Today

1
Today

• African-American English
• Ideology and conceptions of a standard in NAmE
• History and Structure
• Smitherman
• History of the debate

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Issues in the Ebonics Debate

• Topics bearing on discussion of AAE
• (1.) relation to comparable Anglo-American
  varieties
• (2.) historical roots and development
• Questions appearing in the media
• Is it a language (like Chinese or French?)
• Is it a valid dialect (like British English or
  Singaporean English?)
• Or, is it street slang?
• Responses and comments made in answer to these
  questions
• Is it a problem that blacks dont talk like
  other Americans?
• Is my child going to be negatively affected by
  being around black speakers?
• Do you believe in Ebonics?

3
History and Development of AAE
Rickford, J. Rickford, R. (2000) Spoken Soul.
Johnathan Wiley

• The debate Creole origins or English origins?
• 17th century slaves were brought from Western
  Africa (Guinea Coast/Nigeria, Ghana, Sierra
  Leone) and previously-established British
  colonies, particularly in Barbados and Jamaica.
• Native African languages included Wolof,
  Mandingo, Hausa.
• Likely West African Pidgin English (WAPE)
  developed in the Middle passage, precursor to a
  creole spoken by slaves transported to Virginia
  and South Carolina colonies (evidence, e.g.,
  Gullah Creole)
• AAE did not remain a creole for long, because
  (unlike in the Caribbean where creoles remained
  the first languages of most of the population),
  African slaves in the US South had significantly
  greater contact with English speakers.
• 1690 Jamaica 75 African Virginia 5

4
History and Development of AAE
18th century Three groups of speakers among the
slaves (1) Those learning English of their
masters, (2) Native-born field workers who spoke
the creole, (3) Recent imports from Africa, some
of whom spoke a Caribbean creole. 19th century
Legal slaving ends illegal trade continues,
particularly in the South Coastal U.S. Slaves
are transported across state lines. Inventions,
such as the cotton gin, increased the interest in
bringing in more slaves to work cotton
fields. 1790 700,000 slaves ? 1860 4
million 20th century Great Migration from the
South to the West (CA, WA), explaining
similarities between AAE in the South and West.
Migrated to areas with segregated housing and
schools.
5
Ideology and AAE whats in a name?

• Non-standard Negro English (NNE) - 1950s
• Black Vernacular English (BVE) - 1960s
• Black English Vernacular (BEV) - 1970s, 80s
• African-American Vernacular English - (AAVE)
• late 1980s, early 90s
• African-American English

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AAE whats in a name?

• Non-standard Negro English (NNE) - 1950s
• Black Vernacular English (BVE) - 1960s
• Black English Vernacular (BEV) - 1970s, 80s
• African-American Vernacular English - (AAVE)
• late 1980s, early 90s
• African-American English (AAE) - present

• Ebonics - 1960s
• Ebonics -1996-7
• Spoken Soul - literary - Claude Brown, author

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AAE Rulings and Resolutions

• Rulings
• Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School
  Children, et al., vs. Ann Arbor School District
  Board (1979, District Court, Judge C. Joiner)
• Resolution
• Linguistic Society of America (1997)
• http//www.lsadc.org/info/ling-faqs-ebonics.cfm

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Issues in the Debate

• 1996 Oakland (CA) Unified School District Board
  resolution
• Some key passages

• recognize the existence and the cultural and
  historic bases of West and Niger-Congo African
  Language Systems, and these are the language
  patterns that many African American students
  bring to school.
• Popular interpretation Ebonics is an African
  language.
• Linguistic understanding Language varieties
  typically incorporate items from other language
  sources in the formation of a new dialect or
  sociolect. Ebonics has traces of a creole
  language, and Anglo varieties of English.

• Issue chasm developed between popular language
  beliefs and professional, technical knowledge in
  the description and analysis of human language.
• Issue ideology shapes our thinking about
  language issues.

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Issues in the Debate

• 1996 Oakland (CA) Unified School District Board
  resolution
• Some key passages

2. Implement the best possible academic program
for the combined purposes of facilitating the
acquisition of and mastery of English language
skills, while respecting and embracing the
legitimacy and richness of the language patterns
whether they are known as Ebonics, African
Language Systems, Popular interpretation
students will be taught in Ebonics, and teachers
will be taught to use Ebonics in instruction.
Linguistic understanding In teaching General
American English, students community dialect
should be respected. Understanding how they work
will help teachers take students from where they
are to where they need to go.
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Standard Language Ideology

• ? Standard Language Ideology Socially-constructed
  notion of the nature, boundaries, etc. of a
  language particularly of a standard variety of
  a language, supported by social sanction.
  Sanctions provide a rationale for codification,
  elaboration, and prescriptive norms.
• (Woolard, 1991 Silverstein 1992, 1995 Gal and
  Irvine, 1995 Lippi-Green, 1997 Irvine and Gal
  2000 Milroy, 2000)
• ? Much sociolinguistic research assumes a direct
  correlation between a linguistic feature and a
  social characteristic. Silverstein (1992, 1995)
  refers to this direct correlation as first-order
  indexicality
• Indexicality -- ability of a form to stand in
  an emblematic relation
• First-order indexicality --
• -- The association of a linguistic form or
  variety with a social group, e.g., such and
  suches use form X while so and sos use form Y.
• -- Ideology constitutes a system for making sense
  of the indexicality in language

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Language Ideology

• Second-order indexicality
• -- any reasoning that interprets such a
  presuppositional relationship
• is potentially an ideological one rationalizing
  the indexical value of the forms in terms of
  schemata of social differentiation and
  classification that are independent of the usages
  at issue. (Silverstein, 1992316)
• -- "the noticing (overt or covert), discussion
  and rationalization" of basic first-order
  indexicality (Milroy, 2000)
• ?? correlation is in fact mediated by an
  ideological interpretation of the meaning of
  language use (Woolard, 1992242)
• ???second-order indexicality refers to the
  reactions of speakers to first-order indexicality
  and these reactions, viewed as manifestations of
  ideological stances, are evident both in language
  behavior (hypercorrection, style shifting) and in
  overt comment about language and, we suggest,
  about other social phenomena as well.

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Language IdeologyApplication

• First-order indexicality
• The association of a linguistic form or variety
  with a social group, e.g., such and suches use
  form X while so and sos use form Y.
• Class I Argentinian speakers show 68 prepausal
  /s/-deletion in casual speech, while Class VI
  speakers show 14.

Second-order indexicality-- Class I Argentinian
speakers show higher frequency of non-standard
productionssound lower classsound uneducated
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Two Theories of AAE Origin

• Creolist Hypothesis
• AAE developed from a creole language
• slaves brought linguistic experience with West
  African languages
• a Plantation Creole developed in antebellum
  south, shows similarities to Krio (Sierra Leone),
  and West Indian Creoles
• Creole vestiges are apparent in Gullah Creole
  (South Sea Isles of SC, GA, USA)
• Plantation Creole used widely among slaves, but
  not whites

• Anglicist Hypothesis
• AAE developed from British English
• slaves language experience and a Plantation
  Creole contributed very little to language in
  the US south
• slaves task learning English of their white
  slaveowners
• Gullah Creole is an anomaly
• dialect features of AAE must have once been
  present in other US dialects

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Two Theories of AAE Origin, cont.

• Creolist Hypothesis
• ex-slave narratives provide a clue pro
  Plantation Creole
• AAVE is not a creole itself, but descended from
  one
• Current consensus among sociolinguists

• Anglicist Hypothesis
• ex-slave narratives show only minor differences
• small farm vs. sprawling plantation problem

15
Linguistic Features of AAE

• Syntax
• (1.) Double negatives e.g., He don't know
  nothing.
• (also, Spanish Él no sabe nada.)
• (2.) Zero Copula "to be" verbs only in the same
  environments in which they are contracted in MAE
  (Mainstream American English)
• e.g., He late. - Predicate Adj. He a doctor.
  - Full NP
• They ø running. - VP He at home. - LOC
  (locative)
• (3.) Habitual be to indicate durative
  quality.
• e.g., He be late.
• She dont usually be there.
• (4) Future be to indicate future state
  ("will").
• e.g., If I be living that long, I will move
  there.

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Linguistic Features of AAE

• Syntax
• (5.) Remote time expressed by phonologically
  stressed been to mark action or state completed
  long ago but still relevant
• e.g., You been paid your dues.
• (6.) Regularization of third person singular
  past tense of the verb
• e.g., She walk to the store.
• She raise her grades this semester.
• Phonology
• (1.) (t,d) deletion in consonant clusters when
  followed by vowel-initial morpheme
• e.g., lif up the latch.
• That child is bussin out of his clothes.

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Linguistic Features of AAE

• Phonology, cont.
• (1) Postvocalic (r)-deletion //-less
  everywhere except preceding a vowel.
• e.g., guard, god /gad/
• nor, gnaw /na/
• (also, Boston, New York, Charleston Southern
  UK)
• (2) L-deletion /l/ deleted word-finally, or
  before a labial consonant
• e.g., toll, toe /to/
• help /hEp/ but never "hell" /hE/
• (3) Consonant cluster simplification reduce
  cluster to single consonant in environment of
  another alveolar sound /t/, /d/, /s/, /z/
• e.g., meantmend /mEn/
• pentpenned /pEn/
• applies with lower frequency when final alveolar
  is a past tense morpheme, e.g., paste (n.) /pes/,
  but chased (v.) /tSest/

18
Linguistic Features of AAE

• Phonology, cont.
• (4) Pinpen merger (also, Southern US,
  elsewhere)
• (5) Interdental fricative replacement replace
  interdental /T,D/ with labiodental /f,v/ (also,
  Cockney English)
• e.g., Ruthroof /uf/
• brother /bvv/
• Discourse Features (Smitherman)
• (1) Call and Response
• (2) Signifying