African-American Vernacular English (AAVE)

1. African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) Carlos Pacheco Mayra L. Vargas INGL4205 L-91

2. African-American Vernacular English • Is a variety of language also called Black English and Ebonics. • Not all African-Americans speak AAVE. • People who speak AAVE may not speak it all the time. • People influenced by African-Americans can also learn the language. • Is not a monolith; there are regional varieties.

3. Origins of AAVE There are two main theories about the origin of AAVE: • Dialectologist hypothesis • Creole hypothesis • Research since 1980s suggest a middle way between these theories. • New issues imply the fact that AAVE may be diverging from Standard American English (SAE).

4. Dialectologist hypothesis • Intends to explain AAVE as an archaic form of British dialects, because East Anglia dialect and AAVE have no third person singular s in the present tense. • Examples: He go. • Anglo-Irish and Scottish dialects also form part in the construction of AAVE. Examples: • He be working everyday. (Anglo-Irish) • He done worked. (Scottish dialect)

5. Weaknesses of the theory • Southern Whites haven’t kept these features in their dialect. • AAVE has features from a variety of British dialects. • Expressions used by SAE and AAVE speakers are not the same. This has been called camouflage. • Example: She been married. To an AAVE speaker the person is still married, but to an SAE speaker she no longer is.

6. Creole hypothesis • AAVE came from a West African pidgin. • Pidgins come out of contact situations. • In 1500s a pidgin arose in Africa out of maritime contacts between West Africans and the early explorers and merchants and then slave traders. • This pidgin was competing with Wolof. • Wolof was an African language used as a lingua franca in the area. • The pidgin and Wolof were carried to the new world by Africans with the first slaves.

7. Creole hypothesis • During slavery, African languages, pidgin English, plantation creole English and Standard English were in competition. • Frequent contact between speakers of Standard English and creole English, made the creole became decreolized, more like the standard form. • This decreolized language is thought to be the base for AAVE.

8. Gullah • Is a variety of AAVE spoken on the coastal islands of South Carolina and Georgia. • Due to the isolation of the islands, the language spoken has remained very conservative. • This is a general rule: The language of outlying areas is less prone to change than the language of central areas. • Gullah and West African languages have many similarities.

9. Gullah • West African influence Gullah from the phonology to the semantics of the language. • Gullah and Mende (African language) has words that begin with gb-. • Examples: gban meaning tightly (Gullah) • gbaa meaning to sigh (Mende) • Many gullah words come from West African languages.

10. Some grammatical features of AAVE found in other creoles and in West African languages: • Repetition of subject • John, he live in New York. • Do questions • What it come to?=What does it come to? • Same form for singular and plural • one girl, two girl • No tense on verb • I know it good when he ask me. • Verb not inflected for person • I know, he know • Done to indicate completion • I done go.

11. Recent Debate about the origins of AAVE New Evidence since 1980s has led linguistics to reevaluate the dialectologist and the creole hypothesis. These new data include: • Studies on the historical and social conditions of the slaves in the plantations. • The emergence of written and audio recording of AAVE speakers. • “Diaspora” recordings. • Other creoles, especially the English-based Atlantic ones.

12. New Evidence These new data lead to several facts: • AAVE may not have developed from a creole in the United States. • It may have been imported by slaves from areas where Atlantic creoles were spoken. • The difference between AAVE and SAE are not primarily categorical but more a matter of degree. • The creole and the dialectologist hypothesis do not exclude each other: there may had been a (British) dialect influence on a prior creolized variety.

13. Divergence Hypothesis • Labov and others formulated a hypothesis that reverses the emphasis on the difference between SAE and AAVE. • They assume that AAVE and SE are converging, that AAVE has undergone a process of decreolization.

14. Some features of AAVE appeared recently and are distinct from SAE, including: • Be done (resultative) -My ice cream’s gonna be done melted by the time we get there. -Don’t do that ‘cause you be done messed up your clothes! • -s (narrative present) -The lil’ boy, he comes and hit me right? I hits him back now. • Be V-ing (habitual)

15. SAE and AAVE divergence is found in segregation and socioeconomic disparity between AAVE and SAE speakers, which leads to the formation of a specific African-American identity reflected in a separate linguistic variety. • AAVE is best considered a dialect of English Because it is mutually intelligible with SAE.

16. The principal differences between SAE and AAVE Phonology Phonological rules for AAVE: • No consonant pairs: jus (for just) men (for mend). • Few diphthongs: (aka monophthongization) rat (for right). • No /r/ in middle or final position: mow (for more). • Th goes to d in initial position and to f in final position: dem (for them) souf (for south).

17. AAVE is not the same as southern English. • AAVE has consonant cluster reduction. • Test reduces to tes in southern English and AAVE. • When there is a suffix, southern English (SE) cannot reduce. • Tester is still testerin SE but tesser in AAVE.

18. Unique features to AVE

19. Tense and aspect Aspect is a optional way of describing whether the action is continuing or completed. • I was watching TV when the phone rang. (Continuing) • I have been to Disneyland twice. (Competed)

20. Aspect: Actual Be • In AAVE aspect is obligatory and tense is optional. • You making sense, but you don’t be making sense. What you say makes sense in the context, but usually you are not so intelligent. • The absence of be in the first clause is known as zero copula.

21. Examples • The coffee be cold. Is a every day complain while The coffee cold. Means its only today that it is a problem.

22. Be can also be used in the future. • She be there later. • I be going home tomorrow. Be does not work in past tense or tag questions. He was my teacher last year. You ain’t sick, is you?

23. Aspect: Completed Been • Indicates recently completed action (perfective). Also indicated an ungrammatical sentence in a language. • She been tardy twice this semester. • She been tardy twice last semester.

24. Been works something like standard English have/has/had/been. • He been there before. • They been there and left before I got there. It can be used when time doesn’t matter’. He been there.

25. Aspect: Completive DoneIndicates recently completed action • I done my homework yesterday/ today. When used with other verbs, donefocuses on the recentness of the action. • I done finished my homework (today). • I done finished my homework yesterday.

26. Relative Clauses • He got a gun sounded like a bee. • I had uncle was one of the world’s heavyweight contenders. • My youngest sister, what live in Georgia… In SAE a relative clause is introduced by which, that, who, whose and whom as in the following phrase: The women who won the prize.

27. Summary and difference betweenAAVE and SAE • AAVE is a dialect of English with its own set of phonological and syntactic rules that are similar to the rules of other dialects. • AAVE in turns has affected the dialects of the south where there has been contact. • It has a distinctive aspect system, which makes it different from other dialects of English.

28. Thanks for Your Attention!