Transcript LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011 Slide 1 Wardhaugh Ch 14 Read articles on African-American English and Chicano English at: http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/AAVE/ http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/chicano/

LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 1
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Read articles on African-American English and Chicano English at:
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/AAVE/
http://www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarieties/chicano/
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 2
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Info from Wolfram & Schilling-Estes, 2006, American English, 2nd Ed.
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) features
See website for examples:
http://www.eng.umu.se/city/therese/Linguistics/featuresintro.htm
See this website for another list of features:
http://bryan.myweb.uga.edu/AAVE/features.html
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 3
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Info from Wolfram & Schilling-Estes, 2006, American English, 2nd Ed.
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) features (pp. 214-15)
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 4
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Info from Wolfram, Walt. 2005. African American English. In Martin, J Ball, ed.
Clinical Sociolinguistics. Malden/Oxford: Blackwell. 87-100.
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) features (pp. 94-96)
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 5
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Info from Wolfram, Walt. 2005. African American English. In Martin, J Ball, ed.
Clinical Sociolinguistics. Malden/Oxford: Blackwell. 87-100.
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) features (pp. 94-96)
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 6
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Info from Wolfram, Walt. 2005. African American English. In Martin, J Ball, ed.
Clinical Sociolinguistics. Malden/Oxford: Blackwell. 87-100.
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) features (pp. 94-96)
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 7
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Info from Wolfram, Walt. 2005. African American English. In Martin, J Ball, ed.
Clinical Sociolinguistics. Malden/Oxford: Blackwell. 87-100.
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) features (pp. 94-96)
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 8
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Info from Wolfram, Walt. 2005. African American English. In Martin, J Ball, ed.
Clinical Sociolinguistics. Malden/Oxford: Blackwell. 87-100.
African American Vernacular English (AAVE) features (pp. 94-96)
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 9
Wardhaugh Ch 14
From O'Grady, W., Archibald, J., Aronoff, M., Rees-Miller, J. (2009).
Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction (6th edition).
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 10
Wardhaugh Ch 14
From O'Grady, W., Archibald, J., Aronoff, M., Rees-Miller, J. (2009).
Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction (6th edition).
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 11
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Info from Wolfram & Schilling-Estes, 2006, American English, 2nd Ed.
AAVE - shares many features with Standard American English (SAE)
and even more with White southern speech
Sometimes the differences are in frequency or environment - t/d deletion
is not UNIQUE to AAVE, but where it applies is (delete even if next work
begins with vowel)
Not all AAVE speakers are African-American and not all AfricanAmericans speak AAVE
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 12
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Info from Wolfram & Schilling-Estes, 2006, American English, 2nd Ed.
Origins of AAVE debate
Anglicist argument - says that AAVE is based on other dialects of
English and has features found in all dialects of English
Creolist hypothesis - says that AAVE has as its origins a creole from the
need to communicate among the slaves of diff lang background in the
southern plantations - AAVE is decreolizing and becoming more like
English as time goes on - many features of AAVE common to creoles
Very heated debate - slave narratives we saw on Do You Speak
American indicate that AAVE of older speakers is closer to standard
English, suggesting that AAVE is becoming LESS like English today
(diverging) which doesn’t work well with decreolization hypothesis
Watch clips from Wolfram’s DVD about North Carolina
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 13
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Info from Wolfram & Schilling-Estes, 2006, American English, 2nd Ed.
Origins of AAVE debate
Divergence - differences in AAVE due to divergence from Standard
English
Convergence - AAVE once a creole is converging and becoming more
like Standard English so that it now looks like a variety of English rather
than a creole
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Slide 14
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Ch 14 - Disadvantage
Bernstein - restricted code versus elaborated code - tried to explain why
lower working class students did so poorly in school (no access at home to
elaborated code which is code of education)
Problems: makes the restricted code deficient (deficit model)
LING 432-532 – Sociolinguistics – Spring 2011
Wardhaugh Ch 14
Slide 15
Ch 14 - Disadvantage
Ebonics - Oakland school board decision - basically, tried to call AAVE
a different language to access ESL funds for AA students.
See Ling Society of America resolution
http://linguistlist.org/topics/ebonics/lsa-ebonics.html
John Rickford’s opinion:
http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers/EbonicsInMyBackyard.html
Many have tried (including Labov) to use linguistic knowledge of
AAVE to help bridge the student gap to standard English but haven’t been
successful - talk about Do You Speak American jeopardy game