Middle-Class African American English

274 Pages·2021·5.051 MB·English

by  Tracey L. Weldon

Middle-Class African American English
African American English (AAE) is a major area of research in linguistics,
but until now, work has primarily been focused on AAE as it is spoken
amongsttheworkingclasses.Fromitshistoricaldevelopmenttoitscontem-
porarycontext,thisisthefirstfull-lengthoverviewoftheuseandevaluation
of AAE by middle-class speakers, giving voice to this relatively neglected
segmentoftheAfricanAmericanspeechcommunity.Weldonoffersaunique
first-person account of middle-class AAE, and highlights distinguishing
elementssuchascodeswitching,camouflagedfeatureusage,StandardAAE,
and talking/sounding “Black” versus “Proper.” Readers can hear authentic
excerptsandaudiopromptsofthelanguagedescribedthroughawiderange
ofaudiofiles,whichcanbeaccesseddirectlyfromthebook’spagesusingQR
technologyorthroughthebook’sonlineResourceTab.Engagingandaccess-
ible,itwillhelpstudentsandresearchersgainabroaderunderstandingofboth
theAfricanAmericanspeechcommunityandtheAAEcontinuum.
tracey l. weldon is a sociolinguist, specializing in African American
LanguagevarietiesattheUniversityofSouthCarolina.SheisanAssociate
Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences, Associate Producer of the docu-
mentary Talking Black in America, and chair of the LSA Committee on
EthnicDiversityinLinguistics.

Middle-Class African American
English
Tracey L. Weldon
UniversityofSouthCarolina
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www.cambridge.org
Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521895316
DOI:10.1017/9781139021531
©TraceyL.Weldon2021
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Firstpublished2021
AcataloguerecordforthispublicationisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary.
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:Weldon,TraceyL.,author.
Title:Middle-classAfricanAmericanEnglish/TraceyL.Weldon.
Description:NewYork:CambridgeUniversityPress,2021.|Includes
bibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2020027585(print)|LCCN2020027586(ebook)|
ISBN9780521895316(hardback)|ISBN9780521719667(paperback)|
ISBN9781139021531(epub)
Subjects:LCSH:BlackEnglish–Phonology.|AfricanAmericans–Languages.|
MiddleclassAfricanAmericans.|Englishlanguage–Dialects–UnitedStates.|
Sociolinguistics–UnitedStates.
Classification:LCCPE3102.N42W452021(print)|LCCPE3102.N42(ebook)|
DDC427/.97308996073–dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2020027585
LCebookrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2020027586
ISBN978-0-521-89531-6Hardback
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For my children
Christian and Rupert
And in memory of my dad
Paul Isaiah Weldon
1933–2019

Lovetakesoffthemasksthatwefearwecannotlivewithoutandknowwe
cannotlivewithin
—JamesBaldwin,TheFireNextTime