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.

Download or read book Readings in African American Language written by Nathaniel Norment and published by Peter Lang. This book was released on 2003 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Readings in African American Language: Aspects, Features, and Perspectives, Volume 2 brings together scholars who research various theoretical approaches of the origin, characteristics, and development of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). The advantages of AAVE, codeswitching, dialect interference in writing, theories, and politics in AAVE, text analysis, and critical pedagogy all are discussed in this volume. Each article provides a different perspective attesting to the vitality and relevance of African American language as an academic, social, and cultural/linguistic entry in the field of language studies.

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.

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 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pre-University Paper from the year 2011 in the subject English - Pedagogy, Didactics, 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

Download or read book African American English written by Lisa J. Green and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2002-08-08 with total page 302 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This authoritative introduction to African American English (AAE) is the first textbook to look at the grammar as a whole. Clearly organised, it describes patterns in the sentence structure, sound system, word formation and word use in AAE. The textbook examines topics such as education, speech events in the secular and religious world, and the use of language in literature and the media to create black images. It includes exercises to accompany each chapter and will be essential reading for students in linguistics, education, anthropology, African American studies and literature.

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).

Download or read book The Morphology of African American English in African American Rap Lyrics written by Yasemin Genc and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2009-11 with total page 41 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, University of Cologne (Englisches Seminar), course: B-Seminar: Morphology, language: English, abstract: This term paper will mainly focus on the morphological studies of Lisa J. Green who is a Professor in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Texas and who published a linguistic introduction to African American English which focuses on the phonological, morphological, syntactical and semantic properties of this variety of American English. In this paper we will firstly have a closer look at the well researched areas of African American English like origins and (social)history. Subsequently, certain morphological features like verbal -s, past morphology, genetive marking and copula absence will be illustrated. To bring evidence for the linguistic theses concerning morphology that will have been made in the first part, rap texts by two well-known African American rap artists will be taken into account. This is due to the fact that authentic texts with sufficient morphological features of African American English are not easy to find. However, rap lyrics offer a wide range of morphological features that can provide evidence for many linguistic theses illustrated in this paper. On account of this, this paper will analyze 60 rap texts by the African American artists Kanye West and Talib Kweli. The aim hereby is to see whether African American English consequently pursues a morphological pattern or if the features occur optionally. Is the widespread prejudice among many non-linguists true? Namley that African American English is a non-rule-based variety of English?

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 . This book was released on 2007-09 with total page 0 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

Download or read book African American English written by Guy Bailey and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-04-15 with total page 333 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: African-American English: Structure, History and Use provides a comprehensive survey of linguistic research into African-American English. The main linguistic features are covered, in particular the grammar, phonology and lexicon. Further chapters explore the sociological, political and educational issues connected with African-American English. The editors are the leading experts in the field and along with other key figures, notably William Labov, Geneva Smitherman and Walt Wolfram, they provide an authoritative, diverse guide to this topical subject area. Drawing on many contemporary references: the Oakland School controversy, the rap of Ice-T, the contributors reflect the state of current scholarship on African-American English, and actively dispel many misconceptions, address new questions and explore new approaches. The book is designed to serve as a text for the increasing number of courses on African-American English and as a convenient reference for students of linguistics, black studies and anthropology at both undergraduate and postgraduate level.

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.

Download or read book The Uniqueness of African American Vernacular English written by Lea Lorena Jerns and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2014-06-13 with total page 20 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2014 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, Humboldt-University of Berlin, language: English, abstract: "The language, only the language...it is the thing that black people love so much – the saying of words, holding them on the tongue, experimenting with them, playing with them. It’s a love, a passion. Its function is like a preacher’s: to make you stand up out of your seat, make you lose yourself and ear yourself. The worst of all possible things that could happen is to lose that language. There are certain things I cannot say with-out recourse to my language." With these words Toni Morrison, an American professor and novelist, probably expressed exactly what many African American people felt and still feel. In her statement she refers to the so-called “African American Vernacular English”, abbreviated AAVE, which is “a variant of English spoken mostly by black people in the United States.” (Jokinen 2008: 1) It is also known as “African American English”, “Black English Vernacular”, “Black Vernacular Eng-lish”, “Black Vernacular”, “Black English” or “Ebonics”. It is important to point out that not all African Americans inevitably speak this ethnolect and that there are also people with a non-African American background who nonetheless may speak it. (cf. Patrick 2007: 1) Fur-thermore, it is hard to define who actually speaks AAVE as some speakers may only use some features, e.g. vocabulary or grammatical aspects, of this variant. (cf. Jokinen 2008: 1) AAVE is a variant of English that you can see and hear every day – it is present in the Internet and in many songs and that makes it so interesting to find out more about it and to get a better understanding of AAVE. In this paper, I will focus on different aspects. I will start dealing with the question “Where does AAVE come from?” under point two and will continue with a brief overview of some basic grammatical features of AAVE in point three. Under point four, I will present and discuss a concrete example of a text, in which AAVE plays an important role, namely in the short story The Gilded Six-Bits of Zora Neale Hurston, written in 1933. Afterwards, under point five, I am going to talk about AAVE in Rap and HipHop songs as there can be found a considerable number of this kind of music all around the world and, under point 6, I will deal with the controversial question whether AAVE should be taught in schools or not. Finally, in the conclusion of my paper, I would like to let the uniqueness of AAVE and the importance of recognizing...

Download or read book The Influences of Africanisms on American English The Variety of Afro American English written by Milena Pollmanns and published by Grin Publishing. This book was released on 2010 with total page 40 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,3, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel (Englisches Seminar), language: English, abstract: There are many different types of the English language. Primarily there are distinctions between regional varieties, like British English (British Standard English resp. RP) and American English (AE). Those two differ in their linguistic characteristics, for example the pronunciation, namely the orthography and its phonetic realization. This term paper deals with the African-American variety of English, its special features, and shows how meaning can differ from Standard American English to the African American variety of English. African American Vernacular English (AAVE); also variously called African American English (AAE), African American Language (AAL), Afro-American English and less precisely Black English (BE), Black Language (BL), Black English Vernacular (BEV), Black Vernacular English (BVE) or Ebonics, which is used especially by those peoples who maintain that this variety has African origins, is an African American variety of American English (Tootie 2002: 218). Or how Smitherman would call it, a style of speaking English words with Black flava (2006: 3). Even without being to the United States, most people have heard samples of AAVE through movies or rap lyrics. "African American Vernacular English (AAVE) is the term most current among linguistics today" (Tootie 2002: 218)

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.

Download or read book African American English and White Southern English segregational factors in the development of a dialect written by Timm Gehrmann and published by GRIN Verlag. This book was released on 2007-02-19 with total page 14 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seminar paper from the year 2005 in the subject American Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, University of Wuppertal, course: African American Culture as Resistance, language: English, abstract: In 1619 the first Black People were violently taken to Virginia, United States. Many more Blacks were to follow and hence had to work as slaves on the plantations in the south, fueling the trade of an emerging economic power. Families and friends were separated and people from different regions who spoke different African dialects were grouped together. This was to make sure that no communication in their respective native languages would take place in order to prevent mutinies. Thus the Africans had to learn the language of their new surroundings, namely English. Today the English of the Blacks in America is distinguishable as African American Vernacular English (AAVE). AAVE and American White Southern English (AWSE) were very similar in colonial times, and according to Feagin1 AWSE still has features of AAVE, such as the non-rhoticism and falsetto pitch2, which is supposed to add to the apparent musicality of both AAVE and AWSE today. Many commonalities can be attributed to the coexistence of the two cultures for almost 200 years, while many differences are claimed to be due to segregation. Crystal claims that first forms of Pidgin English spoken by Africans already emerged during the journey on the slave ships, where communication was also made difficult due to the grouping of different dialects in order to prevent mutiny. The slave traders who often spoken English had already shaped the new pidgin languages on the ships and helped shape a creole that was to be established in the Carribean colonies as well southern US colonies in the 17th century.

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 18 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, 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.

Download or read book The English History of African American English written by Shana Poplack and published by Wiley-Blackwell. This book was released on 2000-01-28 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Much scholarly work assumes that the structure of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) derives from an earlier plantation creole. This volume explores an alternative hypothesis: that the characteristic features were acquired from the varieties of English to which early speakers were exposed.

Download or read book Sociocultural and Historical Contexts of African American English written by Sonja L. Lanehart and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 2001 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume, based on presentations at a 1998 state of the art conference at the University of Georgia, critically examines African American English (AAE) socially, culturally, historically, and educationally. It explores the relationship between AAE and other varieties of English (namely Southern White Vernaculars, Gullah, and Caribbean English creoles), language use in the African American community (e.g., Hip Hop, women's language, and directness), and application of our knowledge about AAE to issues in education (e.g., improving overall academic success). To its credit (since most books avoid the issue), the volume also seeks to define the term 'AAE' and challenge researchers to address the complexity of defining a language and its speakers. The volume collectively tries to help readers better understand language use in the African American community and how that understanding benefits all who value language variation and the knowledge such study brings to our society.