African American English: A Linguistic Introduction

298 Pages·2002·4.045 MB·English

by  Lisa J. Green

AfricanAmericanEnglish
alinguisticintroduction
ThisauthoritativeintroductiontoAfricanAmericanEnglish(AAE)isthefirsttextbookto
lookatthegrammarasawhole.Clearlyorganized,itdescribespatternsinthesentence
structure,soundsystem,wordformationandworduseinAAE.Thebookuseslinguistic
descriptionanddatafromconversationtoexplainthatAAEisnotacompilationofrandom
deviationsfrommainstreamEnglishbutthatitisarule-governedsystem.Thetextbook
examinestopicssuchaseducation,speecheventsinthesecularandreligiousworld,and
theuseof languageinliteratureandthemediatocreateblackimages.Thismuch-needed
book includes exercises to accompany each chapter and will be essential reading for
studentsinlinguistics,education,anthropology,AfricanAmericanstudiesandliterature.
lisa j. greenisAssistantProfessorintheDepartmentofLinguisticsattheUniversityof
Texas,Austin.

LisaJ.Green
African American English
a linguistic introduction
  
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo
Cambridge University Press
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Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York
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© Lisa J. Green 2002
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First published in print format 2002
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Contents
ForewordbyJohnR.Rickford pageix
Preface xi
Introduction 1
Goalsandstructureofthebook 1
Onnamingthevariety 5
OnaccountingfortheoriginofAAE 8
1 Lexiconsandmeaning 12
1.1 Introduction 12
1.2 LexiconsandAAE:areviewofthreetypes 14
1.3 Structuringthelexicon 19
1.4 Slang:addingwordstothelexicon 27
Summary 31
Exercises 32
2 Syntaxpart1:verbalmarkersinAAE 34
2.1 Introduction 34
2.2 Auxiliaries 36
2.3 Aspectualmarkers(verbalmarkers):be,BIN,dən 44
2.4 Preverbalmarkers:finna,steady,come 70
Summary 74
Exercises 74
3 Syntaxpart2:syntacticandmorphosyntacticpropertiesinAAE 76
3.1 Introduction 76
Syntacticproperties 77
3.2 Negation 77
3.3 Existentialitanddey 80
v
vi Contents
3.4 Questions 84
3.5 Relativeclauses 89
3.6 Preteritehad 91
Summary 93
Morphosyntacticproperties 94
3.7 MorphosyntacticpatternsinAAE 94
Summary 103
Exercises 103
4 PhonologyofAAE 106
4.1 Introduction 106
4.2 Finalconsonantsounds 107
4.3 Devoicing 116
4.4 Soundpatternsandth 117
4.5 randl:liquidvocalization 119
4.6 Additionalphonologicalpatterns 121
4.7 Prosodicfeatures:stressandintonation 124
Summary 132
Exercises 132
5 SpeecheventsandrulesofinteractioninAAE 134
5.1 Introduction 134
5.2 Overviewofspeechevents 135
5.3 Verbalstrategies 137
5.4 Expressionsinnonverbalcommunication 142
5.5 SpeecheventsandlanguageuseinAfricanAmericanchurchservices 146
5.6 Extensionsofcall-response 154
5.7 Languageuseandrap 155
5.8 Speecheventsandcommunicativecompetence 161
Summary 162
Exercises 163
6 AAEinliterature 164
6.1 Introduction 164
6.2 Generaloverview 165
6.3 RepresentationofAAEinliteraturetotheearlytwentiethcentury 167
6.4 FromtheHarlemRenaissancetothemidtwentiethcentury 178
6.5 AAEinliteraturefromthemidtwentiethcenturytothepresent 188
Summary 197
Exercises 198
7 AAEinthemedia 200
7.1 Introduction 200
7.2 “Chancesforplentyofactionandclowning” 201
vii Contents
7.3 Speecheventsintelevisionandfilm 206
7.4 Indicatorsofadolescentstreetlanguage 211
Summary 214
Exercises 214
8 Approaches,attitudesandeducation 216
8.1 Introduction 216
8.2 ApproachestoAAE 218
8.3 AttitudestowardAAEasalegitimatevariety 221
8.4 AttitudestowardAAEandemployment 223
8.5 AAEandeducation 226
Summary 242
Exercises 242
Endnotes 245
References 255
Acknowledgments 269
Index 271

Foreword
Itisdifficultformetocontainmyexcitementatseeingthisbookinprint!LisaGreen
is one of the newest, freshest voices to contribute to the linguistic study of African
American English (AAE), and this is the first theoretically informed, book-length
discussionbyanativespeakerofwhatitmeanstoknowandusethisbeloved,belittled
language. (The author is from Louisiana, a state rarely cited in previous studies of
AAE.)
AlthoughlinguistshavedonemoreworkonAAEthananyothervarietyofAmerican
English,atleastsincethe1960s,muchofthisfocusesonthequantitativeanalysisof
sociolinguisticvariation(byinternal,linguisticfactorsaswellasbyexternaloneslike
socialclass,age,andstyle),thehistoricaldevelopmentofAAE(includingitsAfrican,
Creole,andEnglishorigins),anditseducationalimplications(asraised,forinstance,
by the 1996 Oakland “Ebonics” controversy). All of this is valuable, but without a
detailedunderstandingofthestructureandpatternednessofthisvarietyinthesense
that has been fundamental to modern linguistics since De Saussure and Sapir, our
effortstopursuetheselargerquestionsarelimited.
Lisa Green is fully aware of the sociolinguistic issues, more so than the average
theoreticallinguist.(HergraduatetrainingwasattheUniversityofMassachusettsat
Amherst, but she has done postgraduate work at Stanford and regularly participates
insociolinguisticandvariationistconferences.)Butshewiselysetsthemasideinthis
bookandprovidesonlyabriefoverviewofrelevanthistoricalissues.Whatshetreats
us to, instead, is a detailed, insightful exploration of the synchronic “character” or
nature of AAE (its lexicon, morphosyntax and phonology) covered in the first four
chapters, and a stimulating discussion of some of the “contexts” in which it is used
andrepresented(inspeechevents,literature,andthemedia,aswellasinlinguistics,
publicattitudes,andeducation),thesubjectofthesecondhalfofthebook.
Throughout,LisaGreenisinsistentthatAAEissystematicandrule-governed.In
thisrespectshe is similartovirtuallyeverylinguist whohas previously studiedthis
variety.ButwhatisnewisherconsistentemphasisonrevealingthecharacterofAAE
asasystem,ratherthanalistofisolatedfeatures;notetheextensiveverbalparadigms
ix ofchapter2,forinstance,orthewaythatpreteritehadinchapter3iscomparedwith