BLACK VERNACULAR ENGLISH

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BLACK VERNACULAR ENGLISH

• By Sarah, Gemma and Judith

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Introduction

• DEFINITIONS
• Black English is a vernacular language in its
  own right, not a dialect of Standard English.
• Traugott (76)There is a debate as to whether
  BVE should be considered a Creole language
  alongside Standard English.
• American Black English is a distinct dialect of
  english which has developed through time. In
  Britain different ethnic minorities speak english
  in very distinctive ways e.g. Jamaican Creole

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COMPARISON BETWEEN AMERICAN BLACK ENGLISH
British black english

• AMERICAN
• Its origins can be traced back to a plantation
  Creole.
• It can be heard especially in the northern cities
  of the USA
• DISTINCTIVE FEATURES
• absence of copula verb be. E.g. she very
  niceUse of be to show repeated actions E.g.
  she be at school on weekdays. Multiple
  negation and consonant cluster simplification.
• English features used by low Socio-economic
  groups occurs in Black English.

• BRITISH
• Words like then and thin are pronounced den
  and tin
• Plural forms dont have s on the end.
• Tenses arent marked by suffixes on verbs E.g.
  walk and jump used instead of walked, jumped.
• m is used for I
• dem for they, them and their
• Some speakers use more of these features than
  others.

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CODE SWITCHING

• Definition Mangubhai Bartorowicz speakers
  change from one language to another in midst of
  their conversations
• There has been a scientific surge in the
  phenomena of Bilingual speech and code switching.
• Code switching can be related to group membership
  and types of speech communities.
• Milroy says that bilingual speakers attribute
  different social values to different codes. This
  means that the speaker considers use of one more
  appropriate than the other.

• Crystal
• Suggests that code, or language switching occurs
  when an individual who is bilingual alternates
  between 2 languages during his/her speech with
  another bilingual person.
• This type of code switching can take a number of
  different forms
• Alteration of sentences and phrases. It depends
  on Social values and person being addressed, like
  family friends, officials and superiors,
  depending on location.

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Criticisms of bve

• When a group within a society undergoes some form
  of social isolation such as discrimination or
  segregation then social dialect differences
  become more obvious.
• A problem with B.V.E from a social point of view
  is that as there is such variety in the speech it
  is stigmatised as bad speech eg. You crazy.
  SE requires the verb form are to be used.
• BUT other English dialects dont use this copula
  eg. Russian. This shows that B.V.E cannot be
  bad anymore than Russian. As a dialect it
  simply has features which are consistently
  different from the standard.
• Double negatives are also criticised purely
  because they are seen as illogical. If this is
  true then the French must be viewed as equally
  illogical. Double negatives are a means of
  emphasising the negative part of a message.

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GRAMMATICAL FEATURES OF CREOLE

• PLURALS
• The man SE (Standard English)
• De manJC (Jamaican Creole)
• PRONOUNS
• I, he, she SE he or she is beautiful
• Mi,im,im JC im beautiful
• PAST TENSE
• I go, I went SE
• Mi go,mi goJC

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CONCLUSION

• Everyones language is different and just
• because it doesnt follow the Standard it
• cant be labelled as bad or wrong English.
• Once you understand the complexity and
• rules of the B.V.E how can it be labelled
• bad or wrong?