AFRICAN- AMERICAN LANGUAGE SEE ALSO AFRICAN-AMERICAN HUMOR

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AFRICAN- AMERICAN LANGUAGESEE ALSO
AFRICAN-AMERICAN HUMOR

• by Don L. F. Nilsen
• and Alleen Pace Nilsen

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Attacks on Oakland Unified School Districts
Ebonics

• No right or wrong expressions, no consistent
  spellings or pronunciations and no discernible
  rules. William Raspberry (Washington Post
  12/26/96)
• A language for second-class life Ellen
  Goodman (Boston Globe 12/27/96)
• legitimizing gibberish Mary McGrory
• It is just as systematic as Standard English,
  though it differs from Standard English in
  significant ways.
• (Smith Wilhelm 50, 147-149)

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E. Schuster shows how non-standard dialects are
systematic.

• Have different verb forms (He brung it to me.)
• Have double negatives comparatives (He dont
  know nothin.)
• Have different subject-verb agreement (She go to
  the store.)
• Have different pronoun conventions (Joe, he can
  really play.)
• Use adjectives in adverbial contexts (He did
  good.)
• Have non-standard words (aint, anyways, these
  here)
• (Smith Wilhelm 52)

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AAVE AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH

• During the slave trade, shippers were careful to
  separate African slaves who spoke the same
  language as they loaded them onto ships, so that
  the language they developed was an English based
  pidgin (business language) which became a creole
  language.
• Ironically, black wet nurses did much of the
  raising of aristocratic white babies, so many
  Black features can be seen also in white
  Southern dialects.
• African-American Vernacular English (and much of
  Southern white English) has the following
  features

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• this, that, these, those, them, there /d/
• south, mouth /f/
• during, more, Paris, star /r-less/
• help, will /l-less/
• hood, bed, test, wasp (loss of final consonant)

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• thing, ring, sing /ey/
• r-less so that such pairs as guard-God, nor-gnaw,
  sore-saw, poor-Poe, fort-fought, and court-caught
  are not distinguished.
• police, Detroit (front-shifted stress)
• nice, boy (simplified vowels)
• invariable be (durative)
• zero copula (non-durative, compare Spanish ser
  and estar)

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CALLING SOMEONE OUT OF THEIR NAME

• In her I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya
  Angelou tells about Mrs. Cullinan calling her
  out of her name.
• Rather than calling her Margaret, she called
  her Mary.
• Miss Glory says that she too had been called out
  of her name. Her name used to be Hallelujia,
  but her mistress called her Glory, and it
  stuck.
• (Nilsen Nilsen 15-16)

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THE N-WORD

• According to Randall Kennedy, The n-word is
  perhaps the most volatile, derogatory, powerful
  and hurtful ethnic slur in the English language.
• However, the use of nigger by black rappers and
  comedians has given the term a new currency and
  enhanced cachet such that many young whites yearn
  to use the term like the blacks whom they see as
  heroes and trendsetters.
• (Kennedy 45)

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!HIP HOP LANGUAGE

• What is it?
• Whats happenin?
• Whats up?
• Snoop Dogs -izzle words as in televizzle,
  Americizzle, and in a minitizzle
• Bro
• Chillin
• gangsta rap (or G-rap)

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!!MORE HIP HOP LANGUAGE

• to school (teach) someone
• a trick (sexually manipulative female)
• to spit (talk to a female)
• props (proper respect), the opposite of to
  dis(respect) someone
• Sweet!
• One One Love Good Bye!
• I gotta bounce (leave the premises)

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• !!!Web Site
• The Whitest Kids
• www.whitestkids.com

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• References 1
• Baldwin, James. If Black English Isnt a
  Language, Then Tell Me What It Is. in Living
  Language. Ed. Alleen Pace Nilsen. Boston, MA
  Allyn and Bacon, 1999, 135-139.
• Campbell, Kermit. Getting Our Groove On. Detroit,
  MI Wayne State University Press, 2005.
• Clark, Virginia, Paul Eschholz, and Alfred Rosa.
  Language Readings in Language and Culture, 6th
  Edition. New York, NY St. Martins Press, 1998.
• Crystal, David. Pidgins and Creoles (Clark,
  321-327)
• DeBose, Charles. The Sociology of African
  American Language. New York, NY
  Palgrave/Macmillan, 2005.

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• References 2
• Elgin, Suzette Haden. Notes on the Ebonics
  Controversy. in Living Language. Ed. Alleen Pace
  Nilsen. Boston, MA Allyn and Bacon, 1999,
  112-117.
• Eschholz, Paul, Alfred Rosa, and Virginia Clark.
  The Power of the Mass Media. Language
  Awareness Readings for College Writers, Ninth
  Edition. Boston, MA Bedford/St. Martins, 2005,
  349-420.
• Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman and Nina Hyams.
  An Introduction to Language. New York, NY
  Thomson/Wadsworth, 2007.
• Gordon, Dexter B. Humor in African American
  Discourse Speaking of Oppression. Journal of
  Black Studies 29.2 (1998) 254-276.
• Kennedy, Randall. Nigger The Strange Career of a
  Troublesome Word. New York, NY Pantheon Books,
  2002.

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• References 3
• King, Martin Luther, Jr. I Have a Dream
  (Eschholz 244-250).
• Kitwana, Bakari. The HipHop Generation. New York,
  NY BasicCivitas Books, 2002.
• Lanehart, Sonja L. Sociocultural and Historical
  Contexts of African American English.
  Philadelphia, PA John Benjamins, 2001.
• McKissack, Frederick L. Cyberghetto Blacks Are
  Falling Through the Net (Eschholz 528-534).
• Mey, Jacob L. Pragmatics An Introduction, 2nd
  Edition. Malden, MA Blackwell, 2001.

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• References 4
• Nilsen, Alleen Pace. Living Language. Needham
  Heights, MA, 1999.
• Nilsen, Alleen Pace, and Don L. F. Nilsen.
  Encyclopedia of 20th Century American Humor.
  Westport, CT Greenwood, 2000.
• http//www.greenwood.com/catalog/OXHUMOR.aspx
• Schiffrin, Deborah. Approaches to Discourse.
  Malden, MA Blackwell, 1994.
• Schuster, E. Breaking the Rules Liberating
  Writers through Innovative Grammar Instruction.
  Portsmouth, NH Heinemann, 2003.
• Smith, Michael W., and Jeffrey D. Wilhelm.
  Getting It Right Fresh Approaches to Teraching
  Grammar, Usage, and Correctness. New York, NY
  Scholastic, 2007.
• Smitherman, Geneva It Bees Dat Way Sometime
  Sounds and Structure of Present-Day Black
  English (Clark, 328-354).
• Staples, Brent. Black Men and Public Spaces
  (Eschholz 255-257).
• Vaid, Urvashi. Separate and Unequal (Eschholz
  251-254).