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The case of african-american english

The case of african-american english. Language and Ethnicity :. African -American English. A continuum of varieties whose features may be very similar or very different from those of Standard American English .

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The case of african-american english

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  1. The case of african-americanenglish Language and Ethnicity:

  2. African-American English. A continuum of varietieswhosefeaturesmaybevery similar orverydifferentfromthose of Standard American English. Isused in acknowledgement of thefactthatthesevarieties are spokenprimarilyby and amongAfricanAmericans. Age, socioeconomic status, gender, and styleinfluence AAE varieties.

  3. TheStudy of AAE Linguists´interest in AAE: Toreeducatesocietyaboutthenature of AAE. Linguistsproved: AAE isnot a collection of randomdeviationsfrom SAE. AAE issystematic and rule governed.

  4. TheOrigin of AAE. Dialectologist View: AAE traces itsroots back tothevarieties of Englishspoken in the British Isles, justlikeanyothervarieties of American English. CreolistView:AAEdevelopedout a creole languageusedduringthe times of slavery, whichultimately traces itsorigins back tothevarious West Africanlanguages of theslaveswhoweretrasportedtothe New World.

  5. A Unified View.

  6. Structuralfeatures of AAE

  7. Case Studies • Sociolinguist William Labov. (1960) • How different factors such as age, region, style,etc. Interact with a language within speech community. • Studies of language variation and the interaction of linguist behaviour and society.

  8. Martha`s Vineyard. • Aim: toinvestigatetheimpact of social patternsonlinguisticvariation and change. • Linguisticfeature: centralization of thedipthongs /ay/ and /…w/ • Why […y] Wow […w] • Thesubsequentstudywasdesignedtodiscoverthemotivation (besidesphonetic, prosodic and stylistic) underlyingthis residual variation.

  9. Martha´s Vineyard • Labovasked: • Wascentralizationrelatedtogeography? • Wasethnichgroup a factor in centralization? • Waseconomicbackgroundancurrenteconomicsituation of theisland in anywaycorrelatedwithlinguisticbehaviour?

  10. Martha´s Vineyard • As a conclusion: • Group Identification: How closely speakers identified with the island, wanted to remain, wanted to enter into the mainstream, saw themselves as Vineyarders and were proud of it,was positively correlated with degree of centralization.

  11. New York City : R-Lessness • Lack of [r] in wordssuch as four, card, papers, etc. • The use of [r] variesaccordingto social status. • Labov set outto interview salespersonsfromlarge N.Y. departmentstores. • Ifthecostumersrankedhighprestige, salespeoplewould “borrowprestigefromtheircostumers” (Labov 1972: 45) • Labov´shypothesis: salespeoplefromthehighestprestigestorewouldexhibitthehighestincidence of [r] in theirspeech, whilethosefromthelowestprestigestorewouldexhibitthelowestincidence of [r]

  12. Table of results.(% of [r] in floor) Prestige

  13. Total percentage of [r]s produced

  14. What do these studies show?

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