventeen articles are divided among three sections, ‘Ways of talking’, ‘Englishes, English-only and languages in danger of extinction’, and an eclectic section, ‘Language and politics, prejudice, the media, creativity, humor and gender’. W. makes an excellent choice in beginning the first volume with a reprint of Steven Pinker’s merciless treatment of ‘The language mavens’ (3–14). Pinker begins the project of myth demolishing by coming to the defense of negative concord, I could care less, zero-derivation, hopefully, and slang, and demonstrates the lack of linguistic foundation for the fulminations of prescriptivists, whose rules survive by ‘the same dynamic that perpetuates genital mutilations and college fraternity hazing’ (5). Four articles on American English dialects follow: Salikoko Mufwene, in an article that may be heavy going for linguistic novices, discusses African American Vernacular English (AAVE) as the result of dialect divergence and social segregation rather than of pidgincreolization. Geoffrey K. Pullum ‘African American Vernacular English is not Standard English with mistakes’ (39–58) demonstrates the rule-governed nature of AAVE with data on copula deletion, invariant be, remote-present been, negative concord, and consonant cluster simplification, and discusses how knowledge of dialect differences and similarities can be used to improve students’ success in school. Rebecca S. Wheeler, in her own article, follows with specifics on projects in dialect awareness education. ‘Southern Mountain English: The language of the Ozarks and Southern Appalachia’, (67–70) by Bethany K. Dumas, presents features of these stigmatized regional dialects, regional lexical items, double modals, a-prefixing, and so on as valuable testimony to the inevitability of linguistic diversity and change. A final chapter in this section, by Lynn S. Messing (‘On the other hand: American Sign Language, Signed Englishes and other visual language systems’ (81–87)), concisely discusses the rule-governed nature of sign languages, the independence of signed and spoken languages, and the distinction between genuine sign languages and manual representations of spoken languages. Section 2 extends discussion...

Reflections on the Hearing to "Designate the Square Dance as the American Folk Dance of the United States": Cultural Politics and an American Vernacular Dance Form

L'A. se propose d'aborder la question de la diversite - culturelle, ethnique, sociale... - aux Etats-Unis a partir de l'examen des debats qui ont eu lieu en 1988 dans le cadre de l'effort legislatif qui visait a faire reconnaitre par le Congres la square dance comme la danse traditionnelle nationale des Etats-Unis. Il fonde son commentaire de la politique culturelle de la square dance sur les declarations des parties ayant temoigne devant le comitee du Congres. Il met en lumiere leur rhetorique active et analyse les termes de sa construction, afin d'en reveler le pouvoir de persuasion et les connotations ideologiques. A travers son analyse, il met notamment en evidences les heritages concomitants qui interpellent la recherche americaine sur la danse traditionnelle, et il tente d'elucider les implications des differentes positions.

Liberating American Ebonics from Euro-English

he term Ebonics, a blend of ebony (black) and phonics/phonetics (speech), was originally coined to refer broadly to the linguistic and paralinguistic features ... which represent the communicative competence of the West African, Caribbean, and the United States slave descendant (Williams vi). The compass of Ebonics in the United States includes the Gullah language and what we academics, at least, know as English, Vernacular, African-American English, and African American Vernacular English, its most up-to-date scholarly name. The Oakland School Board used the term Ebonics to refer narrowly to African American as the mother tongue of most of its African American student population, with the intention of giving terminological credence to its historical origins. Following the Oakland tradition, we shall use the term Ebonics to refer to that variety of Ebonics also known as and its synonyms, unless otherwise noted. However, even then, Smitherman has made the point that American Black English itself may be thought of as comprising an entire range of distinctives from unique grammatical patterns to simply characteristic tones, rhythms, and communicative styles that can overlay the most proper standard (It Bees Dat Way 16). The terminology pertaining to Ebonics raises certain questions that we shall address: Is American Ebonics (in the narrow sense of Ebonics in the United States) a different language from English? Is it a dialect of English? How does American Ebonics relate to the larger Ebonics picture? In pursuit of answers, and while acknowledging Arthur L. Palaca is Professor of at the University of Akron and director of its Certificate Program in Linguistic Studies. He teaches linguistics, including courses on and the linguistics of point of view. His work has appeared in Written Communication and in the edited collections Landmark Essays on Voice and Sentence Combining: A Rhetorical Perspective. This paper is based on a 1999 CCCC presentation and was supported by a University of Akron Teaching Excellence Grant.

Out of the Mouths of Slaves: African American Language and Educational Malpractice

Foreword by William Labov Preface Acknowledgments Part 1. Orientation 1. Some Common Misconceptions about African American Vernacular English 2. Language and Race: Some Implications of Bias for Linguistic Science Part 2. The Relevance of African American Vernacular English to Education and Social Policies 3. Why What Works Has Not Worked for Nontraditional Students 4. Reading, Writing, and Rap: Lyric Shuffle and Other Motivational Strategies to Introduce and Reinforce Literacy 5. Educational Malpractice and the Ebonics Controversy 6. Linguistic Discrimination and American justice Part 3. Cross-cultural Communication in Social Context 7. The Politics of Black Power Handshakes 8. Changing Terms of Self-reference among American Slave Descendants Part 4. Linguistic Dimensions of African American Vernacular English 9. Steady: Progressive Aspect in African American Vernacular English 10. Come Again: Discourse Functions in African American Vernacular English 11. Hypocorrection: Mistakes in the Production of African American Vernacular English as a Second Dialect 12. Linguistic Perceptions in Black and White: Racial Identification Based on Speech Part 5. Conclusion 13. Research Trends for African American Vernacular English: Anthropology, Education, and Linguistics Notes Glossary References Index

PHONOLOGICAL CORRELATES OF ETHNIC IDENTITY: EVIDENCE OF DIVERGENCE?

Like clothing, hairstyles, and other culturally variable phenomena, language offers a wealth of resources on which people may draw to meet their sociosymbolic needs. As a result, linguistic features of all sorts may come to serve as markers of whatever social distinctions are seen as important to a society’s members. Among the distinctions marked in this way are those drawn in terms of broad categories such as gender, social class, and age, as well as others based on categories that may be relevant only in a given community. The research reported here examines the linguistic marking of distinctions constructed by ethnicity. The importance of ethnicity as a social factor shaping variation in American English is hard to deny. The sociolinguistic ramifications of ethnic divisions have been explored in numerous studies and have often been found to involve considerable linguistic differences. This is certainly the case with the best-known—and best-studied—ethnically defined variety in the United States: African American Vernacular English (AAVE), which has been shown to incorporate several linguistic features that distinguish it from vernacular varieties used by European Americans (see, e.g., Bailey and Thomas 1998). Of course, in many American communities, ethnic categorization goes well beyond black and white, and so too may the linguistic marking of these categories. There is value in considering the relationships among a range of ethnically defined varieties, as has been shown in studies conducted by Walt Wolfram and his research team in a North Carolina county populated by roughly equal numbers of speakers of European, African, and Native American descent (see, e.g., Wolfram 1996; Dannenberg and Wolfram 1998). A comparable ethnic complexity exists in the community discussed here, and the present study seeks to examine some of that complexity by sampling speakers representing different ethnic groups. The linguistic correlates of these ethnic categories are examined through a study of phonological variables. A variety of pronunciation

Walt Wolfram & Natalie Schilling-Estes, American English: Dialects and variation. (Language in society, 24). Oxford (UK) & Malden (MA): Blackwell, 1998. Pp. xvii, 398. Pb $29.95.

Can a textbook win the hearts as well as the minds of students? This one tries, and because of the richness of its material, it might could succeed. With copious examples of, and exercises in, the logic of nonstandard English, from Appalachia to Okracoke to African American Vernacular, the authors aim to replace linguistic prejudice with respect, if not admiration, for the varieties of American English that students will encounter.

Horace Pippin and the African American Vernacular

y most informed estimations, Horace Pippin is one of the most important African American visual artists of the twentieth century. During relatively brief career as an artist, Pippin produced some one hundred paintings and a number of burnt wood panels on themes as varied as war, family and community life, religion, and nature. In their mammoth study, A History of African American Artists, Romare Bearden and Harry Henderson attribute Pippin's success to the fact that his need to organize and express the reality of life visually cut through all impediments so directly and profoundly that he arrived at concepts in painting that were extremely modern (356). Whether it was ability to produce modernist images or exotic style, as others claim, Pippin's work was immediately embraced by art historians and connoisseurs from the moment that it was brought to public attention. Since the late 1930s, when work was first shown, Pippin has been one of the most often exhibited African American visual artists. In addition, works are still avidly sought out by private collectors and museums. Today, works hang in the homes of many prominent Americans and are part of the permanent collections of major museums across the country including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Hirshhorn Museum, Phillips Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and others (Bearden and Henderson 356; S. Wilson 3). From these obvious signs of extraordinary accomplishment in the visual arts as evidenced in embrace by representatives of the elite art world, one might be inclined to conclude that Horace Pippin enjoys a secure place alongside other masters of American visual art. When one

African American Vernacular English and Education

L'A. analyse les difficultes rencontrees par le locuteur noir americain pour assimiler la langue anglaise, langue de la culture dominante, langue de l'education. Il analyse la maniere dont la pedagogie vehicule l'ideologie de la langue, la suprematie de l'anglais standard sur l'anglais vernaculaire afro-americain

The Center for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University: Documenting the Broad Range of American Vernacular Music

HISTORY The for Popular Music at Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) was established in 1985 as one of of in Tennessee's public university system. The aim of Centers program was to create institutes that would foster advanced research and scholarship in fields in which various schools had existing strengths. MTSU's location in Murfreesboro, thirty-five miles from Nashville, makes it a logical choice for a center related to popular-music scholarship. The university's Department of Recording Industry offers a successful music-business training program; in fall 1997, department had an enrollment of approximately thirteen hundred majors. The MTSU Department of Music offers a bachelor's degree with emphasis in music industry, and several members of MTSU faculty - notably Charles Wolfe in English Department - engage in scholarship related to popular music. Another important factor is prominent role that Tennessee has played in history and development of virtually all genres of popular music in twentieth century, making state a marvelous laboratory in which to study popular music. An interdisciplinary committee drawn from departments of Recording Industry, English, Music, History, and Speech and Theater, and headed by dean of College of Liberal Arts, drew up proposal for a Center of Excellence in Music Archives and Research in 1985. The Tennessee Higher Education Commission approved proposal in April 1985, and officially came into being on 1 July 1985. The committee that created proposal served as search committee for Center's first director. I was offered position in September 1985 and began work in November.(1) When I first learned about plans to create a new research center for popular music, I realized that this represented an extraordinary opportunity for someone to build an archive and program from ground up. Just how true this was became abundantly clear when I reported for work to an empty office. The first several months were devoted to such essential tasks as establishing an administrative office, hiring a secretary, and laying foundations for Center's physical and intellectual development. The committee that first drafted proposal and then conducted search for a director assumed a final incarnation as a faculty advisory board. Because of its interdisciplinary nature, is not part of any of five undergraduate colleges at MTSU, and director of reports directly to Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. The board functions as a peer advisory panel that includes representation from various campus factions. I met with them frequently in early days, and members provided sound guidance, especially in matters of university policy. They did not dictate details of Center's day-to-day operations, but rather allowed me considerable flexibility in shaping all aspects of collections and programs. Their one clear mandate was that should establish a large archive to serve as a major resource for region. The board also agreed to my suggested name for new enterprise: for Popular Music. The first home of was in MTSU's Learning Resources (LRC). The collection was assigned space in what was originally Environmental Simulation Laboratory, a large cylindrical structure - approximately thirty feet in diameter by thirty feet in height - attached to one end of LRC; staff referred to it, with mock affection, as the silo. The laboratory was a type of multimedia theater in which various environmental conditions supposedly could be replicated, but capability of facility had never been fully utilized. Plans for converting this space to an archive and library were drawn up with help of Michael Sniderman, set designer for Speech and Theater Department. …

On The Origins of African American Vernacular English — A Creolist Perspective

On The Origins of African American Vernacular English — A Creolist Perspective