The Oxford Handbook of African American Language

945 Pages·2015·12.37 MB·English

by  Sonja Lanehart

The Oxford Handbook of 
A F R I C A N
A M E R I C A N
L A N G UAG E

The Oxford Handbook of 
AFRICAN
AMERICAN
LANGUAGE
Edited by
SONJA LANEHART
1
3
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ISBN 978–0–19–979539–0
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Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
Contents
List of Figures xi
List of Tables xvii
Acknowledgments xxi
About the Editor xxiii
List of Contributors xxv
Language Use in African American Communities: An Introduction 1
Sonja Lanehart and Ayesha M. Malik
PART I ORIGINS AND HISTORICAL
PERSPECTIVES
1. The English Origins Hypothesis 23
Gerard Van Herk
2. The Creole Origins Hypothesis 35
John R. Rickford
3. The Emergence of African American English: Monogenetic or
Polygenetic? With or Without “Decreolization”? Under How Much
Substrate Influence? 57
Salikoko S. Mufwene
4. The Origins of African American Vernacular English: Beginnings 85
Donald Winford
5. African American English over Yonder: The Language of the
Liberian Settler Community 105
John Victor Singler
6. Documenting the History of African American Vernacular
English: A Survey and Assessment of Sources and Results 125
Edgar W. Schneider
vi Contents
7. Regionality in the Development of African American English 140
Walt Wolfram and Mary E. Kohn
PART II LECTS AND VARIATION
8. The Place of Gullah in the African American Linguistic Continuum 163
Tracey L. Weldon and Simanique Moody
9. Rural Texas African American Vernacular English 181
Patricia Cukor-Avila and Guy Bailey
10. African American English in the Mississippi Delta: A Case Study of
Copula Absence and r-Lessness in the Speech of African American
Women in Coahoma County 201
Rose Wilkerson
11. African American Voices in Atlanta 219
William A. Kretzschmar, Jr.
12. African American Language in Pittsburgh and the Lower
Susquehanna Valley 236
Jennifer Bloomquist and Shelome Gooden
13. African American Phonology in a Philadelphia Community 256
William Labov and Sabriya Fisher
14. African American Language in New York City 280
Renée Blake, Cara Shousterman, and
Luiza Newlin-Łukowicz
15. African American Vernacular English in California: Over Four
Decades of Vibrant Variationist Research 299
John R. Rickford
16. The Black ASL (American Sign Language) Project: An Overview 316
Joseph Hill, Carolyn McCaskill, Robert Bayley, and
Ceil Lucas
17. The Sociolinguistic Construction of African American Language 338
Walt Wolfram
Contents vii
PART III STRUCTURE AND DESCRIPTION
18. Syntax and Semantics in African American English 355
Lisa J. Green and Walter Sistrunk
19. The Systematic Marking of Tense, Modality, and Aspect in
African American Language 371
Charles E. DeBose
20. On the Syntax-Prosody Interface in African American English 387
James A. Walker
21. Segmental Phonology of African American English 403
Erik R. Thomas and Guy Bailey
22. Prosodic Features of African American English 420
Erik R. Thomas
PART IV CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
AND DEVELOPMENT
23. Language Acquisition in the African American Child: Prior to
Age Four 439
Brandi L. Newkirk-Turner, RaMonda Horton, and
Ida J. Stockman
24. The Development of African American English through Childhood
and Adolescence 454
Janneke Van Hofwegen
25. Development of Variation in Child African American English 475
Lisa J. Green and Jessica White-Sustaíta
26. Narrative Structures of African American Children: Commonalities
and Differences 492
Tempii B. Champion and Allyssa McCabe
27. Some Similarities and Differences between African American
English and Southern White English in Children 512
Janna B. Oetting
viii Contents
28. Assessing the Language Skills of African American English Child
Speakers: Current Approaches and Perspectives 526
Toya A. Wyatt
PART V EDUCATION
29. African American Language and Education: History and
Controversy in the Twentieth Century 547
Geneva Smitherman
30. Managing Two Varieties: Code-Switching in the Educational Context 566
Monique T. Mills and Julie A. Washington
31. Balancing Pedagogy with Theory: The Infusion of African American
Language Research into Everyday Pre-K–12 Teaching Practices 582
Sharroky Hollie, Tamara Butler, and Jamila Gillenwaters
32. History of Research on Multiliteracies and Hip Hop
Pedagogy: A Critical Review 603
K. C. Nat Turner and Tyson L. Rose
33. African American Vernacular English and Reading 617
William Labov and Bettina Baker
34. Dialect Switching and Mathematical Reasoning Tests: Implications
for Early Educational Achievement 637
J. Michael Terry, Randall Hendrick, Evangelos Evangelou,
and Richard L. Smith
35. Beyond Bidialectalism: Language Planning and Policies for
African American Students 659
John Baugh
PART VI LANGUAGE IN SOCIETY
36. African American Church Language 677
Charles E. DeBose
37. The (Re)turn to Remus Orthography: The Voices of
African American Language in American Literature 691
James Braxton Peterson
Contents ix
38. African American Language and Black Poetry 706
Howard Rambsy II and Briana Whiteside
39. African American Divas of Comedy: Staking a Claim in Public Space 723
Jacquelyn Rahman
40. The Construction of Ethnicity via Voicing: African American
English in Children’s Animated Film 740
Jennifer Bloomquist
41. SWB (Speaking while Black): Linguistic Profiling and
Discrimination Based on Speech as a Surrogate for Race against
Speakers of African American Vernacular English 755
John Baugh
PART VII LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY
42. Racializing Language: Unpacking Linguistic Approaches to
Attitudes about Race and Speech 773
Kate T. Anderson
43. African American Standard English 786
Arthur K. Spears
44. African American English in the Middle Class 800
Erica Britt and Tracey L. Weldon
45. African American Women’s Language: Mother Tongues Untied 817
Marcyliena Morgan
46. Black Masculine Language 834
David E. Kirkland
47. Hip Hop Nation Language: Localization and Globalization 850
H. Samy Alim
48. African American Language and Identity: Contradictions and
Conundrums 863
Sonja Lanehart
Author Index 881
Subject Index 897