make it plain, preacha': african american rhetorical license, african american vernacular english

189 Pages·2012·1.03 MB·English

MAKE IT PLAIN, PREACHA’: AFRICAN AMERICAN RHETORICAL LICENSE,
AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH (AAVE),
AND A MODERN RENDERING OF
EPIDEICTIC RHETORIC
by
LESLIE E. SIMILLY
Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of
The University of Texas at Arlington in Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements
for the Degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT ARLINGTON
MAY 2012
UMI Number: 3513603
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my dissertation committee members, Drs. Cedrick May,
Jim Warren, and Tim Richardson. You all have been wonderfully helpful in helping
me attain my goals. Thank you to Drs. Tim Morris and Kevin Gustafson for being
such great advisors. Thanks to Drs. Peggy Kulesz and Margaret Lowry for being
such great “bosses”. I appreciate you both immensely. I would also like to
acknowledge Dr. Matt Hollrah for working with me so diligently at the University of
Central Oklahoma during my Masters program. I would also like to thank my family:
Mama, David, Angelique, Ryan, Lauren, Grandmother and Papa, and Auntie Elza for
being so supportive throughput this process.
I would like to thank everyone who directly and indirectly influenced, and
encouraged me throughout this process. Lastly, but most importantly, I would like to
thank God for sustaining me and blessing me so immensely.

April 18, 2012
iii
ABSTRACT
‘MAKE IT PLAIN, PREACHA’: AFRICAN AMERICAN RHETORICAL LICENSE,
AFRICAN AMERICAN VERNACULAR ENGLISH (AAVE),
AND A MODERN RENDERING OF
EPIDIECTIC RHETORIC

Leslie E. Similly, PhD

The University of Texas at Arlington, 2012

Supervising Professor: Cedrick May
In this project, I contend that African American rhetoric, namely African
American sermonic rhetoric, constitutes a distinct, culturally specialized variety of
rhetoric generated out of the distinctive circumstances of the African American
Diasporic experience. I present the study of African American homiletics as a lens
iv
through which to view the intersections between culture and aural text. In order to
examine the rhetorical tools peculiar to the African American religious tradition. I
perform a solely rhetorical explication of many of the typical elements of Black
Church sermons. To allow for this process, I have conducted archival research in
order to generate transcribed Black Church sermons for the purpose of explicating
the rhetorical and paralinguistic components therein. I also argue that the strategic
use of AAVE within Black Church sermons serves a hermeneutical function. That is
to say, the preacher’s choice to deploy AAVE within Black Church sermons not only
fosters solidarity between Black speakers and Black congregation, but aids in
“meaning-making” on the part of the congregation as well as the process of Biblical
exegesis.

v
TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................ ……………..iii

ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................... iv

Chapter Page
1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………..………..….. ............. .1

1.1 Significance .............................................................................. .1

1.2 Summary Review of Relevant Scholarship ............................... .6

1.3 Methodology .......................................................................... .12

1.4 Organization .......................................................................... .15

2. BLACK CHURCH CULTURE .............................................................. 21

2.1 What Constitutes the Black Church? ...................................... 21

2.2 Brief History of the Black Church ............................................ 22

2.3 Emphasis on Communality within the Black Church ............... 26

2.4 Sermon Event as Crux of Black Church Experience ............. 30

2.5 Role of the Preacher in Black the Church ............................... 36

2.6 Notions of Ethos within the Black Church ............................... 37

3. AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION AND INTERACTION ............................ 44

3.1 Call-Response ......................................................................... 44

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3.2 Rhetorical Embellishments that Foster Engagement ............... 62

3.2.1 Fill in the Blank/Strategic Pause .............................. 62

3.2.2 Tell Your Neighbor ................................................... 64

3.2.3 Direct Solicitation of Audience Response ................ 69

3.2.4 Permission to Preach ............................................... 74

4. BLACK PREACHING AS EPIDEICTIC RHETORIC ............................ 77

4.1 What Constitutes Epideictic Rhetoric? ..................................... 78

4.2 Black Church Sermons as Exemplar of Classical notions of
Eloquence ...................................................................................... 86

4.3 African American Sermonic Rhetoric as Rendering of All Five
Canons .......................................................................................... 91

4.3.1 Invention ................................................................... 92

4.3.2 Arrangement/ Structure of Sermon ........................... 94

4.3.3 Memory as it Effects Ethos and Elements of Style ... 95

4.3.4 Style/ Delivery ........................................................... 96

4.4 Extemporaneity/ Kairos ...................................................... 101

4.5 Emphasis on Relatable Sermon ......................................... 108

4.6 Tropes within Black Preaching .......................................... 113

5. PERFORMATIVITY AND RHETORICAL LICENSE .......................... 119

5.1 Black Religious Paralinguistics and Performativity ............ 122

5.1.1 Rhythm/Cadence .............................................. 127

5.1.2 Tone/Pitch Variation ......................................... 131
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5.1.3 Gravelly Voice .......................................................... 132

5.1.4 Gesticulation ............................................................ 133

5.1.5 Sing-Song Style ....................................................... 138

5.1.6 Repetition and Refrain ............................................. 140

5.1.7 Self Interruption ........................................................ 146

5.1.8 Intentional Stammer/Stutter ..................................... 146

5.1.9 Non-Verbal Punctuation ........................................... 149

5.1.10 Circumlocution ....................................................... 150

5.1.11 Humor within the Sermon ....................................... 150

6. AAVE AS IT INFORMS BLACK CHURCH SERMONS ..................... 153

6.1 What Constitutes African American Vernacular English? .. 153

6.2 Possible Origins/ History of AAVE ..................................... 155

6.3 Stigmas Associated with AAVE .......................................... 157

6.4 Code-Switching .................................................................. 160

6.5 AAVE in the Black Church Sermon .................................... 163

6.6 Slang and Secular References within the Sermon ............. 168
7. CONCLUSION .................................................................................. 173

REFERENCES.................................................................................................. 177

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION ..................................................................... 183

v
CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1Significance
Mainstream America’s exposure to the cultural mores and ethnically specific
discursive modes practiced within the Black Church has largely been limited to sound
bites and short, uncontextualized material delivered by the media. These cursory
depictions often promote a distorted, erroneously typified conception of the
conventions of the Black Church and the sermonic rhetoric disseminated therein.
According to Ronald B. Neal, author of the article “R.I.P: The Myth of the Black
Church”
most Americans are largely unaware of the diverse Christian
congregations and denominational structures that comprise what is
called the Black Church. For many Americans, the oratory, quasi-liberal
politics, and charismatic swagger of Barack Obama, Jeremiah Wright,
Jesse L. Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Tavis Smiley are the primary
windows into Christianity in [B]lack America. Beyond these living
caricatures of [B]lack and Christian America, PBS specials, black and
white footage of the Civil Rights era, and Martin Luther King Jr.’s, “I
1