African American English (AAE)

Phonology 1 r-deletion (NOT unique to AAE) guard godnor gnawsore sawpoor pafort foughtcourt caught

l-deletion (some speakers)toll toeall awehelp hep

Fromkin & Rodman, p. 412 1/18

Consonant cluster simplification (NOT unique /OPTIONAL)

passed passmeant men

Neutralization of [] and [] before nasals (NOT unique)

pin penbin Bentin ten

Loss of interdental fricatives (NOT unique) thing fingthis, that, these, those [d]

Fromkin & Rodman, p. 412 2/18

African American English (AAE)

Phonology 2

Double / Multiple negatives (NOT unique to AAE) He don’t know nothing.

Fromkin & Rodman, p. 412 3/18

African American English (AAE)

Syntax 1

Deletion of ‘be’ SAE AAEHe is nice / He nice He’s niceThey are mine / They mine They’re mineI am going to do it / I gonna do it

I’m going to do it

Fromkin & Rodman, p. 415. 4/18

African American English (AAE)

Syntax 2

Deletion of ‘be’ Exceptions SAE AAEHe is / he’s as nice He as nice as he say he is

as he says he is

*He’s as nice *He as nice as he say he

as he says he’s

How beautiful you are How beautiful you are*How beautiful you’re *How beautiful you

Here I am Here I am*Here I’m *Here I

Fromkin & Rodman, p. 415. 5/18

African American English (AAE)

Syntax 3

Habitual ‘be’ SAE AAEJohn be happy. John is always happy.John happy. John is happy now.He be late. He is habitually late.He late. He is late this time.Do you be tired? Are you generally tired?You tired? Are you tired now?

Fromkin & Rodman, p. 415. 6/18

African American English (AAE)

Syntax 4

Nothing in Fromkin & Rodman

7/18

African American English (AAE)

Vocabulary

See p. 186 / 189

8/18

Multiple Negation

“Ultimately, the survival of the minority language is closely bound up with the preservation or affirmation of a distinct ethnic identity and culture.”

“Maintaining a separate ethnic identity” or “Rediscovery and assertion of a distinctively Afro-Caribbean identity”

Why do minority languages survive?

Montgomery, pp. 82-84. 9/18

History of Jamaican Creole Late 17th century British settlers raising sugarcane Slaves imported CONTACT Language—pidgin arose (English

vocabulary; simplified syntax; African influences in pronunciation, maybe 10% of the vocabulary, and some syntax)

Subsequent generations of slaves learned this language (used with masters and fellow slaves)

evolved, “transformed into a much more complex and flexible language called a CREOLE (defined technically as a pidgin which becomes the first language of a group)”

Montgomery, pp. 82-83. 10/18

Standard English and Jamaican Creole 1

Standard English Jamaican Creole Plurals the other girls di addah girl dem

with those other girls wid dem addah girl

Possession the man’s hat di man hatthe man’s woman di man woman noh

didn’t like tis like dis

Montgomery, p. 84. 11/18

Standard English and Jamaican Creole 2

Standard English Jamaican Creole Past time

I went yesterday mi go yesideI told you so already me tel yu so arediI had already walked homemi ben waak huom arediI have finished sleeping mi don sliip [sic]

Presentwhat are you doing out there? whey [sic] you a dhu

out yah?where are you going? whey [sic] you a go?

Montgomery, p. 84. 12/18

Jamaican Creole Continuum

Broadest Creole Standard English

13/18

Schematic of Hypothetical Repertoires (Six speakers)

Based on Montgomery, 85, THOUGH modified and expanded.

Broadest Standard Creole English

Speaker 1 2 3 4 5 6

14/18

Linguist’s View of Language Varieties

“All language varieties are equal: there is no significant difference in the complexity of their linguistic structure; they all have resources for creating new vocabulary as it is needed, and for developing the grammatical constructions their speakers require.”

15/18Holmes, Janet. 2013. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 4th edition. London: Pearson, p. 202.

But… But…

“Though linguists present this ideal of equality between the languages and dialects used by different ethnic and social groups, it has no social reality.”

16/18

Holmes, Janet. 2013. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 4th edition. London: Pearson, p. 202.

A Social Network D

C

E A

B

Matthews, P.H. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, see “social network”.

Uniplex

Multiplex

17/18

Social Network Influence

“It is not surprising that people’s speech should indicate the types of networks they belong to. The people we interact with are one important influence on our speech. When the people we mix with regularly belong to a homogeneous group, we tend to speak the way the rest of the group does, provided we want to belong to the group and like the people in it.”

18/18Holmes, Janet. 2013. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, 4th edition. London: Pearson, p. 194.