Linguistic Аspects of Black English
I don't care what he say,
you __ gon laugh.
...as long as i's kids
around he's gon play rough or however they're playing.
Before verbs with the
-ing or -in ending(progressive):
I tell him to be quiet
because he don't know what he __ talking about.
I mean, he may say
something's out of place but he __ cleaning up behind it and you can't get mad
at him.
Before adjectives and
expressions of location:
He __ all right.
And Alvin, he __ kind of
big, you know?
She __ at home. The club
__ on one corner, the Bock is on the other.
Before nouns (or phrases
with nouns)
He __ the one who had to
go try to pick up the peacock.
I say, you __ the one
jumping up to leave, not me.
The dropping of the
inflectional plural suffix is another feature of Black English ("He hab
two dog.") The number itself (two) carries the plural. Speakers of Black
English make "mooses" the plural of "moose", or "fishes"
the plural of "fish". Words like "childrens",
"foots" or "womens" are also not unusual in Black English.
The optionality of the
plural is also a grammatical feature of Black English, and a similar feature is
the optionality of the past tense. The same form of the verb is sometimes used
for both present and past. Because of the weakening of final clusters it is
impossible to decide whether a verb form is the present tense used for the past
or a past tense form with the final -d or -t dropped in pronunciation.
American Black English
does not possess the third-person singular present tense marker (-s). "He
walk " is acceptable Black English grammar. In the case of words like
"have" and "do", Black English uses the full forms of
"have" and "do" ("He have my name"). (17, 57)
The articles
"a" and "an" seldom appear in the speech of young Blacks,
especialy those who have not had a Standard English education. They do appear,
especially the "a", in the speech of Blacks who have come in contact
with Standard English.
There is also a
phenomenon called "semantic inversion" which appears in Black
English. A Black "dude" who is considered to be "bad" by
those "on the street" has a lot to be proud of. A true semantic
inversion would equate "bad" in Black English with "good"
in Standard English. However, quite often the meaning is not completely
opposite, and in fact may be on different levels.
The study of American
Black English remains controversial. Attempts to wipe out Black English have
failed, and so have attempts to give Black English a universal acceptance.
Black English (or Black Vernacular English) has grammatical characteristics
similar to other English based creoles, such as the English creole spoken in
parts of the Dominican Republic that still retain a population of ex-slaves
from the US.
There exists a continuum
between Black Vernacular English and Standard
English, as usually occurs with post-creoles and their
"parent" languages. Individuals have large ranges of variance between
their ethnic dialect and Standard English. (30, 66)
Black Vernacular English
is often unintelligible to speakers of Standard English. Cross-cultural
misunderstanding, arising from wrong assumptions, often occurs when a speaker
of Standard English encounters Black Vernacular English. The majority of
English speakers tend to think Black Vernacular English, apart from the special
slang; it is simply an impoverished version of English with a lot of
grammatical mistakes.
There is a difference
between making grammatical mistakes in Standard English and speaking correctly
in a different variety of the language, one with a slightly different grammar, as is the
case with Black Vernacular English which indeed has a regular, systematic
grammar of its own.
Standard English
varieties mark grammatical agreement between the subject and predicate in the
present tense. If the subject is third person singular (he, she, it or the name
of a person or object), an -s appears at the end of a regular verb. (E.g. John
walks to the store). In AAVE the verb is rarely marked in this way. When
regular verbs occur with such -s marking, they often carry special emphasis.
Standard English also has agreement in a number of irregular and frequently
used verbs such as has vs. have and is vs. are and was vs. were. In AAVE these
distinctions are not always made. (38)
Tense and aspect
The verb in AAVE is often
used without any ending. As is the case with the English creoles, there are
some separate words that come before the verb which show when or how something
happens. These are called "tense/aspect markers".
Past tense:
In
Standard British English, nearly all verbs have specially marked forms for the
past tense, e.g. look-looked, come-came, go-went. In Creole the past tense is
often left unmarked, so that it has exactly the same form as the present, e.g.
a police van pull-up (Standard pulled up), out jump t'ree policeman (jumped),
Jim start to wriggle (started).
Past tense may be
conveyed by the surrounding discourse (with the help of adverbials such as, for
example, "last night", "three years ago", "back in
them days", etc., or by the use of conjunctions which convey a sequence of
actions (e.g. "then"), or by the use of an ending as in standard
English. The frequency with which the -ed ending occurs depends on a number of factors
including the sounds which follow it. (25, 359)
Some past events are
conveyed by placing been before the verb. Speakers of Standard English may
mistake this for the Standard English "present perfect" with the
"have" or "has" deleted. However the AAVE sentence with
been is in fact quite different from the Standard English present perfect. This
can be seen by comparing two sentences such as the following:
Standard English present
perfect: He has been married.
AAVE been: He been
married.
In the Standard English
sentence the implication is that he is now no longer married. However, in the
AAVE sentence the implication is quite the opposite: he is still married.
Sentences equivalent to Standard
English perfects such as discussed above may be conveyed by the use of done in
AAVE. For example the standard sentence "He has eaten his dinner" can
be expressed as He done eat his dinner.
Future tense:
Future events and those
that have not yet occurred are marked by gon or gonna (see above).
Events in progress:
Besides using the verb
with the ending -ing or -in to convey that an event is in progress, AAVE has a
number of other words which add particular nuances. For instance, if the
activity is vigorous and intentional, the sentence may include the word steady.
The item steady can be used to mark actions that occur consistently or
persistently, as in Ricky Bell be steady steppin in them number nines.
Events that occur
habitually or repeatedly are often marked by be in AAVE as in She be working
all the time. (39)
Negatives
AAVE has a number of ways
of marking negation. Like a number of other varieties of English, AAVE uses ain't
to negate the verb in a simple sentence. In common with other nonstandard
dialects of English, AAVE uses ain't in Standard English sentences which use
"haven't". For example standard "I haven't seen him." is
equivalent to AAVE I ain't seen him. Unlike most other nonstandard varieties of
English, AAVE speakers also sometimes use ain't for standard "didn't"
as in the following examples
I ain't step on no line.
I said, "I ain't run
the stop sign," and he said, "you ran it!"
I ain't believing you
that day, man.
As the first sentence
above shows, AAVE also allows negation to be marked in more that one position
in the sentence (so called double or multiple negation). In this respect, AAVE
resembles French and a number of other Romance languages and also a number of
English creoles. Certain kinds of nouns actually require negative marking in
negative sentences. In so far as the negation must be expressed with indefinite
nouns (e.g. "anything", "anyone" etc.), this is a form of
agreement marking. (E.g. I ain't see nothing). (9, 56)
AAVE also has a special
negative construction which linguists call "negative inversion". An
example from Toni Morrison's Song of Solomon follows:
Pilate they remembered as
a pretty woods-wild girl "that couldn't nobody put shoes on."
In this example (in the
part in italics), a negative auxiliary (couldn't) is moved in front of the
subject (nobody). Some other examples illustrate this:
Ain't no white cop gonna
put his hands on me.
Can't nobody beat 'em
Can't nobody say nothin'
to dem peoples!
Don' nobody say nothing
after that. (Ledbetter,
born 1861)
Wasn't nobody in there
but me an' him. (Isom
Moseley, born 1856)
At the level
of grammar there are important differences between Creole and Standard English.
Here are some of the main ones:
The pronoun
system
Standard
English has separate forms for subject, object and possessive pronouns. Creole
has just one form for all three: sometimes this form is derived from the
subject and sometimes from the object form in British English.
STANDARD
ENGLISH PRONOUN SYSTEM
1. Subject pronouns
|
sing.
|
plural
|
1st
|
I
|
we
|
2nd
|
y o u
|
3rd
|
he/she/it
|
they
|
STANDARD
ENGLISH PRONOUN SYSTEM
2. Object pronouns
|
sing.
|
plural
|
1st
|
me
|
us
|
2nd
|
y o u
|
3rd
|
him/her/it
|
them
|
STANDARD
ENGLISH PRONOUN SYSTEM
3. Possessive pronouns
|
sing.
|
plural
|
1st
|
my
|
our
|
2nd
|
your
|
3rd
|
his/her/
its
|
their
|
JAMAICAN
CREOLE
PRONOUN SYSTEM
|
sing.
|
plural
|
1st
|
me
|
we
|
2nd
|
you
|
unu
|
3rd
|
him
|
them
|
See how
Standard British English has 18 different pronoun forms while Creole has only
6. Creole is much more "compact", more "efficient" in using
the available forms to cover the range of meaning. But Creole has two forms for
"you", one (/yu/) for singular and another (/unu/) for plural.
Standard English is rather unusual in not having such a distinction, so in this
respect Creole could be said to be more "universal". (10, 256)
Plurals
In Standard
British English, nearly all nouns have specially marked plural forms, e.g.
book-books, woman-women. Creole usually does not mark plural in this way, so
that plural nouns often have exactly the same form as the singular, as in:
t'ree policeman. Sometimes dem is added after a noun (especially one referring
to people) to show plural, e.g. di gyal-dem, "the girls".
These
grammatical differences between Creole and Standard have given rise in the past
to the idea that Creole speakers have "wrong" or "sloppy"
grammar. However, as you can see (especially from the pronoun example) Creole
grammar is systematic and has its own logic. Most Creole words look like words
of English but they are combined using grammar rules which belong to Creole
alone. (38)
3. Lexical
peculiarities
For the most
part, AAVE uses the lexicon of SAE, particularly informal and southern
dialects. There are some notable differences, however. It has been suggested
that some of this vocabulary has its origin in West African languages, but
etymology is often difficult to trace and without a trail of recorded usage the
suggestions below cannot be considered proven, and in many cases are not
recognized by linguists or the Oxford English Dictionary.
dig from Wolof dëgg or dëgga,
meaning "to understand/appreciate"
jazz
tote
bad-mouth, a calque from Mandinka (38)
AAVE also has
words that either are not part of Standard American English, or have strikingly
different meanings from their common usage in SAE. For example, there are
several words in AAVE referring to white people which are not part of mainstream
SAE; these include the use of gray as an adjective for whites (as in "gray
dude"), possibly from the color of Confederate uniforms, possibly an extension of the slang use
for "Irish", "Ofay," which is pejorative, is another general term for a
white; it might derive from the Yoruba word ofe,
spoken in hopes of disappearing from danger such as that posed by European
traders. However, most dictionaries simply refer to this word as having an
unknown etymology. Kitchen refers to the particularly curly or kinky hair at
the nape of the neck, and siditty or seddity means snobbish
or bourgeois. (39)
Past Tense Markers
Phonological Features
Consonant Cluster
Simplification, or Reduction
Final Consonant
Simplification, or Deletion
Final and Post-vocalic -r
Variation
[I] + [n] is realized as
[æ ] and [I] + [nk] is realized as [ænk]
[theta] > [f] in
Word/Syllable-final Position
[ð] > [d] in
Word/Syllable-inital Position
[ð] > [v] in
Word/Syllable-medial Position
Remote phase marker
VOCABULARY
AAVE does not have a
vocabulary separate from other varieties of English. However AAVE speakers do
use some words which are not found in other varieties and furthermore use some
English words in ways that differ from the standard dialects.
A number of words used in
standard English may also have their origin in AAVE or at least in the West
African languages that contributed to AAVE's development. These include:
banana (Mandingo)
yam (Mandingo)
okra (Akan)
gumbo (Western Bantu)
A discussion of AAVE
vocabulary might proceed by noting that words can be seen to be composed of a
form (a sound signal) and a meaning. In some cases both the form and the
meaning are taken from West African sources. In other case the form is from
English but the meaning appears to be derived from West African sources. Some
cases are ambiguous and seem to involve what the late Fredric Cassidy called a
multiple etymology (the form can be traced to more than one language -- e.g.
"cat" below).(10,252)
West African Form + West
African Meaning:
bogus 'fake/fraudulent' cf. Hausa boko, or
boko-boko 'deceit, fraud'.
hep, hip 'well informed, up-to-date' cf.
Wolof hepi, hipi 'to open one's eyes, be aware of what is going on'.
English Form + West
African Meaning:
cat 'a friend, a fellow, etc.' cf. Wolof -kat
(a suffix denoting a person)
cool 'calm, controlled' cf. Mandingo suma
'slow' (literally 'cool')
dig 'to understand, appreciate, pay
attention' cf. Wolof deg, dega 'to understand, appreciate'
bad 'really good'
In West African languages
and Caribbean creoles a word meaning 'bad' is often used to mean 'good' or
'alot/intense'. For instance, in Guyanese Creole mi laik am bad, yu noo means
'I like him alot'. Dalby mentions Mandingo (Bambara) a nyinata jaw-ke 'She's
very pretty.' (literally 'She is beautiful bad.'); cf. also Krio ( a creole
language spoken in West Africa) mi gud baad.
Black English also emplys
a d sound for the voiced
Standard English th at the
beginning of the words such as the, that, those, there; which are replaced by
duh, dat, dose, dere, and dey. Black English has the "d" mostly at
the beginning of the words, but otherwise v
for the voiced th. For example
"other" may be pronounced as "ovvah". Another phonological
characteristic is "r-lessness," or the dropping of r´s after
vowels. At the end of the words that is shown by -ah, as in "evvah"
for the word "ever" and "remembah" for
"remember."
Black English also often
simplifies or weakens consonant clusters at the ends of words. This tendency is
quite strong; some words are regularly pronounced without the final consonant,
such as jus´ and roun´. Nouns that end in a cluster such as -s,
-p,-t or -k in Standard English will change in Black English so that those
clusters are dropped and an "-es" is added in the plural. Thus
"desk" becomes "des´" and the plural becomes
"desses"; "test" becomes "tes´" and the
plural becomes "tesses." (11, 78)
The most common
application of elision or loss of unstressed word-initial syllable is the loss
of the schwa in word-initial position, as in ´bout (about), ´gree
(agree), ´low (allow). The unstressed word-initial syllables themselves
may be lost, as in ´bacco (tobacco), ´cept (accept) and
´member (remember). (18.47)
Loan
Translations:
Another interesting set
of vocabulary items are called loan translations or "calques". In
such cases a complex idea is expressed in some West African language by a
combination of two words. In AAVE these African words appear to have been
directly translated and the same concept is expressed by the combination of the
equivalent English items
bad-eye 'nasty look', cf. Mandingo, nyE-jugu
'hateful glance' (lit. 'bad-eye')
big-eye 'greedy', cf. Ibo. anya uku
'covetous' (literally 'big-eye').
Any discussion of AAVE
vocabulary must take note of the many recent innovations which occur in this
variety and which tend to spread rapidly to other varieties of English. Most
recent innovations are not enduring. These lexical items give regionally and
generationally restricted varieties of AAVE their particular texture.
AAE is definitely not
the only nonstandard vernacular spoken in the USA. Its excessive stigmatization
and the related commitment on the part of some to eradicate it may have to do
with negative attitudes inherited from the American colonial past, the period
since which African Americans have been thought of as less intelligent. The
very fact that vernaculars of the White middle-class have typically been
identified by fiat as standard, although only some of them are close to it,
reflects that prejudice, some tacit consensus in the overall society that
everybody should adapt to White middle-class norms.
It is true that
socio-economic stratification has imposed a system in which command of either
standard or White middle class English has become part of the requirements for
success in the professional world. However, developing proficiency in these
norms need not be at the cost of abandoning one’s vernacular for all
communicative functions. Vernaculars have their own social identity functions;
and many speakers are not ready, least of all eager, to renounce that
social-indexical role of their vernacular.
As observed by A. Delpit
(12, 454), they see in the humiliations of excessive corrections and in the
very style of the corrections themselves, aggressions of their own ethnic and
cultural identities. The children’s negative reactions to inadequate approaches
to the Standard English proficiency problem foster lack of enthusiasm, which in
turn produces poor performance not only in Standard English but also in the classroom
in general, especially when they become self-conscious linguistically.
It remains imperative
that school systems teach Standard English more successfully to AAE-speakers.
What hopefully we have presented in this paper is that this effort should be consistent
with the development of diverse non-standard English vernaculars in North
America since the colonial period. AAE is only one subset of such varieties out
of many others. Perhaps excessive concern with AAE is in itself a negative
factor that has ethicized the more general question of how to teach standard
English efficiently to speakers of non-standard vernaculars in general without
bruising their speakers’ self esteem nor eroding their enthusiasm and interest
in being educated.(38)
Conclusion.
In our diploma paper we
have researched the linguistic aspects of Black English. Black English is very
actual in terms of sociolinguistics and language interaction development, in
racial relations and ethnic cultures.
The Black English historic development and its linguistic
characteristics make up the core content of work. This diploma paper has
considered historical review, development of contemporary Black English in the
US and its linguistic aspects
We have observed Black English as a social dialect of English
language, reviewed the historical development of Black English - its origin and
development in the framework of Pidgin and Creole. We have considered the
present characteristics of the U.S. Black English, differences between Black
English, British English, and British Black English, investigated Black English
contemporary development and its use in teaching process. We have also studied linguistic
aspects of Black English, especially its phonetic, grammar, lexical
peculiarities which have been formed in the process of language interaction.
This material can be used
as teaching manual in the course of English Language, Lexicology, History of
the English language, Area studies( UK/USA).
Black English is the
communicative and social system, originally created at the intersection of
three dimensions – social class, ethnic and territorial. Black English has
existed as a social dialect since XVII century, but the term goes back only to
1969. At present 80% of Black Americans speak Black English.
Black English is widely used in modern literature (fiction
and non-fiction), music, mass media ( news broadcasts, newspapers, commercial
advertising) and in such daily routine matters as safety instructions, everyday
conversations etc.
Black English also called
African American English, or African American Vernacular English, Black
Vernacular, Black English Vernacular, or controversially Ebonics - is an
African American Variety (sociolect/social dialect, ethnolect).
Black English has been
used in many parts of world: the USA (Hawaii), Great Britain, in Africa
(Gambia, Sierra, Leone, Liberia, Ghana, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon), West Indies,
Vanuatu, Papua New, Guinea, in the northern part of Australia, in Vietnam etc.
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